SpongeBob SquarePants (seasons 1-6A, 8-present)

This page is dedicated to Stephen Hillenburg (1961-2018) may he rest in peace.

SpongeBob SquarePants (born July 14, 1986) is the titular main protagonist of the Nickelodeon animated series of the same name and Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years and one of the main characters in The Patrick Star Show. He was designed by the former marine biologist, Stephen Hillenburg. Stephen Hillenburg based SpongeBob on Bob the Sponge, a character he had created for his educational book "The Intertidal Zone" in the late 1980s. He is voiced by Tom Kenny.

SpongeBob is a childish and joyful sea sponge who lives in a pineapple with his pet snail Gary the underwater city of Bikini Bottom, working as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a job which he is exceptionally skilled at and enjoys thoroughly. He attends Mrs. Puff's Boating School, and his greatest dream in life is to receive his boating license.

Why He's Ready

 * 1) He is one of the most iconic cartoon characters ever created along with Mickey, Bugs Bunny, Bob the Builder and so on and so forth.
 * 2) He is a wonderfully optimistic, abnormal, fun-loving, hyperactive, and sometimes even mature person with a happy-go-lucky personality.
 * 3) Much like his best friend Patrick, he was responsible for creating such memetic material with some expressions he's made from the series to the 2004 movie and such memeable scenes his existence has made with many worldwide. And also had tons of timeless, hilarious scenes.
 * 4) *Speaking of which, SpongeBob can seem more intelligent than Patrick in spite of his naivete or his loony if jolly behavior mostly in the first three seasons.
 * 5) He has a cute and iconic character design like many characters drawn by the late creator Stephen Hillenburg.
 * 6) He is extremely determined and will often stop at nothing to accomplish a task.
 * 7) He is very kind. He is a good owner to Gary (most of the time), a good friend to Patrick, Sandy, and is nice to Squidward even though he isn't nice to him (a typical "Love Thy Neighbour" message).
 * 8) Whenever other characters mess with him or push him to his limit, he grows a spine and stands up for himself, which is something his flanderized version doesn't have.
 * 9) He is very hard-working, enthusiastically working at his seemingly awful, low-paying job.
 * 10) He comes up with good songs such as "Who Am I?", "Ripped Pants", "The C-A-M-P-F-I-R-E S-O-N-G Song", the "F.U.N. Song" and the "Goofy Goober Rock". Some other songs were also sung with his friends.
 * 11) His iconic laugh, to some people.
 * 12) As mentioned above, Tom Kenny voices him excellently and flawlessly in the first 3 seasons, as well as seasons 8-present, the 2nd and 3rd films, and the spin-offs
 * 13) * He also still does his best with his performance in the first movie and seasons 4-7 - at least when he isn't crying or screaming.
 * 14) *Not surprisingly enough in "Stuck in the Wringer", the screaming from Tom Kenny in the scene where Spongebob snaps at and blames Patrick for his suffering is actually justified here since he needed anger for that to happen and this one is very tolerable.
 * 15) *His voice has also returned to its original pitch since Season 8.
 * 16) He is mostly positive-thinking.
 * 17) There were two full seasons where he never acted out character with those being Seasons 2 & 10.
 * 18) He is the titular protagonist of three incredible animated films that combines live-action, surreal humor, and compelling themes rolled up in an adventurous, emotional odyssey.
 * 19) Although he got flanderized in Seasons 6B & 7, he was never flanderized during his show's decline throughout Season 6A and in Season 8 and still kept his original persona during those seasons.
 * 20) He managed to recover from his flanderization from seasons 6B & 7, since season 8, where he managed to become a likable character again and thankfully managed to get his character back in shape.
 * 21) In "Krabby Patty Creature Feature", he manages to save all the citizens using chum.
 * 22) He spawned a lot of cool merchandise and starred in a lot of games and apps.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) He was hit excessively hard with flanderization in seasons 6b and 7 as he became a very annoying & idiotic pest. However, he redeemed himself in the newer seasons as he goes back to his original personality since Season 8.
 * 2) Depending on your view, he was a decent character in the first episodes of Season 6.
 * 3) He still does have some mean-spirited moments before Season 6B & 7 such as:
 * 4) In "To Love a Patty", he gruesomely murdered a bunch of scallops only because the scallops were trying to eat the Krabby Patty he loved despite the fact that he himself raised one in "Rock-A-Bye Bivalve" and the fact he has a pet scallop named Junior in a few episodes, making this hypocritical.
 * 5) In "Married to Money", despite not being bad as Mr. Krabs and Plankton, he comes across as bland and he, along with Patrick and Squidward, decorates the Krusty Krab for an unnecessary wedding.
 * 6) *Likewise, it varies whether he was in character or not in Seasons 5 & 6A. Though he isn't as bad as he is in Seasons 6B-7, an to a lesser extent, 8 (but at least in season 8 he was decent).
 * 7) Even before and after flanderization, he can be annoying sometimes:
 * 8) While iconic and funny, his laugh can sometimes come off as annoying to some.
 * 9) With this in mind, he can also do some disgusting stuff as well (primarily because of potty humor such as belches/etc).
 * 10) He's incredibly naive to a fault. For example, he thinks that Mr. Krabs is a generous, non-cheap, and big-hearted person when he's really the exact opposite of that (to be fair, he isn't always this way).
 * 11) *While this can be played for laughs, he is somewhat dramatic to the people who are kind to him. For example, the mailfish.
 * 12) He can be a Butt-Monkey type character (a character that gets abused for no good reason).
 * 13) Like Tommy Pickles and Usagi Tsukino, he has a BAD habit of crying so much (although not as much in Seasons 6B & 7, and to a lesser extent, Seasons 5, 6A & 8), this is an example.
 * 14) He mostly has his clumsy/accident-prone moments in the series.
 * 15) His high-pitched voice from the first movie to Season 7 is kind of annoying.

Trivia

 * This is currently the fifth longest page on this wiki following behind the pages for the main page, The Machines from Bob the Builder, Leonardo from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003) and the character development page, as well as the third largest page for any character overall.
 * His show is widely considered to be one of the best and most popular cartoons out there.
 * As stated above, he was born on July 14, 1986 making him a Cancer.
 * He was designed by the late marine biologist and teacher, Stephen Hillenburg (rest in peace).
 * Hillenburg based SpongeBob on Bob the Sponge, a character he had created for his educational book "The Intertidal Zone" in the late 1980s.
 * In a theory based on SpongeBob and his friends representing "The 7 Deadly Sins", SpongeBob is considered to be the "Lust" as several examples were shown in many episodes that he loves his krabby patties.
 * According to Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob is "almost asexual," meaning he has no sexual desire, though he is capable of falling in love.
 * On the topic of sexuality, Nickelodeon included SpongeBob as a member of the LGBT+ community as seen in this Twitter post they made on Pride Month.
 * In early episodes, such as "Help Wanted," "F.U.N.," and "Christmas Who?," he did a dance where his arms and legs were curly. He doesn't seem to do the dance anymore.
 * On occasion, to express shock, SpongeBob's pupil would shrink, and his eyes would turn into circles, with his irises briefly disappearing. Sometimes, this is reversed, as his pupils would disappear and his irises become shrunken.
 * He made a cameo when Gil dresses him as a costume in the Bubble Guppies episode "Trick or Treat Mr. Grumpfish." In fact, Molly even says "Or somebody from TV."
 * In the episode "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired," it is revealed that SpongeBob has failed the driving test 1,258,056 times.
 * SpongeBob has been involved with putting characters in a jar on at least four occasions:
 * In "Nature Pants," Patrick unsuccessfully attempts to put him in a jar.
 * In "Jellyfish Hunter," No Name puts him in a jar.
 * In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV," he puts the shrunken Bikini Bottomites in a jar.
 * In "Picture Day," he puts himself in a jar.
 * SpongeBob's teeth were based on Stephen Hillenburg when he was a kid.
 * SpongeBob hates Barnacle Chips, as revealed in "Chocolate with Nuts."
 * SpongeBob has appeared on a few pictures on iCarly.com.
 * In "I Was a Teenage Gary," SpongeBob is left-handed, but in later episodes, he is ambidextrous, revealed in "The Splinter" and "You Don't Know Sponge."
 * SpongeBob is said to be right-handed, but in "Neptune's Spatula," he approves that he has two left hands.
 * Even though Mr. Krabs is the creator of the Krabby Patty, in "Are You Happy Now?," the narrator says that SpongeBob is the creator.
 * SpongeBob has appeared on a few pictures on iCarly.com.
 * SpongeBob's prototype name, "SpongeBoy," is referenced by Mr. Krabs in the episode "Squeaky Boots," with the quote "SpongeBoy, me Bob!"
 * SpongeBob's head has gotten bigger in each season and his waist has gotten wider. In some early season 2 episodes, such as "Big Pink Loser," he has a narrow waist.
 * Beginning in "My Pretty Seahorse" and heavily used in post-season 5 episodes, SpongeBob's nose usually droops down when he is sad, much like Squidward's nose is normally.
 * SpongeBob has about 40 holes.
 * Twelve front holes (five normally covered by his clothing)
 * Nine back holes
 * Five holes on his left
 * Five holes on his right
 * Five holes on top
 * His birthmark and 3 moles.
 * Four holes on the bottom
 * In "Help Wanted," he is shown with fewer holes.
 * In "Truth or Square," SpongeBob is revealed to have three moles and a birthmark on his back.
 * A cut origin story was originally planned for SpongeBob. It was meant to explain his square shape as SpongeBob began life as a natural yellow Sponge that cyclops harvested and cut into squares in a factory on land.
 * During the talk screens in the DS version of Creature from the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob has green eyes instead of blue.
 * SpongeBob is a mascot of Nickelodeon and the mascot of Nickelodeon Movies since 2020.
 * In "I Was a Teenage Gary," SpongeBob is left-handed, but in later episodes, he is ambidextrous, revealed in "The Splinter" and "You Don't Know Sponge."
 * In 2002, SpongeBob was ranked #9 in TV Guide's Top 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters list (which also included Angelica Pickles at #7 and Ren and Stimpy at #31). He was notably the most recently-created character to be featured on the list at the time of its publication.
 * SpongeBob is one of the only two characters who is playable in every installment of the Nicktoons Unite! video games (the other being Danny Fenton).
 * In The Patrick Star Show, despite being mainly focused on his best friend, he is absent in a lot of episodes and segments to the point where he barely appears.
 * In The SpongeBob Musical, SpongeBob's exact species of sea sponge is identified: Aplysina fistularis, a yellow sea sponge who's commonly found in open waters.
 * SpongeBob or some other form of him appears or is mentioned in every episode of the series, beginning with the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted."
 * His voice actor Tom Kenny is married to Karen's voice actress, Jill Talley.

Multiverse
An alternate SpongeBob exists in a world where Plankton was successful. Like his mainstream counterpart, he likes his career, likes promotions, and gets sad when he makes an error in somebody's order. The most significant difference is that he is made co-cashier by Plankton and is employed by him.

An alternate SpongeBob is mentioned in the "What if SpongeBob Was Gone?" shorts. Without SpongeBob, Gary throws a humongous party that ends in disaster, Patrick cannot hunt jellyfish properly, Sandy gets injured when playing karate, and the Krusty Krab ends up in ruins. All would say except Gary, that everything is better with SpongeBob.

Reception
Throughout the run of SpongeBob SquarePants, the title character has become very popular with both children and adults and has become Nickelodeon's unofficial mascot.

The character's popularity has spread from Nickelodeon's original demographic of two to eleven-year-olds, to teenagers and adults,[31] including college campuses and celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver and Bruce Willis. Salon.com indicates that the unadulterated innocence of SpongeBob is what makes the character so appealing. SpongeBob has also become popular with gay men, despite Stephen Hillenburg saying that none of the characters are homosexual. The character draws fans due to his flamboyant lifestyle and tolerant attitude.

The popularity of SpongeBob translated well into sales figures. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants dolls sold at a rate of 75,000 per week, which was faster than Tickle Me Elmo dolls were selling at the time. SpongeBob has gained popularity in Japan, specifically with Japanese women. Parent company Viacom purposefully targeted marketing at women in the country as a method of building the SpongeBob SquarePants brand. Skeptics initially doubted that SpongeBob could be popular in Japan as the character's design is very different from already popular designs.

However, not all reception for SpongeBob has been positive. AskMen's Top 10: Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters ranked SpongeBob at number four. The publication said that his well-meaning attitude is "extremely annoying." The character has also been involved in several controversies, including some about his sexual orientation.

Videos
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