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SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants
General Information
Gender: Male
Color: Yellow (with olive green holes)
Eye Color: Blue
Height: 4 inches
Weight: 1 oz.
Occupation(s): Fry cook at The Krusty Krab
Family & Friends
Family: Claire SquarePants (mother)
Harold SquarePants (father)
Grandma SquarePants (grandmother)
Grandpa SquarePants (grandfather)
Sherm SquarePants(uncle)
Stanley S. SquarePants (cousin)
Blackjack SquarePants (cousin)
Todd SquarePants (cousin)
Captain Blue SquarePants (uncle)
SpongeBuck SquarePants (great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather)
Primitive Sponge (ancestor)

SpongeGar (ancestor)
SpongeBob's grandson

Friends: Patrick Star (best friend)
Sandy Cheeks
Squidward Tentacles (normally)
Gary
Mr. Krabs
Plankton (sometimes)
Mrs. Puff
Pearl Krabs
Karen
Larry the Lobster
Pet(s): Gary (snail)
Larry
Rex
Jerry
Puffy Fluffy
Employer: Mr. Krabs
Enemies: Plankton
Karen
Other Informations
Interests: Jellyfishing, blowing bubbles, Krabby Patty flipping at the Krusty Krab, dancing, hanging out at Goo Lagoon, sandboarding
Education: High school graduate, currently in Mrs. Puff's Boating School,
Series Information
First appearance: "Help Wanted" (SpongeBob SquarePants)
"A SquarePants Family Vacation" (SpongeBob's Runaway Roadtrip)
Portrayer: Tom Kenny
List of characters

SpongeBob SquarePants is the main protagonist and the eponymous character of the Nickelodeon animated comedy of the same name. He was designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, and is voiced by Tom Kenny. SpongeBob is an eccentric sea sponge who lives in a pineapple in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. He works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a job which he is exceptionally skilled at. SpongeBob lacks alot of knowledge and is a constant annoyance to those around him (especially Squidward), but he is very good natured. He appears in all of the epsiodes in the series.

Description[]

SpongeBob is a sea sponge but he is drawn to resemble a kitchen sponge, being rectangular and bright yellow. In earlier episodes, he is wider near the top and gets skinnier going further down, but in more recent episodes, he is a more regular square. SpongeBob has large blue eyes, a stubby nose, a large mouth with prominent front buck teeth, and dimples with three freckles on each cheek. He typically wears a white shirt with a red tie, black leather shoes with shoelaces, and brown rectangular pants with a black belt (the entire outfit is sometimes referred to as his "pants", hence his name). While working at the Krusty Krab, he wears a tall, white hat with a small blue anchor on it as a uniform. SpongeBob sleeps with his street clothes on, including his shoes. Though SpongeBob has always been voiced by Tom Kenny, his voice has changed over the course of the series; his voice is lower than normal in the pilot episode, and after the movie, his voice gets slightly higher-pitched. And also, SpongeBob never passed the Boating School.

Personality[]

Spongebob-squarepants

SpongeBob is a very clueless, immature, and hyperactive character with a happy-go-lucky personality.

Roadsponge

He is an extremely determined person, and will often stop at nothing to accomplish a task. He is also somewhat dramatic to the people who are kind to him, for example, to the mailfish. He is also very over-confident and tends to make a big deal of small problems, such as losing his name tag.

SpongeBob is very kind-hearted and innocent, and very rarely acts openly mean to anyone, even his enemies. He is a very selfless and loyal person, especially towards those close to him. His selfless nature is most notably shown in "Best Day Ever", where he sacrifices his "perfect day" to help his friends. Despite his well-meaning intentions, SpongeBob's actions often annoy and cause trouble for those around him, most notably his next-door neighbor, Squidward Tentacles.

SpongeBob's innocence also makes him overly trusting and very gullible, and he is easily manipulated by people who intend to use and/or harm him, such as Squidward, Mr. Krabs and Plankton; most noticeably, he is always easily fooled by Plankton no matter how bizarre or obvious his disguises. Even though he's generally good-natured and easygoing, when frustrated and angered, SpongeBob can be sarcastic, rude and 'foul-mouthed' to his friends, even Mr. Krabs, whom he treats as a father figure/deity. Ironically, the funny fact is, Squidward is the only character that SpongeBob never insults when he's angry, with the exception of one SpongeBob episode titled "A Breath of Fresh Squidward".

Abilities and talents[]

Like many other cartoon characters, SpongeBob has been shown to have numerous extraordinary abilities and attributes over the course of the series.

  • Soft Pliable Body: Due to his soft, pliable frame, he is capable of shape shifting, has some degree of invulnerability, being able to absorb any type of physical impact, shown most notably in the episode.
  • Regeneration: It is shown that he can quickly regenerate parts of his body that are injured or removed.n
  • Boneless: SpongeBob is usually shown to be boneless (sea sponges being invertebrates)..
  • Absorbent: Being a sponge, he is also absorbent, and can expand his body by absorbing liquids.When he cries, he often re-absorbs his tears.

Despite all of these abilities, SpongeBob is shown to be very weak physically;

  • Lack of Strength: He uses stuffed animals as "weights" in his personal exercise room, he struggles to lift a small wooden branch with marshmallows on the ends. He is unable to lift a drinking straw or a cup filled with juice. However, like many aspects of the show, his strength (or lack, thereof) is highly inconsistent between episodes, and he has been shown to have considerable strength on various occasions. He is revealed to have an incredibly muscled body when he fights Patrick.
  • Karate Expert: SpongeBob also has some mastery of karate, but is always different in each episode. In some episodes, he is shown to be a highly skilled fighter, being able to equal or even outmatch Sandy on occasion. However, in most of the series, he is shown to only be playful with karate, as he is usually beaten by Sandy.
  • Intelligence: Though typically seen (at least by Squidward) as exceedingly infantile and stupid, SpongeBob has been shown to be extremely talented in many fields, even sometimes having a high intellect. In fact, driving a boat is one of the few things SpongeBob is bad at. When he puts his mind to a task, he can accomplish anything, he spent ages constructing a circle of stone statues that produce a sound identical to his voice, simply to lure the jellyfish away from him. He is able to become a master of fancy dining by removing everything from his mind except "fine dining and breathing". Thanks to his vivid imagination, SpongeBob has in various episodes been shown to be superior to Squidward as an artist, he effortlessly produces a perfect rendition of Michelangelo's David, adept with a shell to block his genitalia. SpongeBob actually produces an exact replica of the interior of Squidward's house right down to Squidward's medicine cabinet and artwork, the latter of which Squidward admits are actually better than his own. SpongeBob also possesses a vast knowledge of subjects he is interested in, such as jellyfishing, Krabby Patties and their history, and boating (thanks to years of education in boating school).
  • Singing and Nose Playing: SpongeBob is shown to possess a fantastic singing voice. He uses his nose as a flute, which he is very good at.

Creation and development[]

Stephen Hillenburg intended to create a series about an over-optimistic sponge that annoys other characters. Hillenburg compared the concept to Laurel and Hardy and Pee-wee Herman. As he drew the character, he decided that a "squeaky-clean square" (like a kitchen sponge) fit the concept.

The first concept sketch portrayed the character as wearing a red hat with a green base and a white business shirt with a tie. SpongeBob's look gradually progressed to brown pants that was used in the final design. SpongeBob was designed to be a kid-like character who was goofy and optimistic in a style similar to that made famous by Jerry Lewis.

Originally the character was to be named SpongeBoy but this name was already in use. This was discovered after voice acting for the original seven minute pilot was recorded in 1997. The Nickelodeon legal department discovered that the name was already in use for a mop product. Upon finding this out, Hillenburg decided that the character's given name still had to contain "Sponge" so viewers would not mistake the character for a "Cheese Man." Hillenburg decided to use the name "SpongeBob." He chose "SquarePants" as a family name as it referred to the character's square shape and it had a "nice ring to it".

"SpongeBob" crew has explained that SpongeBob actually has no specific age. The decision to have SpongeBob attend a boat driving school was made due to a request from Nickelodeon that the character attend a school.

SpongeBob is voiced by veteran voice actor Tom Kenny. Kenny previously worked with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, and when Hillenburg created SpongeBob SquarePants, he approached Kenny to voice the character. Hillenburg utilised Kenny's and other people's personalities to help create the personality of SpongeBob.

The voice of SpongeBob was originally used by Kenny for a background character present in a crowd scene in Rocko's Modern Life. Kenny forgot the voice initially as he created it only for that single use. Hillenburg however remembered it when he was coming up with SpongeBob and used a video clip of the episode to remind Kenny of the voice. Kenny says that SpongeBob's high pitched laugh was specifically aimed at being unique, stating that they wanted an annoying laugh in the tradition of Popeye and Woody Woodpecker.

Family[]

SpongeBob has many relatives, most notably his parents, who appear in several episodes. Unlike SpongeBob, who has the appearance of a kitchen sponge, most of SpongeBob's relatives, while still cartoons, resemble actual sea sponges, being round in shape and brownish in color.

In the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "SB-129", a robotic descendant of SpongeBob named "SpongeTron" is seen, as well as a primitive ancestor. The episode of the original SpongeBob SquarePants titled "Ugh" features a caveman version of SpongeBob known as "SpongeGar". SpongeGar is distinctly different from the primitive sponge seen in "SB-129", being more evolved and closer to his modern counterpart. The SpongeBob episode "Pest of the West" features SpongeBuck SquarePants, an ancestor who saved Dead Eye Gulch in what is now Bikini Bottom from Dead Eye Plankton in 1882.

Occupation[]

SpongeBob works at the Krusty Krab, an underwater fast food restaurant run by a greedy red crab named Mr. Eugene Krabs.

Reception[]

Throughout the run of SpongeBob SquarePants, the SpongeBob character became very popular with both children and adults. The character's popularity has spread from Nickelodeon's original demographic of two to eleven-year-olds, to teenagers and adults, including college campuses and celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver and Bruce Willis. The unadulterated innocence of SpongeBob is most likely 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 to already popular designs.

However, not all reception for SpongeBob has been positive. Many viewers, particularly those older or some that consider themselves "above" the series, find his character to be very obnoxious and/or annoying. Such issues have been amplified since season four and onwards as hundreds of formerly loyal fans turned on SpongeBob due to a "quality loss", in which the character's antics and mannerisms are significantly upplayed. Top 10: Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters ranked SpongeBob at number four. The publication said that his well meaning attitude is "extremely annoying."


Gallery[]

Trivia[]

  • SpongeBob is considered to be the most popular character in Nickelodeon.

Relationships[]

  • Patrick: A pink starfish, SpongeBob's best friend and neighbor.
  • Sandy: SpongeBob's second closest friend, a brown squirrel who must stay in a suit of air to breathe underwater.
  • Squidward: A green (sometimes turquoise) octopus, SpongeBob's neighbor, and friend (but only to his dismay).
  • Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob's employer/boss, and friend.
  • Plankton: Though rarely speaks to SpongeBob in person, SpongeBob's greatest enemy.
  • Gary: SpongeBob's pet snail.
  • Mrs. Puff: SpongeBob's boating teacher, a long-spined pufferfish.
  • Pearl: Another one of SpongeBob's closest friends. A teenage whale.
  • Karen: Plankton's computer wife. SpongeBob knows her name though is never introduced to her.
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