SpongeBob SquarePants (seasons 1-5) (2024)

SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated televisioncreated by the late, great marine biologist andanimator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It has aired since May 1, 1999.

Note: This article will mainly focus on the first five seasons of the series. For the ninth season onwards, see this page.

P​lot[]

The character-driven toon chronicles the nautical and sometimes nonsensical adventures of SpongeBob, an incurably optimistic and accident-prone sea sponge, and his undersea friends. Dwelling a few fathoms beneath the tropical isle of Bikini Atoll in the sub-surface city of Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob lives in a two-story pineapple. Instead of taking the logical approach to everyday challenges, SpongeBob approaches life in a wayward and unconventional way. Whether searching for the ultimate spatula to perfect his burger flipping technique at the Krusty Krab or just hanging out with his best friend Patrick (an amiable starfish), SpongeBob's good intentions and overzealous approach to life usually create chaos in his underwater world.

​​Why These Seasons Deserve a Krabby Patty[]

1. Very talented voice actors, such as Tom Kenny. Special mention to when he does amazing impressions of characters in "Mimic Madness".
2. Good songs, such as "Sweet Victory" from Band Geeks.
3. The characters have very distinct personalities, which give them a lot of charm.
   • SpongeBob SquarePants is an accident-prone and very friendly protagonist. He is Bikini Bottom's most popular resident.
   • Patrick Star is SpongeBob's dimwitted, yet good-natured friend.
   • Squidward Tentacles is Bikini Bottom's most unpopular resident, and SpongeBob's vain neighbor.
   • Eugene H. Krabs is SpongeBob's money-obsessed boss.
   • Sheldon J. Plankton is the short-tempered villain.
   • Sandy Cheeks is the smart and tough newcomer.
   • Mrs. Puff is the beleaguered boating teacher.
   • Karen Plankton is Plankton's sensible computer wife.
   • Pearl Krabs is Mr. Krabs' bratty, yet likable teenage daughter.
   • Gary the Snail is SpongeBob's loyal pet snail.
   • Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are affectionate parodies of Batman and Robin.
4. There are so many great, memorable and hilarious episodes, such as:
   • "Help Wanted" (which started the series on a positive note)
   • "Tea at the Treedome"
   • "Reef Blower"
   • "Bubblestand"
   • "Ripped Pants"
   • “Jellyfishing” (depending on your view)
   • "Plankton!"
   • "Naughty Nautical Neighbours"
   • "Pizza Delivery"
   • "Home Sweet Pineapple"
   • The "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy" Series
   • "Pickles"
   • "Jellyfish Jam"
   • "Opposite Day"
   • "Culture Shock"
   • "F.U.N."
   • "MuscleBob BuffPants"
   • "The Chaperone"
   • "Scaredy Pants"
   • "SB-129"
   • "Karate Choppers"
   • "Sleepy Time"
   • "Suds"
   • "Arrrgh!"
   • "Rock Bottom"
   • "Texas"
   • "Fools in April"
   • "Neptune's Spatula"
   • "Something Smells"
   • "Big Pink Loser"
   • "Dying for Pie"
   • "Imitation Krabs"
   • "Wormy" (despite the close up horsefly scene)
   • "Patty Hype"
   • "Squidville"
   • "Life of Crime"
   • "Christmas Who?"
   • "Survival of the Idiots"
   • "No Free Rides"
   • "Shanghaied"
   • "Gary Takes a Bath"
   • "Welcome to the Chum Bucket"
   • "Frankendoodle"
   • "The Secret Box"
   • "Band Geeks" (often considered the best episode of the series)
   • "Graveyard Shift"
   • "Sailor Mouth"
   • "The Fry Cook Games"
   • "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm" (which ended season 2 on a high note)
   • "The Algae's Always Greener" (which started season 3 on a high note)
   • "Just One Bite"
   • "Nasty Patty"
   • "Idiot Box"
   • "Snowball Effect"
   • "One Krabs' Trash"
   • "Can You Spare a Dime?"
   • "No Weenies Allowed"
   • "Rock-A-Bye Bivalve"
   • "Wet Painters"
   • "Krusty Krab Training Video"
   • "Chocolate with Nuts" (another episode considered one of the best of the series)
   • "Mid-Life Crustacean" (despite being banned as of 2021)
   • "I Had an Accident"
   • "The Camping Episode"
   • "Missing Identity"
   • "Plankton's Army"
   • "Pranks a Lot" (Which ended the golden age & Season 3 on a pretty high note)
   • The Sponge Who Could Fly" (depending on your view)
   • Fear of a Krabby Patty" (Which started the Post-Movie era & Season 4 on a high note)
   • "Shell of a Man"
   • "The Lost Mattress"
   • "Krabs vs. Plankton"
   • "Have You Seen This Snail?"
   • "Skill Crane"
   • "Selling Out"
   • "Enemy In-Law"
   • "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture"
   • "Patrick SmartPants"
   • "Krusty Towers"
   • "Wishing You Well"
   • "New Leaf"
   • "Bummer Vacation"
   • "That's No Lady"
   • "House Pocus"
   • "Best Frenemies"
   • "The Pink Purloiner"
   • "Best Day Ever"
   • "Friend or Foe" (which started season 5 on a high note in production order)
   • "Spy Buddies"
   • "Good Ol' Whatshisname" (depending on your view)
   • "New Digs"
   • "Krabs A la Mode""
   • "Roller Cowards"
   • "SpongeBob vs. The Patty Gadget"
   • "The Donut of Shame"
   • "The Krusty Sponge" (depending on your view)
   • "Goo Goo Gas" (which ended season 5 on a high note in airing order)
   • "Le Big Switch"
   • "Mermaid Man vs. SpongeBob"
   • "The Inmates of Summer"
   • "To Save A Squirrel"
   • "The Battle of Bikini Bottom"
   • "The Two Faces of Squidward"
   • "Pest of the West"
5. Beside SpongeBob himself who first appeared in Help Wanted in season 1 and other characters like Patrick, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs, many other characters made their debuts including Sandy and Plankton in later episodes.
6. Awesome and memorable versions of the intro, especially the normal one, the textless one, and the Christmas Who? one.
7. Hilarious fourth wall breaks, such as Squidward talking to the viewers in the beginning of "The Two Faces of Squidward", and Bunny Wunny playing Puka A in "Bunny Hunt".
8. A lot of the title cards and time cards are creative. There was even a funny joke made with them in "Wet Painters", when Patrick says "Can you hurry it along? We're running out of time cards."
9. Shares some elements with "Rocko's Modern Life" and "". Which makes sense, as some of the SpongeBob crew worked on those shows before coming to work on SpongeBob.
10. Ever since the second half of Season 9 and most of the first half, the show has improved dramatically after its decline in quality and there have been a lot of unique episode plots that haven't been done before.
    • The animation has also improved a lot and matches the style of zany cartoons from the Golden Age of Animation (especially the ones that Adam Paloian worked on) such as cartoons done by Bob Clampett, Tex Avery, Ward Kimball, and many others.
11. The Japanese Dub is just as good as the original English version.
12. It's very funny, which explains all the memorable quotes and internet memes it spawned.
13. The background music is Hawaiian-style ukulele, which matches the show's underwater aesthetic and is very calming to listen to, with a lot of memorable tracks such as "Grass Skirt Chase".

​“Holy Fishpastes!” Qualities[]

1. Out of all the ten main characters, Mr. Krabscan be thedebatablyleast tolerable character due to a perceived exaggeration of his parsimony throughout the series' run. Though, he's still likable at times, especially in the earlier seasons.
2. The series went downhill between the first and second movies.
   • It somewhat began to go downhill during Seasons 4 & 5, but it didn't get too noticeable until Season 6 when the series was hit with a massive decline in quality. But thankfully, the series has redeemed itself since Season 9.
3. Some occasional bad/mediocre episodes, such as:
   • "I Was a Teenage Gary"
   • "Grandma's Kisses"
   • "Dumped" (First Patrick's Awful episode)
   • "I'm With Stupid"
   • "Party Pooper Pants"
   • "The Great Snail Race"
   • "Krabby Land"
   • "Good Neighbors" (which started the minor downfall of the series and started infamous Squidward Torture episode)
   • "Funny Pants" (depending on your view)
   • "SquidBob TentaclePants" (depending on your view)
   • "All That Glitters"
   • "Once Bitten"
   • "Wigstruck"
   • "The Thing"
   • "Squid Wood" (an awful ending to season 4 in airing order)
   • "Driven to Tears"
   • "Rule of Dumb"
   • "The Gift of Gum" ( a mediocre way to end season 4 in production)
   • "Waiting"
   • "Fungus Among Us"
   • "To Love a Patty"
   • "Breath of Fresh Squidward"
   • "A Flea in Her Dome"
   • "Atlantis SquarePantis" (an abysmal first TV movie)
   • "What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?"
   • "SpongeHenge"
   • "Stanley S. SquarePants" (which ended Season 5 on a mediocre note in production order)
4. Avril Lavigne's cover of the theme song, which was featured in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
   • Season 4, while considered to be the best season of the post-movie era, is considered to be of lesser quality than the first three seasons and the start of the series' minor downfall and is unnecessary as the series was originally supposed to end after the first movie.
   • Season 5 is the weakest of the good seasons, as there are more bad episodes than the first four seasons, though not nearly as many as the series’ dark age and the episodes became hit and miss in terms of quality. Also, the characters' flanderizations slowly started to kick in, with Sandy unfortunately being the earliest offender. Nevertheless, Season 5 is considered to be the last good season until Season 9.
5. While the animation is generally great, it isn't always perfect and has some hiccups:
   • Season 1's animation, while still good, looks inferior to later seasons due to it being done in traditional cel form, while Season 2 onwards uses digital ink-and-paint. Also, the animation in this season is cruder and less consistent than later seasons and doesn’t have the best lighting.
   • Season 2's animation, while a big step up from that of season 1, is filled with errors and some episodes have color inconsistencies (most notably the episodes with washed-out colors on DVD), similarly to season 6. Though to be fair, this is understandable since this is the very first season to use digital ink-and-paint animation.
   • Season 4's animation starts off looking clunky and inferior to seasons 2 and 3, but gets better as the season progresses and the lighting, color palette and visuals have noticeably improved.
   • The earlier seasons have a poor blend of CGI and traditional animation, especially for its time.
6. Some jokes in the pre-movie era are (poorly) covered-up innuendos, such as SpongeBob watching a sea anemone in the episode "Your Shoe's Untied", which is basically a metaphor for watching p*rnography. Another is in the episode "Gary Takes a Bath" where SpongeBob warns Gary not to drop the "doubloons" (soap) and then winking making a reference to prison rape, which got that episode banned in the UK.
7. While the voice acting is good, it can get too loud, especially in the later seasons.

Critical Reception[]

SpongeBob SquarePants has received universal critical acclaim, being praised for its appeal to different age groups, and the show has earned numerous awards and accolades throughout its run. James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the title character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to match—conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him.

Trivia[]

• Season 1 is the only season to be animated using cel animation, later seasons would use digital inking and painting animation, with one exception: a shot of SpongeBob with jellyfish swimming that used digital inking and painting.
• Many people already know the fact that in the episode "Sleepy Time", SpongeBob's and Mr. Krabs' driver licenses are seen, revealing that the former was born on July 14th, 1986 and the latter on November 30th, 1942, making them around 34 and 77 years old, respectively. However, a fact that is largely ignored is that "Sleepy Time" first aired on January 17th, 2000, making SpongeBob 13 years old and Mr. Krabs 57 years old. The franchise as a whole started on May 1st, 1999, which would make SpongeBob 12 and Mr. Krabs 56. Plankton would also be 56, as he was shown to have been born around the same time as Mr. Krabs in the Friend or Foe episodes. On "Whale of a Birthday", it was revealed that Pearl turned 16 on May 12, 2006, meaning she is currently 30 years of age.
  • It should be noted though that SpongeBob and Pearl Krabs are supposed to be adults in the show.
• There was a third movie released in 2021 on demand called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, as well as a spin-off called Kamp Koral - SpongeBob's Under Years. The latter, however, was receiving backlash from fans, and even Paul Tibbitt (the showrunner from Season 4 to the first half of Season 9) for “disrespecting Hillenburg’s legacy”, as Hillenburg is often said as not wanting any spinoffs to happen, despite the fact that he actually said he didn't see any spinoffs happening. Rob Renzetti also criticized the spinoff. Said spinoff is referenced in Sponge on the Run.
• Creator Stephen Hillenburg died at the age of 57 on November 26, 2018, from ALS. Since the death of Stephen Hillenburg, the series finale (along with the series finale of two spin-offs) has yet to be announced by Nickelodeon.
  • In fact, he was supposed to be called SpongeBoy.
• The main character "SpongeBob" was named because Stephen Hillenburg was worried that people will confuse him for a block of cheese.
• Due to its popularity, it spawned merchandise, from DVDs to lunchboxes, to mini shorts, etc.
• SpongeBob himself is based on Bob the Sponge from Hillenburg's old educational book, "The Intertidal Zone".
• In 1999, Nickelodeon released a press statement summarizing the first four episodes. At the time, these episodes were planned to be released in production order: "Help Wanted," "Tea at the Treedome," "Squeaky Boots," and "Jellyfishing." Sometime in April 1999, Nickelodeon decided to air the episodes in a different order instead; it was called the "packaging order." This order does not relate to production or airing order, and it most notably moved "Squeaky Boots" (the third produced segment overall) to episode 8b, much later than it was produced.
• In 1997, a draft of the pilot episode was completed. This is known today as "Help Wanted".
• There was supposed to be a high school reunion scene where Squidward reminisces about his high school days with Squilliam in the episode "Squilliam Returns". However, this was cut due to time constraints & to tighten up the writing.
• The dolphin sound effect wasn't a dolphin, but a kookaburra.

See Also[]

The SpongeBob Wiki (aka Encyclopedia SpongeBobia)