By: Alyana Sosa
One of my favorite shows growing up had to be Spongebob Squarepants. Everyone I knew had loved watching this fun, animated cartoon, from little kids all the way up to adults. Parents would turn the TV on and put on Spongebob for the kids but end up watching an episode or two with them because it was just that good. Once upon a time, it might have even been considered the greatest cartoon of all time but now we aren’t so sure. After season 3, Spongebob Squarepants had its own movie that was out in the theaters and for some, this would be where Spongebob went from being the best to the worst. After the movie came out, the creator of Spongebob, Stephen Hillenburg, resigned from the producer position and another man named Derek Drymon took over. Along with this new producer came new writers and this would be where all the changes would come from. Even though the show would continue to make a lot of money, the people watching would suffer and this new crew with their new writing would change everything.
The main issue why the show just got increasingly worse was flanderization which is the act of taking a single, most of the time minor, action or trait of a character and exaggerating it more and more over time until it completely consumes the character. Doing this usually results in the trait becoming the character’s defining quality. This act of flanderization was done on many of the characters but most noticeably the main one, Spongebob. Spongebob is a very clueless, immature, fun-loving and hyperactive character with a happy-go-lucky personality. He wasn’t dumb, but would sometimes act like it and he was a fan favorite. What wasn’t there to like?
After the new writers came though, Spongebob went from clueless and immature to just plain stupid. He went from just acting dumb to actually being dumb, being completely oblivious to the world around him. In a episode before the new writers, Spongebob gets embarrassed when a bigger, more buff lobster lifts a heavy bar in front of Sandy, the girl he’s trying to impress, so he tries to lift a stick with two marshmallows at the end of it and instead of lifting it, he rips his pants in the process. Feeling embarrassed, Spongebob sadly leaves but realizes that people were laughing and paying attention to him when he ripped his pants so he uses that to his advantage. He continues to rip his pants while playing volleyball, again while playing frisbee both times getting a laugh out of the fish and Sandy. As clueless and immature as Spongebob is, he doesn’t really know when enough is enough and continues to do this, making all the other fish extremely annoyed at him. The only reason he continued to rip his pants in the first place was to get Sandy to laugh and be his friend but he then realizes later in the show that all he had to was ask and not go to extreme lengths annoying others to get people to like him.
In a more recent episode, Spongebob asks Mr. Krabs, his boss, if he can bring his pet snail, Gary, into work for Bring Your Pet to Work Day the next day and Mr. Krabs agreed. Later that day, Plankton disguises himself as a salesman and knocks on Spongebob’s door. Gary answers the door and Plankton convinces Gary to go on this vacation to a snail resort for a night. He tells Gary to wear a fake shell so Gary takes off his real shell, puts a fake one on and heads for the resort. Plankton then takes Gary’s real shell and pretends to be Gary. Spongebob is so oblivious to this and treats Plankton like he’s actually Gary. He goes to give “Gary” a bath and discovers that he is green and talking so he thinks “Gary” is sick. He can’t even realize that since he’s green and talking, that maybe this isn’t his snail. He brings him to the hospital and the doctors found nothing wrong with him. “Gary” asked if he could have one more Krabby Patty before he died so Spongebob brought him to the Krusty Krab, not realizing that all Plankton wanted was the formula to the Krabby Patty. This comparison of the classic Spongebob and the new modern Spongebob show how he went from being an airhead, clueless and immature to actually being dumb and oblivious to reality. On top of this, modern Spongebob tries to make jokes that aren’t actually funny to most and the his new voice is very high pitch, making it almost annoying to hear. This made him go from everyone’s favorite character to just unlikeable. Before, his antics were funny and there was a humorous understanding of what he was doing but now, everything he does is kind of cringe-worthy and watching an episode just may make you want to change the channel.
Spongebob, along with almost all the other characters have changed since the resignation of Hillenburg, but along with the cast, the plot has also changed as well. Before the new writers came, each episode was different. There was no predicting what would happen in each episode and no two episodes were similar but now, each episode is either Spongebob working at the Krusty Krab, Spongebob and Patrick annoying Squidward, or Spongebob and Patrick going jellyfishing. Rarely, an episode may break this mold but for the most part, all the shows follow this pattern. The actual writing itself has to be the worst change yet. There are fewer jokes and when jokes are made, they aren’t even funny; they always fall flat. It feels like the show is almost talking down to us, the audience, as we watch and they don’t even try to mimic the Spongebob we all know and love.
Spongebob used to be the show that everyone loved and the cartoon that almost everyone watched. Now, Spongebob is just another kiddy cartoon. It was mainly a cartoon for kids and middle-schoolers but it treated all ages and this was because there were jokes for everyone. The main ones were obvious for little kids but there were also hidden jokes that you can pick up if you watch a show over again, mainly for the older audience. Now, all the jokes are very childish and the only audience is children, young children. It feels like the intellect level of the audience is assumed, making it feel very elementary. If you were to ask someone if they like Spongebob, they would probably say, “Yeah, the old one though,” because the modern Spongebob is comparable to a preschool-level show. No one, and I’m pretty confident when I say this, likes this new modern Spongebob and it’s a shame and a disappointment to see a show become something it never was.
References
Ripped Pants. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2018, from http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Ripped_Pants
Shellback Shenanigans. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2018, from http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/Shellback_Shenanigans
Spongebob: Decline in Quality – Trial and Failure. (n.d.). Retrieved December 12, 2018, from https://sites.google.com/site/tria1andfai1ur3/over-analysis/oa-tv-shows/spongebob-decline-in-quality
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