The Tragedy of Spongebob Squarepants

S01 E02 Bubblestand

Summary: Spongebob creates a stand outside of his house with the intention of teaching others how to blow bubbles and spreading the joy he feels on a daily basis. This practice, of course, irritates the perpetually irritable Squidward, who goes there, criticizes the duo harshly, and after viewing the erratic and interesting ritual that Spongebob puts into every bubble, shoos the two of them away. Yet riddled in curiosity, Squideward decides to attempt his own bubble-blowing while no one is looking. Caught in the act, Squidward has no choice but to prove his skill, unfortunately unable to do so without using Spongebob’s technique of blowing bubbles. In a fit of rage at replicating the ritual, Squidward inadvertently creates a massive bubble which is released into the air. Deeply proud of his accomplishment, Squidward returns home and picks up his clarinet, releasing an absolutely beautiful melody into the air. Spongebob and Patrick cheer on his marvelous music from outside while Squidward unleashes his mastery. But then, like a fiery meteor, the bubble descends back on Squidward’s house, picks it up, carries it into the air, then drops it back down. Squidward begins to play again, spirit and body crushed, music once again talentless

This episode is essentially an homage to the failed dreams and aspirations of Squidward Tentacles. The bubble-blowing stand and the activity of bubble-blowing represents the heart and soul that Squidward has lost in the course of his bitter and broken life. Through Spongebob’s childish and warped innocence, Squidward manages to capture a small moment of the purity of Spongebob’s life, thus able to achieve an entirely new level of adding emotion and honest goodness into his music. Squidward attains nirvana in that instant, a kind of happiness he hadn’t seen in years. Yet the bubble then comes crashing down, dropping Squidward and his hopes back down on the ground, crushing his dreams just as easily as a bubble will pop. Squidward’s wishes and desires are as sturdy as the bubbles he blows. Unable to maintain such happiness permanently, Squidward is forced to watch as his neighbors easily achieve such emotions each day, soaring into the air with their hopes as Squidward remains rooted on the ground, miserable and alone.

Look. he’s so happy with his bubble wand. And Squidward?

…oh.

S01 E01 Tea at the Treedome

Summary: Sandy Cheeks the squirrel is introduced as well as her no-bullshit, tough as nails persona. She speaks to Spongebob of where she comes from and introduces him to the concept of air. Spongebob is unaware of such a concept yet goes along anyway, desperately wanting the friendship of this bizarre outcast figure who reminds him so much of himself. So he consults his beloved friend Patrick for advice, who of course give Spongebob incorrect info that seems right in his own deluded mind. Spongebob shows up at the Treedome, ready to impress. However, he is wholly unprepared for the water-less environment within, suffering in air-filled torture nearly to the point of death. Spongebob is forced to sneak in drinks of water in secret to hide his shame and white lies from Sandy, who he is now desperately obsessed with impressing. But he is unable to combat the basic life necessity of water and ends up running out of the dome, ashamed at himself. Patrick attempts to try to rectify his situation by entering the dome only to enter the same deathtrap. Sandy realizes that sea creatures must have water and puts water bowls on their heads, saving their fucking lives and beginning their friendship.

This is their grand introduction of land squirrel Sandy as well as the subsequent friendship of Spongebob and her. And how is it we choose to begin here? With self-torture for the sake of companionship. Seriously, Spongebob is so enamored of this odd creature who he connects with that he is willing to lie and nearly kill himself just so that she finds him a suitable friend. This episode emphasizes in grand clarity the damning ignorance of Spongebob and the pain that he will go through as a result. But let us likewise consider Sandy’s action here. Sandy is arguably the second smartest character on the show behind Plankton. Yet she brazenly tolerates and accepts Spongebob’s slow torture throughout this episode. What the hell? Either Sandy loves to watch the suffering of the ignorant or…actually I honestly can’t even think of another reason why Spongebob wouldn’t be outfitted with a water helmet earlier. Sandy’s a motherfucking sadist. So here’s the story as it stands. Sponge like squirrel. Sponge goes on date with squirrel to impress squirrel. Sponge suffers to the verge of death for squirrel. Squirrel hands the key to survival to Sponge that she had all along but decided to present only at the last minute. Sponge keeps following squirrel. It is fucking depressing to watch this.

And look at this:

Look at the bouquet of flowers. Look at how excited he is for this date. Look at Patrick waving at him in the distance, giving him confidence and hope. He’s expecting success and love. He’s walking into a den of hell

S01 E01 Reef Blower

Summary: The entire episode of “Reef Blower” is short and silent, portraying Spongebob’s various misunderstandings in tampering with a reef blower. While trying to clean his lawn, Spongebob inadvertently manages to not only destroy Squidward’s lawn, but likewise nearly sucks all the water out of the ocean. It is a tale of Squidward’s woe and Spongebob’s inevitable success, as it really always is.

This is one of the shortest episodes of Spongebob in existence and the only completely silent one, where not a word of dialogue exists. Yet it reveals the poignant contrasting gap that separates the worlds of Squidward and Spongebob. Whereas Spongebob is obliviously trapped within a world of his own design, Squidward lives clearly in reality, wanting the peace and order that Spongebob destroys in simple existence. This is an average day for them, that’s the thing. Squidward has to live unable to reconcile his views with Spongebob’s affected brain. He has to cope with the fact that on any given day, Spongebob may very well drain all of the water from the ocean, committing an absolute sea creature genocide. I mean, come on, how well do you think you could handle living next to someone who apparently has godlike power and none of the intelligence to use it correctly? it’s maddening and frankly, the wordlessness shows how deep the situation has gotten, that even without verbal communication, the two are rife in trouble. One ignorant child and his godly reef blower. Thats all it takes.

You fucking bastard

S01 E01 Help Wanted

Summary: A mysterious French gentleman introduces the eponymous Spongebob. This child wakes up that morning, excited because it is the morning of his job interview at the Krusty Krab for the position of fry cook, the one thing he currently wants more than anything else in the world: a future as a chef. Yet in talking to his best friend Patrick, he reveals he has doubts he’ll get the job. He arrives at the restaurant whereupon Squidward tries his damndest to screw Spongebob out of the job, hating the thought that he may have to work with Spongebob. Mr. Krabs likewise finds Spongebob imbecilic and gives him an impossible task of getting a “Hydrodynamic Spatula with Port and Starboard Attachments and a Turbo-Drive”, wanting him to fail. Spongebob, in naivete, heads out in search of the item. At the Krusty Krab, a bus drops off a platoon of anchovies who quickly invade the restaurant swarming and clamoring for food, inundating it to the point that Krabs and Squidward are helpless to do anything. When all seems lost, Spongebob returns with the spatula miraculously, flipping out enough patties to satisfy the army of anchovies to the song “livin in the sunlight, loving in the moonlight” by Tiny Tim. Krabs gets sacks of money from the anchovies and decides to hire Spongebob to further his greed. Spongebob goes into the kitchen to begin his minimum wage life.

This is the first episode of Spongebob ever. And oh my god does it set the precedent for the cruelty to come. Spongebob wants nothing more than to be a fry cook. This is his life’s ambition. And as we see, his biggest fear is that he’ll be rejected. So he walks in, full of hope and anticipation, and what happens? His next door neighbor convinces the boss to basically fuck him out of the job. They are denying the mentally slow worker on the premise that he will be annoying and not get the job done. But instead of voicing this concern to his face in honesty, they give him an impossible task because they’re about to get off on watching the naive and stupid child flop around town searching high and low until he fails and crawls back, tears in his eyes at having his dream crushed into pieces. They EXPECT this. They want him to fail and cry and be miserable and they will fucking laugh at him. This is the first episode and we are already making plight in the life of this poor mentally defective sponge. Fuck.

And when it seems as if the two villains are about to get their comeuppance in the form of awful anchovy horror, what happens? Spongebob reappears, impossible task fulfilled and saves the entire day and restaurant. So the comeuppance doesn’t come. Krabs becomes fucking rich as shit and sure, Squidward is annoyed at having Spongebob as a coworker, but he already lives next to the guy, so honestly, whatever, he’s used to it. This is the show that establishes a precedent in the FIRST EPISODE that the villains will get away with it and that the little guy will get screwed and will be unaware of being screwed. Spongebob ends the episode happier than ever, conscripted into Krabs’ horrific demonic army of fast food.

Also, this is the guy that sings that catchy song

I defy you to tell me he doesn’t look like a child molestor

8. Other characters

Larry the Lobster-This guy is insecure as SHIT. Look at him. Bodybuilding and exercise are literally all he has to live for. Whenever he shows up, he brags about the latest badass thing he’s done then flexes or something. But honestly he is way too buff. His claws are bigger than his body. At this point, we have to accept a simple fact that he is using some manner of underwater steroids. He’s lost himself in the maintenance and perception of his image. A lobster is the perfect metaphor: an exterior shell which appears sturdy and indestructible hiding a soft fleshy pulpy interior, filled with self-loathing and doubt.

Mermaidman and Barnacleboy: How can anyone not get fucking sad seeing these guys? These guys are apparently actual superheroes. Back in the day they actually went around attacking bad guys and maintaining justice. And now they’re both stuck in a retirement home, virtually forgotten in the eyes of society, condemned to adult diapers and mush for food. Imagine Batman and Robin growing old and becoming shells of themselves, stuck in a cage, powerless and weak. Imagine seeing their decay from the heroes of yore into shadows of themselves. Imagine the embarrassment and shame at seeing powerless old men shambling around in their uniforms at a retirement home,unwilling to give up their lives of glory. Imagine observing this. Now imagine actually BEING these men. Yeah. That’s right.

This fish: This fish is a fucking douchebag. Fuck him

7. Mrs. Puff

Mrs. Puff is a woman who was raised and bred upon the values of a solid education. She believes that solid morals and values are inherent and necessary in education. So with this in mind, she opens up her boating school, hoping to inspire a new generation of young minds willing to receive her knowledge.

In comes SpongeBob, the pupil who challenges all of her beliefs. Puff thinks that all youth may be changed through the benefits of a sturdy education. Through teaching and molding, any student may become a learned and successful man. She refuses to give up just because a student sees minor difficulties in their path. Spongebob is the fork in the road. She wants terribly to see the inherent intelligence and propensity to learn in every pupil. But Spongebob’s mental deficiency makes him incapable of doing so. He has all of the heart and passion to learn, but none of the intelligence he would need. He tries his best to attain success yet can never reach it. Mrs. Puff swore to never give up on a student with the dedication level of Spongebob so long as he was willing to learn. Yet Spongebob has failed so many times and has caused so much harm both mental and bodily to Puff that she is honestly on the verge of losing her mind with this student who has turned all of her ideals on their head. She hates her job and her life due to the intelligence of a singular sponge, the child which ruined her life and threw all her beliefs into the trash. But hey, children don’t need happiness, do they?

6. Sandy Cheeks

Sandy’s existence as the singular land creature of Bikini Bottom has so many racial and gender issues that I honestly don’t know where to begin here. In Bikini Bottom, the extreme extreme majority of the population are fish. Then we have our eccentric characters who occupy other races. Sandy is the only fucking non-sea creature in the entire show. She is legitimately a minority of one. And boys and girls watching this show, let me tell you, it is NOT good to be different here. Remember the episode where it was land creatures vs. sea creatures? That was the racism of the sea right there, with a crowd of underwater dwellers picking harshly on the outnumbered female land walker. How about that episode where SpongeBob becomes a comedian and tells racist squirrel jokes? Everyone there fucking laughed. They mocked and condemned this poor creature. Never mind the absurdly high intelligence of Sandy. Never mind the fact that she is actually physically stronger even than Larry the Lobster. She’s a fucking squirrel. They are unwanted in Bikini Bottom and cast out into obscurity. Her house is a perfect symbol of the isolation that she feels daily. Yes, she needs the treedome to live. But she is fenced off from the rest of the world in a clear glass bubble and made into a practical minority in a zoo for the fish of Bikini Bottom to stare at.

Her gender: she is Spongebob’s only female companion. SpongeBob is obsessed with the concept of impressing her in any way possible, especially through physical and martial strength in karate. In an early episode, Spongebob and Sandy go to the beach where Spongebob spends the entire time demeaning himself and making an absolute fool of himself for the sole purpose of impressing Sandy. This episode reveals Spongebob’s inadequacy in proving himself to the girl of his affections, the only girl who is as much of an outcast as Spongebob to consider becoming friends with him. Does Spongebob actually genuinely possess any real affection for Sandy? It’s impossible to tell as Spongebob seems to lack the level of intelligence needed to voice an interest in romance or relationships. But there Sandy stands, homesick, shunned, and prejudiced against in this cruel aquatic environment.

5. Sheldon Plankton

Plankton is the little man of the show. Both literally and in the capitalist sense. This is the small-shop owner who’s trying to compete with an absolute mogul of the industry. His restaurant is literally a giant bucket which sells chum. Through an absurdly inconvenient choice of location, he ends up across the street from the absolute monopoly on all fast food in Bikini Bottom. This is basically like a man pouring his life savings opening up a small eatery down the street from a McDonalds with a ball pit and free hookers. There’s no way to compete. Anyone’s going to grow bitter after exhausting so much effort into making a working establishment only to be basically crushed underfoot by this titan of fast food.

In addition, his only company and friend is his computer wife Karen. HIS WIFE IS A COMPUTER. This is a man so broken and beaten down in the course of his life that he has resorted to his only remaining option: Use the intelligence which has so cursed him in his life by isolating him from true romance to create a fake woman for him to marry. This is legitimately perhaps one of the most pitiful things I’ve ever heard. This man is so lonely, he had to make an AI that would be willing to marry him. This AI is in fact his only companion in all of existence. And people dislike Plankton. What the fuck, this is the loneliest guy ever yet everyone hates him.

Think about it. How would you feel to stand inside of a metal bucket day in and day out, watching paying patrons all fly over to the restaurant of your mighty arch-rival, while you simply have to swallow the fact that you are inferior. You were made fun of your whole life for your height and told you had no potential and now here’s proof. Plankton is confronted with his worthlessness constantly. So he hatches plots of revenge to wreak havoc on the town that has spurned him, mocked him, and made him into an absolute laughingstock. But then Plankton is faced with the fact that he, by far and away the most intelligent creature in the show, is foiled by a greedy old crab and his imbecile yellow sponge. And thus the little man is crushed and Krabs’ monopoly stands tall. All in all, the lesson that children get taught? If you don’t have the same stature or power as your competitors, fuck you.

4. Eugene Krabs

The one thing that bothers me the most about Krabs is the fact that people claim to like this guy. That honestly makes me fucking sick. Eugene Krabs is the symbol, the crustacean embodiment of capitalistic greediness. He is the owner and proprietor of the Krusty Krab, a restaurant with only two employees. TWO. Have you ever gone into a McDonalds where there were only two employees who worked every job on every shift every day of the week? Think about this. Squidward and SpongeBob are cashier, fry cook, janitor, busboy. They cook the food, take the orders, accept the cash, wipe the tables, clean the floors, clean the bathroom, manage the finances, keep inventory of supplies, and several more jobs that I would need experience in the food industry to actually understand. Seriously. Running a fast food place is not fucking easy. It takes more than TWO FUCKING EMPLOYEES. And what does Krabs do to help in the workplace. He sits in his office and counts money. Day in and day out, he counts his money and schemes of ways to reduce his employees’ paychecks. He cuts corners wherever possible. He is bribed by pocket change to offer Spongebob’s soul to the Flying Dutchman this show’s equivalent of THE DEVIL. You hate your boss? Odds are, your boss hasn’t made a deal with THE MOTHERFUCKING DEVIL. 

Now let’s look at Krabs’ relationship with Plankton. The life and livelihood of Plankton doesn’t mean shit to Krabs. Krabs is only after one thing: the complete monopoly of fast food in Bikini Bottom. And he’ll be well on the way if he keeps diverting customers from Plankton like that. Seriously, there are episodes where Krabs freaks a shit at Plankton having even ONE CUSTOMER. And sure, Plankton is always trying to steal Krabs’ secret formula, but let’s face it, if this restaurant is all you have and your competitor from across the street is as ruthless and cutthroat in ensuring economic domination as Krabs, it’s not too much to ask just to try and get the secret formula. It’s practically fighting fire with fire.

And about that secret formula. Everyone always wants to know what makes the Krabby Patty so delicious. Well look, its basically the Big Mac. And not every single person in the world freaks shit at the Big Mac. So what does the Krabby Patty contain that makes it so gosh-darn incredible? Narcotics. It’s either opiates, nicotine, THC, something of that variety implanted in the Krabby Patty secret sauce which captures every person who tries it and always forces them to come back for more of their greasy fix. And Krabs can get away with it too. Easily. Have you SEEN what he does to his health inspectors?

That’s from a real episode too. Krabs poisoned his patty then beat him unconscious and tried to put his body into a freezer. THIS MAN CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING HE WANTS TO PUT INTO HIS FOOD.

Also, his daughter is a whale. He fucked a whale. I don’t know what the sea laws are on that, but from simple size comparison of crab-whale sex alone, it’s probably equivalent to human-elephant sex. You sick fucking bastard.

3. Squidward Tentacles

This guy is fucking sad. He had hopes and aspirations to become a famous artist/musician, a clarinet player at the underwater equivalents of Carnegie Hall. You can tell that this was one of those people who grew up with a clarinet always in their hands, hoping that he would one day be great and famous. All he ever wanted was to play music and live in a life of peace and happiness. But Squidward couldn’t hack it. He had all the ambition and desire but none of the talent. Time caught up with him and before he knew it, he was no longer a young up-and-comer. Instead of attaining the fame he had always wanted, he was forced to become a self-loathing failed artist, drenched in misery as his childhood friend Squilliam Fancyson reached heights of fame beyond even Squidward’s wildest dreams. Squilliam is a man who seems to have his feet on the ground more, perhaps in finance or investments, who struck it big by keeping realistic, whereas Squidward and his dreams of artistry failed. With no hope and desperate for money, Squidward goes to the local fast food place, his hands of artistry and music now reduced to little more than receptacles for the money of patrons. Hear that kids? Never dream big. Your dreams will get crushed. If you want money, you can never do art.

So Squidward leaves surrounded by his failed paintings, composing failed pieces of music in a house of his own failed design. He wants nothing more now than solitude to reminisce on the past. And herein comes SpongeBob and Patrick. Squidward’s failure is compounded upon daily by the fact that whereas he has nothing and lives in misery because of it, Spongebob and Patrick have nothing yet are insanely absolutely happy. Squidward’s misery is deepened in jealousy that two idiotic louts possess more inner happiness whereas he, the more intelligent and artistic one, possesses only depression. He is confronted daily by the fact that his artistry has brought him nothing but failure whereas his two failure neighbors have a key to happiness he will never own. Play on, noble Squidward. Play on.

2. Patrick Star

It’s possible to defend Spongebob’s intelligence. Very possible. It’s possible to make the argument that he is eccentric and that’s it. But Patrick Star is Stephen Hillenburg’s representation of a mentally retarded child. There’s honestly no way around this. Patrick has the intelligence of a brick. He goes beyond the sugar-high level of diminished intelligence in Spongebob to the point that Patrick’s level of intelligence inspires sadness within me. He lives alone CRUSHED UNDER A ROCK. This is where he eats and sleeps. Spongebob has Gary and a legit pineapple house. Squidward has his own face in a mirror which is the only company he wants anyway. Patrick is a child who has been forced out into the world and lacking a job and a source of revenue, he finds shelter under a rock to avoid paying taxes for an actual house. He can’t afford furniture and makes everything out of sand. He sleeps with his back glued to the rock. In an episode where we are introduced to Patrick’s parents, we find that Patrick has been separated from them for so long and is in fact so mentally deficient that he believes a random pair of starfish to be his biological parents. He doesn’t possess the intelligence to even recognize his BIRTH PARENTS who have, instead of giving him help, left him to roam the world by his own devices, leaving him an unemployed mess.

Another issue frequently poked fun at in Patrick: his weight. You are all aware what has been made here right? This is basically a fat kid with a mental defect. WHAT THE FUCK HILLENBURG? You want us to laugh at this kind of character?? This show condones the mocking of the mentally retarded and the physically unfit. Seriously. This is what we teach our children. This is what our children have grown up with. Patrick and his friend Spongebob and practically outcast in this town for their diminished intelligence. In fact, Patrick’s only real close friend seems to be SpongeBob, the only one nice enough and willing enough to make friends to befriend Patrick. The two of them are offset and singled out in the show for their low intelligence and are made virtual parodies to be laughed at and made fun of. But yknow. For kids!

1. Spongebob Squarepants

It’s unfair to say that Spongebob has a severe mental deficiency. He has shown periods of logic, understanding, and at times possesses the innocence needed to keep the other characters in check. However, we would be in denial if we were to claim that Spongebob isn’t an extremely eccentric and gullible character, unfortunately to the extent that he suffers from a diminished intelligence. This is essentially that kid you knew in school who was always a little off. He was always sort of in a world of his own, not exactly very popular, but always willing to please because he always had such difficultly in making close friends.

This show takes that kind of character and essentially makes him into a laughingstock. The show is crafted around his personal misunderstandings of the way that Bikini Bottom works. Everything happens in the show because SpongeBob fucks up. And small children then use that opportunity, not knowing any better, to laugh at this mentally deficient character. This is a child who is lost in his own personal reality and who simply doesn’t mesh with the world. In many ways, SpongeBob is mentally slower than many of his peers in the show. Squidward represents the jaded figure who simply can’t handle the eccentricity of youthful ignorance. He lives next to the child he never had a chance to become. Mr. Krabs manipulates his eagerness to please constantly, giving him large quantities of unfair and back-breaking work, even corrupting his mind at one point to put up a facade for children to further his own horrific plans at exploiting others for money. Plankton shows contempt for him and tries to trick him in his first appearance of the show by lying to him and appealing to Spongebob’s desperation for friendship by having him betray his beloved boss.

And week in, week out, children laugh at him. They ignore the fact that he doesn’t know any better. They derisively mock him and laugh at his ignorance which frankly isn’t his fault. Consider the episode in which he leaps in and out of the dreams of his friends. The episode portrays clearly the fact that Spongebob’s own set of naive and innocent desires don’t fit in with the realistic wishes and desires of his friends. But children laugh at this. They laugh when he fucks up his friend’s wishes and they laugh when he is ganged up upon in his own bedroom, yelled at for his meddling when he had only good intentions. This character is put through the shitter in nearly every episode, beat up, self-esteem destroyed, and then rebuilt so that he may suffer more. And CHILDREN WATCH THIS. This show condones the castigation and isolation and mocking of anyone who is different and exemplifies a set of beliefs that are outside those of the norm. Laugh it up assholes. Go ahead.

The Explanation

As a child, I watched Spongebob Squarepants obsessively as if my limbs would surely putrefy and decay if I missed a single episode. I knew quotes so well that I would drop them in at any occasion. It just didn’t matter at all if others shot me weird glances or threatened to burn down my house with napalm. I loved everything, accepted all its oddity that was clearly inspired by long nights of acid spent camped out in aquariums staring at sea creatures. It was my life.

But of course, high school arrived and then maturity had to set in as a mound of work crushed boyish childhood and made me into a disgruntled and angry teenager. And now, at the apex of my cynicism with college beginning in a month, I recently watched a few episodes of the show at a friend’s house and realized something: this is by far and away the cruelest show in all of existence. It is a dark cold and soulless creation. Its creator, Stephen Hillenburg, is a sick and sadistic man who finds humor in the most viciously dark and unrelentingly cruel situations. It is the manifestation of the evil found within the human soul, the will to crush the weak and helpless.

This Tumblr will expose the evils of this show episodically, beginning with an exposition into the lives of all the main characters of the show. If you like your childhood, stay away.

Don’t believe me? Of course you fucking don’t. Let’s begin.