Story of my Life

Spongebob Squarepants

(If you can't read the image, don't sweat it. I wrote down the text later in my rant.)

Man. How I miss my childhood show.

Yes, you could say that they are still making episodes . It's not over.

But the show that I grew up with is over.

Because instead of my show where Squilliam tries to humiliate Squidward by making him perform at the Bubble Bowl half-time show, only to have it be the best moment of Squidward's life (Band Geeks), we get the show where Squidward gets depressed. You know what he does? He hangs up a rope. It's revealed that he's hanging up a bird cage, but that's not what I thought the first time I saw it (Are You Happy Now?). 

The writers are making suicide jokes. This is not my childhood show.

Instead of my show where Plankton and Krabs have a rivalry which is a too-bad-try-again-next-time thing, we have a show where Mr. Krabs finds out Plankton is terrified of whales, which leads him to use Pearl/a homemade whale costume, which THEN leads to Plankton becoming so terrified and depressed he tries to commit suicide (One Coarse Meal). This has gone too far.

Apparently, the writers were simply going to make the first three seasons, the movie, and then end the show there. It was so popular that they continued it, but...what happened?

I heard they fired the original writers and hired new ones, although this may not be true. The point is, they changed the show.

Now, it almost seems like they're running out of ideas. The episodes are pretty cliche, or not really funny at all. At points, they even have disturbing imagery (Ghost Host, The Splinter, House Fancy).

If you've seen Kenny the Cat, you'll know that some of them are even stupid.

The thing is, of course Spongebob is stupid. But its a fun stupid. It's the kind of stupid where they buy a TV just so they can play in the box. 

Not the kind of stupid where you finish the episode and you just wonder..."Wow. That was...interesting writing."

And they've changed the characters, too. Squidward was annoyed by Spongebob before, but now he hates him with a passion. Mrs. Puff was annoyed by Spongebob too, but now in one of the episodes, she loses her 'puff' (IDEK) and tries to kill him. KILL. HIM.

Patrick has become completely stupid. He was dumb before, but...he just seems different now.

Sandy is different as well. I don't know how to explain it, but it seems like they're focusing more on the science-smarty-pants part of her personality, which was never the focus in the old episodes.

 Mr. Krabs is way too obsessed with money, which he loved before but now he goes so far as to steal a mysteriously magnetic Gary (spoiler alert it was because he swallowed a magnet) from Spongebob with the intention of finding every coin in Bikini Bottom. He's supposed to be cheap, yes, but I think this is a little too much.

And Gary? He used to have some sort of unspoken wisdom in old episodes. Now he's just 'Spongebob's Pet'.

Take a look at my image about the episode Band Geeks. If the text is too small, I'll write it out.

"It goes without saying that this the best episode of Spongebob Squarepants. Even casual viewers of the show can recognize it as a funny, heartwarming episode that demonstrates just what made Spongebob great in the first place: a strong sense of humor that lends itself to immensely quotable lines (Is mayonnaise an instrument?), a solid plot, and for once giving Squidward, the show's resident Butt Monkey, an immensely satisfying victory. It becomes even better once you realize that his victory is thanks to the little yellow sponge who annoys him so much. This proves that no matter how many times Spongebob annoys Squidward, he will always care about him, and can pull through for him. Add that to a fantastic musical finale, and this can easily go down as one of the most memorable cartoon episodes ever made."

There we go. The new episodes are nothing like this. I miss the episodes with no cynicism, a 'strong sense of humor' (the new episodes mostly have crude humor and the like). I see almost no quotes from new episodes, except Toy Store of Doom where Patrick couldn't hear because it was "too dark in there". 

I don't really have anything else to say. The guy who wrote out that episode review pretty much said it all. 

I miss Spongebob. And some of the new episodes are good of course, but they will never add up to the episodes from season 1-3 that were my childhood. The new episodes lose their funniness after the first couple times I see them, unless it's a very long time between my viewings of it. The old episodes still have that charm that make me laugh almost every time I see it.

Rant over.