Squidward Tentacles

"Too bad SpongeBob's not here to enjoy SpongeBob not being here."

- Squidward in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie "Everyone's a critic."

- Squidward

"Why must every eleven minutes of my life be filled with misery?!"

- Squidward Tentacles's most famous quote.

"In case you've forgotten, here's how things work. I order the food, you cook the food, the customer gets the food. We do that for forty years and then we die. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, what do you say?"

- Squidward's famous speech to Spongebob from "My Pretty Seahorse".

Squidward Tentacles (born October 9, 1972) is the anti-heroic tritagonist of the animated series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is an offbeat neighbor of SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star, as well as the rude, disloyal and lazy cashier of the Krusty Krab restaurant. Despite this, he is also quite sympathetic, of course as his life is little more than a dismal failure, and he is constantly pushed to the brink of insanity by his mischievous neighbours. SpongeBob and Patrick consider Squidward to be their friend, but this feeling is not mutual. Squidward also has a passion and interest in reading, arts, and music, and is very fond of playing the clarinet, though no one considers him to be very good at it, the same for his artwork. Although he hates him with a passion, Squidward usually does show a side of kindness and compassion for SpongeBob at times and even respects him. He is rivals with another octopus named Squilliam Fancyson.

He is voiced by Rodger Bumpass.

Biography
Squidward Q. Tentacles was born to Mr. and Mrs. Tentacles.

During Squidward's childhood, he always had to sit near the garbage cans at lunch, as he wasn't known as a friend by many people, as revealed in the episode "Boating Buddies."

In 1998 or January 1999, he became part of the Krusty Krab along with Jim and later, after Jim had quit, with a fry cook whose name is yet to be revealed. One day, Squidward was gardening when suddenly, a pineapple from a boat above fell on him and destroyed his garden. A sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants then moved into the pineapple and Squidward has been grumpy ever since.

Squidward's personality is grumpy, short-tempered, selfish, and of course, miserable, frustrated, cranky, and serious. In spite of this, he is still one of the most intelligent characters, and out of the ten major characters, he can be categorized as the most educated one, along with Mr. Krabs, Sandy, Plankton, and Gary. He has a sarcastic attitude and sees others as uncivilized morons while failing to accept his own personal shortcomings. Squidward sees himself as misunderstood and unappreciated, blaming society for his failures.

He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of fame and is either unwilling or unable to spot talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown," he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method," even when it is painfully clear that SpongeBob has artistic genius. In the episode "Bubblestand," he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble blowing. Squidward is also jealous of those who are more artistic than he is, for example, Nat Peterson, Patrick Star, Mr. Krabs, Squilliam Fancyson and even the puppet Big Nose.

Squidward is generally portrayed as an overall failure. His musical skills with the clarinet are generally portrayed as sub-par, from mediocre to excruciatingly horrible. However, there have been numerous exceptions (in "Bubblestand" and "Hello Bikini Bottom!") he plays nice after practicing SpongeBob's 'technique,' at the end of "Christmas Who?," he manages to play great with the one SpongeBob carved for him. In "That's No Lady," he manages to play a nice tune to woo Patricia. In addition, in "Best Day Ever," he even has a concert where he plays beautifully and receives thunderous applause from the audience. SpongeBob was even on the VIP list for it. It seems that he is actually capable of playing the clarinet very well by providing the full effort. He plays well enough in "Hello Bikini Bottom!" for a musical manager to offer him and SpongeBob a job.

His overall artistic style is shown to be abstract and overly sophisticated, and his works are commonly panned by his audiences. His critical failure is shown to be more due to his bad taste, rather than a genuine lack of talent. It is worth noting that the majority of his art centers on himself, apparently holding his very being to be an artistic wonder. In the episode "One Krab's Trash," Squidward is shown bringing flowers to a gravestone reading "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Despite his lack of success, Squidward is tireless in his pursuit of artistic achievement. In "Dunces and Dragons," Squidly, Squidward's medieval ancestor, vowed that if he could not learn to play the clarinet right, his seventh great-grandson would be cursed tenfold. In "Squilliam Returns," Squilliam Fancyson mentions that Squidward was voted "Most Likely to Suck Eggs" in high school.

Given how Squidward is depicted as a loser in most regards, it is likely that his narcissism is actually a defense mechanism to make him feel as if he has some form of self-worth. Outwardly, he shows signs of modest success: he lives in a nice, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life.

Squidward is well educated and knows his history. He is actually intelligent and has a lot of worldly knowledge, especially compared to those of SpongeBob and Patrick. Squidward is also a skilled driver, as he manages to drive virtually everything, from a traditional bike, a boat, car, and even a tractor. Squidward is a good-natured and caring person; he just does not like to get too involved in things.

When he is at the Krusty Krab, he is a lazy, sloppy employee (as shown in the "Krusty Krab Training Video") who has an intense dislike of the Krusty Krab and its management. He is considered "inattentive, impatient," with "a glazed look in the eye." However, given the management's treatment of the employees, his attitude towards the company is more realistic than SpongeBob's. In the episode "Squid on Strike," he organizes a worker's strike at the Krusty Krab. He even causes the destruction of the Krusty Krab, although indirectly and accidentally.

In the episode "Squidville," he moves to a town filled with his own peers, other octopuses who share his tastes and outlook on life. Here, he is forced to face how boring and oppressive his desired lifestyle really is, and he is able to ultimately break free of its bonds with a bit of inspired silliness.

Even though Squidward has tentacles, he is shown or implied to have fingers, toes and even nails in episodes such as "Once Bitten," "House Fancy," and "Giant Squidward."

In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V," it is implied that Squidward at one point had a girlfriend when he remembered the good times he had at Make-out Reef.

In "Love That Squid," it revealed he has not dated for a long time before Squilvia came into his life.

Description
Squidward Tentacles is a light turquoise octopus and has purple suction cups at the end of his tentacles. He has six limbs in total, two being arms, and four being legs, which tend to make the shape of a plus sign when he stands in place. Whenever he walks, his suction cups stick to the floor, meaning that he walks with a distinct squelching noise. Squidward has a large cranium with eight holes on the top of it, presumably show his baldness. However, in the episode "The Original Fry Cook," it showed that he had long blonde hair once. He also has a skinny body, a big droopy nose, a wide mouth, and yellow eyes with rectangle vertical dark red irises and rectangle red pupils. When he laughs, his nose appears to deflate and inflate repeatedly. He wears a brown short-sleeved shirt, which is sometimes shorter. In reality, Squidward is only eight inches and two ounces.

His color is inconsistent throughout the series. While he is shown to be lighter green in earlier episodes, in later episodes he is shown having a lighter and a more like blue color.

In the episode "Just One Bite," it shows a close up of Squidward's face, revealing it disturbing and very morbid. This has scared some kids that watch the show. In the episode Frankendoodle, he was wearing fancy clothing in one scene.

In the episode "Sandy's Rocket," Squidward is shown to be wearing an old version of his nightwear. It is pink with magenta-colored flowers on it. In newer episodes such as "Sentimental Sponge," Squidward is seen wearing his real nightgown. In this episode, he refers to it as a "night shirt." It is a light purple nightgown that comes with a matching nightcap. It is the third version of his nightwear. The second version would appear in episodes like "Funny Pants" and "Employee of the Month."

It is shown in the episode "Bulletin Board" that Squidward has a tattoo of a red rose on his right arm.

Personality
As described through the rejected opening theme in Truth or Square, Squidward is obnoxious, abrasive, conceded octopus who constantly annoyed by Spongebob and Patrick's mischievous behavior, and cares with the two as much he resented them. Being most cynical and serious out of main casts, he also noted to be grouchy, sarcastic, pessimistic and lazy, along with tendency to get angry, yet at the same time, he is capable of being caring and extremely protective.

Squidward also has a passion and interest in reading, arts, and music, and is very fond of playing the clarinet, though no one considers him to be very good at it, the same for his artwork due to his bad taste. While this at times earned him mild ridicule at best and irrational hatred at worst from some Bikini Bottomites (who may or may not have same standards with the octopus), this is now always the case, as he indeed capable in improving his artistic talents. Despite acting snobbish, his personal hygiene is actually not that great, as sometimes, he doesn't use toilet paper, especially if he is feeling down, which is most of the time.

Squidward is honest, loyal to his friends, independent and headstrong. He usually is assertive, cool, calm, collected and earnest behavior, but easily angered, which at times makes him an antagonist in the series. Squidward also is one of Spongebob's best friends and, despite being often annoyed with him, Squidward actually like him. When not angered, Squidward is polite and jovial.

Despite being arguably the most unpleasant out of the main casts second only to Mr. Krabs, Squidward is capable of being heroic, brave, kind-hearted and selfless, risking his life to save anyone or get them out of trouble, and shows empathy for people, sometimes even for Spongebob and Patrick. As worst as he can be (portrayal in his deteriorating portrayal in post first-movie seasons where one of the instances being reading SpongeBob's diary out loud), Squidward retains his mundane set of values and scruples, as he can't help but appaled by Mr. Krabs' greed and Patrick's stupidity which more than often clouded their better judgement. It was also shown in some episodes such as "Skill Crane" and "Slide Whistle Stooges" that Squidward does capable of seeing the fun side of his neighbors' antics, though unfortunately, the octopus displayed less self-control than either of them that he is prone to genuinely annoy and worse, harm both himself and others in process, much to SpongeBob and Patrick's dismay.

Powers and Abilities

 * Intelligence: Squidward is actually smarter than SpongeBob in many ways, as he had better IQ and more knowledgeable than the latter like Sandy.
 * Boneless: Like SpongeBob, Squidward has been shown to be quite fragile due to his laced bones. Although, he sometimes is shown to have one depend on the writer of the episodes.
 * Durability: Squidward is very durable, as in one episode, he survived a nuclear explosion.
 * Artistic Skills: Squidward proved himself as the artist with promising talent in singing, painting, sculpture, playing his trademark clarinet, etc. Unfortunately, he's not always appreciated on his works due to his somewhat bad taste.
 * Magma Manipulation: As Captain Magma, he can control and fires magma blasts from the volcanic cone on his mask. Unfortunately, due to lack of proper mastery over his powers, it resulted in him accidentally toasting SpongeBob (where ironically, he didn't intend to harm him as his intended target was Man-Ray, Dirty Bubble, and evil Barnacle Boy).
 * Sonic Wave Emission: As Sour Note, he can fire sonic waves (which often depicted as a blast of bubbles) from his signature clarinet, either in form of sonic waves that paralyzes everyone who hears it and in the form of a concussive beam.

Occupation
Squidward works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with his co-worker, SpongeBob SquarePants. He not only hates his duties but the Krusty Krab itself, and he performs his job rather poorly and with a lack of enthusiasm. He also frequently behaves rudely to the customers. He has often expressed a desire to be fired or simply quit, but never makes good on it; he only seems to work there because he needs the money. In "Just One Bite," he reveals that he has never eaten a Krabby Patty and thinks them to be disgustingly unhealthy, although after having "just one bite," he falls in love with them. However, this fact is contradicted by an earlier episode in which SpongeBob forgets how to tie his shoelaces and, consequently, throws several Krabby Patties down Squidward's throat. (An explanation for this could be that since he did not taste them with his tongue, he thought they were bad). In "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," Squidward is the manager of the Krusty Krab 2 for six days, although due to Plankton's invasion of Bikini Bottom, the new restaurant is not in service during this time. It is also shown here that Squidward actually cares about what happens to the Krusty Krab and the Krabby Patty formula when he discovers Plankton selling Krabby Patties and threatens to report him to King Neptune. In Selling Out, Squidward worked as the waiter for Krabby O' Mondays. He was forced to maintain a false state of happiness, or else face "Human Resources," a thug in the back of the building.

Trivia

 * Squidward seems to shares similarities with Donald Duck due to their pessimistic and grumpy behavior, as well as their own misery and prideful.
 * Squidward seems to have a rivalry with Gary, Spongebob's snail. In lesser extent, he also archenemies to Samantha "Sam" Star, Patrick's older sister due to nearly killing each other when finally fed up with her behavior which turned out more volatile than Patrick.
 * As with the rest of main casts, Squidward's portrayal in post first movie seasons (Season 4-Season 9) became increasingly negative as result of his worst traits exaggerated through the show's flanderization, with his portrayal in Little Yellow Book where he was at his worst. Fortunately, this has since revised following the end of Season 9.
 * Sometimes, his Breakdowns are unreasonable, only stemming from his hatred of SpongeBob SquarePants. One example is in Good Neighbors, where he deems that SpongeBob and Patrick are the "worst neighbors ever". SpongeBob tries his best to reason with him, but Squidward unreasonably loses his temper even further, causing a true Villainous Breakdown to occur where he says that they are not good neighbors (which is what they tried to be in the first place), but instead horrible neighbors that must be kept out or even destroyed utterly.