Sandy Cheeks

Sandra "Sandy" Cheeks is the main tritagonist of Nickeloden's SpongeBob SquarePants. She is the only main female character.

She is a anthromporphic squirrel and one of SpongeBob's best friends. Sandy is notable for her Texan characteristics, stereotypical accent and knowledge of science. As revealed in  Patrick SmartPants and Atlantis SquarePantis, Sandy's real name is Sandra Cheeks. Sandy in other media has the only power called flight.

Description
Sandy comes from the state of Texas, she was actually born in Houston, Texas but she exhibits many characteristics of a stereotypical "cowgirl" character by going to every city in Texas. She speaks with a heavy southern accent, and uses typical southern slang words and phrases. She is very fond of her homeland and its culture, as most notably seen in the episode Texas, in which she grows homesick for it and considers leaving Bikini Bottom to return to Texas. In that same episode, she takes great offense at SpongeBob and Patrick's negative remarks about Texas, and violently attacks them when they continue to insult it.

Sandy is one of the most intelligent and level-headed characters on the show. She is a multi-talented scientist and inventor, and originally came to Bikini Bottom to study sea creatures and their lifestyles. In Chimps Ahoy, it is revealed that she is employed by a trio of chimpanzees from the surface, named Dr. Marmalade, Lord Reginald and Professor Percy. As an inventor, Sandy is capable of creating extremely advanced devices with ease. Her inventions include a manned space ship, a teleporter, a submarine that can shrink to microscopic size and go inside a person's body (Squidward the octopus'), and even a cloning device.

Sandy is also very athletic and physically fit. She and SpongeBob share a favorite pastime of Karate, and frequently fight each other for fun. The karate they use appears to be stylized to fit that of "play karate", as they both mainly fight with chops and kicks in a cartoonish manner. There also appears to be other forms of fighting in the series, most notably in Karate Island, where three other fish demonstrate unique fighting styles, (which looks more like stylized versions of Kung Fu rather than Karate).

Sandy also enjoys extreme sports and thrill-seeking, which SpongeBob also joins her in on occasion, most notably in Pre-Hibernation Week. Sandy possesses immense strength, and is one of the strongest creatures in Bikini Bottom. She is often seen at Mussel Beach lifting weights with Larry the Lobster, of whom she is a good friend, and other muscular fish. In MuscleBob BuffPants, Sandy shows SpongeBob her immense biceps and intense daily exercise routine. In that same episodes, she wins the eighth annual Goo Lagoon anchor toss competition, tossing an enormous anchor 510 yards.

Character
While generally friendly and positive, Sandy is prone to mood swings and can be vicious when angered, most notably in Texas. In Pre-Hibernation Week, when she believes SpongeBob has gone missing, Sandy forces everyone in Bikini Bottom to help look for him, sending them to dangerous places such as Sulphur fields and poison sea urchin coves. When SpongeBob fails to surface, she grows agitated and starts literally overturning buildings in her efforts to find him. In Survival of the Idiots, Sandy is shown during her hibernation as an obese, monstrous version of herself (prior to going into hibernation, animals must have tremendous amounts of body fat and energy reserves in order to survive the winter). SpongeBob and Patrick enter her snow-filled Treedome and disturb her sleep, and the semi-conscious Sandy viciously attacks them, believing them to be "Dirty Dan" and "Pinhead Larry", two outlaws from her dreams.

She has also been shown to have a strong competitive streak and a high opinion of herself: in Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm, she completely ignores SpongeBob's warnings about the Alaskan Bull Worm and tells him that she is "too Texas tough", only to discover the hard way that the Bull Worm is indeed too much for her to handle; in Pressure, she continuously brags that land creatures are better than sea creatures and nearly drowns herself in an attempt to "prove" it.

Appearance
Sandy is most commonly see wearing her suit when she is outside her tree dome. The suit is white, and with a yellow patch with an acorn on it. It also has two red, and a blue ring(s) on each sleeve. The suit comes with a big glass dome (but it doesn't have an oxygen tank) with a pink flower. When Sandy appears inside the tree dome, she wears purple clothing, primarily a purple bikini top and a purple and green skirt like bottom.

Relationships
Sandy first met SpongeBob SquarePants when he saw her wrestling a giant clam and ran down to save her. Since then, Sandy has been one of SpongeBob's best friends, and she enjoys various activities such as karate with him. The nature of Sandy's relationship with SpongeBob is somewhat romantic. SpongeBob has brought her flowers on several occasions, and her official biography describes her as being "the apple of SpongeBob's eye (the only thing under the sea he likes better than his job at the Krusty Krab)". In "Tea at the Treedome" amorous music plays when SpongeBob recalls Sandy's words. SpongeBob's song in "Ripped Pants" has romantic lyrics. Many fans believe that Spongebob and Sandy have crushes on each other.

In the short, A Random Act of SpongeBob, SpongeBob leaves Sandy a letter (with a bouquet of flowers) calling her the "smartest, prettiest squirrel in all of Bikini Bottom" for "Surprise Sandy Day". In the video game Battle for Bikini Bottom, after saving Squidward from Robo-Patrick, SpongeBob and Sandy commented each other on a good job while looking flushed. A book called the SpongeBob SquarePants Survival Guide, released on November 1, 2002, has a page titled How to Survive a Secret Crush, saying that if you have a crush on someone, you have to keep it secret. SpongeBob begins to talk about him acting "perfectly natural" at the treedome, but quickly ends, saying "I've said too much!" The biggest hint was in Truth or Square, which depicted the two getting married.

Habitat
Sandy lives in a huge polyurethane dome known as the Treedome. It is air-locked and contains no water, making it the only place in Bikini Bottom where Sandy can survive without her suit. Its floor is covered in grass, and features a large tree, which contains Sandy's living quarters. The Treedome also humorously includes a giant hamster wheel, among other backyardish things. As seen in the episodes Survival of the Idiots, and Bubble Buddy, the dome produces snow during the winter, from which it can be assumed to simulate other weather patterns as well.

As seen in the episode Wormy, Sandy has many pets residing in her Treedome, including caterpillars, snakes, crickets, mice, and birds, among others.

The company that owns this and many other treedomes is the Tree Dome Enterprises Limited. Its board of directors, a group of chimps, came for an inspection in Chimps Ahoy.

Trivia

 * Oddly (yet somewhat explainable) she's called "Arenita" in the Latin American dub of the series. "Arenita" stands for "little sand" in Spanish, making it an accurate translation.
 * In the episode Scaredy Pants, Sandy dresses as a pet goldfish in a bowl for Halloween (her air helmet being the bowl), which Squidward, ironically, does not understand.
 * Sandy was responsible for introducing Bikini Bottom to Christmas. This happened in the episode Christmas Who?.
 * Sandy moved to Bikini Bottom from Houston, Texas, as revealed in The Essential Guide of SpongeBob.
 * In the episode Stanley S. SquarePants, an elderly Scottish relative of Sandy is shown.
 * In the episode To Save a Squirrel, Sandy is shown to have a boatmobile with the design of a Jeep.
 * Sandy cries in Ripped Pants, Texas, and What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?.
 * A package of GoGurt featuring Sandy claims she works for a company called "Tree Dome Enterprises Limited".
 * In Season 1, Sandy has three dots on her suit instead of an acorn.
 * Sandy's voice actress, Carolyn Lawrence, also voices Cindy Vortex on another Nickeledeon television series known as The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, who, like Sandy, practices martial arts. However, Cindy practices Tae-Kwon-Do, while Sandy practices karate.
 * Sandy is called "Sandra" for the first time in Patrick SmartPants.
 * In Season 1, Sandy's tail is not visible when she is wearing her suit in comparison to later seasons.
 * Despite being established as a scientist in later episodes, Sandy is oblivious to the basic fact that sea creatures cannot survive without water in her first appearance. Although, it's may be because SpongeBob told her that he likes air not knowing that she means without water.
 * She appeared the most in Season 1.
 * Sandy is known as the least appearing main character in the SpongeBob SquarePants series.
 * In an episode of The Fairly OddParents, the King of Atlantis mentions that his species enjoys eating crabs, starfish and the "occasional underwater squirrel". As he says this, he burps a squirrel tail out of his mouth, this may have been a near-death reference to Sandy (or one of her viusiting relatives).
 * In the live-action puppet sequence in the episode Pressure", Sandy is represented by a toy puppet and appears to be naked aside from her helmet.
 * It is possible that Sandy knows the Krabby patty formula prior to the episode, Karate Choppers, but it may be more likely they were making regular sandwiches in the park.
 * In Rodeo Daze it's revealed that Sandy has a twin brother named Randy.
 * Sandy appears in the Season 1 Halloween episode, Scaredy Pants. However, in the Season 7 Halloween episode, The Curse of Bikini Bottom, she doesn't appear.
 * Sandy is called "Sandy Squirrel" for the first time in SpongeBob's Last Stand.
 * Sandy is missing in many episodes, and has thus far had little interaction with most of the main characters.
 * Sandy appears in the Bikini Bottom Adventures DVD cover, but doesn't appear in the episodes.
 * Stephen Hillenburg said Sandy should come from Houston, because her suit reminded him of an astronaut.
 * Sandy's voice actress Carolyn Lawrence also voices Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4.
 * Sandy is most likely older than SpongeBob due to her height and her high intelligence.
 * She is one of the few characters whom Squidward does not seem to hate, but he is still sometimes rude to her even when she is kind to him.