Template:Important Template:Infobox SpongeBob SquarePants is the titular main protagonist of the animated television series of the same name and is voiced by Tom Kenny. He first appeared on television in the series' pilot episode Help Wanted on May 1, 1999. Spongebob was created and designed by cartoonist Stephen Hillenburg shortly after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life in 1996. Hillenburg intended to create a series about an over-optimistic sponge that annoys other characters. Hillenburg compared the concept to Laurel and Hardy and Pee-wee Herman. As he drew the character, he decided that a "squeaky-clean square" (like a kitchen sponge) fits the concept. His name is derived from "Bob the Sponge", the host of Hillenburg's comic strip The Intertidal Zone that he originally drew in 1989 while studying at the California Institute of Arts.
Being a sponge, SpongeBob is dimwitted (although he is smarter than his starfish friend), goofy and loyal. He lives in an orange pineapple house in the fictional underwater town of Bikini Bottom.
SpongeBob has achieved popularity with both children and adults, though he has been involved in public controversy. The character appeared in a We Are Family Foundation video promoting tolerance, which was criticized by James Dobson of Focus on the Family because of the foundation's link to homosexuality.
SpongeBob is an anthropomorphic kitchen-type sponge with two buck teeth, blue eyes, wears brown rectangular-like pants (probably attached to the white shirt with the red tie), black shoes, and red/blue-striped socks.
Being a sponge, SpongeBob is hyper, clueless, honest, kind-hearted, naive, friendly and optimistic. He works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab Resturant in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom. He loves his job very much and performs it very well, even though his greedy cheap boss Mr. Krabs pays him poorly if not rarely. He can also get very overly reacted. Like from the episode The Bully, he started getting real petrified of getting his butt kicked from new student Flatts the Flounder. But it was turned out that as a sponge, he did not get hurt much after all. SpongeBob also cares for his loyal pet snail, Gary, who only meows like a cat, and loves hanging out with his best brainless friend, Patrick Star, a friendly but dim-witted pink sea star who lives under rock. Their middle neighbour is Squidward Tentacles, a grumpy, ill-tempered and self-centered octopus who lives in an Easter Island Tiki head-shaped house and hates both SpongeBob and Patrick with a passion because of their annoying antics, maturity you would expect from a sponge and starfish, and them always ruining his day. However, they are both unaware of this and believe him to be their closest friend. SpongeBob's other best friend is Sandy Cheeks, an anthropomorphic female squirrel from Texas, who is a highly scientist and karate expert. It may be hinted she and SpongeBob have crushes on each other, as in Truth of Sponge, a clip scene show them married, though it turned out to be a play despite the priest didn't realized it. There's a possibility however, that Spongebob actually had a part-time job at that moment, and Sandy actually volunteered to help him.
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Flanderized Unpleasant Side
Unfortunately, Spongebob's "unpleasant side" (his obnoxious and idiocy) seemingly flanderized to a certain degree after the movie version of the series released, specifically since 4th season, along with some characters include Patrick, Krabs, and Squidward. It is shown that he became more annoying, as seen in Good Neighbour. His idocy causes him to annoys everyone more, as seen in Have You Seen This Snail?, where he accidentally drove Gary away, and worst of all can be seen in A Pal for Gary episode, where his obnoxious side is at his worst, where viewer sees Spongebob's antagonistic side toward Gary. This practically made him to become more like a Protagonist Villain like Eugene H. Krabs as his darker deed was on par with villains' that became Moral Event Horizon crossers.
However, these darker side of SpongeBob's doesn't made him become a full-blown one yet. He still retain his heroic/good behavior, as in Barnacle Face, he helps Pearl to be more prettier in her school dance after found out that Krabs literally (and unforgivably) made her suffer with a fake soap from Krabby Patty leftover. Not only that, at one point after 4th/5th season, this darker and obnoxious side seemingly decreases to it's former level, though sometimes intensifies again in a few episode, but became normal again, effectively making him an on-off dimwitted person.
The other notable obnoxious side of SpongeBob were signs of paranoid attitude; he had tendency to scared easily, often overly reacted and usually panics when frightened. In Rodeo Daze episode, he kidnapped people, who would not help him, to help him save Sandy from a rodeo. That is technically illegal because it counts as kidnapping. However, he did it because consumed by his fear toward clowns and mistake rodeo as "commit suicide" as well as he afraid to clowns, sees them as "bloodthirsty beast". Another example of this atitude also shown in Just One Bite episode, where he forced Squidward to eat a Krabby Patty only because he never eat one. Spongebob even did this out of fear, as he seemingly thought that Squidward only have "few seconds to live" without a Krabby Patty. Not only that, in episode Wormy, he became scared by Wormy's butterfly form to the point that he causes panic to entire town only to warn them about Wormy's new form. At that point, he was scared to Wormy after it's metamorphosis process into butterfly and mistook it's cocoon as it's corpse. Worse, he also so scared as the Wormy's new form was a kaiju.