Are ya ready, kids? Welcome to the SpongeBob shrine! This little square dude has been a big part of my childhood, and to this day is my biggest comfort character. Please note that this page will focus on the character of SpongeBob rather than the actual show.
SpongeBob SquarePants is the protagonist of the Nickelodeon children's show of the same name. He is an anthropomorphic yellow tube sponge with a childlike and optimistic attitude. Created by Stephen Hillenburg and voiced by Tom Kenny, SpongeBob has gone on to become one of the most recognized, popular, and highly-praised cartoon characters of all time since his debut in 1999.
SpongeBob is a good-natured, naive, and enthusiastic sea sponge who resides with other anthropomorphic sea creatures in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom. He works as a fry cook at the most popular restaurant in town, the Krusty Krab, where he highly regards his position and career. His boss, a red crab named Mr. Krabs, is incredibly stingy and greedy, but acts as a father figure to him. Squidward Tentacles, a snobbish and ill-tempered blue octopus who is also SpongeBob's next-door neighbor, works as the cashier. (Despite his feelings of annoyance towards SpongeBob, he is shown to genuinely care about him.) Outside of work, SpongeBob is shown to enjoy karate with Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel from Texas. His best friend is his other neighbor, Patrick Star, a dim-witted pink starfish who often engages in SpongeBob's other hobbies of jellyfishing and blowing bubbles. Inside his pineapple home, SpongeBob takes care of his pet snail, Gary. And despite his multiple attempts to do so, SpongeBob struggles to get his driver's license from Mrs. Puff's Boating School.
SpongeBob is a character that symbolizes positivity and kindness to so many people, including myself. My family couldn't afford cable TV until I was around 10 or 11 years old, but my grandparents had all of the cool kids channels. A lot of the early memories of my grandparents' place is getting to play in their basement living area, watching SpongeBob and building Legos or playing board games. I'd borrow "How to Draw SpongeBob Characters" books from the library and draw pictures with pencils and crayons.
We moved towns and we got cable TV. I wanted to share my love of the show with others finally, but the classmates in my small Midwestern town wanted nothing to do with "kids shows." One time, I was at the house of a girl whose parents worked with mine. She was in the same grade as me, so naturally we were made to hang out while our parents did. She let me pick something to watch, and so naturally I picked SpongeBob. She then immediately left the room to take a shower, and the moment the episode ended, she switched it to "Cops." I was scared. This was a grown-up show and I wasn't allowed to watch it, but I felt like it was her turn to pick so I just sat there. I lived in that town for five years, and I always felt so scared to admit that I even into my middle school years, I still liked the show. There are other reasons I've grown to kinda dislike my time at that school, but feeling unable to share my basic interests, even to some of my closest friends, was among them.
Freshman year of high school we moved again. This was the fourth school and fourth town of childhood. While I was nervous about yet another adjustment, I was delightfully surprised about how many of my classmates here were still indulging in interests that I were told were childish. Although it took a while, I began to slowly embrace sharing my love for SpongeBob again. And I'm glad I'm able to enjoy SpongeBob all these years later, because like? It's a great show. God forbid a woman have fun!
My junior year of college, to celebrate the success of selling at my first convention, I bought a SpongeBob plush from Walmart. Since then this plush, who I've affectionately dubbed "Spunch," has accompanied me on various trips, vacations, and conventions. Whenever I love Spunch with all of my heart, being a massive comfort item to me. If I am stressed or overwhelmed, I like to hold Spunch close to my chest. He's perfectly square, so it's like hugging a throw pillow that has little dangly limbs. The years of cuddling have started to flatten him, so he isn't as plush as he used to be. But as they say, "To be loved is to be changed." I plan to hold onto Spunch as long as I physically can. After all, he and I got to actually MEET Tom Kenny at Des Moines Con 2023.
Like my other interests, I like to collect merchandise of my favorite characters and arrange them into little displays on my shelves. Fortunately for me, it is INCREDIBLY easy to get SpongeBob merch here. Any basic corporate retailer in America will carry something SpongeBob-related. Toys, puzzles, posters, clothing... Nickelodeon used to not create too much merchandise for their shows, as they thought children could recognize when they were being marketed to. After SpongeBob came out, Nickelodeon threw that mindset aside and now it's hard NOT to find a SpongeBob version of something. Sometimes, I am not immune to capitalism, and that's okay.