I watched too much TV growing up, but the shows I watched definitely shaped my personality. Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney Channel. If you are a kid from the 2000s (and didn’t live under a rock), you have had some experience with these channels. I watch a little bit of every show that was up, but what really resonated with seven-year-old me (and now eighteen-year-old me) was the yellow Porifera, SpongeBob SquarePants.
SpongeBob SquarePants is a cartoon like no other. The show revolves around a charismatic talking underwater sponge, SpongeBob, who works as a fry cook in the Krusty Krab. The show follows SpongeBob as he interacts with his friends Patrick the starfish, Squidward the octopus, Sandy the sea squirrel, and Mr. Krabs the crab. SpongeBob and Patrick go jelly fishing together, SpongeBob makes krabby patties at the Krusty Krab, Squidward plays the clarinet very poorly. Everything about the show is off the wall.
Yes, it is very wacky and very childish, but a type of childish that everyone loves to experience. In fact, I had to laugh a few times while writing this, because the concepts of the show sound even more ridiculous out loud. The Krusty Krab, Patrick the starfish? A five-year-old must have come up with this stuff, or an absolute comedic genius.
The show has a very clever way of appealing to comedy. First and foremost, it is extreme obscure, but in the way that makes enough sense to be amusing. The show also satirizes situations which people face in everyday life. The jokes that I appreciate the most now are the ones which satirize working in the food industry. During the summers of 2019 and 2020, I worked at my local bakery. Let me say, it was not the most preferable experience (but it was a job). The Kusty Krab in SpongeBob is a giant parody on working in the food industry: Squidward is the worker who hates his job because life is difficult and customer service is dreadful (depicted in a comedic manner, of course), Mr. Krabs is the greedy owner who doesn’t pay his workers well, the customers act like idiots every so often. Everything about this running joke is so relatable and never ceases to keep me laughing.
To this day, I still quote SpongeBob lines because they are so iconic. I connect with so many people through SpongeBob. The amount of friendships I’ve formed on the shared appreciation for SpongeBob is so large that it is uncountable. I grew up watching the show with my brothers all the time, so we have a shared identity within SpongeBob. In fact, we’ll still turn on some old episodes from time to time.
Although it is considered a “kid show,” it can still be appreciated by people of all ages. This is the same for all “kid shows.” These shows are like their own artform, allowing people to express themselves through innocent fun. Just like SpongeBob, these shows can excite people with the fun they entail, make people laugh with the comedy they insight, and connect to people with the relatable situations they pose. Some other “kid shows” that have done the same for me are Drake and Josh, Chowder, Phineas and Ferb, iCarly, The Fairly Odd Parents, The Misadventures of Flapjack, Adventure Time, the list just goes on and on. Every aspect of these shows has impacted the way I view life (and the way I make jokes). These “kid shows” should not be slept on. They can be just as quality of an experience as any “serious show.”