History Headscratchers / SpongebobSquarePants

** He ''steals'' shit all the time! Just watch "One Krabs Trash", "The Smoking Peanut" and "Life of Crime". The krab is clearly a kleptomaniac.

[[folder: How Was He Legally Able to Do That?]]
* How Was [=SpongeBob=] legally taken as Pearl's prom date in "The Chaperone"? He's a full-grown man [[{{Manchild}} albeit with a very childlike demeanor]]; Pearl is a teenager. Wouldn't that be considered hebephilia or ephebophilia?
[[/folder]]

** They're likely two starfish just as dumb as Patrick and they thought Patrick was their son.

** Because Squidward tried in the episode "Squidville" (he moved to Tentacle Acres, a city filled with other squids), and he just couldn't take the monotony. He NEEDS the chaos that [=SpongeBob=] brings to his life.

** Because Squidward tried in one episode (he moved to a city of other squids), and he just couldn't take the monotony. He NEEDS the chaos that [=SpongeBob=] brings to his life.

** The burger patties were already made. A later episode shows them making a Krabby Patty mixture in a large bowl, so the recipe is definitely for the patty itself. Not the whole sandwich.

*** When Mr. Krabs has a day off.

** Get Squidward to force-feed it to you.
*** Alternatively, wait until you're too hungry to bother.

* Why does Mister Krabs have a vending machine in his house?

[[/folder: Spineless Spongebob]]

** Winning the lottery.

** As a holder of Bachelor's Arts in Economics, I can tell you that vendors don't really care what kind of problems their potential customers have. They just want to find the biggest crowd of people on their turf and [[OnlyInItForTheMoney try to sell them something]]. Why? Because ([[MoneyDearBoy LOTS of customers X price = LOTS of revenue/profit]]!)

** Speaking of the "main drain" episode, if Mr. Krabbs and Plankton pulled the main plug before, how did they get the ocean back?

*** He may have been embarrased about molting the shell but he still appeared in front of people without it and no one seemed very shocked that he was naked. Personally, I think the Sandy thing is just a failed attempt at a joke.

** Its been shown often that Mrs Puff and Squidward only hate [=SpongeBob=] because of how he acts during boating and work, ie how he fails every test and how he is annoyingly cheerful. In fact, Mrs Puff tries to protect [=SpongeBob=] from going to jail and Squidward has shown concern for [=SpongeBob=] more than one, and both have shown to be protective of his childlike innocence, for instance during the Hall Monitor and Pizza episodes. So its no stretch for them to go to his parties, especially since their other friends will be there. Not to mention this was during the early seasons, when their hatred wasn't as pronounced. Its only the later seasons when they adamantly refuse to have anything to do with him, and even go as far as to try and kill him.

** Excuse me, but the episode itself might be 11 minutes, but in-universe, several hours had gone by.

*** I've always thought that when someone says "Mother of Pearl" they were exclaiming it in surprise, because this "Mother of Pearl"doesn't exist. Perhaps the same goes for [=SpongeBob=] and Mr. Krabs?

** [[BizarroEpisode That episode is really, really, ''really'' weird,]] and the two themselves lampshade this at the end. The episode itself then ends [[MindScrew with a live-action family quizzically looking at the television screen and shutting it off]].

* Why didn't Squidward notice that there is a gorilla just sitting around his house in ''I Had An Accident''? Instead he was watering his plants nonchalantly.

** PoliceAreUseless, and Jerkasses.

* Maybe there was a worm in that apple controlling its movements.

* In regards to the story of the Ugly Barnacle:
** Why didn't anyone think of blindfolding themselves to protect their eyes from the ugly?
*** I think it's because it wasn't ''seeing'' the ugliness of the barnacle that killed them, it was ''being in the presence'' of it, whether they actually laid eyes upon it or not. It was ''just that ugly.''
*** Because they didn't know it would be that ugly. Everyone who saw it died and wasn't able to spread information.
** Was the barnacle ALWAYS ugly? At what point did everyone die, and how long did it take? Did the barnacle's ugliness kill everyone at the exact instant that he was born, or was it something that happened later in life and more gradually?
*** [[MathematiciansAnswer Yes.]] Presumably, they died when they met him.
** If "everyone" died, how did the barnacle die? Did it look into a mirror?
*** Old age.
*** [[WildMassGuessing Since everyone was dead, he became very lonely, and he was]] DrivenToSuicide.
*** He was so ugly, everybody killed him. Then the fumes from his corpse killed everybody.
*** "Everyone" could include himself.
*** By "everyone dying", this would include security guards, water purifiers, farmers and other people. The Ugly Barnacle would of eventually starved to death since no one would be able to manage resources for him, causing his stomach to eat itself and become too weak to live.
** I was reading this to help overcome my ugliness like the story was advertised to do, and it didn't help at all! What gives?
*** No matter how ugly you are, you'll never be as ugly as the Ugly Barnacle. That's how it's supposed to help.
*** Well, think of it this way: at least no one is dying because of your ugliness.
*** You're not ugly; you just have bad breath.
** How was that story supposed to help?
*** Possibly to assure Spongebob that while he may be ugly, he is not as ugly as the Ugly Barnacle. Or perhaps to tell Spongebob that [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop it doesn't matter if he's ugly, because everyone he knows is going to die]].
*** Or [[TheDitz Patrick]] is just [[CaptainObvious dumb.]]
** So if everyone died, did the Barnacle die too?
*** Well, only if you count something so hideous as a person.
** So if everybody died, [[UndeadAuthor where does the story about the ugly barnacle come from?]]
*** A few details got mixed up over generations, and there were actually a few survivors.
*** Or maybe only everybody in a certain region of Bikini Bottom died, and it was major news or something.
*** [[CaptainObvious Or it's just a story.]]
*** He told his offspring as he repopulated the world.
*** So we're all the inbred offspring of some asexually-reproducting creature that was so ugly that everyone died? [[SarcasmMode Thanks]].
*** That didn't help!
*** "Everyone died" in a story doesn't mean every single living thing-it means every important character in the story. Since there's only one character, "everyone" just refers to the Barnacle himself.
** Are there more details to the story, or are we just left guessing the plot? Unless that is the author's intention.
*** That IS the whole story, in its minimalistic glory.
** If everyone died, why is Spongebob and Patrick still around?
*** It happened in an {{Alternate Universe}}. Or Patrick's an {{Unreliable Narrator}}.
*** Or [[Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar they are already dead]].
*** Or it's just a story.
*** Or it was a [[ApocalypseHow Class 1 Apocalypse]], and only a certain region of Bikini Bottom was left uninhabited.
*** See above about how "everyone died" in a story generally only refers to the important characters, not literally every single person in the Universe.
*** Maybe everyone only meant all sentient living things died, leaving out single-celled organisms (bacteria and protists aren't usually thought of as on the same level as a multicellular organism). Life then re-evolved from these survivors.
** Is the Barnacle really an OmnicidalManiac? There is no evidence that he's evil ''or'' crazy. I always had him pegged as a TragicMonster.
*** So very many {{Alternate Character Interpretations}} for such a small story.
** Was the Ugly Barnacle born from reproductive methods? If so, did everyone start dying as soon as he was conceived? Why did his parent(s) allow the barnacle to cause the death of everyone?
*** As soon as he was conceived? Probably not. Born? Probably. For the last one they were probably dead.
** Umm . . . why, exactly, does a ThrowawayLine from Spongebob have such a huge trope page?
*** I was shocked too. This is such a massive MemeticMutation that it's trope pages are more comprehensive that many other trope pages for other published works. I think the best answer is "Why not?".
*** ForTheLulz
*** What, this wiki can't use RuleOfFunny?
*** How dare you! This is a triumph of 21st century literature, a true epic for the ages!
*** 'cuz this ain't one of those stories full of unnecessary details.Analyzing it is the best part about such a minimalist tale,people will probably be still discussing it when we are all dead!.
*** from the Barnacle
*** "Throwaway"? This is a revealing look into the mind of Cloudcuckoolander Patrick! Who could've thought that such a happy-go-lucky starfish had such an appreciation for the dark side of literature?
*** Because we're just weird like that. Have you ''seen'' some of the things tropers say and do? The whole damn website qualifies as its own CloudCuckooLand.
*** Welcome to the internet, good sir/madam. Do not expect anything to be sensible or logical. This is your first step.
*** I do believe the answer you are looking for can be found in a certain little 2008 film. "Why so serious?"
** What is the barnacle's name anyway? Does he not even have a name? Did his mother die before he could even be named? Is it just a case of EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep? Is it that his name [[HeWhoMustNotBeNamed must not be mentioned?]]
*** I believe that people grew superstitious as the barnacle continued to kill people with his presence. His name could have become taboo, through some primitive belief that it would summon him.
*** Surely, the barnacle had a name. But all who knew it (and knew him) were killed, so there is no one left who remembers.
** So, this is one danged ugly barnacle. Did his "mother," for lack of a better term, immediately die upon spotting "him" once he was first given life as a larvae? Was "she" the first victim?
** Why didn't anyone try to resist the EldritchHorror that was slowly undoing their world?
** When the barnacle was born as a larvae, did the world just explode instantly?

*** To top it off, he found out later that Squidward read his ([[spoiler:''work'']]) diary in "Little Yellow Book and didn't really know and, in the case of ''Bubble Buddy'', he tried but they threw him out of the way.

*** He also apparently grew taller [[spoiler: before he transformed [=SpongeBob=] into a god near the end of Neptune's Spatula]]. He must be able to change size at will.

* In "Home Sweet Pineapple", just as [[spoiler:the nematodes eat [=SpongeBob=]'s house]], [=SpongeBob=] exclaims, "Hooray Gary, we're finally huge!"... since when, better yet, WHY, did [=SpongeBob=] (and Gary?) dream of being huge?

* I don't understand a lot about the Black Jack episode. For those who don't know, the big TwistEnding at the end of the episode is that [=SpongeBob=]'s violent cousin Black Jack is really [[spoiler: about as tall as Plankton]]. Yet while [=SpongeBob=] was tiny (older episodes showed this), he got bigger, while Black Jack must have stayed the same... the EXACT same, personality, dress, voice, etc. And why is it none of [=SpongeBob=]'s relatives tell him how small Black Jack is? Are they really THAT afraid of a guy who [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking littered]] to not see him for as long as [=SpongeBob=] had?

* How long has Plankton been trying to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula? We do know that it's been [[spoiler:since they were kids in school together]], but how long ago was that? In one episode, Plankton reveals that he's been throwing card games for 15 years, waiting for Krabs to "slip up," and Mr. Krabs' [[spoiler:first dime is a large rock-- "I've been in business a long time, boy."]]
** [[spoiler: [=SpongeBob=] didn't always work for the Krusty Krab, so it's likely that Plankton was throwing card games from before then. As for the first dime, Krabs is very greedy. He'd likely take any form of money as long as it's valid somewhere]].