History Trivia / SpongeBobSquarepants

*** The uncut version of "Just One Bite" (which includes the deleted scene of the burglar alarm). It aired uncut for a while, but it was censored after a few reruns in 2002/2003 due to complaints from MoralGuardians. It hasn't aired uncut on American television (be it Nickelodeon or Nicktoons) for almost 15 years. Don't push your luck trying to find it on VHS and DVD, as all releases have the censored version. The only way to see it uncut is if you live in Canada or if you own an old [=VideoNow=] release of the episode.[[note]]... Or you can find it on [=YouTube=].[[/note]]

** In Portugal, there are two European Portuguese dubs of the series: the first one made by Graficine in 2000 which aired on SIC covering the first 3 seasons and the second one made by Pim Pam Pum which not only redubbed season 3 in 2005 on Nickelodeon Portugal, but also the first 2 seasons on the same channel in 2009.

** In Portugal, there are two European Portuguese dubs of the series: the first one made by Graficine in 2000 which aired on SIC covering the first 3 seasons and the second one made by Pim Pam Pum which not only redubbed season 3 in 2005 on Nickelodeon, but also the first 2 seasons on the same channel in 2009.

** In the French dub, Erik Colin (Patrick, the Narrator, and the Flying Dutchman) died in December 2014. Patrick is now voiced by Boris Rehlinger, and the Dutchman is now voiced by Paul Borne.

** "Mid-Life Crustacean" was deleted from Paramount Plus and digital retail outlets, reportedly due to the panty raid scene being viewed as inappropriate for children. Digital retail outlets would subsequently bundle its paired episode "The Great Snail Race" with "Gary In Love". Though it can still be bought on Youtube and iTunes(albeit only as part of the "From The Beginning Part 2 collection" on the latter)

*** Likewise, the uncut version of "Procrastination" has not aired on nick since around the mid 2000s (though it is available uncut on dvds and on streaming services). This episode actually had two scenes cut: one where [=SpongeBob=] sees his friends having fun without him, with Patrick asking him to join them while getting ready to rub sunscreen on Sandy's back, and another scene where [=SpongeBob=] fantasizes about being able to obtain his driver's license, only for the episode to cut to stock footage of a racecar crash. The former got axed due to complaints about the AccidentalInnuendo of a man rubbing sunscreen on a woman, while the latter got cut out due to concerns about violent content.
*** A reference to the infamous "Squidward's Suicide"/"Red Mist" {{creepypasta}} in "[=SpongeBob=] in Randomland" was removed in UK airings, US repeats, and all home media releases of the episode, with the footage instead being replaced with a baby version of Squidward.

* NamesTheSame: "Shell Games" also shares its title with an episode of ''WesternAnimation/{{TOTS}}''.

* DirectedByCastMember: Starting in season 9, Tom Kenny, the voice of [=SpongeBob=], takes over as the show's voice director.

* TalkingToHimself:
** Creator/TomKenny voices [=SpongeBob=], Gary, and the French Narrator. Notably, "Gary Takes a Bath" has him as the only voice actor.
** Dee Bradley Baker, who plays minor supporting roles, voices both Bubble Bass and his mother.
** In the Swedish dub, there is Squidward with Squilliam and [=SpongeBob=] with his cousin Stanley.
** In the French dub, there is Mr. Krabs and Plankton, Patrick and the narrator until season 9, and the female characters.
** In the German dub, [=SpongeBob=] and Gary are both voiced by Santiago Ziesmer. [[NonDubbedGrunts However, some of Tom Kenny's English lines for Gary are kept in some episodes.]]
** In the Serbian dub, [=SpongeBob=], Mr. Krabs and all female characters are voiced by Vladislava Đorđević. The episode "The Slumber Party" is consequently an entire episode of Vladislava talking to herself.
** In the Hebrew dub, Squidward and Squilliam are both voiced by Creator/GiladKleter.
** In the Japanese dub, Sandy and Plankton are both voiced by Chie Matsuura ([[CrossDressingVoices Yes, really]]).

*** Likewise, the uncut version of "Procrastination" remains unavailable on both reruns and home media releases of the series(though it is available on streaming services). This episode actually had two scenes cut: one where [=SpongeBob=] sees his friends having fun without him, with Patrick asking him to join them while getting ready to rub sunscreen on Sandy's back, and another scene where [=SpongeBob=] fantasizes about being able to obtain his driver's license, only for the episode to cut to stock footage of a racecar crash. The former got axed due to complaints about the AccidentalInnuendo of a man rubbing sunscreen on a woman, while the latter got cut out due to concerns about violent content.

** According to Stephen Hillenburg and some of the show's and movie's writers, [[WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie the first movie]] takes place at the end of the [=SpongeBob=] mythos despite how many episodes and movies that came out after the film's release.

*** Patrick was voiced by Ikuko Tani from seasons 1-8. She was replaced by the male Mitsuaki Kanuka beginning in season 9.
*** Plankton is voiced by Chie Matsuraa, a woman who [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhIxn2qmS2s doesn't even try to match Plankton's English voice.]] In other cases, such as the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke9r-ldeX6g movie]], he's voiced by a man.

** In the Japanese dub, Sandy and Plankton are both voiced by Chie Maatsura ([[CrossDressingVoices Yes, really]]).

** A dub variation; one of the actors in the Swedish dub, Tommy Nilsson, is an accomplished singer-songwriter, whose songs are known to be solemn/tragically romantic in their tone, with poetic lyrics to match. Guess which character he voices? [[TooDumbToLive Patrick]]. Not only that, but he [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct does an exceptionally good job]] at portraying him as the dumb, lovable goofball he's supposed to be, being capable of varying his emotional vocal range to surprising degrees. In fact, most viewers couldn't guess it was him and wouldn't believe it until they looked it up. Lampshaded in a national TV Program, in which Nilsson himself said he enjoyed voicing the character because it's so unusual from what he usually does, giving him a breath of fresh air from his more serious work.

** In ''"Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II"'' and ''Lights, Camera, Pants!'', the Dirty Bubble is voiced by [[Series/MatchGame Charles Nelson Reilly]]. After Reilly's death, Tom Kenny took over the role.

** Patrick's French voice actor, Erik Colin, died at the end of 2013. He was replaced by Boris Rehlinger.

* OutlivedItsCreator: The show is still going strong even after Stephen Hillenburg died in 2018 from ALS.

** Nickelodeon has an extremely strange habit of airing the episodes out of order, delaying episodes for a long time ("Goo Goo Gas" and "Pineapple RV" got hit with this the hardest), and even airing season premieres when the previous season isn't finished airing. For example, "A Place for Pets / Lockdown for Love", the Season 13 premiere, aired in October 2020, when as mentioned above, Season 12 didn't even air all its episodes yet.

** Former showrunner Paul Tibbitt [[https://twitter.com/paultibbitt/status/1136035312113553408 has voiced his disdain]] toward the ''Kamp Koral'' spin-off, feeling that it's disrespectful to the late Stephen Hillenburg's legacy and wishes.

* OldShame:
** Casey Alexander has stated that, guest-animated numbers aside, [[https://twitter.com/_dolza_/status/499599205581586432 "Atlantis SquarePantis" was his least favorite episode out of all the ones he worked on]], due to how overly complicated the story became with having to service six character arcs and musical numbers due to ExecutiveMeddling.
** In hindsight, [[https://mobile.twitter.com/danimichaeli1/status/1380947181444603913 Dani Michaeli]] thinks that the toenail scene from "House Fancy" did not age well. He said the scene was initially thought to be fun, but is now in poor taste.

* FlagshipFranchise: By far {{Creator/Nickelodeon}}'s most well-known and publicized franchise, as well as one of their longest-running series.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/SpongeBobSquarePants Now has its own page.]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** [=SpongeBob=] originally wore his Krusty Krab employee hat at all times, even when he was not working, which can be seen in all of the early "[=SpongeBoy=] Ahoy!" concept art in which he is always seen wearing the hat.
** Stephen Hillenburg created Plankton and Karen as potential villains for the series, but he decided in 1997 that they didn't have much potential and that the "Plankton wants to steal a Krabby Patty" plot would become stale after a while. He wanted to have them be one-off characters, and Nickelodeon suggested [[StuntCasting hiring a one-time guest star]] like Creator/BruceWillis for the voice of Plankton. However, staff writer Mr. Lawrence (who became the voice of Plankton) was convinced that his character had untapped potential; he gave Hillenburg a set of episode outlines about Plankton and Karen, many of which were used throughout the first three seasons. The episodes were popular with the writing team, and Plankton and Karen officially became main characters in the credits of the first theatrical movie. Lawrence considers season three as the first season where Plankton is part of the main cast.
** In early sketches, Plankton was going to be so small that every shot of him would require an off-camera character to hold a magnifying glass over him, but it made acting too difficult, resulting in [[YourSizeMayVary some artistic liberties being taken with his size]].
** Originally, Mr. Krabs and Pearl would live in the Krusty Krab, the same way Plankton and Karen live in the Chum Bucket.
** The pitch bible states that Squidward was originally going to play the oboe as opposed to his trademark clarinet in the final series.
** [=SpongeBob=]'s spot in the Nicktoons roster was originally meant for another cartoon, one that never happened due to the creator leaving Nickelodeon over office politics. That cartoon? ''Sniz and Fondue'' of ''WesternAnimation/KaBlam''.
** [=SpongeBob=] was originally designed to resemble [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponge#/media/File:Aplysina_archeri_(Stove-pipe_Sponge-pink_variation).jpg an actual sea sponge]], but Stephen Hillenberg couldn't do an appealing caricature of one. He went with a synthetic sink sponge instead to give the character a "[[StealthPun squeaky clean nerd]]" appearance, as well as to imply that he's "a square peg trying to fit into a round hole."
** The creator also wanted to call him [=SpongeBoy=], and the show ''[=SpongeBoy=] Ahoy'', until he learned the name [=SpongeBoy=] was trademarked by a cleaning company. This appears in a [[DevelopmentGag gag]] where Mr. Krabs addresses [=SpongeBob=] with "[[{{Spoonerism}} Sponge boy, me Bob]]!"
** One early design for [=SpongeBob=] gave him a green baseball cap.
** Patrick Star was intended to be a surly bar owner at one point.
** Squidward originally had eight legs, but the animators thought it made him look too burdened, so they cut them down to six.
** The name of the Krabby Patty was originally going to be the Barnacle Burger.
** According to the pitch bible, "Squeaky Boots" originally ended with Mr. Krabs paying through the nose to get the noisy boots back from Spongebob.
** The show was going to have a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvZ29ybrlBk completely different intro]] with a more action-styled music piece, still images, and no lyrics. The intro was later changed to fit the show's style.
** Storyboards for the episode "Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy" actually had Sandy getting naked as opposed to just [[FullyClothedNudity her bra and panties]].
** The TVMovie "Atlantis [=SquarePantis=]" was originally intended to be an 11-minute [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick episode, [[ExecutiveMeddling until Nickelodeon asked the team to turn it a TV Movie about going to Atlantis.]]
** The original draft of "Something Smells" had [=SpongeBob=] gaining his rancid breath from onion-flavored ice cream, but the writers decided that having it be self-inflicted was funnier.
** Barnacle Boy was originally a character called "Barnacle Bill", a salty old sailor whose body is a piece of log with his head sticking out, similar to Seamus from ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. While he never appears in the show, he's the titular character of the two-part comic "The Ballad of Barnacle Bill" in the [=SpongeBob=] comic.
** According to Vincent Waller, an episode revealing Pearl's mother was written and reached the early development stages; however, Stephen Hillenburg was strongly against solving the mystery and shelved the episode indefinitely.
** Nick actually wanted the cast to be grade-schoolers who lived with their parents instead of independent adults, due to the success of ''WesternAnimation/HeyArnold''. Hillenburg was so opposed to this that he nearly abandoned the series, until he put [=SpongeBob=] in boating school and had [=SpongeBob's=] parents make occasional guest appearances as a compromise.
** According to [[https://mobile.twitter.com/JayLender1/status/1216791864335953920 Jay Lender]], the episode "Rock a Bye Bivalve" was originally going to focus more on [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick trying to care for the baby, including showing him how to eat. They then decide to change it so that it focuses on poking fun at marriage.
** Storyboard artist Adam Paloian mentioned one episode that had some storyboards, but was ultimately never [[https://mobile.twitter.com/adampaloian/status/1259963453550161920 made]]. It's called "A Day In The Life Of Plankton", a 4-5 minute short with minimal dialogue that would've focused on Plankton when he isn't stealing the formula, just doing mundane things.
** According to Vincent Waller, one [[https://mobile.twitter.com/VincentWaller72/status/734493734499450880 of]] Stephen Hillenberg's original ideas for the series was to have Sandy be [=SpongeBob's=] girlfriend. The pitch bible even refers to her as the "apple of [=SpongeBob's=] eye" and that he is willing to be physically harmed just to be next to her. Though they've been ship teased at times, the show ultimately leaves them as really good friends.
** During the scene in [[https://mobile.twitter.com/LukeVaughnV5_/status/1348411171511050242 "Patrick's Tantrum"]], where Patrick gets slapped by the referee for touching him, he says [[https://mobile.twitter.com/scottdiggs62/status/1350265797885583363 "And In Pain-o-vision"]]. It ended up cut from the episode.
** During the auditioning process, Mr. Lawrence auditioned to be the voice of [=SpongeBob=] giving him a voice he described as a combination of Creator/GregoryPeck and Creator/ThurlRavenscroft. The voice was rejected, but would later be repurposed for Plankton.
--->'''Creator/ClancyBrown:''' [[UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan Ron Reagan]] almost had Creator/HumphreyBogart's role in ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'', and Plankton almost was playing [=SpongeBob=]!

*** Likewise, the uncut version of "Procrastination" remains unavailable on both reruns and home media releases of the series. This episode actually had two scenes cut: one where [=SpongeBob=] sees his friends having fun without him, with Patrick asking him to join them while getting ready to rub sunscreen on Sandy's back, and another scene where [=SpongeBob=] fantasizes about being able to obtain his driver's license, only for the episode to cut to stock footage of a racecar crash. The former got axed due to complaints about the AccidentalInnuendo of a man rubbing sunscreen on a woman, while the latter got cut out due to concerns about violent content.

** The airing of "The Kwarantined Krab" was put on hold due to the [[UsefulNotes/CoronavirusDisease2019Pandemic COVID-19 pandemic]], since it revolved around the Krusty Krab being quarantined for an illness. However, [[ShortRunInPeru it did air in France in March 2020]], shortly before most countries declared a state of emergency for the virus. This also applied to the episode "Hiccup Plague", as well as re-runs of "Suds" and "Squid-itis".

** In the United Kingdom, the paired episodes "Shanghaied" and "Gary Takes A Bath" were banned for several years. "Shanghaied" was banned because of its frightening images (especially a disturbing, surreal sequence where [=SpongeBob=] and Patrick are sprayed by perfumes, and Squidward falling through the Fly of Despair) and "Gary Takes A Bath" was banned for three reasons: the inclusion of an inappropriate "don't drop the soap" gag (which refers to prison rape), a scene where [=SpongeBob=] deliberately straps a bomb onto himself (which brings suicide bombers to mind and came off as [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents distancing from current events]] following the 7/7 London bombings), and a short scene where a very creepy image of a deranged hillbilly girl appears without warning ([=SpongeBob=] is even disturbed by this, and apologizes to Gary, as well as presumably the audience). Even today, these two episodes remain controversial in the UK and are very rarely shown on British television.

** "Mid-Life Crustacean" was deleted from Paramount+ and digital retail outlets, reportedly due to the panty raid scene being viewed as inappropriate for children. Digital retail outlets would subsequently bundle its paired episode "The Great Snail Race" with "Gary In Love".

** "Kwarantined Krab" from Season 12 is not included on the season DVD box set due to sensitivity it would cause regarding the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, according to [[https://www.twitter.com/VincentWaller72/status/1336460910144102400 Vincent Waller's Twitter]]. The episode was released digitally in other countries, however.

** During the scene in [[https://mobile.twitter.com/LukeVaughnV5_/status/1348411171511050242 "Patrick's Tantrum"]], where he gets slapped by the referee for touching him, he says [[https://mobile.twitter.com/scottdiggs62/status/1350265797885583363 "And In Pain-o-vision"]]. It ended up cut from the episode.

** [=SpongeBob=] originally wore his Krusty Krab employee hat at all times, even when he was not working, which can be seen in all of the early "SpongeBoy Ahoy!" concept art in which he is always seen wearing the hat.