Sponge Bob Square Pants / Tropes A to C

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For tropes D to I, see here.
For tropes J to P, see here.
For tropes Q to Z, see here.

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A

• Abnormal Limb Rotation Range: Happens every once in a while with SpongeBob. For example, in "The Sewers of Bikini Bottom", he stretches his hand out enough to wrap around his body multiple times.
• Absent Animal Companion:
  • The episode "Wormy" has Sandy with several pets, including the titular Wormy, a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly. However, later episodes don't show Sandy with any pets.
  • Squidward gets a pet racing snail named Snellie in "The Great Snail Race". Once the episode is over, Snellie is never seen again.
  • Zigzagged with Plankton's pet amoeba Spot, who debuts in the season 9 episode "Plankton's Pet", where Plankton tries to train him to be a guard dog and to steal the Krabby Patty formula. At the end of the episode, Plankton does keep Spot and is a good owner to him. Spot isn't seen again until two seasons later, in the aptly named "Spot Returns" — which is less about him and more about Plankton training his pups to steal the formula. However, after this, Spot has made appearances in episodes such as "Bottle Burglars", "Gary and Spot", and "A Place for Pets", cementing his status as an infrequently recurring character, as there are still plenty of Plankton episodes without him.
  • In "A Pal for Gary", he gets a new pet named Puffy Fluffy, who completely hates other pets. Later, Puffy turns into a monster and goes on a Godzilla-esque rampage. He eventually runs away and is never mentioned again.
• Absurd Brand Name: The episode "Roller Cowards" has SpongeBob and Patrick attempt to gain enough guts to ride a new roller coaster at Glove World. Said coaster is called the Fiery Fist O' Pain, which the advertising of does not shy away from how much it lives up to its name:
  TV Announcer: It's big! It's fast! It's painful!
• Abusive Parents:
  • Mr. Krabs' is a Zigzagged example due to Depending on the Writer. In some episodes his treatment of Pearl from has been pretty neglectful and callous: The episode "Whale of a Birthday" in fact shows that he intentionally makes her birthday parties miserable by being a cheapskate despite his richness. He even sometimes demonstrates that he may love money more than Pearl, as shown in "The String" and "Selling Out." In other episodes though he goes to great lengths to make sure Pearl is happy and safe like in "The Chaperone" and "Whale Watching", and ironically enough Pearl is the probably the person he is most likely to give money to without complaint as shown in "Tutor Sauce".
  • A throwaway line in "Home Sweet Pineapple" reveals that Patrick was permanently kicked out of his parents' house.
  • Squidward's grandmother is mean and stomps his foot with her walker multiple times in "Chum Fricassee."
• AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle:
  • The F.U.N. song pronounces "buddy" as "bu-DDY".
  • In "Bossy Boots", Pearl changes the Krusty Krab's menu to provide salads as the main dish instead of Krabby Patties. SpongeBob sees this and wonders out loud "What in the name of Davy Jones' locker is a SAL-lad?" Later in the episode, he remarks about how much the customers are enjoying their "sah-LADS." Oddly, he pronounces it correctly when he reads it on the new menu that Pearl hands him.
  • A more obvious example is that SpongeBob pronounces "karate" as "ker-ra-TAY."
• Accidental Astronaut: In the episode "Sandy's Rocket", SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally launch themselves into space by messing with the controls of the titular spaceship. The rocket crash-lands back in Bikini Bottom, which SpongeBob and Patrick mistake for the surface of the moon.
• Accidental Dance Craze: In "Slimy Dancing", Patrick starts the dance move "the Cramp" by being mistaken for the only competitor in a dance competition to not use a partner.
• Accidental Good Outcome:
  • In one comic, a cleaning product causes a lump of Gary's slime to turn into a slime man. While the citizens are at first angry that he gets slime everywhere, they become pleased once they realise it's beneficial in some ways (for instance, it fixes one fish's squeaky door and clears another one's skin).
  • In "Club SpongeBob", a nearby plane is about to fall, so it jettisons some food and other things... which land near SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward, who are lost in a jungle. And this was right after Squidward had said, "As if the solution to all their problems would fall right out of the sky!".
  • In "Stuck in the Wringer", SpongeBob is trapped in a wringer, and his plight has been made worse by Patrick squeezing permanent glue in it. Patrick Star ends up crying Tears of Remorse, which land on the wringer and free SpongeBob from it.
  • In "Ripped Pants", SpongeBob SquarePants tears his pants (hence the episode's title) in front of a bunch of people, including Sandy. He's initially embarrassed by it until he sees how much it's made them all laugh, and he decides to keep amusing them with more jokes about torn pants.
  • In "The Goobfather", SpongeBob is delivering an order to Bubble Bass when he trips on a loose nail. The food bounces off the table and splats into the ceiling fan, mixing it up into a smoothie-like substance. Bubble Bass likes it and Mr. Krabs decides to sell it as an official new food.
  • In "The Sponge Who Could Fly", SpongeBob's hair dryer gets in his pants while he's on the phone, causing them to inflate. He begins to float and he is overjoyed now that he's achieved his dream of flying.
  • In one episode, SpongeBob accidentally slips on grease, leading to Mr. Krabs emptying the grease tank outside the Chum Bucket, giving Plankton the idea of using the grease in his cooking.
• Accidental Marriage:
  • In "Truth or Square", Sandy and SpongeBob act out a marriage, without telling the very real priest it was just a play.
  • In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy", a delusional, senile Mermaid Man, a confused SpongeBob and the warden of Shady Shoals take part in this hilarious exchange.
  Mermaid Man: Listen up you villains, I wanna eat my meat loaf! Now if you don't get out of here, then by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife!
  Warden: WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?!
  Mermaid Man: (Talking to the warden, pointing at SpongeBob) You may kiss the bride!
  Patrick: (SpongeBob is thrown out of Shady Shoals and rolls home, where Patrick is waiting for him) Did you reunite our heroes?
  SpongeBob: No. But I'm married.
• Accidental Passenger: In "Idiot Box", Squidward hops in the box SpongeBob and Patrick left on the curb and pretends it's a racecar. However, the box gets picked up by a garbage truck at the same time he "hits the gas", preventing him from realizing anything's amiss until he reaches the dump.
• Accidental Truth:
  • In the first episode "Help Wanted", Mr. Krabs' test for SpongeBob to find a seemingly nonexistent hydrodynamic spatula to make him a fry cook was all just to shoo him away out of spite. It turns out said spatula is real, and there was only one in stock.
  • In "One Krab's Trash", Mr. Krabs sells a soda drink hat to SpongeBob, and then, after finding out that it's apparently worth a million dollars, attempts to scare it off SpongeBob by telling him the hat is cursed and unless he returns it to the grave of its previous owner, Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen, he himself will be cursed. Imagine his surprise when he finds out that not only is Smitty Werbenjagermanjensen real, but the hat really was his when he was alive.
  • In "Yeti Krabs", Mr. Krabs tries to scare Squidward and SpongeBob into working harder by making up a story about a Yeti Krab who tracks down and eats lazy workers, along with anyone in the vicinity. A real Yeti Krab shows up by coincidence after he leaves (not to eat SpongeBob and Squidward for being lazy, but to buy a Krabby Patty) and Hilarity Ensues.
• Accidental Ventriloquism:
  • "Hall Monitor": SpongeBob calls to Patrick, who is sitting on a fence eating ice cream. Patrick hears him and thinks his ice cream is talking to him.
  • "Valentine's Day": Patrick makes a stone heart to give to SpongeBob on Valentine's Day. When SpongeBob speaks to him from behind, Patrick thinks his friend is trapped in the stone and smashes it to let him out.
• Accidentally Real Fake Address: In "One Krabs' Trash", Mr. Krabs tries to scare Spongebob out of a priceless soda-drinking hat by posing as the ghost of "Smitty Werbenjaegermanjensen". Approximately one nanosecond later, Spongebob announces he's gone and put the hat in the actual Werbenjaegermanjensen's grave.
• Accordion Man: Patrick briefly becomes one in "Naughty Nautical Neighbors", causing Squidward to laugh to the point where he chokes on the soufflé he's eating. This also happens to SpongeBob in "A SquarePants Family Vacation" when he gets whacked by a slide.
• Accordion to Most Sailors: Many scenes involving the swashbuckling Mr. Krabs are scored by accordions, with this production track of "Drunken Sailor" being a prime example.
• Acting Unnatural:
  • "Life of Crime". SpongeBob and Patrick are panicking because (they think) they stole a balloon. SpongeBob advises, "Just act natural," and, whether out of nerves or sheer stupidity, both of them start gibbering and acting crazy. They are immediately surrounded by a crowd who mistake them for street performers.
  • In the episode "Boating School", when SpongeBob is asked to act natural, he gets on all fours and starts grazing like a cow.
  • Inverted in the episode "The Bully", once SpongeBob believes Flats will come searching for him in the bathroom, he says he must "act natural". Cue him floating around in the toilet looking like a real kitchen sponge.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are voiced by Ernest Borgnine (at least until his death in 2012) and Tim Conway (Before his death in 2019), respectively, who famously starred in a different nautical-themed comedy series in the '60s. In one of their final speaking appearances, their real names are revealed to be Ernie and Tim, as a tribute to them.
  • The narrator for "Krusty Krab Training Video" is Steve Kehela, who has done voice work for real training videos previously.
  • In "Whirly Brains," after SpongeBob exclaims that he and Patrick have "lost their minds," Patrick's response is "*sinister snicker* M. O. O. N. *snicker* THAT SPELLS MOON! HAHA! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
  • In the German dub, the alias "Harold Flowers" which Mr. Krabs used to fool the Flying Dutchman is changed to "Benjamin Blümchen" ("Blümchen" means "little flower"), a referent to an iconic children's audiobook/cartoon character voiced by the same voice actor, Jürgen Kluckert. He even appropriately changes his voice to Benjamin Blümchen's.
• Adam Westing:
  • An literal case happens with Adam West and Burt Ward playing the younger versions of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy who are usually played by Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway respectively, in an obvious homage to The 1960's Batman.
  • Pun-happy film critic Gene Shalit appearing as pun-happy food critic "Gene Scallop" in "The Krusty Sponge". In the SpongeBob universe, Gene is a harsh critic whose review can make or break a restaurant.
• Adult Adoptee: Invoked in the climax of "Scavenger Pants", after SpongeBob and Patrick manage to find every impossible thing Squidward asks for, they are tasked with finding his long lost brother who obviously does not exist; after spending six whole months searching, they go to Mrs. Tentacles, who reveals Squidward is an only child and one baby is enough. But SpongeBob refuses to go back to Squidward until they give him the brother he never thought he'd have, so he arranges for Mrs. Tentacles to adopt him and Patrick so they become Squidward's brothers, fulfilling the task. It was never acknowledged again afterwards.
• Adults Dressed as Children: Invoked on Mr. Krabs in "Money Talks", in which his anthropomorphic dollars demand they be spent on various objects, some of which include fairy tale outfits and diapers. Cue Mr. Krabs dressed in just that at the mall.
• Aerith and Bob: The show has quirky creative names like "SpongeBob" and "Squidward" alongside more normal sounding names like "Patrick" and "Sandy".
• An Aesop:
  • "Not Normal", in which Squidward convinces SpongeBob that he needs to act "more normal." SpongeBob watches a self-help video on the topic, and eventually transforms into a bland, mediocre office worker. But instead of this making him happier and more accepted, it leaves him bored and miserable because he's lost all of his unique talents and the things that he used to enjoy. Even Squidward doesn't want anything to do with him after he takes his normality too far. He and Patrick end up spending the rest of the episode trying to turn SpongeBob "weird" again. The message is that "normal" is incredibly overrated and the quest to fit in can destroy the best things about you.
  • As Patrick puts it in "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic", hero worship is unhealthy. When SpongeBob meets his jellyfishing idol Kevin, he's completely oblivious to Kevin's nastier traits due to his adoration of him. Kevin takes advantage of SpongeBob’s naiveté to humiliate him like he has with so many of his fans and SpongeBob eventually learns that Kevin is not even the jellyfish expert he presented himself as. Ultimately, SpongeBob learns that he can still appreciate the things he loves without having to fit in with any elite cliques to validate his enjoyment.
  • In "Can You Spare a Dime?", after Squidward quits his job at the Krusty Krab due to Mr. Krabs accusing him of stealing his first dime, he ends up jobless and homeless. SpongeBob offers to let Squidward stay at his house and help him until he's able to get back on his own feet. However, Squidward soon takes advantage of SpongeBob’s kindness and relentlessly freeloads off of him for months on end (to the point where even the narrator gets tired of waiting and a new one is hired). Eventually, SpongeBob, frustrated by Squidward's selfish behavior and unwillingness to get back on his feet, tries to give him gradually less-than-subtle hints to get a job, which Squidward chooses to ignore, driving SpongeBob off the edge. The episode shows that being too nice can result in people selfishly taking advantage of that person's kindness and freeloading of them, and you should not let them walk all over you and know when to stand up for yourself.
  • In "No Weenies Allowed", SpongeBob tries to enter a tough sailors’ club, eventually getting in when he has Patrick pretend to be beaten up by him. However, SpongeBob injures himself immediately afterwards and is taken to the hospital. This teaches a very important moral about not biting off more than you can chew.
  • "Nasty Patty" has SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs try to catch an impostor health inspector by feeding him a tainted, garbage-filled Krabby Patty. However, they soon realize that the inspector who came to the Krusty Krab was real and try to hide the body. In short, stopping crime is something best left for highly trained law enforcement officials, not civilians who could get innocent people hurt.
  • "Bulletin Board" has a message about Internet anonymity. Don't make mean comments, because you never know how much they'll hurt someone; just because nobody specifically knows it's you doesn't mean it's a good thing to do.
• Afraid of Doctors: In the episode "Suds", Patrick tells SpongeBob that the doctor's is a horrible place to go. Of course, while SpongeBob believed him, he asked if Patrick could be his doctor, but that didn't help cure the suds. As Sandy took SpongeBob to the real doctor for the sponge treatment, he realizes that it isn't such a bad place after all and was given a lollipop. Proven wrong by this, Patrick asks for the sponge treatment, but he was proven right as the treatment didn't turned out to be so well.
• Again with Feeling: The duo go to a house and calmly ask the resident whether he would like to buy any chocolate. The man asks if they said "chocolate" and the two of them respond that they did and even brief him on the kinds they have. The man repeats the word"Chocolate" nonchalantly then louder and louder until he's screaming it maniacally at the top of his lungs. He chases the two relentlessly, only to reveal that he was doing so because he loved chocolate and wanted to buy all of it upon realizing that they were selling some.

• Ageless Birthday Episode:
  • In the episode "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler", SpongeBob celebrates his birthday among several other parties he planned on the same day. Even though he has a revealed birthday, his age isn't revealed.
  • SpongeBob is invited to his grandmother's birthday in "Pet Sitter Pat." All that is said about her age is that she's "turning... even older this year."
  • "Feral Friends" celebrates Sandy's birthday but once again never says which.
  • Double subverted in "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout." SpongeBob's age is never stated in the episode, but Patrick asks him how old he is. He replies, "Well, as of today, I am-" before getting cut off.
• Agony of the Feet: Quite often.
  • Squidward stomping on SpongeBob's hat with a lead brick hidden inside in "Employee of the Month."
  • The toenail scene in "House Fancy." Squidward and SpongeBob have to move a couch, but SpongeBob accidentally drops it on Squidward's toenail. He then pulls it out, and jams one of the table legs into Squidward's toes. Squidward slips on his toenail and breaks the couch in half.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Nearly anything technological that SpongeBob or Squidward buy is bound to work wrong in some manner, like Le Spatula or Squidward's house security system.
• Air Quotes:
  • Patrick does this during the season 7 episode "Yours, Mine and Mine":
    [SpongeBob dances with a Happy Meal toy]
    Patrick: Am I interrupting?
    SpongeBob: Oh, hi, Patrick. Have you met my new toy?
    Patrick: Don't you mean our new toy?
    SpongeBob: Our new toy?
    Patrick: It came from the meal that we're "sharing".
  • Squidward in "Imitation Krabs", when he meets Plankton's robot replica of Krabs.
    Squidward: You're not Mr. Krabs.
    Robot Krabs: Hey, why don't you take the rest of the day off?
    Squidward: Ha-ha! Well, whatever you say, "Mr. Krabs".
  • In "Bossy Boots", SpongeBob tells Pearl that he'll pretend to "fire" her after he was sent by Mr. Krabs to actually fire her, and finding out she was actually trying to get fired.
  • In "The Lost Mattress" when Squidward is explaining his plan for retrieving the mattress from a guard worm in the dump to SpongeBob and Patrick.
    Squidward: You two will sneak in there and retrieve the mattress out from under the guard worm without "waking the worm".
  • Mr. Krabs also does this when SpongeBob asks if he can still work at the Krusty Krab for free.
    Mr. Krabs: Yeah, I looked into that. Apparently, it's "illegal". And I'll lose my "vendor's license" Blah, Blah, Blah...
• The Alcatraz: SpongeBob and Patrick wind up on one of these in "The Inmates of Summer", rather than summer camp. They love it.
• All Animals Are Dogs: Or in this case, all snails are cats and all (or at least most) worms are dogs. For some reason, we get a snail which howls like a wolf in "Food Con Castaways".
• All for Nothing:
  • In "Pizza Delivery" after finally reaching the customer, he refuses to accept the pizza because SpongeBob didn't bring the drink he also ordered (despite not mentioning such earlier).
  • In "Scavenger Pants" after SpongeBob and Patrick spend six whole months trying to find Squidward's made-up brother, they go to Mrs. Tentacles, who tells them she only had Squidward and one is enough. But SpongeBob refuses to return to Squidward until he gets the brother he never thought he had, so he asks Mrs. Tentacles to adopt them.
• Alliterative Title: SpongeBob SquarePants.
• All Just a Dream: The episodes "Procrastination" and "Doing Time". It is taken to the extreme in the latter. Post-movie examples are the episodes "Dunces & Dragons", "The Main Drain", and "The Night Patty".
• All There in the Manual:
  • Do you want to know what anti-sea-rhinoceros undergarments look like? Just play the Camping Chaos! game based on "The Camping Episode."
  • Puffy Fluffy, the seemingly cute but dangerous pet in "A Pal For Gary", is a nudibranch.
  • According to a DVD bonus feature, Spongebob's pet scallop, which is occasionally seen in a birdcage in his room, is female and named Shelley.
• All There in the Script:
  • The shark drill sargent that replaces Mrs. Puff is named Sargent Roderick, according to the credits.
  • Mr. Fitz's first name is Gunther.
  • The ghost pirate captain who rivals the Flying Dutchman is named Lord Poltergeist.
  • The evil robot in the likeness of SpongeBob sent out to frame him is named ToyBob.
• Alpha Bitch:
  • Pearl acts like this sometimes, primarily to fit in with her female peers.
  • Squilliam is a rare male example of this trope, as he is a rich person with a condescending attitude towards Burger Fool Squidward.
• Alternate Species Counterpart: In "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout," SpongeBob and Patrick head to the surface world, where they go to the Trusty Slab, where they encounter live-action human versions of the show's main cast. Better yet, these human versions are portrayed by the same voice actors as their underwater counterparts, i.e, Tom Kenny portrays human SpongeBob, Bill Fagerbakke portrays human Patrick, Rodger Bumpass portrays human Squidward, Clancy Brown portrays human Mr. Krabs, Carolyn Lawrence portrays human Sandy, Mr. Lawrence portrays human Plankton, etc.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The ending theme song is different in Japan than in America.
  • Rip Slyme wrote a new ending theme song for the Japanese version. You can find it here.
  • Starting with Season 10, the Japanese version uses a new ending theme titled "ONE WAY" by the band BOYS AND MEN. It can be heard here.
• Amateur Film-Making Plot: "Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture" involves SpongeBob attempting to make a film for Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy to compete with the new modern movie coming out. After much Hilarity Ensues, the movie is made... but turns out to be absolutely terrible. Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, however, are just happy to know they still have some "action" within them.
• Ambiguous Robots: Spongetron and Patron in "SB-129".
  • SpongeBob's pet clam, Shelley, was claimed to be a mechanical decoration by Paul Tibbit but is treated as a living pet whenever she is acknowledged.
• Ambulance Cut: Subverted temporarily in the episode "Born Again Krabs". Mr. Krabs prepares to take a bite out of an old, filthy, tainted patty. Just as he is about to bite down on it, the shot cuts to an ambulance, implying that Krabs was now being rushed to the hospital. As it turns out, the ambulance was only passing by the Krusty Krab.

  Mr. Krabs: Oh, look. An ambulance. Now then, where was I? (He takes a bite out of the patty, and the Trope is played straight afterwards.)

• Amnesia Episode: "What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?" where SpongeBob loses his memory by hitting himself on some rocks. He goes to New Kelp City and accidentally provokes a gang who hate bubbles, and ends up defeating them. SpongeBob is crowned mayor after this, and doesn't want to return to Bikini Bottom. He loses his memory again, hit by Squidward's fancy egg, and things return to normal.
• Amusing Injuries: Somewhat justified on occasion, as SpongeBob is, well, a sponge.
  • In "Krabby Land", SpongeBob hurts himself to amuse children for Mr. Krabs.
  • Or the episode where SpongeBob offers to "lend a hand". Cue him pulling off one arm with the other, only have have another pop out instantly until the ground is covered with yellow arms. The same thing happens later in the episode when Squidward is telling SpongeBob a scary story about a man who chopped his hand off with a knife, and SpongeBob doesn't understand that fish's arms don't grow back like his (even Squidward is shocked it doesn't hurt SpongeBob at all).
• Amusingly Short List: In the episode "Something Smells", SpongeBob takes out a long list of things to do, in which all the items are "go to work". He realizes that he needed the list for Sunday, an index card that says "say 'hi' to everyone in Bikini Bottom".
• And I Must Scream:
  • When Squidward goes batshit in "Good Neighbors", he scares SpongeBob and Patrick so badly that he renders them unable to defend themselves or flee. His sudden act of barging his head through his front door and furiously shouting that there was something for him to tell them is what initiates it, and empowers him to deliver the rest of his "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how SpongeBob and Patrick told Blatant Lies about their nature as "good neighbors" and that they were the "worst neighbors" in history. He even goes as far as to Kick the Dog by destroying their fezzes and forcing them to watch him do it. Only after Squidward finishes his furious rant do SpongeBob and Patrick recover, but by then, it's already too late and they feel genuinely sorry and he has banned them from his house.
  • The fate of SpongeBob and Squidward in "Squid On Strike": working at the Krusty Krab for eternity.
  • At the end of "Mimic Madness" when Patrick, Squidward, Sandy, Mr. Krabs and Plankton end up mimicking SpongeBob, Squidward (and presumably everyone else) is shown to be trapped within his mind, unable to do anything while the SpongeBob persona is active.
• Animal Lover: SpongeBob cares very much for his pet snail, Gary. He also treats wild jellyfish with respect and likes to play with them.
• Angrish: When SpongeBob reaches his breaking point with Krabs sending him to buy stuff for Mrs. Puff in "Krusty Love": "Ah regga fregga smelinolin Mr. Krabs! Yugga hugga hollin wallet! Zibby mibby spibb! Yolla holla MR. KRABS WALLET!!!"

  "I had no idea SpongeBob had such a colorful vocabulary..."

• Annoying Laugh: SpongeBob's infamous "dolphin cry" laugh, which Tom Kenny accomplishes by putting a hand to his throat and shaking it up and down as he holds a high note. Lampshaded in "Something Smells" when he wonders why everyone is suddenly avoiding him.
  Patrick: Maybe it's your voice.
  (SpongeBob delivers his longest, most annoying laugh ever for several seconds, then stops suddenly, looking completely unamused at Patrick.)
  —> SpongeBob: (deadpan) Good one, Patrick.
• Annoyingly Repetitive Child: In "Mid-Life Crustacean", Mr. Krabs is feeling insecure about being old. SpongeBob and Patrick try to take him out to make him feel young and carefree again, but they just offer lame activities like going to the laundromat to watch the washers. He's already annoyed when they repeatedly ask him, "Can you feel it now, Mr. Krabs?", but when a bunch of kids start chanting the same question, he becomes boiling mad.
• Anti-Advice: In "Pizza Delivery," when SpongeBob and Squidward get lost together, SpongeBob predicts which way to go using his pioneering skills. Squidward goes the opposite way. The camera then pans over to show that another city is just over a ridge in the direction SpongeBob wanted to go.
• The Anti-Grinch:
  • "Christmas Who?" has SpongeBob learn about Christmas from Sandy, and proceeds to get the entire town excited about Santa. Everyone except Squidward, who ends up having to play Santa when the real one doesn't show up.
  • In "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!", Plankton tricks SpongeBob into feeding everyone fruitcake laced with jerktonium, which turns anyone who eats it into a jerk. SpongeBob is unaware of this, assuming that everyone is just being overenthusiastic, but he himself is immune to the effects because he's too stupid and innocent.
• Anti-Interference Lock Up:
  • In "Employee of the Month", SpongeBob and Squidward use several variations of this to sabotage each other's efforts of making to the Krusty Krab early and winning the Employee of the Month award.
    SpongeBob: Hey, Squidward. Going somewhere?
    Squidward: I'm going to wring you dry when I get out of here! Now, get me out of here!
    SpongeBob: Okay, Squidward. I'll stop by after work.
  • In "Party Pooper Pants", this is inverted when SpongeBob hosts a party that proves to be boring and by-the-book, so the guests lock him out of his house so they can throw a real party.
• Anything but That!: When Squidward finds out about SpongeBob's splinter and threatens to tell Mr. Krabs about it so he'll have to leave work early in "The Splinter"
• Apathetic Clerk: Shows up a few times over the course of the series:
  • Squidward is the cashier at the Krusty Krab, and he hates every minute of it. Along with having SpongeBob annoying him from the kitchen, he has to deal with indecisive customers and watch them gorge on unhealthy, lowbrow food. He treats everyone with contempt and speaks in a deadpan monotone while at work, never smiling; the one time he smiled at work was when the Krusty Krab was briefly rebranded as the Krabby O'Mondays in "Selling Out" and he was forced to smile, lest he be sent to Human Resources (a big scary thug).
  • In the beginning of "Party Pooper Pants", he starts talking to an cashier who isn't happy to see him. During this exchange, SpongeBob pulls out a picture of how the cashier looked on his first day, happy and cheerful, in contrast to his current behavior.
  • "Night Light" has a cashier who doesn't react at all to SpongeBob running and crying in and out of the store as he keeps coming back for more nightlights.
  • "Penny Foolish" has a cashier calmly putting up with Mr. Krabs attempting to use several expired coupons on his purchase.
• Appease the Volcano God: "Sponge-Cano!" revolves around a volcano that pops up in Bikini Bottom. The sacrifice that must be made appears to be "the most miserable person," which equals Squidward. Squidward's house clogs up the volcano due to a bursting pipe that causes it to fly in, and the sacrifice is revealed to be "the most miserable person's house."
• Apple of Discord: The Patty Pal toy in "Yours, Mine and Mine". It causes SpongeBob and Patrick's feud for Patrick refusing to share it, kicking off the episode's conflict. It's so worse that even Mr. Krabs is upset at the two for letting a single toy nearly ruin their friendship.
• Appointment Television: In "Appointment TV", SpongeBob is excited for a new episode of Mermaid Man and gets prepared to watch it. After work, he rushes home, only to be distracted by his friends' requests. In the end, SpongeBob misses the episode; his friends realize how devastated he is and put on a play re-enactment of it for him, which he enjoys a lot.
• April Fools' Plot: "Fools in April" revolves around SpongeBob's persistent Annoying Laugh accompanied by his many prank pullings.
• Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: In "Shanghaied":
  Flying Dutchman: I am the Flying Dutchman!
  SpongeBob: That's it! Squidward, this ship belongs to the Red Baron!
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Plenty of times.
  • When SpongeBob thought (incorrectly) that Sandy had tried to get the jump on him at work, as part of their friendly karate (or "ka-rah-tay" as some call it) sparring:
    SpongeBob: Thought you could sneak up on me at work, did ya? Well, ya can't! 'Cause I'm fast, I'm mean, and I can do THIS! [clasps hands together and wiggles arms]
  • Squidward tempting fate during the episode "Pizza Delivery," after he implored SpongeBob to make the delivery drive, telling him to first back up the boatmobile (despite SpongeBob's protests that he's still in boating school and shouldn't be driving). Of course, it goes hilariously wrong:
    SpongeBob: Backing up! Backing up! [backs up... for miles, until the car dies] ... backing up.
    Squidward: Well... ya backed up. And you know what?! I think we're out of gas! And you know what else?! We're in the middle of nowhere!
    SpongeBob: And you know what else else? I think the pizza's getting cold.
    Squidward: [feigned gasp] AND the pizza's cold! The pizza's cold! Not the pizza! Oh, how could it get any WORSE?! [kicks boatmobile, which somehow takes the tank from "Empty" to "Full." The boatmobile drives off into the distance without them.]
  • SpongeBob describing an Alaskan Bull Worm.
    SpongeBob: It's big! Scary! AND PINK!
  • SpongeBob describing the bath scene.
    SpongeBob: My best friend, my ex best friend, and...RUBBER BATH TOYS!
  • From "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V"
    1. I want to be treated like a superhero not a sidekick.
    2. I want to be called "Barnacle Man".
    3. I want an adult sized Krabby Patty.
  • When Mrs. Puff is stealing SpongeBob's new boat, he's not letting go for giant clams, cheese graters, and... EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION!? OH NO!
  • From "Life of Crime": "We're not talking about some dumb mail fraud scheme or hijacking here...WE STOLE A BALLOON! And they're gonna lock us up forever!"
  • In "Graveyard Shift";
    Squidward: He cut off own hand by mistake! [...] He replaced his hand, with a rusty spatula...And then! He got hit by a bus! And then! At his funeral... they fired him!
  • "Krabs a la Mode", after Mr. Krabs finds out that Plankton was the one who froze his restaurant.
    Mr. Krabs: Ya gone too far this time, Plankton! You can pummel me employees, try to destroy me restaurant! But nobody messes with me thermostat!
• Armor-Piercing Question: In "One Coarse Meal", SpongeBob gives a rather hard one to Mr. Krabs when he calls him out for using Plankton's whale phobia to torment him into suicide. You can even hear Tom Kenny's genuine concern in his voice.
  SpongeBob: Mr. Krabs, I know you and Plankton are sworn enemies and all, but... Putting on a dress to frighten him?! Isn't that taking it a little too far?
• Art Attacker: In "Frankendoodle", an artist's pencil which can bring to life a disgruntled duplicate of SpongeBob falls into Bikini Bottom. The pencil and eraser are both used to attack and defend.
• Art Evolution: Being a Long Runner, the show's animation has changed drastically over the years.
  • Season 1 is the only season to be animated using traditional hand-painted cel animation. From season 2 onward, it switched to the now-standard digital ink-and-paint process, which is how it's been animated ever since (aside from Seasons 4-8, which were digitally animated with computers).
  • Starting with season 9's "Lost in Bikini Bottom," the animation became a lot more deranged and expressive. Season 10 even moreso, thanks to an influx of former Ren & Stimpy artists (including storyboard artist and character designer Bob Camp and animation director Bob Jaques).
  • The main characters' model sheets were updated for both movies. This is especially noticeable in the sequel.
• Art Reflects Personality: Squidward often paints pictures of himself, showing that it's all about him.
  • In "Artist Unknown", when a curator visits his art class to see what pieces have been made, he dismisses all of them because they're all focused on Squidward ("I call this one, 'Bold and Brash'." "More like 'Belongs in the trash!'"), except for a Greek statue that SpongeBob made. Meanwhile, SpongeBob had been creating perfect pieces of art with little to no effort and he only joined for fun, whereas Squidward wanted people to look up to him as well as hoping to get rich and famous off of it. When SpongeBob starts taking Squidward's advice, he fails to recreate his success and makes terrible pieces of art. At the end, Squidward throws a tantrum and accidentally makes a beautiful statue without realizing it. The Aesop of the story is do your hobbies out of fun and passion, not because you want to get rich and famous.
  • In "The Masterpiece", Mr. Krabs asks Squidward to make a statue. Squidward has Mr. Krabs pose for his statue and makes it unflattering (spiky and cold) because it reflects how he feels about working at the Krusty Krab (cold, miserable, hopeless). Mr. Krabs isn't pleased, partly because of that and because the statue was supposed to be for children to climb on.
• Art Shift:
  • Many in "Truth or Square": The opening is redone in really trippy stop-motion (with a new theme by Cee-Lo), a sequence made to look like an old 1950's-esque TV commercial, and another Retraux sequence made to look like an old 1920s Mickey Mouse cartoon that shows SpongeBob going to work, and every single thing has a face. "Atlantis SquarePantis" also features several, including the 3D bus interior, an old video game, and several different painting styles.
  • "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" and "The Legend of Boo-Kini Bottom" are animated in stop-motion, with the latter also featuring a much brighter, looser and all round trippier animated style when the Flying Dutchman goes inside SpongeBob's mind.
  • "Karen's Virus" also takes on a different look with Karen's internals being rendered in full 3D.
  • Spongebob's Big Birthday Blow Out contains a live action segment where Spongebob and Patrick tour a surface restaurant called the "The Trusty Slab", and features the series' voice actors playing human versions of their characters.
• The Artifact: Certain seasons just barely acknowledge the fact that Bikini Bottom takes place underwater. Some episodes contain underwater thunderstorms, for example.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: "Fools in April" begins with SpongeBob pranking Gary into thinking they're moving and becoming peasants, and swaps out his snail food with scalloped clam shells, adding salt as a topping. The salt would've killed Gary in real life because salt is extremely dangerous to snails, which was likely alluded to when Gary started crying while SpongeBob was adding the salt.
• Artistic License – Botany:
  • Sandy's tree is portrayed as growing both apples and acorns, even though acorns only grow on oak trees.
  • One gag in the episode "My Pretty Seahorse" involves Squidward crying after hearing a sad story, only to realize there's a plate of onions underneath him. Onions are one of the few vegetables with a lower density than water, so the onions should've floated away long before Squidward noticed them. Since onions are one of the prime ingredients of a Krabby Patty, this factoid applies to the show as a whole.
• Artistic License – Education: Common with Mrs. Puff's Boating School:
  • SpongeBob has failed his driver's test multiple times, and yet he hasn't been kicked out of the class, which is justified in that Mrs. Puff refuses to give up on any of her students. Although, considering how much stress he causes for her, she should probably do it just this once to get SpongeBob out of her hair.
  • Boating School appears to be just one classroom, despite having a hallway with lockers. Any new students end up in SpongeBob's class, and Mrs. Puff is the only known teacher.
  • Mrs. Puff has been sent to jail on many occassions (Mostly for things that weren't her fault), and most real life schools will not hire a teacher with such a criminal record.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • In "Restraining SpongeBob," where Squidward finally wises up and gets a restraining order against SpongeBob, but at the end of the episode, he decides to replace his name with Patrick's since he caused him more misery than SpongeBob did throughout the episode. While it is completely legal to get a restraining order against someone who has caused you serious injury, you cannot just nullify it on a whim or add someone else's name to it.
  • In "Scavenger Pants", SpongeBob and Patrick ask Mrs. Tentacles to adopt them so they become Squidward's brothers, completing the scavenger hunt; however, this cannot be possible in real life as A) they both already have living biological parents under their care, and B), both of them are legal adults.
• Artistic License – Law Enforcement:
  • In "Fiasco!", Plankton accidentally steals a modern art piece (don't ask). First, the Police chase Plankton well out of their jurisdiction, even up to the International Space Station, which is mainly Rule of Funny.
  • "Banned in Bikini Bottom" had a group of Moral Guardians ban Krabby Patties for being "fun and delicious" (the episode was a parody on prohibition). You don't need to go to law school to know that is not possible even if your husband is the chief of police. The job of the police is to enforce laws, not make them.
• Artistic License – Marine Biology: The show pretty much tears the book of the biology of marine life. The most common example is SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward and Mr. Krabs occasionally having skeletons despite them being invertebrates (in the case of Mr. Krabs, he has an exoskeleton).
  • Not to mention Plankton (a copepod) being incorrectly referred to as a "single-celled organism" on multiple occasions, either by himself or others. However, "Lame and Fortune" does get this right, with him wearing a "KISS ME, I'M A COPEPOD" shirt.
  • Seahorses apparently lactate in SpongeBob. Seahorses are fish, just let that sink in.
  • As seen in the episode "Barnacle Face", barnacles are portrayed as the underwater equivalent of acne rather than the crustaceans that they are.
  • The characters are also anatomically incorrect as well. Examples are below.
  • Patrick has his face (eyes and mouth) on one of his arms. Lampshaded in "Neptune's Spatula", where Neptune puts his face where it should anatomically be — on his back.
  • Squidward has lips, teeth and a big nose, rather than a beak underneath his body like real octopi, thus giving him a more humanoid appearance. He also has six tentacles instead of eight (done on purpose to make animation easier). His tentacles are more like those of a squid or cuttlefish, being paddle shaped with suction cups at the ends rather than all across.
  • The protagonist differs from real sea sponges given that he has a face, limbs and internal organs.
  • Mr. Krabs only has four limbs (two legs and two claws), even though true crabs normally have ten (eight legs and two claws). His shell should also be segmented, even though the times he's been shown without clothes it was completely smooth.
  • Pearl is WAY smaller than any real life sperm whale (or any whale for that matter), even if they are babies.
  • Pearl, and other air breathing sea creatures (like whales, dolphins, turtles and seals) have no trouble breathing underwater, despite land creatures, like Sandy, needing air to breath. In fact, Pearl is shown wearing a water helmet when at Sandy's tree dome.
  • The jellyfish in the show are shown to have an electric sting which makes a zapping sound and produces sparks. The sting of a real jellyfish, however, comes from small venomous barbs which cover its tentacles. They cannot create electricity.
  • Fishes can drown underwater inside other underwater.
• Artistic License – Physics: Bikini Bottom is set underwater, yet there are things that are out out place in here
  • Fire underwater which is impossible to apply in real life.
  • Drinking water underwater.
  • SpongeBob cooking patties underwater which in reality, they swell the meat.
  • A beach with water underwater and the fact why incidentals (which are all fish) can drown in here.
• Artsy Beret:
  • The episode "Frankendoodle" has an artist at sea who wears a beret and apron, with only a pencil as his medium. The narrator gives advice on bringing a spare pencil and a sharpener when one drops a pencil.
  • In the episode "The Googly Artiste," Squidward has his beret revoked after a critic is not pleased with his sculpture. It is then given to Patrick, who simply glues googly eyes to a rock.
  • Plankton wears a beret while painting in "Sweet and Sour Squid" and "Plankton's Old Chum."
• Ascended Extra: Bubble Bass, only appearing for about a minute during his first appearance, becomes the antagonist of a Season 11 episode called "Moving Bubble Bass." Since season 9, he has appeared semi-frequently, with supporting roles in "Bulletin Board" and "Squid Noir" and another major appearance in "Swamp Mates".
• Ascended Meme:
  • A reference to the "Squidward's Suicide" creepypasta is featured in the episode "Spongebob in Randomland" involving a parallel Squidward who looks as similar to the infamous image of the pasta as the TV-Y7 rating would allow.
  • A much tamer Ascended Meme occurs in the SpongeBob vs. Patrick Splatfest news in Splatoon:
    Callie: [Patrick] thinks mayonnaise is a musical instrument.
    Marie: Well, sure... but he's just so adorable.
  • This meme's gone full circle: Patrick's and SpongeBob's memetic surprised expressions from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie are brought back in "Scavenger Pants◊".
  • In "Pat the Dog", Patrick imitates the "Mocking SpongeBob" meme from "Little Yellow Book".
• Ascetic Aesthetic: In "SB-129", Squidward time travels into the middle of nowhere. It's completely blank white, beyond some colored squares (one of which he interacts with). Squidward goes mad trying to find a way out, until he stomps on the ground and it takes him back into his time machine.
• Aside Comment: Squidward will occasionally make one of these. "That SpongeBob is such a crybaby. Lucky me, I get to work with him all day."
• Aside Glance:
  • From "Missing Identity":
    SpongeBob: Have you forgotten what we're looking for knee-deep in yesterday's Top 40 songs?!
    Patrick: ... yes.
    SpongeBob: I'll give ya a hint. First word: "My." Second word: "Nametag."
    Patrick: ... could I have another hint?
    SpongeBob: [turns slowly and stares directly at the camera in disbelief]
  • Happens again at the end of the same episode:
    SpongeBob: Thanks, uh..."Betty"?
    Waitress: What? Oh, sweetie, I'm not Betty. I just borrowed her uniform while mine's at the cleaners.
    SpongeBob: [turns slowly and stares at the camera once again]
• Asinine Alternate Activity: Weenie Hut Jr. in "No Weenies Allowed" is a classic example. Its bright colors and geeky customers frustrate Spongebob into trying to get into the Salty Spitoon again.
• Asshole Victim:
  • You could make an entire season out of episodes that involve Squidward being a total jerk then spending the rest of the plot being punished profusely for it. Though this is infamously averted in quite a few episodes, where Squidward is abused without actually doing anything mean.
  • The Tattletail Stranger is a cruel criminal who wants to beat up Spongebob after being busted because of him. The unintentional misery Spongebob puts him through is throughly deserved.
• Ass Shove:
  • Implied in "Spy Buddies". While Patrick is wearing a pair of shorts with a built in pay-phone/walkie-talkie.
    Disembodied techno-female voice: If you would like to make a call, please insert twenty-five cents. [SpongeBob produces a quarter]
  • This scene in "My Pretty Seahorse":
    Scooter: Hey, look! Mr. Krabs put in a kiddie ride!
    Lloyd: Why don't you try it out?
    Scooter: ...I can't find the coin slot! ...Here it is!
    [bink]
    Mystery: [Whinnies and kicks Scooter]
  • And more recently in "Goodbye, Krabby Patty?" while Squidward is pretending to be an animatronic:
    Squidward: Huh?
    [A man flips Squidward over with his butt in the air and pulls out drill]
    Squidward: What are you doing with this-OWWW!
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: The Ice Cream King in "Patrick's Coupon" is a tubby pink starfish with a waffle-cone skirt and pink pimples with a single hair in it. It makes him look like a strawberry cone with cherries.
• At Arm's Length: Frequently done by Mr. Krabs when his microscopic business rival Plankton attempts to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula. Instead of holding him at arm's length, however, Krabs simply picks him up and tosses him bodily back to the Chum Bucket — sometimes by creative means, such as blowing him through a straw.
• Attack Backfire: In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy", Mermaid Man mistakes SpongeBob for evil and attacks with his trademark Water Balls. SpongeBob enjoys it.
• Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!:
  • SpongeBob, when he and Squidward "discover" that Mr. Krabs is a robot:
  Squidward: [panicking] What do we do now?!
  SpongeBob: I don't know... hey, a nickel!
  Squidward: [angrily] SpongeBob!
  SpongeBob: Sorry!
  • In "Dying for Pie", Mr. Krabs drops a small piece of a pie-bomb (which he and Squidward think is a real pie) while attempting to taste it. It causes a large explosion and blows a hole clean through the back of Mr. Krabs' office, but the rest of the pie-bomb remains on his desk. When SpongeBob enters the office to see what happened, the pie distracts him from the fact that the back wall in Mr. Krabs' office is missing.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: In-universe, at least. In "That's No Lady", all of the men in Bikini Bottom (except for SpongeBob) are instantly infatuated with Patrick when he dresses up as a lady (Patricia), especially Squidward and Mr. Krabs. When they find out who he really is, they get really embarrassed.
• Author Appeal: The show's original conception was born out of a handful of Stephen Hillenberg's personal interests, the most obvious being his background as a marine biologist influencing the setting and character, but also his love of Jerry Lewis-style slapstick. He also does mixed media sculptures, which influenced the show's frequent Medium Blending.
• Author Usurpation: Stephen Hillenberg has made some other works, but SpongeBob is the only work of his that people can name, and he's associated with the franchise more than anyone else that worked on it.
• Autobots, Rock Out!: At the end of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, SpongeBob saves the brainwashed citizens of Bikini Bottom by playing a song on his guitar and firing laser beams at their helmets.
• Autocannibalism: Played for Laughs; SpongeBob scarfs down a bucket of his own severed arms (they regenerate) like popcorn during Squidward's Ghost Story.
• Award-Bait Song:
  • This Grill Is Not A Home is clearly meant to invoke this.
  • There's also All You Need is Friendship from "The Sponge Who Could Fly". It's short, but sweet.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy have an invisible boatmobile... that they struggle to find more than once, since it's invisible. Barnacle Boy has also accidentally, and painfully, sat on the gear lever ("I told you we should have got the automatic"), and has been burned by the tailpipe while unknowingly standing behind it.
• Awkward Poetry Reading: In "Sing a Song of Patrick," Patrick reveals he has a fear of public performance because of a traumatic experience he had reciting a poem in class. However, he recited it in the middle of gym class and took being pelted with dodgeballs as a sign of rejection from his classmates.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • The Tattletale Strangler as well.
  • Patrick goes a complete rampage in both "Valentine's Day" and "Nature Pants" because he didn't get his way.
  • Even SpongeBob has a turn at being the psychopath for an episode, specifically "Bummer Vacation" from season 4. Poor Sponge mistakes Patrick working to make up for SpongeBob's absence during a (neccessary so Mr Krabs wouldn't get fined) vacation for him being replaced. Considering his workaholic status, SpongeBob does not take that well. Check the Video Examples for that one.
  • Mr. Krabs is often a step away from this because of his extreme obsession with the money. In "Clams", he uses SpongeBob and Squidward as bait to catch a clam that ate his millionth dollar, and in "Out of the Picture", he tries killing Squidward so the art he bought from him will be valuable.
  • Squidward in "Are You Happy Now?", chainsawing and tearing apart paper-mache SpongeBobs, and "That Sinking Feeling", where he threatens to kill SpongeBob and Patrick and hunts them down when they don't end up doing what he says.

B

• Baby Morph Episode:
  • "Squid Baby", in which Squidward slips on one of SpongeBob's infantile toys and gets hit by a passing truck, culminating in a concussion by having his head smashed into the mail box. At this point he degenerates into his toddler state, incapable of independence, and so SpongeBob and Patrick take him in as Designated Parents. He reverts back to normal at the end by having his head smashed into the ice machine.
  • A more traditional example is "Goo Goo Gas", where Plankton creates a gas that turns those affected into babies, which he uses as both a spray and a grenade. He also comes up with one that turns people into senior citizens, and when he himself is hit with the gas he simply shrinks to microscopic size.
• Babysitting Episode: A few.
  • "Bubble Buddy Returns" is a Sequel Episode to "Bubble Buddy," in which SpongeBob babysits Bubble Buddy's son, Shiny.
  • In "Squid Baby," Squidward gets a head injury and turns into a baby, causing SpongeBob and Patrick to babysit him.
  • "Whale Watching" is about Squidward watching Pearl and preventing her from sneaking out to a party.
  • "Sandy's Nutty Nieces" has SpongeBob taking care of Sandy's nieces.
  • In "Biddy Sitting", SpongeBob and Patrick have to take care of an old lady who they believe is a baby.
• Backfire on the Witness Stand: In "Krabs vs. Plankton", Plankton sues Mr. Krabs over his (faked) injuries from slipping on a wet floor in the Krusty Krab. SpongeBob represents him, and calls Squidward as a character witness to prove Mr. Krabs isn't a cheapskate who cuts corners with safety standards. However, Squidward bluntly affirms all of it and to add insult to injury, states that this is his one day off in three years.
• Background Music: One of the main aspects of the show is their unique use of background music. Unlike many other TV shows, SpongeBob mostly takes music from different stock audio companies, including APM. Much of the background music focuses on the mood of the characters which makes the show’s background music special.
• Backing Away Slowly: Such a moment occurs in "Arrgh!".
  Patrick: I'm so loyal, I haven't bathed in weeks!
  SpongeBob: But we've only been gone a few hours.
  Patrick: I know.
  (SpongeBob slides away)
• Badge Gag: In the episode "Scavenger Pants," SpongeBob and Patrick show their adoption certificates to Squidward. Patrick holds his upside down.
• Bad Guy Bar:
  • The Salty Spitoon.
  • Plankton also goes to one in "Plankton's Army" to try and get recruits to help him steal the formula, only to get the tar beaten out of him.
• The Bad Guy Wins: "SpongeBob's Road to Christmas" has Plankton finally get into the Christmas spirit via a signed photograph of him, SpongeBob, Patrick and Patchy the Pirate, and it motivates him to use a coal powered robot to attack everyone at the Krusty Krab's Christmas party. The episode ends with everyone screaming in terror from the robot.
• Bad Job, Worse Uniform:
  • When Pearl turns the business into the Kuddly Krab, SpongeBob is made to wear a crab costume and is mocked by passing-by fish.
  • Squidward is made to do his job while wearing a ridiculous SpongeBob suit in "The Krusty Sponge".
  • In "Krusty Dogs", Squidward doesn't like the Krusty Dogs replacing the Krabby Patties because he has to wear a hot dog costume while standing outside and advertising them. When the Krabby Patties return, he has to do the same while in a Krabby Patty costume.
• Bad Moon Rising: "Feral Friends" plot revolves around "Neptune's Moon" rising once again after 100 years. The moon bathes Bikini Bottom with a Sickly Green Glow and "devovles" everyone for two hours. And then there's "Neptune's Sun" which devolves every land creature it bathes in it's bright red glow.
• Bad Omen Anecdote: In "Frozen Face-Off", Mr. Krabs turns out to have already encountered the vicious Abominable Snow Mollusk currently terrorizing them all long ago as a young captain. SpongeBob assumes he defeated the monster single-handedly, or at least managed to pull off a daring escape, but in fact, not only did he and his crew get eaten whole, they had to wait to come out the old-fashioned way...
  • A tale Patrick tells SpongeBob to help him feel better in "Something Smells" is The Ugly Barnacle. According to Patrick, the barnacle was so ugly that everybody died.
    SpongeBob: That didn't help at all!
• Bad Samaritan: Granny from "Have You Seen This Snail?" She takes Gary in when he's lost on the streets and takes care of him. She seems like a nice old lady until Gary opens up her closet and finds it full of old snail shells. Given the many parallels between this episode and the story of Hansel and Gretel, Granny is almost certainly evil.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • When Mr. Krabs is about to eat the moldy patty an ambulance races by. Turns out Mr. K. had yet to eat it and when he does...
  • One episode has SpongeBob making a sundae, but he's all out of nuts. To get more, he goes to the bathroom, approaches the toilet to-get the peanut plant on his window sill.
• Bait-and-Switch Accusation:
  • In "The Smoking Peanut", the police finally come to SpongeBob's house and interrogate him, drilling him with multiple pieces of incriminating evidence. The police say that they've got all they need, and to book him. So they put handcuffs...on Patrick.
    Patrick: Wow, you guys are good. I'm the last person I would have suspected, but I was looking for me all the time! It's the perfect crime!
  • "Wet Painters" has SpongeBob and Patrick paint Mr. Krabs' house, where they are told not to spill paint all over his Kitsch Collection. After some hijinks involving a three-hour long paint dab, a giant paint bubble, a coverup for putting paint all over Mr Krabs' first dollar, a vending machine and a crayon, Mr. Krabs came back, speculating everything went in order, until...
    Mr. Krabs: Flippin fish fossils! look what you did!
    SpongeBob and Patrick: (begging) Mr. Krabs, were so sorry! Have mercy! Don't de- butt me!
    Mr. Krabs: Sorry? You dusted all my knickknacks! That was really nice. Great Barrier Reef!! What's this?!
    SpongeBob and Patrick: (still begging) Accident! Accident! Accident! Accident!
    Mr. Krabs: Oh, and I suppose the floor molding just painted itself on its own. (wall is decorated with tiny ships) That's what I call craftsmanship. CRIMINY JIMJAM!!! You messed up my Dollar... (goes to a stack of dolls) ...Rama!!! All the dolls in this Doll-a-Rama were perfectly aligned! (straightens one doll)
• Balloon-Bursting Bird:
  • In the Valentine's Day Episode, SpongeBob's gift for Patrick is a hot air balloon made of chocolate. Sandy is to fly it to the carnival but is delayed when scallops (which act as birds on the show's setting) try to eat the balloon.
  • The final shot of "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost" features Squidward encased in a giant bubble floating in the sky, surrounded by sea gulls.
• Banana Peel:
  • In the episode "Funny Pants" Patrick keeps managing to slip on the same banana peel repeatedly.
  • In the episode "The Bully" the garbage truck Flats is driving to chase SpongeBob manages to slip on a banana peel and winds up rolling over injuring Flats.
  • In the episode "Unreal Estate" one of the houses Squidward offers to SpongeBob is a giant banana, but he finds he cannot leave the house without slipping on a peel.
• Barbershop Quartets Are Funny: One episode has the prehistoric counterparts of Spongebob, Patrick, and Squidward encounter fire for the first time. In a parody of the "Dawn of Man" sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the prehistoric Spongebob very slowly realizes the potential usefulness of the fire as the Ominous Latin Chanting of "Lux Aeterna" by Gyorgy Ligeti plays - but the ominousness turns comedic when we see that the choral piece is being sung by a live-action barbershop quartet.
• Based on a Great Big Lie: Parodied in the episode "Arrgh!". SpongeBob and Patrick quickly come to believe their pirate quest is a scam (and that Mr. Krabs has gone Cloudcuckoolander) finding out the treasure map is just a game board they used earlier in the episode. Chance kicks in as they do find the treasure according to the map (the game board) with the remarks of SpongeBob saying "It really IS based on a true treasure map!" The Flying Dutchman comes in to take his treasure back, willing to share with SpongeBob and Patrick. But much to the dismay of Mr. Krabs, he only gains a piece from the game board, and gets replied "But it's based on a REAL treasure chest!"
• Basement-Dweller: Bubble Bass has been shown to live in his mother's basement in "Moving Bubble Bass" and "Swamp Mates".
• Bathroom Control:
  • In "The Snowball Effect", Patrick asks Squidward if he can use his bathroom during a snowy day. Squidward repeatedly turns down his request, only to cave in and tell him to be fast about it. Patrick then relaxes and says he no longer has to go.
  • In the end of "SpongeBob You're Fired", Mr. Krabs has installed a pay toilet which the customer has to pay a nickel to get in. An old man, who is about to use it, searches for a nickel in his wallet while crossing his legs.
  • In "Tentacle-Vision", Patrick is tied to a camera to keep it steady. He says he has to use the bathroom, but Squidward tells him to wait until they're done filming. A few minutes later, Patrick says he doesn't need to go anymore.
• Bathtub Mermaid: A live-action segment showed Patchy the Pirate talking to a mermaid guest at his house party sitting in a comically small inflatable pool, stating that if she stood up, she'd die. Patchy accidentally sticks his hook hand into the pool, deflating it.
• Batty Lip Burbling: In "No Free Rides", SpongeBob does this when he finds out that the person trying to steal his new boat-mobile was Mrs. Puff.
• Beach Bury: In the episode "Ripped Pants", a whale is buried in the sand.
• Beach Episode: A few episodes take place at Goo Lagoon. These include "A Life in a Day" and "SpongeGuard On Duty."
• Beast in the Building: In "My Pretty Seahorse", SpongeBob takes in a wild seahorse that he names Mystery. When he brings the horse to work and Mr. Krabs tells him to get rid of it, he tries hiding it in the Krusty Krab's kitchen, something that proves easier said when Mystery starts eating everything in sight.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: SpongeBob has been shown to have a fantastic singing voice that other characters are amazed by, especially in episodes like "Ripped Pants" and "Band Geeks". But the episode "Choir Boys" shows that SpongeBob's normal singing voice is quite angelic as well, enough to make him qualify to join the Bikini Bottom Men's Choir, much to Squidward's dismay.
• Bedtime Brainwashing: In "Fear of a Krabby Patty", SpongeBob needs therapy after hallucinating of Krabby Patties. The psychiatrist hypnotized SpongeBob to sleep and goes on to do this. Being Plankton in disguise, he subliminally tries to tell SpongeBob to explain the recipe of Krabby Patty. But it fails, since SpongeBob instead gets a dream where he regains his resolve to make patties again.
• Bee Afraid: Being underwater, jellyfish fill the role of bees. They have painful stings that often leave victims with red or pink welts, early episodes show them living in cartoon-style beehives, they produce jelly like bees produce honey (or actual honey in the episode "Married to Money"), and they have both queens and kings.
• Befriending the Enemy: In the episode "F.U.N." SpongeBob tries to befriend Plankton and ask him to play with him after seeing how Bikini Bottom treats him badly and calls him "a loser". Plankton decides to go along with it, and use it as an opportunity to steal the Krabby Patty formula. After sharing a Friendship Song together Plankton does become his friend for a time, but ultimately chooses to betray SpongeBob and steal a Krabby Patty at the end of the episode because "evil is just too fun". This kind of scenario has been recycled several times in the show usually with Plankton trying to exploit SpongeBob in a new scheme.
• Beige Prose: SpongeBob in "Krab-Borg":
  SpongeBob: Oh, Squidward! It's terrible! Mr. Krabs! Talking to radio! Beeping sounds! Strange dancing! ... robot!
• Being Watched: During the episode "Jellyfish Hunter":
  SpongeBob: [while being followed by a jellyfish] It feels like someone... wants to sell me something! [turns around quickly to find no one behind him]
  [camera cuts to two salesmen in business suits, hiding behind a rock]
  Salesman 1: I told you he was onto us!
• Berserk Board Barricade: Squidward creates these in "I Was a Teenage Gary" and "Squid's Day Off", to keep SpongeBob out and himself in, respectively. He fails at both objectives.
• Berserk Button:
  • In Sandy's case, don't talk smack about Texas, or you will die (possibly in a fiery explosion after she lassos you into the distance).
  • Walk into the Krusty Krab and say anything at all about customers getting so much as a discount on anything, let alone getting anything FREE (and yes, that actually includes napkins, water, and ice— "No free napkins?" is actually SpongeBob's first guess when asked what the most important rule is at the Krusty Krab). If that's not good enough, try mentioning an employee earning overtime, taking a break, or, Neptune forbid, receiving a day off. If Mr. Krabs hears, he's liable to literally blow the roof off of the restaurant in anger.
  • Bring a worm into the house, and Gary will brawl it into being shooed out. Also, check Gary's undercarriage, and get ready for quite a chomp.
  • Don't you EVER try to use Gary to find loose change for the sake of risking his health; if SpongeBob finds out, prepare for a heck of a talk-down.
• "Best Of" Anthology: The Best of Nickelodeon: Summer Adventures contains SpongeBob SquarePants, All Grown Up! and Rocket Power episodes.
• Be the Ball: Usually happens to SpongeBob because, well,he's a malleable sponge:
  • In Season 1's "The Chaperone" he becomes a basketball for Pearl to dribble and shoot into a hoop as the climax of The Sponge. Check the Video Examples entry for "Dance Sensation" for that one.
  • In "Walking Small", also from Season 1, he becomes a volleyball to make up for the one he popped during his "assertive" stint under Plankton.
  • In "Suction Cup Symphony" Squidward crushes SpongeBob and Patrick into balls in an effort to kick them out of his house. And then the two come back smoshed up into a single ball which Squidward promptly splits up.
  • In "Krusty Krushers" SpongeBob and Patrick again end up on the receiving end of being balled up, this time by wrestlers who turn them into a paddleball set (Patrick being the ball, SpongeBob being the paddle).
• Beware the Nice Ones: SpongeBob is innocent, caring, and naive to the point where he can be manipulated and taken advantage of for a VERY long time if one chooses to abuse his kindness. He doesn't have a short temper by any means, but like everyone, he does have a limit, and when he reaches it, no one is safe.
• Bewildering Punishment: In "The Camping Episode", the fifth time the sea bear mauls Squidward it's for seemingly no reason.
  Squidward: What did I do that time?!
  SpongeBob: I don't know, maybe he just doesn't like you!
• Big Ball of Violence: Happens in "Plankton Retires." SpongeBob answers the phone from the top of the dust cloud.
  SpongeBob: Hello? Krusty Krab, may I take your order? No, Mr. Krabs is unable to come to the phone right now. He's trapped under a dust cloud brawl. Yeah, he'll have to call you back.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • SpongeBob in the very first episode, when Squidward and Mr. Krabs are attacked by a sea of hungry anchovies.
  • Sandy in "Valentine's Day", who shows up just in time to save SpongeBob from the wrath of a furious Patrick.
  • The zookeeper in "The Smoking Peanut", revealing the actual culprit was Mr. Krabs and Clamu was crying because he stole her pearl (actually an egg).
  • SpongeBob again in "Free Samples" when he realizes how to win back the customers and save the Krusty Krab, by selling regular krabby patties but calling them new and different.
• Big Damn Movie: Three of them: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, Sponge Out of Water, and Sponge on the Run.
• Big Little Man: The Reveal at the end of "BlackJack." SpongeBob believes that his cousin, who beat him up as a kid and has spent time in prison, is going to attack him again. When we see BlackJack in person, he's the size of SpongeBob's toe.
• Big "NO!":
  • SpongeBob in "Employee of the Month" when he imagines Squidward in the empty frame.
  • Squidward in "Opposite Day" when he sees the realtor's boat.
  • SpongeBob in "Valentine's Day" when Sandy tells him to go to Plan B.
  • Patrick in "Texas" when a furious Sandy lassos him.
  • "Something Smells":
  Patrick: Maybe it's just because you're ugly.
  SpongeBob: Ugly?! [sticks finger in mouth, slides it across his eyebrows, then says in a suave tone] You gotta be kiddin' meh.
  Patrick: Better try the reflection test. [holds up a mirror in front of SpongeBob]
  SpongeBob: (to reflection) Hi! [SpongeBob's reflection grabs a hammer and breaks itself after smelling SpongeBob's breath]
  Patrick: Uuuuuuglyyyyyyy....
  SpongeBob: OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
  • Also used in "Bubble Buddy", in dramatic slow-motion and with added vowel screwing around with.
  • And used twice in "Frankendoodle".
  • As well as "I'm With Stupid".
  Marty: And you taught him to sing!
  • SpongeBob during the Overcrank in "As Seen on TV".
  • Two of them in "New Digs", one by SpongeBob when he is late, one by Squidward when Mr. Krabs evicts SpongeBob from living at the Krusty Krab.
  • SpongeBob in "Fungus Among Us" when the customers are close to releasing the intense amount of ick from his bubble.
  • In the movie, Plankton lets one loose when SpongeBob began zapping the mind-controlling helmets off of the Bikini Bottom residents using The Power of Rock. Mindy also screams three of them (coupled with Plankton's Big "YES!") as Mr. Krabs is about to be executed.
  • SpongeBob in "Best Day Ever" when Squidward's concert ends right when he takes a seat, which is the last straw for him.
  • Gary does this in "Treats!"... with a big long meow as a substitute.
  • SpongeBob lets out another big "NO!" in "Yours, Mine and Mine" when Patrick eats Patty Pal, which in turn immediately summons Mr. Krabs over to resolve their feud.
  • SpongeBob, Squidward and Sandy scream one in unison in "Squidtastic Voyage" when Patrick pushes the "grow" button.
  • In "Single Cell Anniversary", this is exchanged with a Big "YES!" when Karen uploads the formula only for her Tears of Joy to short her out.
  • Twice in "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. the Big One"; one by Patrick when the Big One eats his surfboard, and another by SpongeBob when JKL sacrifices himself to save Mr. Krabs' cash register.
  • SpongeBob at the very end of "The Abrasive Side" when he sees Grandma has the abrasive sponge.
  • Squidward in "Jolly Lodgers" when he sees SpongeBob and Patrick ominously staring at him at the end of a hotel hallway.
• Big Ol' Unibrow: Squilliam Fancyson, Squidward's smug rival, has a unibrow. In "House Fancy", he has a giant sculpture of his unibrow made of gilded doornobs.
  Squidward: How's the unibrow?
  Squilliam: It's big and valuable. [wiggles unibrow smugly]
• Big "WHY?!": "Ripped Pants" when SpongeBob appears to have drowned but is just setting up another ripped pants joke, the lifeguard does a particularly hilarious one.
• Bigger on the Inside:
  • SpongeBob's, Squidward's, and sometimes Patrick's houses. Also the Krusty Krab, the Chum Bucket, the tree dome, pretty much any building.
  • The locker from the acid trip of "Squidward in Clarinetland".
  • Gary's shell.
• Bilingual Bonus:
  • In "Pizza Delivery", SpongeBob hallucinates actual Korean words on the gearshift of the boat, which really mean "forward" and "reverse".
  • A restroom sign in "Krusty Krab Training Video" reads Lave Las Aletas (Spanish for "wash your flippers").
  • SpongeBob speaking German in "Sold!" is actually correct. He says, "Oh! Good morning. My name is SpongeBob. I have come to visit my old home."
• Birthday Episode:
  • SpongeBob's in "Waiting" and "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout."
  • SpongeBob's grandmother in "Pet Sitter Pat."
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Puffy Fluffy and those of his species from "A Pal For Gary". As cute as they may seem, they hate being around other pets — snails especially. Once they're home with you, it doesn't take long for their true colors to appear as long as another pet is around. And once they have that pet all alone...
• Biting-the-Hand Humor:
  Stanley: Wow! A TV! Uncle Sherm never let me watch TV back at home.
  SpongeBob: Why not? *The TV explodes*
  Stanley: That's why. *runs off* What's that?
  SpongeBob: Oh, it's okay. There's nothing good on television anyway. [turns to camera] Nothing.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • In "The Chaperone", SpongeBob and Pearl get kicked out of the prom, but Pearl doesn't care, since she's had a fun time with him.
  • In "Opposite Day", Squidward doesn't get to sell his house, but he DOES get to chase SpongeBob and Patrick into the distance with a bulldozer.
  • In "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic", the Jellyspotters turn on Kevin and give his Crown-Shaped Head to SpongeBob, but he turns down the offer to join, having learned it's the jellyfish that makes it fun.
  • In "Porous Pockets", SpongeBob loses all his wealth and had to go back to his old life, but the good news is he's made up with Patrick.
  • In "Enchanted Tiki Dreams," the Tiki Land burns but Squidward gets to knock SpongeBob and Patrick over with a boat swing at the end.
  • "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful": Squidward manages to one-up Squilliam, but gets a littering ticket for the umpteenth time.
  • "Gary in Love": Gary loses his lover Mary to another fancy snail, but the bully snail makes up with him and they become friends, and go off to spend time together.
  • "SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout: SpongeBob’s birthday party ends up a being a disaster that leaves his house trashed, but SpongeBob is glad of his friends’ efforts and Patchy finally gets to meet SpongeBob. Also, everyone sings his theme song.
• Bizarchitecture:
  • "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" Answer: SpongeBob SquarePants
  • The other giant objects that the characters live in. Although they're only giant in comparison with the characters, according to the movie.
  • Most of the important buildings follow a sort of a theme, in that they're the sort of things that might appear as decor in fish tanks. Moai, rocks, treasure chests, etc.
• Black Comedy:
  • This show contains a surprising amount of dark humor. For example, the entire comedy of "Nasty Patty" comes from SpongeBob and Krabs believing that they've killed the health inspector (he was just unconscious).
  • Then in "No Free Rides," Mrs. Puff imagines SpongeBob running over a family, complete with sound effects, after she graduates him.
  • Pretty much "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler", but there's one scene where SpongeBob tries to climb on the Strangler's shoulders.... come from nowhere, he appears wearing a pair of shoes with sharp cleats, he jumps and his shoes went directly inside the Strangler's eyeholes... "I'm trying, but my cleats are stuck in your corneas!!!"
  • In "The Camping Episode" Squidward gets his poor body beaten several times by the sea bear. If you think that a slapstick routine can't be considered as dark comedy, you wait to see how physically destroyed the sea bear left Squidward's body, only to beat the shit out of him over and over (at one point, in SpongeBob's opinion, because the sea bear "Just doesn't like [Squidward]").
  • During one episode, Mr. Krabs' mother says she saw a new hat in town that she wanted, and then later reveals that her new boyfriend bought it for her. Krabs gets jealous and reveals that he also "bought" her a hat, and by "bought," he meant "snuck into a funeral parlor and stole the hat off of a deceased fish" (after all, Mr. Krabs isn't gonna go out and spend money on anyone but himself... with rare exceptions). And the worst part is that this isn't the first time Mr. Krabs has robbed a dead body for a hat. See Accidental Truth above.
• Black Comedy Cannibalism: In "The Fry Cook Games", Patrick accidentally splatters fryer water onto a portion of the fish audience, turning them into fried fish sticks. With that, a salesman comes by, puts a dollar sign beside them and chants "Fish sticks!" for anyone to buy.
• Bland-Name Product: The pet food Snailpo is a recurring example. Also the restaurant Krabby O'Monday's in "Selling Out."
• Blanket Tug O' War: Not with a blanket, but with Patrick's rock in "Home Sweet Pineapple."
• Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Sandy threatens SpongeBob with a single drop of hot sauce to the tongue. After SpongeBob surrenders, she casually starts gulping the stuff down like it was lemonade.
  "By the powers of naughtiness, I command this particular drop of hot sauce to be really, really hot!"
• Blind Driving: SpongeBob has to learn a driving course blindfolded as part of a Drill Sergeant Nasty's Training from Hell. Unfortunately, he can't drive without being blindfolded afterwards.
• The Blind Leading the Blind:
  • "Your Shoe's Untied", where Patrick buys shoes, but doesn't know how to tie them. SpongeBob tries to teach him how, but realizes he's never learned himself.
  • Patrick often gives SpongeBob this kind of misguided advice. For example, one episode has Patrick teaching SpongeBob how to be mature, with tips such as growing sideburns, puffing out his chest, and developing an appreciation for freestyle jazz. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Since they're both mentally six, they're occasionally known to do this to themselves-devoid of anyone to provide them with questionable advice, they'll attempt to deduce the proper course themselves and arrive at exactly the wrong answer through some of the unsoundest logic it's possible to come across.
  • In the 'pilot' episode where SpongeBob meets Sandy for the first time, SpongeBob goes to Patrick for advice about the mysterious concept of "air." Patrick claims she means "putting on airs," (which is an actual phrase that Patrick defines correctly, to his credit) or fancy talk. His advice is to go to Sandy's and "When In doubt, pinky out'. This causes SpongeBob, an aquatic animal, to slowly dry out in Sandy's water-less "treedome." Patrick enters at one point, and the duo end up completely dehydrating, but Sandy saves them with water-filled helmets (which become standard attire when visiting her). So, not only is Patrick's advice misguided, it's dangerous.
• Bloodier and Gorier: While the show was never averse to cartoon violence, later seasons tend to involve more blood and viscera (albeit never ending in actual death) than the earlier seasons' reliance on cartoon antics.
• Blowing a Raspberry: One episode, SpongeBob goes to Rock Bottom, where everyone speaks in raspberries. When he asks for directions, a Rock Bottomite can't understand his "accent" until SpongeBob starts adding raspberries between words.
• Boats into Buildings: The show Plays With the trope where it overlaps with Shipshape Ship Wreck. The homes and businesses of the underwater city of Bikini Bottom all have a nautical theme to them, naturally including boats and parts of boats (alongside other maritime flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict) in the construction. Most of the buildings appear to be made from old smokestacks, but there are examples of structures made from repurposed boats:
  • The Fancy! restaurant seen in episodes like "Chocolate with Nuts" and "Krusty Love" is a full-sized ship in a bottle.
  • Goofy Goober's ice cream parlor and the Museum of Boating are both large boats.
  • The Bikini Bottom Museum is a sunken Viking longship.
  • The Thug Tug, which appears in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, is a rough-and-tumble Bad Guy Bar located in a sunken, ill-kept tug boat.
• Body Horror:
  • The show's not shy to display internal organs, limbs ripped off, Eye Scream, etc.
  • "Krabby Patty Creature Feature" has almost everyone in Bikini Bottom turn into creepy fish-Krabby Patty hybrids as a result of eating Krabby Patties that Sandy genetically modified.
• Body Wipe:
  • "Valentine's Day" when Patrick starts to rampage after thinking he didn't get a good valentine.
  • "Texas": when Sandy is chasing SpongeBob and Patrick. While carrying a lasso she fills the screen with her foot.
  • "Whelk Attack" where Mr. Krabs tries to give Krabby Patties to the whelks. He walks out the Krusty Krab with a plate full of Krabby Patties and walks towards the screen.
  • "Bummer Vacation" with SpongeBob accusing Mr. Krabs of replacing him.
  • "Squidward, the Unfriendly Ghost": When SpongeBob and Patrick about to clean Squidward's back room.
  Patrick: "Oh, coming!"
• Bones Do Not Belong There: Despite being a sponge, SpongeBob has a full internal structure◊, including a spine, skeleton, and organs◊, all of which a real sea sponge doesn't have. Other invertebrate characters like Plankton and Squidward are also shown with bones, which their species don't have. This is Lampshaded by a fish in one episode.
  SpongeBob: [telling a story] I emerged from my fruit-shaped bungalow fresh as a bee when a wanted cry of distress pounded against my eardrum!
  Fish: Hold it. Sponges don't have eardrums.
  Mr. Krabs: He's right.
• Boomerang Comeback: SpongeBob's plan to use a "boomerang pet ball" to lure Gary into the tub in "Gary Takes a Bath" fails because of this trope. A trope which also applies to the box the toy came in, as SpongeBob finds out when he throws it away in annoyance.
• Boot Camp Episode: When SpongeBob gets Mrs. Puff fired after failing the boating exam once again, her replacement is a drill instructor named Sarge. A drill instructor who just so happens to be Zaeed Massani
• Boredom Montage: "Squidville": Squidward moves into a new neighborhood where everyone has the same interests and hobbies as he does, and gradually gets sick of it, as the Boredom Montage gradually shows him appearing less and less interested, based on the look on his face as the montage goes on. And then he loses it BIG TIME. He attacks people with a reef blower, sings songs, and acts just like SpongeBob used to. At the end of the episode, Squidward uses the reef blower as a jetpack while laughing madly (underwater, no less). It then shows SpongeBob and Patrick, who were searching for Squidward, unable to find him because everyone looks the same. They then hear Squidward laughing, look up, and say "Well at least we know one thing; it SURE isn't that guy!" Episode ends.
• Boring Broadcaster: The show frequently makes fun of educational and public TV.
  SpongeBob: If you think I'll let go for a little EDUCATIONAL TELEVISION?! OH NO!
  • In "The Thing", Squidward tries to watch a clarinet concert on public television.
  • In "Tentacle-Vision", Squidward gets his own show, Squidward Chat, on Bikini Bottom Public Access (because, apparently, they'll give a show to just about anybody). When it becomes a massive success thanks to SpongeBob and his friends taking over, its president points out that it's doing just fine in the ratings — after which he brings in a small bag of money, and says, "This is actually a lot by Public Access standards.".
  • In "Idiot Box", Squidward's Your Television Hates You moment has him channel surfing through several shows bringing up boxes, one of them being a professor using one to demonstrate an equation (and then there's "Championship Boxing", which ends up featuring two cardboard boxes "fighting" each other in a boxing ring).
• Bottle Episode:
  • "Gary Takes a Bath." It's shorter than the typical 11 minutes, features only one voice actor, features two main characters other than a brief Mr. Krabs cameo and most of it takes place inside SpongeBob's pineapple.
  • "Reef Blower" is also considered as such, even though it lasts for almost 3 minutes. Completely no dialogue, the whole place takes in Squidward's and SpongeBob's backyards, two songs play throughout the whole episode... What's interesting is this episode was originally supposed to have dialogue but the sound equipment broke, so no one tried to work on the episode's voice acting another day and the episode went on to be as it is.
  • A majority of episodes from Seasons 1-3, such as "Bubblestand", "Naughty Nautical Neighbors", "The Secret Box", and "Dumped", have the only background being Conch Street, with Sponge Bob, Patrick, and Squidward (sometimes Gary joining) being the only ones present.
• Bouncy Bubbles: Being that blowing bubbles is one of SpongeBob's favorite pastimes, this happens every now and again on the show. Sometimes, he'll ride in them, but he also likes to jump on bubbles, either in rapid succession for transport, or simply because it's fun.
• Bowdlerise:
  • The episode "Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy", which involved Plankton stealing Sandy Cheek's pelt and using it as a disguise to try and steal the Krabby Patty formula, was infamous for ending with Sandy getting arrested for public nudity even though she still had her bikini on. What most people don't know, though, is that the original storyboards actually had Sandy get naked, but she ended up keeping her bikini on in the final version of the episode. Not only does this change explain why the citizens of Bikini Bottom considered her to be naked even though she still had clothes on, but it also explains how Plankton had a bikini on Sandy's pelt as well.
  • Mrs. Puff's Ax-Crazy behavior in "Demolition Doofus" was toned down slightly in the book based on it, "Demolition Derby". In the episode, she enters SpongeBob in the demolition derby because she wants him killed and out of her life forever; in the book, she enters him because she thinks he'll get badly injured to the point he'll give up driving forever.
• Box-and-Stick Trap:
  • One Nickelodeon Magazine comic had SpongeBob and Patrick try this as one of their attempts at catching the Sea Leprechaun, with a Bland-Name Product version of Lucky Charms as the bait. It fails thrice: first it catches Patrick ("I got hungry."), then Mr. Krabs ("I can't resist a free breakfast"), then Plankton ("If Krabs has it, I want it!"). They then decide they need a new plan.
  • In "It's a SpongeBob Christmas", Patrick attempts to catch Santa Claus using one. He then forgets about his plan and goes after the Christmas cookie he planted in it.
• Brain with a Manual Control: In the episode "Plankton!", Plankton enters SpongeBob's head to make him bring a Krabby Patty to the Chum Bucket, so he can discover the Krabby Patty's secret formula. While no control room was found in the brain, Plankton did attach a device to the brain that allowed him to manually control SpongeBob.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter: Mr. Krabs' teenage daughter Pearl complains a lot.
• "Brave the Ride" Plot: In "Roller Cowards", Spongebob and Patrick head to Glove World to ride the coaster dubbed "The Fiery Fist O' Pain". While initially excited, the two get scared when they actually see it in action and keep making excuses to each other to keep from riding it. They finally do get on when the park is closing but the ride seemingly breaks down before they get the chance and both reveal their apprehension in trying to ride it. However before they can get off, the operator reveals he fixed it and the two end up riding it for real and actually like it.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In "Can You Spare a Dime?" SpongeBob tries to guess what job Squidward (who had quit the Krusty Krab) is now doing, in a callback to earlier in the episode:
  SpongeBob: Hmmm, I see you've been working on that mustache. The tattered clothes, the awful smell...you're a football player!
  Squidward: No.
  SpongeBob: A spaceman! A king!
  Squidward: No.
  SpongeBob: A football-playing king in space?
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: In "Dying for Pie", SpongeBob's friendship list consists of showing Squidward to everyone in town, telling knock-knock jokes, walking backwards, and open-heart surgery.
• Break the Cutie: This happens to SpongeBob quite a bit. For example:
  SpongeBob: [grabs Mr. Krabs from behind his desk and lifts him into the air with ease while strangling him] Listen, you crustaceous cheapskate!! Squidward has been living in MY HOUSE driving me CRAZY!! AND YOU'RE NOT GONNA HIRE HIM BACK ALL BECAUSE OF A STUPID DIME?!?! (Cue the first dime falling out of Mr. Krabs' pocket; instantly calms down) ...What's that?
  Mr. Krabs: (gasps; happily) Me first dime!
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In a particular scene of the episode where the Krusty Krab installs a drive-thru, Squidward asks a prankster woman for her order. The woman screams in his ear and drives off. He starts crying in pain as his poor ear starts to pulse dramatically, then he looks at the camera and says...
  I'm not joking...That really hurt. A lot.
• Break the Haughty: Squidward in "Can You Spare A Dime?". After he quits his job at the Krusty Krab, within two weeks he's lost his house, his belongings, has been forced to live on the streets and beg for change, and had to eat all of the art that he made because no one would buy them. And this is all coming from the most self-centered character on the show that's convinced he's the greatest man under the sea.
• Brick Joke:
  • The realistic dummy SpongeBob makes of himself in "The Chaperone". He manages to swap out himself with it in the middle of Pearl's meltdown and near the end when Mr. Krabs accuses he and Pearl of almost stepping on his flower.
  • "The Great Snail Race" has one. SpongeBob, who's training Gary, calls him a lady to "humiliate and demean him". Cut to Sandy, who says "I don't know why, but I think I'll kick SpongeBob's butt tomorrow.". The next day, at the end of the episode, Sandy comes out of nowhere, kicks SpongeBob off screen and yells "That's for yesterday SquarePants!".
  • In the beginning of "The Smoking Peanut", Mr. Krabs is seen abusing the concept of Free Day, taking everything he can. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that the oyster got upset because her pearl was stolen. Guess who stole it?
  • In the "Nasty Patty" episode: SpongeBob reveals that Mr. Krabs wears hair curlers to bed. Remember what Mr. Krabs "borrowed" from Mrs. Puff in the "Life of Crime" episode? Her hair curlers (although it was a gift, supposedly).
  • In "Something Smells", Patrick says that he has no sister. Several SEASONS later, "Big Sister Sam" focuses around Patrick meeting up with his long-lost sister.
  • Remember how "Every Villain Is Lemons?" Plan Z is lemon-scented.
  • In "Krusty Towers", as Patrick is making an order he wants "one Krabby Patty and one room, with cheese" and wants cheese on the Krabby Patty too. Throughout the episode he perpetually annoys Squidward alongside SpongeBob with his constant requests until Squidward asks for a Krabby Patty with cheese, toenail clippings and nosehairs, and forces Mr. Krabs to eat it. When there's no cheese on the patty and Mr. Krabs calls out SpongeBob, he reveals that they were out of cheese. Cue Patrick in a room full of cheese.
  • In "The Two Faces of Squidward", Squidward's handsomeness gives a fish the ability to fly, and while doing so, his untied shoe falls off. Towards the end of the episode, when Squidward becomes even more handsome, that same shoe falls through the roof of the Krusty Krab, prompting SpongeBob to push Squidward out of the way and slam him into a pole, which causes him to lose his handsomeness.
• Brightness Shadows: creates shadows for explosions and bright lights, memorably when King Neptune's bald head shown so brightly it blinded everyone around him.
  Bystander Fish: MY EYES!
• Broken Aesop:
  • "Squirrel Jokes" is supposed to be about racist jokes being uncool. However, when SpongeBob does another stand-up routine at the end of the episode, while he doesn't tell any more squirrel jokes, he tells jokes about different sea creatures instead, sponges included. The crowd eats it up just as much as they did the squirrel jokes. So the message comes off less as "don't tell racist jokes" and more as "if you're gonna tell racist jokes, do it for as many races as you can, and throw in some Self-Deprecation for good measure".
  • In "I Had An Accident", SpongeBob decides to stay inside forever after having a painful sandboarding accident; naturally, Sandy and Patrick try to convince him that going outside is healthy, necessary, and usually perfectly safe. Leaving aside that becoming a shut-in seems to have no negative impact on SpongeBob's life (he has friends, even if they are inanimate objects, he can still work from home, and since he can filter feed, he has no need to worry about running out of food), the outside world proves to be every bit as dangerous as he was worried it would be; Patrick gets stung horribly by jellyfish, and the only reason SpongeBob has to go outside in the end at all is to save Sandy and Patrick from a gorilla attack. When he does, the gorilla literally tears him in half; SpongeBob only manages to save himself and his friends by accidentally scaring it away. As far as the episode shows, all three of them would have been better off never going outside again.
• Broken Record: Usually with Spongebob being the one to repeat phrases ad nauseum.
  • SpongeBob himself:
    • "I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready!..."
    • "*big gasp* Part two?! Parttwoparttwoparttwoparttwopartt- *prodded down*
      "Uh, please, don't do that."
    • "I've soiled the good name of the Krusty Krab!! Soiled it! Soiled it! Soiled it! Soiled it! Soiled it!..."
    • In a literal example...
      I say "I'm already halfway there!" *cut to a record player with a broken needle, repeating the "halfway there" portion*
    • From "Graveyard Shift":
      Squidward: He... GETS YOU!
      Spongebob: AAAH! AAAH AAAH! AAAH! AAAH AAAH! AAAH! AAAH AAAH! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH AAAH! AAAH! AAAH AAAH!
      Squidward: Spongebob, I-!
      Spongebob: AAAH! AAAH!
      Squidward: I was just-!
      Spongebob: AAAH!
      Squidward: I was-!
      Spongebob: AAAH! AAAH! AAAH! AAAH!
      Squidward: SPONGEBOB, I WAS JOKING!
      Earlier in the same episode...
      Spongebob: Night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, night, na-na-na-NI-NI-NIIIIGHT! NIIIIIIGHT!
    • "Can I come, can I come, can I come, can I come, can I come, can I come, can I come, can I come, can I come..."
    • "Neyh, Squidward? Neyh, Squidward? Neyh, Squidward? Neyh, Squidward? Neyh, Squidward? Neyh, Squidward?"
    • "No, Patrick, the lid. The lid. The lid. The lid. The lid. The lid."
    • "Oh, try again. Oh, try again. Oh, try again. Oh, try again. Oh, try again."
    • "BACKING UP! BACKING UP! BACKING UP! BACKING UP! BACKING UP!"
    • "Patrick's right, Squidward. Sea bears are no laughing matter. Why, once I met this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy who knew this guy's cousin..."^note Squidward interrupts this with "You're right!", and Spongebob says "who knew this guy" 15 times before saying "who knew this guy's cousin"
  • Examples from other characters:
    • Zeke the Sheik: "The power within, the power within, the power within, the power within..."
    • In one episode, Mr. Krabs and Plankton switch places. Krabs attempts to steal a Krabby Patty and is foiled, but as he leaves, he says, "I'll be back tomorrow! And the next day! And the next day! And the next day..." Once he's too far away to be heard, the phone rings.
      Krabs: [on the phone] ...And the next day! And the next day! And the next day...
• Broken Smile:
  • SpongeBob in "Pizza Delivery" when the customer who ordered the pizza asks where his drink is.
  • Mr. Krabs at the end of "Squid on Strike", when he sees that SpongeBob destroyed the Krusty Krab.
  • Squidward also gets this in "Artist Unknown" after SpongeBob's second attempt at "sculpting" the marble. Cue Rage Breaking Point.
• Bucket Booby-Trap: Mr. Krabs' "new security system" in "Just One Bite". It's a bucket over the door... full of gasoline. A robot arm lights the pile and sends the whole dining area ablaze. And then there's the second one in the kitchen. It turned into a Deleted Scene, especially in the United States, and replaced with Squidward looking through the doors before a panning shot goes into the kitchen to show the vault. Squidward then walks in unharmed.
• Bug Catching: SpongeBob and Patrick go jellyfishing all the time.
• Burger Fool: Subverted — SpongeBob loves his job. Squidward, on the other hand...
• The Bus Came Back: Numerous One Shot Characters made a single appearance early on in the series, only to return much later:
  • Bubble Buddy in "Bubble Buddy Returns";
  • The Alaskan Bull Worm in "My Leg!";
  • Bubble Bass in "Plankton's Good Eye", before becoming a fully recurring character from "Goodbye, Krabby Patty?" onwards;
  • The conman from "Chocolate With Nuts" returns in "20,000 Patties Under the Sea" before becoming a Recurring Extra from "Snooze You Lose" onwards.
  • Mary and her disheveled, skeletal mother from "Chocolate with Nuts" both return in "Biddy Sitting", with the latter becoming an Ascended Extra for the episode.
  • Carl, the insane manager of Krabby O' Mondays from "Selling Out" returns as part of Squidward's dream sequence in "Krusty Koncessionaires".
• Butt Cannon: In "Spy Buddies," Patrick is given a special pair of pants that had this ability. This was used for SpongeBob and him to break into the Chum Bucket.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Most of the cast have their share of bad luck, but Squidward and Plankton are the most consistent examples. Almost everything is out to get them, and is merciless in execution.
  • Entire episodes revolve around Squidward trying desperately to get away from SpongeBob and Patrick. He also has had houses land on him, had a shrunk submarine grow back to normal size while inside his body (with SpongeBob and Patrick in it), had a NUCLEAR BOMB thrown directly in his face (which promptly exploded), had his house repeatedly destroyed... well, you get the idea. And these only the instances invoked by people who LIKE him. Outside of that, generally a large amount of Bikini Bottom's residents, animals and inanimate objects seem to bear an instant grudge towards Squidward, usually expressing it in somewhat violent or hurtful ways. At least the majority of abuse SpongeBob and Patrick inflict is completely accidental.
  • Squidward's rival Squilliam Fancyson treats him like this at all times, and according to Squilliam, Squidward was also a butt monkey in high school, having been voted "Most likely to suck eggs."
  • There's also the unnamed health inspector from "Nasty Patty".
  • If there's an episode that primarily focuses on SpongeBob himself, chances are something terrible is going to happen to him.
  • The Tattletale Strangler spends nearly the entire time span of his only appearance being a butt monkey because of SpongeBob's clumsiness.
• Butt Sticker: In the episode "Kracked Krabs", when SpongeBob gives a quarter with a string to a very large employee, he pulls it back along with the employee and he lands on SpongeBob. He then turns around revealing SpongeBob stuck to his backside.

C

• Calculator Spelling: When Karen got turned into a calculator in one episode, she displayed how to make her screen say "HELLO" by writing 0.7734 and turning it upside-down.
• Call-Back:
  • In "Bubble Buddy Returns", Bubble Buddy returns. Mr. Krabs unsurprisingly recalls that Bubble Buddy still owes him money.
  • In "As Seen on TV," SpongeBob walks in on Mr. Krabs making some calculations about saving money by firing someone. In "Bummer Vacation," Mr. Krabs forces SpongeBob to take a vacation in order to not get fined for overworking his employees, at the end of the episode Mr. Krabs reveals that the fined would have been 5 cents, which SpongeBob exclaims that it's more than he makes in a year. In "SpongeBob You're Fired," Mr. Krabs fires SpongeBob because he would be saving 5 cents from the restaurant's budget.
  • In "Whelk Attack" when everyone is trapped in the whale, SpongeBob brings up the time he had the suds from the Season 1 episode, "Suds".
• Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: The Lost Episode depicts SpongeBob longing to fly with jellyfish. After a few failed attempts at building a flying machine, SpongeBob gains the ability to fly by accidentally inflating his pants. Unfortunately, everyone takes advantage of his flight which leads to his pants being destroyed. However, SpongeBob gets his wish when the jellyfish give him a ride.
• The Calls Are Coming from Inside the House: "The maniac's in the mailbox!"
• Calvinball: From the episode "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost":
  SpongeBob: Hike Patrick, hike! [drops rock, which breaks in two]
  SpongeBob: You just lost 3 points! [climbs up a piece of coral three times, counting one number with each climb]
  SpongeBob: 1, 2, 5! [stands on his head at the top of the coral and blows a bubble in the shape of "G7"]
  SpongeBob: G7!
  Patrick: G7?! King me, king me! [runs and smashes into coral]
  Patrick: I lose!
  SpongeBob: But it's not Tuesday, Patrick!
  Patrick: Tartar sauce!
  Squidward: What are you two invertebrates doing?!
  [beat]
  Patrick and SpongeBob: ... we don't know.
• The Cameo:
  • In "SpongeBob vs. the Big One", the Flying Dutchman is is sent down to Davy Jones' Locker. As in, Davy Jones from The Monkees.
  • At one point in "Goons on the Moon", Squidward runs into his voice actor, Rodger Bumpass while trying to find a way out of the crater he's trapped in.
• Camera Abuse:
  • SpongeBob crashes into the French Narrator and his camera at the beginning of "No Free Rides."
  • "Cave Dwelling Sponge" ends with Spongy Spongy smashing the camera with his club.
  • Patrick smacks into the camera at the end of "The Nitwitting."
• Camping Episode: "The Camping Episode" and "To Save a Squirrel."
• Canon Discontinuity: Vincent Waller has stated that the team does not consider the video game tie-ins to be canon to the cartoon.
• Canon Immigrant: The female mayor of Bikini Bottom that appeared in The SpongeBob Musical has now appeared in the actual show as of "Plankton's Old Chum" in Season 12.
  • Prawn, a mini-boss fought in the console versions of Battle for Bikini Bottom and its remake, makes his first appearance in the main series in the Season 13 episode, "Captain Pipsqueak". This is the first time anything from the video games has been brought up in the show.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: In "Krab Borg", Squidward tries to make Mr. Krabs laugh to see if he's a robot. He tells a bad joke about pirates; Krabs is unamused and tells him to get back to work.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Squidward in "Fools in April" tries to apologize to SpongeBob for his nasty prank on him that made him cry, but because of his despise toward him, he has a hard time getting it out.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': "Procrastination." After SpongeBob spends all day worrying about an 800-word essay, down to having a Nightmare Sequence about it, he finally finishes it and brings it to school the next morning. He learns that the assignment was cancelled... then rips the paper in half.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them:
  • It varies from episode to episode whether or not Squidward actually likes SpongeBob deep down or genuinely wants him dead, though usually if there is another person to take this role, Squidward is there to subvert it.
    • Subverted in "Nature Pants" Patrick tearfully tells SpongeBob, "Even Squidward misses you!"; cut to Squidward celebrating the fact that SpongeBob's gone.
    • Played straight in "Squidville". Squidward is initially delighted to live in a neighborhood where everyone lives and acts like him, but eventually is bored by it and starts playing with a reef blower like SpongeBob.
• Can't Take Criticism: In "The Algae's Always Greener", during his review at work, SpongeBob insists on being given some form of criticism so he can improve his work. Eventually, despite being assured he is doing perfectly, his boss relents and suggests to put less sauce in the burgers, leaving SpongeBob in a deranged, whimpering BSOD.
• Captain Colorbeard:
  • "I'm Blindbeard the pirate!"
  • In one of the live-action sections of "SpongeBob's House Party", Patchy the Pirate introduces us to "Longbeard the Pirate".
  • And Mr. Krabs' grandfather is a pirate named Redbeard.
• Captain Ersatz: MermaidMan's character is heavily based on the 1966 incarnation of Batman, but with a design more reminiscent of Aquaman.
• Captain Fishman: Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are a semi-retired superhero duo. They are either humans who's powers allow them to breath underwater or they're Apparently Human Merfolk, with their own grab-bag of swimming-based super-moves, the ability to summon sea-life to help them and a variety of gadgets and gizmos to help fight evil. In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V", it's revealed that they were once a part of a Super Team that protected the seas named the The International Justice League of Super Acquaintances, and even then Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy were the only ones with a clear aquatic theme to them.
• Captain Obvious: Every word of dialogue from this incredibly underrated scene from "Wet Painters" where SpongeBob and Patrick make their last desperate attempt to get the paint off of Mr. Krabs's first dollar (after attempting to machine-wash it, sand it, and spray it).
  SpongeBob: (brandishing baseball bat) NOTHING'S WORKING!!!
  Patrick: Wait, SpongeBob! We're NOT CAVEMEN! WE HAVE TECHNOLOGY...(smashes computer against desk six times, as hard as humanly possible, to try to get the paint off of the dollar) DUR DUR DUR DUR DUR DUR DUR!!!
  SpongeBob: It didn't work.
• Cardboard Box Home: In the episode "Can You Spare a Dime?" a homeless Squidward is living in a cardboard box. That is, until the repo man comes to repossess it.
• Carnivore Confusion: Hugely averted. Sharks and killer whales are portrayed as normal people, sea monsters are intellectual giants while fairly harmless creatures such as plankton and flounder are the show's main antagonists.
• Cash Lure: In "Frankendoodle," SpongeBob does this to Squidward.
  • In "Goo Goo Gas" Plankton does this to Mr. Krabs.
  • In fact it seems Plankton does this to Mr. Krabs often, since he also lured him out of the Krusty Krab with a penny in "Imitation Krabs".
• Casting Gag: Flats the Flounder is voiced by Thomas Wilson, who's known for playing The Bully Biff Tannen (who also has a perchance for the word "butt") in the Back to the Future films.
• Celebrity Power: The movie, with David Hasselhoff.
• Chaos Architecture: SpongeBob's pineapple, Squidward's Easter Island home, and Patrick's rock are constantly subject to change depending on the episode. Patrick's rock is justified on account of Patrick making most of the furniture out of sand. The interior of the Krusty Krab is rather consistent, although the location of it is subject to change as well.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • SpongeBob: "I'm ready!"
  • Parodied or given a nod numerous times throughout the series. In "Pretty Patties", after Mr. Krabs trades the Krusty Krab to SpongeBob for his Pretty Patties food stand, he excitedly exclaims "I'm ready! I'm ready! I'm ready... for me money!"
  • The episode "Pre-Hibernation Week" has a small fish attempting to impersonate SpongeBob so Sandy will get off everyone's backs (she's desperately looking for him, and he's hiding from her). She protests that "SpongeBob is square," at which point a muscular fish molds the small fish into a shape resembling SpongeBob's. The small fish says "I'm ready! I'm ready!" Sandy replies "No, you ain't."
  • Mr. Krabs has a tendency to shout at his employees to "Get back to work!"
  • [Plankton] went to college! [is thrown out of the Krusty Krab and crashes through the door of the Chum Bucket (or into its exterior)] ... ouch.
  • "MY LEG!!!" for Fred.
  • Rube's is "Amazing!"
  • Mermaid Man: ”E-VIIIIILLL!!”
• Charlie and the Chocolate Parody: "Atlantis SquarePantis". A group of characters tour a magical place, with each one finding a room of something that captivates their interest and choosing to stay, while getting a song about it.
• Cheaters Never Prosper:
  • The Aesop of "Boating School", when Patrick helps SpongeBob focus on his boating test in the form of walkie-talkies after the latter had failed it 38 times. The boys thought It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time, until Mrs. Puff jokingly mentioned it was considered cheating, causing the boys to flip out and realize what they did was wrong. As such, SpongeBob fails for the 39th time, and counting. Of course, the trope is also played with; Mrs. Puff is entirely willing to let SpongeBob cheat if it gets him out of her hair, but SpongeBob is so overcome with guilt that he crashes anyway.
  • In "Artist Unknown", more specifically, it's plagiarists never prosper. Squidward chastising SpongeBob's off-the-book art work because he doesn't want to admit that it's better than his own comes back to bite him when a famous art collector promises fame and fortune to whoever made a recreation of the Statue of David and Squidward immediately takes the credit for it, but when the head accidentally breaks off the statue, Squidward needs SpongeBob to make another one, and the former's chastising towards the latter only conditioned him to follow the rules and SpongeBob wouldn't make the new statue for him. Squidward, as a result, has a breakdown and destroys his studio, accidentally creating a new David statue that turns out to be more glorious than the old one in the process, and pins the whole thing on the janitor.
  • "Welcome to the Chum Bucket" has Mr. Krabs betting SpongeBob's contract with Plankton in a poker game and if he lost, SpongeBob has to go to work at the Chum Bucket. Plankton is terrible at poker to begin with, but he somehow manages to win and believes that having SpongeBob work for him could be his ace in the hole at getting the Krabby Patty formula and running the Krusty Krab out of business. However, just like all the rest of his schemes, it backfires when SpongeBob drives Plankton crazy with his lazy and rebellious attitude and refused to do his job, even after he removes his brain and puts in his robot chef. At the end, just before Mr. Krabs can declare bankruptcy and close the Krusty Krab for good, Plankton surrenders and admits to having cheated in the card game, puts SpongeBob's brain back in his body and allows him to return to his original workplace, deciding he's better off stealing a Krabby Patty fair and square, though not before coughing up $50 to Mr. Krabs to do so.
• Chekhov's Gag: A very subtle but impressive example occurs with the relationship between Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. Throughout the first couple of seasons, Barnacle Boy clearly takes exception to being called "Boy" (he's a senior citizen, after all), and the way Mermaid Man treats him like a child (ordering kids' meals for him at the Krusty Krab, telling the server at their retirement home to give him extra broccoli, etc.), and most of all, the fact that he's a sidekick and not viewed as Mermaid Man's equal. This all comes to a head in the Season 3 episode "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V", during which Barnacle Boy is fed up with everything and defects to the side of evil.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The starfish that was on Mermaid Man's face since his first appearance turns out to be the thing giving him the ability to breathe. Mermaid Man is narrating. Then again, all of the origin stories are wacky and unreliable, so who's to say...
  • First shown in Season One's "Tea At the Treedome", SpongeBob & Patrick's ability to be brought back to life from dehydration comes in handy in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
  • In "Sandy, SpongeBob, and The Worm", SpongeBob tries to convince Sandy that a paper clip attached to a piece of string is her tail. Later, that same paper clip and string save their lives as they run from the giant Alaskan Bull Worm.
  • The pebble (really a pineapple seed) that remains as the only remnant of SpongeBob's house after it's been eaten (or drank, sort of...) by nematodes.
  • In "Imitation Krabs", as part of his evil plan, Plankton uses a penny to distract Mr. Krabs, who chases after it when it rolls out of the front doors of the Krusty Krab. Eventually, it finds its way back into the Krusty Krab with Krabs still chasing it. At the end of the episode, SpongeBob (unknowingly) uses it to defeat Plankton when all seems lost.
  • In "Ditchin'", SpongeBob pretends to have a Potty Emergency so he can ditch class and get his Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy book signed, and Mrs. Puff gives him a bathroom key which he must return once he comes back, or else. Later on when SpongeBob is trapped in the tar pits on the way back, the thought of the bathroom key is what saves him from his Disney Death and escapes.
  • The casserole that Squidward leaves in his oven in "Squid's Visit" is what causes his house to burn down thanks to all the time he spent in SpongeBob's house.
• Chewing the Scenery:
  • "I SAW IT! IT WAS BIG! IT WAS ALLLLL WIGGLY! AND IT ATE EVERYTHING! IT WAS AN ALASKAN BULL WORM!"
  • 'CHOCOLATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!invoked'
  • "I lost my name tag! POURQUOI?!!"
  • "WHO'S SAYING I'M ABUSING MY POWERS?!?!"
  • This gem from Squidward in season 9: "You say you're an introvert? What a coincidence! I'M AN INTROVEEEERT!" *followed by applause from a random crowd*
• Chirping Crickets: Played with in "Squirrel Jokes": SpongeBob's first joke produces dead silence from the audience, except for a cricket chirping (which is shown on-screen via a loop of a real-life cricket chirping). On his second joke, even the cricket doesn't bother to make noise (shown by the same cricket simply standing there doing nothing).
• Choosy Beggar: In "Patty Hype", a fish crawls into the Krusty Krab, begging for food as he hasn't eaten in three days. But then he's underwhelmed when offered a Krabby Patty and is disapproving of the plain décor. ("What's the theme here? Underwater?") He continues crawling, begging "Food! Water! Atmosphere!"
• Christmas Episode: Christmas Who? and Its A Sponge Bob Christmas. "Goons on the Moon" combined this with Space Episode.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Squidward's recurring rival Squilliam Fancyson appeared numerous times throughout the early seasons, but vanished without explanation following a brief cameo in season 7's "Back to the Past" and, barring a brief reference in "Code Yellow", hasn't appeared in person since.
• Circle of Standing Stones: In "SpongeHenge," SpongeBob creates a stone statue of himself, complete with holes, to distract the jellyfishes who are attracted to the sound coming from SB's holes when the wind blows through them (it's a very windy day). Turns out that one small statue doesn't work, and then SB creates more, bigger ones and arranges them in a circle. It works very well, with the stones even creating music.
• Circling Birdies: Seen in "Survival of the Idiots", when Sandy hits Patrick in the head and then sees chicken drumsticks floating around his head.
  Patrick: Hot...wings.
• Clam Trap:
  • Sandy is introduced fighting a giant clam in her debut episode "Tea at the Treedome".
  • In "Valentine's Day", Sandy is flying a hot air balloon made of chocolate when a flock of scallops tries to eat it, in a underwater variation of Balloon-Bursting Bird.
  • In "Clams" a giant clam eats Mr. Krabs' millionth dollar. In trying to get it back, he gets eaten by it, but fights it and gets back his dollar... at the cost of the lower half of his body ("Nothing important").
• Cloudcuckoolander:
  Mr. Krabs: I didn't want to say this in front of Patrick, but that hat makes you look like a girl!
  SpongeBob: [glowing] Am I a pretty girl?
  • Patrick lampshades this in SpongeBob's case during an episode.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: The episode "Sailor Mouth" has Mr. Krabs letting off a long string of swears, all censored with the various sound effects used to cover them beforehand.
• Cluster F-Bomb: At the end of "Krusty Love", SpongeBob lets out a stream of... gibberish that is obviously intended to be interpreted as cursing.
  Mrs. Puff: I had no idea SpongeBob had such a colorful vocabulary!
  Mr. Krabs: ... (Gaping in shocked silence with his jaw on the ground)
• Clutching Hand Trap: In "Squid's Day Off", Mr. Krabs gets his claw stuck in a pipe after grabbing a dime. When SpongeBob tells him he needs to let go of the time to free himself Mr. Krabs him "I can think of ten good reasons to never let go of a dime, boy." They're forced to try to pull him out by his hips but only wind up ripping his arms from the sockets... again.
• Cobweb of Disuse: In "Patty Hype", the Krusty Krab is covered in cobwebs when business gets slow. When SpongeBob tries to clean one, a spider immediately makes another. Later, Mr. Krabs opens his mouth to reveal cobwebs and a spider inside.
• Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: Seen more than once, especially the episodes "Idiot Box" and "The Paper", both involving Squidward. In "Idiot Box" in particular, Squidward watches TV to get his mind off of SpongeBob and Patrick playing in a box, only to find a channel about boxes being assembled, two fish giving each other boxes as presents, and a math equation involving a box. He switches to boxing... which also turns out to have boxes in it.
• Color-Coded Characters:
  • SpongeBob - Yellow
  • Gary - Blue
  • Patrick - Pink
  • Squidward - Turquoise
  • Sandy - Brown
  • Mr. Krabs - Red
  • Pearl - Grey
  • Plankton - Green
  • Karen - Black
  • Mrs. Puff - Beige
• Comedic Work, Serious Scene: "The Pizza Delivery" is a mostly humorous episode, but when SpongeBob finally delivers the pizza to the customer, the customer is a Jerkass to him and complains he didn't bring his drink and rejects the pizza. This causes SpongeBob to burst into tears, so Squidward gets revenge on the customer by throwing the pizza in his face.
• Comical Nap Drool:
  • Patrick does this almost every time he's asleep, with the worst and most nausea-inducing instance being in "Home Sweet Pineapple", where he turns into a literal, overflowing hot spring of drool, and SpongeBob — who is spending the night at his house after his pineapple home is destroyed by nematodes — ends up absorbing all of the saliva coming out of Patrick's mouth.
  • Sandy is also prone to this, with the two prime examples being during her hibernation in "Survival of the Idiots" and once she's sleeping at the end of "Prehibernation Week".
  • Even SpongeBob himself drools in his sleep every once in a while. At the beginning of "I Was a Teenage Gary", he drools while asleep in his chair, and in "Welcome to the Chum Bucket", he falls asleep in the middle of Plankton’s story and drools right on the latter's head.
  • In the episode "Pickles", Mr. Krabs falls asleep and drools during the long wait for SpongeBob to remember how to make a krabby patty.
• Comically Cross-Eyed: SpongeBob sometimes takes on a goofy, cross-eyed expression, complete with Fish Eyes and/or a Maniac Tongue.
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Mrs. Puff in "The Bully", whom doesn't seem to notice Flats' threats of violence against SpongeBob. When SpongeBob asks Mrs. Puff to settle it, she claims that it's part of Flats's tradition, once again failing to realize Flats's ultimate goal. At the end of it all, the blame all goes to SpongeBob.
  • SpongeBob repeats a similar act in "A Pal for Gary".
• Comic Trio: Variant between SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward. SpongeBob is usually the one leading the plot into comically dangerous territory, Patrick is the least intelligent of the three and usually goes along with what SpongeBob wants to do, and Squidward is the foil usually aghast at their antics.
• Coming of Age Story: The baby scallop who SpongeBob and Patrick raises in "Rock-A-Bye-Bivalve." He starts out as a baby, and leaves SpongeBob and Patrick at the end of the episode to live on his own.
• Community-Threatening Construction: In "SpongeBob's Last Stand," Plankton builds a new highway through Jellyfish Fields.
• Company Cross References: In "Truth or Square", there is a scene where Patchy the Pirate is out on the street, standing right in front of some street posts depicting Dora the Explorer and Aang.
• Compressed Abstinence: "Grandma's Kisses" centers on SpongeBob (and Patrick) rejecting all their normal activities and acting as adults (which boils down to becoming The Killjoys... and wearing sideburns). Patrick caves first, basically declaring that Growing Up Sucks.
• Concert Episode:
  • In "Band Geeks", Squidward gets all of Bikini Bottom to form a marching band to perform a concert at the Bubble Bowl. Squidward instructs the Bikini Bottomites on how to play their instruments, which nobody makes any progress on, eventually leading to an all-out brawl. At the end of class, Squidward chews out the band for ruining his dream and walks off dejected. Feeling bad for Squidward, the band, under SpongeBob's guidance, vow to make Squidward proud with their performance. The episode's climax has the Bikini Bottomites successfully perform "Sweet Victory", much to both Squidward's delight and Squilliam's shock.
  • In "Suction Cup Symphony", Squidward attempts to write a symphony for the Bikini Bottom orchestra, but his work is constantly interrupted by SpongeBob trying to fix Patrick's butt due to Patrick not having any health insurance. When Squidward performs his symphony at the concert, he finds out that he wrote down the sounds he heard while completing it. Fortunately for Squidward, his performance is applauded at the end.
  • In "Smoothe Jazz at Bikini Bottom", Squidward has a ticket for a Kelpy G concert, until Patrick eats it. Squidward then tries to win backstage passes to the concert through a Radio Contest, but fails, and SpongeBob ends up winning them instead. At the concert, Patrick eats both Squidward and SpongeBob's backstage passes, then disrupts Kelpy G's performance. When Squidward manages to sneak backstage and meet Kelpy G, he ends up getting rejected by his idol in favor of SpongeBob's ukulele playing.
• Confusing Multiple Negatives: In "Opposite Day", after Squidward cleans up after SpongeBob and Patrick, who turned the pineapple house into an eyesore:
  SpongeBob: I don't get it: I made my house a mess which was making it clean, which made Squidward clean my yard, but that really means he's messing it up. But the opposite of clean is filth, which means filth is clean. That means Squidward's really making my yard a wreck, but I'd normally wreck my own yard, which means Squidward's being the opposite of Squidward, which means he's SpongeBob. A-ha! I understand everything now! I must be the opposite of SpongeBob by being...
  [SpongeBob imitates Squidward's voice] Squidward.
• Congruent Memory:
  • In "Skill Crane," "Be the crane!"
  • SpongeBob practices driving while blindfolded. When it comes time for him to take his driving test, he finds he can't drive without the blindfold. Oddly, this one provides a justification for his unrealistically terrible inability to drive normally: when he can see what he's doing, it terrifies him.
  • "Missing Identity" had him forget where he put his nametag. So he repeats his morning routine ad infinitum, exactly, hoping that this'll help him remember where it is.
• Conjoined Twins: Has happened several times: in the movie, we meet two conjoined twins in a bar. In "SquidBob TentaclePants", SpongeBob and Squidward are conjoined because of one of Sandy's experiments.
• Conspicuously Light Patch:
  • In "Krusty Krab Training Video," the door Squidward opens and closes in the bathroom is much lighter and less detailed compared to its surroundings.
  • One particularly egregious example is the episode "Can You Spare a Dime?", where SpongeBob pokes Squidward's animated nose, and the entire rest of his head is a much darker matte painting (see 9:34-9:40 here).
• Contemporary Caveman: The episode "Cave Dwelling Sponge" has SpongeBob use hot chocolate to help get Patrick's tongue unstuck from a wall of ice, unintentionally thawing out a cave-sponge in the process.
• Continuity Nod:
  • In the Season 1 episode "Karate Choppers," SpongeBob exclaims that a conspicuous pile of cans on the ground is Sandy's "worst disguise yet." Sandy appears in the background, holding a plastic squirrel mask, and says "No, it's not, SpongeBob! This is!" That exact same mask appears to be the one that SpongeBob uses when impersonating Sandy's father during the Season 2 episode "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm".
  • In the April Fools episode, Patrick mistakenly says a depressed SpongeBob was "impressed" by Squidward's prank. In Squidward's Tiki Land, Patrick mentions a time he was feeling "impressed".
  • The villain, Man Ray, was cryogenically frozen in tartar sauce for a number of years before being unwittingly thawed out by SpongeBob and Patrick, thus he is still in his physical peak. In a much later episode, Manray recognizes an old lady as someone he went to high school with. There was even an episode where SpongeBob and Patrick travel back in time and accidentally stop Man Ray from being frozen originally, thus creating a Bad Future where Man Ray is the ruler. Hilarity Ensues.
  • The episodes "New Leaf" and "Spy Buddies" featured the robot Krabs suit from an earlier episode "Imitation Krabs".
  • In "Chum Bucket Supreme", Patrick gives the Chum Bucket a slogan. Said slogan is later seen on a billboard in "SpongeBob's Last Stand".
  • In "Rock a Bye Bivalve", Patrick is always seen watching a show where someone gets hit in the head with a coconut with music playing. In "The Thing" Patrick and SpongeBob are watching TV and the music for the show plays again, with Patrick saying he thinks he seen this before and this part is real funny.
  • In "Whelk Attack", SpongeBob remembers the time that he got "suds".
  • In "Born Again Krabs", Mr. Krabs is going to be thrown into Davy Jones locker with his gym socks. In SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One The Flying Dutchman locks him self in there by accident and the actor Davy Jones throws the socks at him.
  • In "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One", Sandy has a helicopter. That exact helicopter is seen later in "The Krabby Patty that Ate Bikini Bottom" and "Single Cell Anniversary".
  • In Patrick's dream in "Home Sweet Rubble", Patrick has pictures on the wall that were pictures of him from "Squidward's School for Grown Ups".
  • In "SpongeBob You're Fired," we see a Freeze-Frame Bonus of a patty with pickles tucked in, similar to the competition with Neptune in a much earlier episode. Also, the snail food company is mentioned again, by name.
  • SpongeBob missing the bus numerous times in "The Abrasive Side" is very similar to the situation he was in at "Rock Bottom".
  • In "Mall Girl Pearl," several one-off characters are seen walking around the mall, including the ice cream eel from "Walking Small," the didgeridoo player from "Something Smells," the comedian Dougie Williams from "Squirrel Jokes," the mime from "The Sponge Who Could Fly," and Carl from "Selling Out."
  • In "Sharks vs. Pods," a picture of SpongeBob's hydrodynamic spatula from the pilot on the wall in SpongeBob's house.
  • In "The Legend of Boo-kini Bottom" Halloween Special, the Flying Dutchman is incredulous that anything SpongeBob could do can scare him. Plankton, who has been converted into the Ducthman's follower, warns him that SpongeBob's mind is a scary place, and he should know; he went there in The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water.
  • In "Squilliam Returns," Mr. Krabs recalls that he was the chef in his navy days. In "Pull up a Barrel," Mr Krabs tells a story of his navy days, where he was a chef.
• Corrective Lecture: In the episode "Sailor Mouth," after SpongeBob and Patrick learn a swear word and start innocently cussing in front of everyone at the Krusty Krab, Mr. Krabs is not happy. When SpongeBob and Patrick explain that they had no idea that the word was bad, Mr. Krabs explains to them what bad words are, and tells them to never use that word again. Of course, they do it anyway.
• Costume Evolution: Normally SpongeBob goes to bed in just his underwear and shoes, but starting in Season 4, he sometimes goes to bed barefoot, and starting in Season 5's "Night Light", there are times he wears actual sleepwear (light green pajamas and a matching nightcap).
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted when Mr. Sun lights the room on fire in "Best Day Ever."
• Conveniently Timed Distraction: In season 2's "No Free Rides", when SpongeBob catches Mrs. Puff, who's wearing a ski mask to conceal her face, stealing his boat, SpongeBob tries to pepper spray her but accidentally sprays himself. Mrs. Puff takes advantage of this by kicking him out of the boat, although it doesn't stop him from chasing her.
• Coordinated Clothes: In "Big Pink Loser", Patrick starts dressing up like SpongeBob as part of an attempt to be a winner just like him. SpongeBob finds it a little creepy, but flattering.
• Cope by Pretending: In "Gone", SpongeBob wakes up to find all of Bikini Bottom completely deserted, except for him. His immediate response is to imitate everyone in town, giving up only when he realizes the task is impossible.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: SpongeBob in "Something Smells" and "Pretty Patties".
  • In the for he wants to make Sunday sundae. He makes it with ketchup, onions, and the peanut plant he's been growing on his bathroom still (along with the dirt and pot they were in).
  • In the later, his Pretty Patties taste great but somehow causes misfortune to everyone who eats them, like having your face turn purple or having your tongue glow in the dark.
• Couple Theme Naming: Gary once has a girlfriend named Mary.
• Courtroom Episode: "Krabs vs. Plankton." Krabs lands in hot water when Plankton sues for negligence as Mr. Krabs was too cheap to buy a wet floor sign.
• Counter-Productive Warning: In the episode "Enemy In-Law", Plankton starts dating Mr. Krab's mother, which Mr. Krabs disapproves of. He goes to confront Plankton and tell him that he will never get the Krabby Patty formula from her since he is not family. Turns out that not only was Plankton dating Krab's mother out of actual interest, but he didn't even know she knew the formula. So from that moment he actually focuses on marrying her so she will tell him the formula.
• The Cover Changes The Species: For the movie, Motörhead re-recorded one of their older tracks, "You Better Run," with new sea lyrics as "You Better Swim."
• Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: In "Sailor Mouth", a mother octopus uses her tentacles to cover her children's ears so they can't hear SpongeBob's swearing. Since she has more children than tentacles, she settles for jamming a soda cup onto the last one's head.
• Cowboy Episode: "Pest of the West" is a flashback starring SpongeBuck, SpongeBob's cowboy ancestor.
• Crack Defeat: In the episode "The Great Snail Race" had SpongeBob, Squidward, and Patrick's pet snails (Gary, Snellie, and Rocky respectively) pitting against each other. Snellie, who is a pure-breed snail, would've won, but she forfeited and comforted an overworked Gary. So the winner? Rocky! It needs to be said that Rocky was an actual rock. How it legitimately got to the finish line was never explained.
• Crapsaccharine World: Despite its cartoony appearance, Bikini Bottom is a city full of grumpy people, jerkasses, idiots and tend to be incredibly racist, being prejudiced against mammalian species (like squirrels) and even each other by skin color (see episode "Sun Bleached" ). Most inhabitants have callous and sadistic tendencies, such as in episodes like "No Hat For Pat" and "Spongicus" where several residents of Bikini Bottom, frankly naturally seem to enjoy the pain of others and killing as entertainment!
• Crazy Consumption: Squidward eats Krabby Patties until he blows up. He also swells to at least ten times his normal size as SpongeBob repeatedly makes Krabby Patties, slips on his untied shoelaces, and sends each sandwich flying into Squidward's mouth with uncanny, and likely accidental, accuracy.
• Crazy-Prepared: During the episode "The Algae's Always Greener", Plankton tells SpongeBob that he needs two Krabby Patties for "bun inspection." SpongeBob politely protests, on the grounds that the patties are for the customer, but immediately produces two more Krabby Patties, saying that he made them "On the off-chance that you decided to do some bun inspection, sir."
• Crazy Workplace: The Krusty Krab only has two employees plus their boss, yet these three characters are enough to make the place quite the interesting dining experience. The boss, Mr. Krabs, is as Greedy as one can possibly be, and will do anything and everything just to get some cash, even if it involves harming his customers. The cashier, Squidward, is an Apathetic Clerk who couldn't care less about his job or his life, which makes him act extremely rude to almost everyone that he serves. The cook, SpongeBob, is a Cloudcuckoolander who is not only really good at his job but is overly passionate about it. Together, these three will always guarantee that Hilarity Will Ensue whenever the Krusty Krab is open.
• Crossover: Patchy the Pirate appears in the Big Time Rush special "Big Time Beach Party".
• Cross-Popping Veins: Squidward does it towards the end of both "Tentacle-Vision" and "Squid's Visit." In "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful," they spell out "I AM ANGRY."
• Cruel Twist Ending: Happens at the end of "The Bully"; Flatts, the flounder who's terrorizing SpongeBob, faints from exhaustion prompting SpongeBob to make a heroic speech, ending with a fist raised in triumph. At that moment, Mrs. Puff enters, sees SpongeBob with his fist up in front of a fainted Flatts, and punishes him for beating him up, which he didn't.
• Crying a River:
  • In "Grandma's Kisses", SpongeBob is told that he's babyish for eating cookies, being given homemade sweaters, and being kissed by his grandma, so he cries about not wanting to grow up and his tears fill his grandma's house.
  • In "The Chaperone", Pearl runs into the Krusty Krab crying because her date stood her up and floods the place with her tears.
  • In "A Day Without Tears", Squidward's last attempt to make SpongeBob lose The Bet he can't cry until midnight (because SpongeBob's end is Squidward has to come for a sleepover if he wins) is tell a sad story. SpongeBob manages to resist by using his body to absorb the tears until his body swells up to three times his normal height. Once the clock hits midnight meaning he has won, SpongeBob finally lets it out and releases so many tears that they flood Bikini Bottom.
  • Pearl does this again in "Married to Money", where she floods the Krabs house with her tears after telling Mr. Krabs that she doesn’t want a stepmother like the ones she saw in the movies because then she won't get her "Prince Charming". They are later drained by a cork stopper by Mr. Krabs, leaving some puddles behind.
  • In "SpongeBob You're Fired", SpongeBob's reaction to getting fired by Mr. Krabs causes him to cry so much that he floods the Krusty Krab with his tears. Squidward then drains them off by making a hole with a cranking hole maker.
• Crying Critters: All the main characters cry, despite not being humans. This is a plot point in "A Day Without Tears" when SpongeBob is bet that he can't go a day without crying, and "Krab Borg", when Mr. Krabs cries (as well as demonstrates affection and mentions laughing) which proves he isn't a robot.
• Cuteness Overload: Happens word for word to Karen in "Spot Returns" when Karen coos over Spot's massive amount of puppies.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Plankton. He is a scientific genius, capable of creating time machines and the like, (among other things that could be tweaked to benefit all ocean life) and yet he insists on working his way up to the top by running a dingy restaurant whose food is Human Resources. Oh, and trying to steal the Krabby Patty recipe, despite the fact that as long as Krabs is also in business, he'll get all the customers because of the aforementioned dinginess of his restaurant. This was worked around in Plan Z, which would have worked if he had tried this ingenious plan from the beginning, before Krabs hired SpongeBob, instead of using countless plans that were doomed to fail.

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