Sponge Bob Square Pants / Tropes J to P

Visit the main page here.

For tropes A to C see here.

For tropes D to I see here.

For tropes Q to Z see here.

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Tropes with their own pages

• Jerkass
• Laser-Guided Karma
• Medium Blending
• My God, What Have I Done?
• No Ending
• Parental Bonus
• Police Are Useless

Other Tropes

J

• Jailed One After Another: In the episode "Shuffleboarding", Spongebob and Patrick accidentally injure Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, who were appointed to participate in the titular event. Spongebob and Patrick are tasked with becoming substitutes for the elderly duo, and are told to return after they're done Shuffle-boarding. Not only do the two friends disobey the order so they can fill in for the heroes full-time, but they do a bad job at it too as they arrest pretty much every single citizen in Bikini Bottom, young and old, for doing anything under the sun (such as getting on a kiddie ride, having shoelaces untied, or being to old). Even Man Ray is wrongly jailed, as he was just going to the laundromat. By the time the duo are done, the entire correctional facility explodes from the amount of citizens in there, who then set out to get revenge. Unfortunately, Spongebob and Patrick have returned their costumes, so the angry mob goes after the actual and innocent Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.
• Jerkass:
  • In "Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful", a cop follows Squidward around and continuously slams tickets into his face for even being near a pile of garbage. Must be some slow days for that cop.
  • Dylan in "Whale Watching", after talking Pearl into sneaking out to a breach party (where everyone jumps out of the water and surfaces) once Pearl accidentally beaches herself, he (and everyone else at the party) immediately runs off, basically leaving her to die, good thing Squidward came along and him and Pearl got Dylan back at the end by torturing him with SpongeBob.
• Jerkass at Your Discretion: Puffy Fluffy in "A Pal For Gary" only attempts to attack Gary when SpongeBob is not looking. The second SpongeBob turns to see the damage, Puffy Fluffy reverts to his cute state so it looks like Gary is responsible.
• Jerkass Ball:
  • The normally sympathetic Mrs. Puff becomes a jerk in "Demolition Doofus" as she tries to outright MURDER SpongeBob! Thankfully toned down in the book adaptation where she instead just wants to watch him get injured until he decides he'll never drive again. SpongeBob also holds a bit of this when he refuses to own up for causing her to lose her puff and instead chooses to insult her disability for the sake of it.
  • SpongeBob tends to show shades of this in the later seasons, especially seasons 5-8. The largest example would be "A Pal For Gary", where he straight-up ignores Gary's warnings of Puffy Fluffy and berates him for ignoring or roughhousing the creature. This even continues when he sees the creature in its monster form and scolds Gary again for sending it away, despite the snail saving his life. He even chooses to ignore the old lady's warning about the creature, even stealing it without even paying for it!
  • SpongeBob tends to show bits of this toward Squidward, specifically sneaking into his house undetected, refusing to leave him alone when he doesn't want it, and even popping up all over the place until he's recuded to a freaked-out heap. It's best seen in "Squid Wood", "The Thing", and "Choir Boys".
• Jerkass Gods: Neptune, especially in "The Clash Of Triton" where he traps his son in a cage for wanting to meddle in the lives of mortals instead of smiting them, but he gets better.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Squidward, usually in seasons 1-3. While it's clear that he doesn't enjoy being SpongeBob and Patrick's neighbors, trying to avoid them and generally being rather rude, there are moments that show he does care for them. For example, in "Graveyard Shift", he admits that he "always kind of liked" SpongeBob, and episodes such as "Squidville" and "SB-129" show that he would miss them if he ever had to go away.
  • Mr. Krabs on their better days.
• Joins to Fit In: In "Squidville", Squidward finally gives up on trying to put up with SpongeBob and Patrick and moves to Tentacle Acres, a town completely populated by clarinet-playing, interpretive-dancing, bicycle-riding, canned-bread-buying, cynical, sarcastic squids, all just like Squidward. He quickly grows tired of the tedium, realizing that he needs SpongeBob to help keep his life interesting.
• Joke of the Butt: Happens a lot in episodes after season 9. Often, Patrick will hit stuff with his butt ("Drive Happy", "The Nitwitting") or end up sitting on characters like SpongeBob or Plankton. Other times, characters will randomly be drawn with pronounced butts (such as Plankton in "The Krusty Slammer" and SpongeBob in "The Night Patty"). Bubble Bass, being a Fat Slob, often gets butt jokes as Fan Disservice; he rubs his butt against a glass window in "Bubble Bass's Tab" and Sandy's treedome in "Goons on the Moon"
• Journey to the Center of the Mind: The dream version in the episode "Sleepy Time". Naturally, SpongeBob managed to ruin the dreams of everyone in Bikini Bottom, and he awoke to find a group of annoyed friends and neighbors, insisting he stay out of their dreams because they get enough of him during the day.
• Jump Rope Blunders: In "Big Pink Loser", SpongeBob is sick of Patrick copying him and tries to do things that he can't, including a jumprope trick called the "slice-and-dice" that splits him into little cubes. Patrick then takes the rope and dices himself as well.
• Jump Scare: "Wormy" has multiple. At certain points, when a character is approached by Wormy (as a butterfly), there's a sudden cut to a live-action horsefly making a loud buzzing noise.
• Just Friends:
  • SpongeBob apparently has a crush on Sandy. This isn't very noticeable within the show itself, but supplemental materials place special emphasis on it. A survival guide released in 2002 played with the fact, hinting at the crush being "secret"◊.
  • Sandy's official biography states that she "is the only thing under the sea that SpongeBob likes better than his job at the Krusty Krab."

K

• Karma Houdini:
  • Granny from the episode "Have You Seen This Snail?". Despite having fed multiple snails to death, potentially killing them, she's never shown to be punished for this.
  • Another example happens in "Chocolate With Nuts" where SpongeBob and Patrick are trying to earn money by selling chocolate but are conned by a fish three times and he never gets any comeuppance, aside from being the only customer they did not sell any chocolate to.
  • At the end of "Best Frenemies", we never saw who came up with the Kelpshake stands and if they ever got punished for selling addictive, toxic drinks to the population of the city.
  • In "Biddy Sitting", an old woman tricks SpongeBob and Patrick into babysitting her much older mother, giving them no instructions and not even paying them. SpongeBob and Patrick get badly beaten up by the end of it, but we never see if they confront the old lady for this.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: The fish who cons SpongeBob and Patrick out of their money multiple times in "Chocolate With Nuts" initially got off scot-free, but later appearances gave him some form of karma: his jewelry shop gets robbed in "The Getaway" and all of his automobiles are destroyed in "Sanitation Insanity".
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: Squidward started off this way, being a narcissistic grouch who hated his neighbours somewhat disproportionately (and sometimes played cruel pranks to be rid of them). As the show became more sadistic however, Squidward's treatment became more disproportionate and his hatred towards SpongeBob became more justified as he increasingly made his life a genuine hell. This also counts for Plankton.
• Keet: SpongeBob is quite possibly Western Animation's most famous example of this trope. He's cute, hyperactive, and In Touch with His Feminine Side.
• The Kiddie Ride: From Northern Leisure/Kiddy Rides UK, we have SpongeBob and Gary riding in the Krabby Patty Wagon. Also spawned unlicensed ripoffs.
• Kids Are Cruel: The children of Bikini Bottom can be just as big jerkasses as the adults.
  • An example being "Krabby Land".
  SpongeBob: Those kids seem to respond to me being in pain. They enjoy other people's misery.
  • The kids shown at the start of "Krusty Katering" have no qualms about viciously tormenting the Krusty Krew - Squidward is sneezed on, Mr. Krabs gets smashed open like a piñata, SpongeBob is burst open while acting as a bouncy castle by a kid with cleats and Patrick's head gets torn off. No wonder they abandon the gig a minute later.
• Kids' Meal Toy: invoked
  • In "Born Again Krabs", Krabs gives out free Bikini Bottomite action figures at the Krusty Krab until he realizes he is awake.
  • In "Mermaid Man vs. SpongeBob", Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy are hired to promote the restaurant, appearing in TV commercials for it. Kids meals are produced featuring Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy toys. Seeing how the promotion attracted kids to the Krusty Krab, Plankton uses mind-control shampoo on the aforementioned heroes to turn them against the Krusty Krab and bring customers to the Chum Bucket.
  • In "Yours, Mine and Mine", SpongeBob buys Patrick a kid's meal (that the latter agreed to share with the former but didn't) and Patrick demands a refund. Mr. Krabs, not wanting to lose any money, inserts some straw limbs and pickle eyes on a Krabby Patty and calls it a Krabby Patty-shaped toy. SpongeBob falls in love with it, naming it "Patty Pal." The whole plot of the episode is Patrick being stingy and selfish by not sharing the toy with SpongeBob, which devastates the latter and causes conflict throughout the episode.
• Kids Prefer Boxes: "Idiot Box" revolved around SpongeBob ordering a giant screen television... simply so that he and Patrick could have the box to play in. Lampshaded by Squidward.
  Squidward: Just when I thought they couldn't get any stupider.
• Kill the Lights: In "Jellyfish Hunter", the lights in SpongeBob's house go out when a blue jellyfish snips the electrical wires.
  SpongeBob: I guess Gary forgot to pay the electric bill.
• Killer Gorilla: A live-action one appears in "I Had An Accident". It attacks Patrick, Sandy and later SpongeBob before SpongeBob questions how it can breathe underwater.
• The Killjoy: Squidward often grumpily tells his neighbours SpongeBob and Patrick to stop goofing off. Sometimes it's because they're getting in his way, but other times he's just crabby.
• "Kiss the Cook" Apron: In the season five episode "Friend or Foe", Patchy the Pirate wears a "Kiss the Cook" apron while working at a restaurant called "The Poop Deck". When his parrot Potty questions this, Patchy remarks that he might "get lucky" and turns to the camera, offering himself to the ladies in the audience.
• Kitschy Local Commercial:
  • When Mr. Krabs decides to make a commercial for the Krusty Krab in "As Seen on TV", Squidward initially goes all out to make it as extravagant as possible. Krabs then decides it's too much and goes for a cheesy commercial on at 3AM.
  • "Goodbye, Krabby Patty?" gives us an amateurish and inspired commercial for Frozen Krabby Patties. It features stilted dialogue like "welcome to my commercial", the footage is being filmed by Pearl on a handheld phone, and it clearly has No Budget.
• Kitschy Themed Restaurant: When Mr. Krabs sells the Krusty Krabb in "Selling Out", its new owners turn it into "Krabby O'Monday's", complete with wall bric-a-bac and T.G.I. Friday's-style striped tables.
• Kneel, Push, Trip: In "Grandma's Kisses", SpongeBob is practicing what he's going to tell his grandmother about being a grown up. Patrick then adds "Then you get behind her and I'll push", to which SpongeBob responds that they didn't agree on that.
• Knight of Cerebus: Granny from the episode "Have You Seen This Snail?". She, unlike other recurring villains in the series (including Plankton and Mr. Krabs, who is considered funny in his actions even more deplorable), she contrasts absolutely comical traits, and the episode itself made things very serious.
• Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy:
  • SpongeBob tries to warn 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's cousin-"
  • In "Suds", Patrick tells SpongeBob of the horrors of the doctor's office which he knows because "I know a guy who knows a guy who went to the doctor once".
• Knuckle Cracking: SpongeBob attempts to do this in "No Weenies Allowed", but it ends…poorly.
• Kraken and Leviathan: Squidward becomes the "Giant Octopus" after Neptune's Moon devolves him. As a mindless animal he tries to eat his friends and can only be matched by a devolved Pearl.

L

• Laborious Laces:
  • In "Your Shoe's Untied", SpongeBob tries to show Patrick how to tie his new shoes, but he's had them on so long that he has no idea how to do so. Now, having untied his shoes, he can't tie them back up. He tries to find someone to teach him, but no one else in Bikini Bottom has shoes with laces. Finally, he learns how from his pet snail Gary, who secretly has a shoe under his shell.
  • Parodied in the episode "Fools in April". SpongeBob says to someone, "Hey, your shoe's untied. April fools! You're not wearing shoes!".
• Lack of Imagination: While Squidward has imagined things before, he doesn't have a very good imagination compared to some of the other characters. For example, in "Idiot Box" (which provides the page quote), when he tries to play pretend in a box like SpongeBob and Patrick, it doesn't work until he can actually hear a garbage truck that fits with his fantasy of driving a car.
• Lactating Male: Implied in "New Digs", where a transition happens and SpongeBob is suddenly holding a glass of milk, which he calls "a glass of warm snail milk". Was originally going to be played straight, with SpongeBob actually shown milking Gary, but the scene ultimately didn't make it into the episode because of the dirty implications.
• Ladies and Germs: In the episode "Squirrel Jokes", SpongeBob refers to the audience as "Ladies and jellyfish" to start his first stand-up comedy routine.
• Lampshade Hanging: Running gag. The series features phenomena impossible in its underwater setting, like fire, and the characters comment on this.
  • "Hey, if we're underwater, then how can there be a— [fire extinguishes]
  • In "I Had an Accident", a tree is shown wearing scuba gear.
  • In "Chimps Ahoy", Sandy's bosses come to visit her and check on her scientific progress. One points out that sending scientists underwater to live in Treedomes for no reason doesn't really make much sense.
  • Then there's the infamous episode where SpongeBob breaks his butt and becomes agoraphobic. After several attempts to get SpongeBob outside, a gorilla suddenly attacks Patrick, Sandy, and SpongeBob, who points out the absurdity of having a gorilla underwater. Unable to explain itself, the gorilla rides off on a zebra into the sunset. The last shot is a family watching the episode, being just as confused as we are.
  • In "Squilliam Returns" SpongeBob has to forget everything he knows except fine dining. This is visualised by little SpongeBobs in his brain shredding documents, burning them, etc. One of them asks his boss why he should work harder, as they're just "...a clever visual metaphor used to personify the abstract concept of thought." When the boss then threatens to fire said worker he's begging for him not to, because he has wife and kids. Which kind of qualifies as a lampshade hung onto a lampshade.
• Language Barrier: The sea creatures (and Sandy, Mermaid Man, and Barnacle Boy) hear each other speak English but in any live-action segment on land, humans don't seem to be able to hear them.
• Large Ham: EVERYONE!!! Especially Plankton.
• Last Day to Live: Inverted — the titular sponge is thought to have unknowingly eaten a deadly pie, which will end his life at sunset. Squidward, responsible for bringing a pie-shaped bomb to SpongeBob, feels guilty enough to spend the rest of the day doing anything SpongeBob wants (without telling SpongeBob that the reason is because he thinks he's going to die). It's eventually revealed that SpongeBob never ate the bomb-pie, but rather a different pie. He saved the bomb, which he promptly trips and thus throws into Squidward's face, producing a nuclear blast.
• Last Moment Together: This is played with in one episode. Squidward buys a pie for Spongebob, and the former figures out that the "pie" is actually a bomb; before he could take the pie away, though, it seems to him (and Mr. Krabs) that Bob has already eaten it. Fearing that Bob might've died at the end of the day, Squidward decides to spend the rest of the day with him, struggling to cater to Bob's wishes and antics. Near the end of the day, as the two are lying down to watch the sunset (with Squidward putting himself and Spongebob separated with a wall), the two then do a countdown to the sunset together... and Squidward hears an explosion behind the wall. He's thankful that Bob has a meaningful last day to live... and suddenly another explosion occurs that topples the wall onto him. It turns out Spongebob is still alive and blowing bubble-shaped bombs. When Bob looks at him puzzled, Squidward angrily exclaims that he's supposed to die from the pie he ate - cue Bob pulling out the pie from behind his pocket, saying that he wanted to share it with Squidward; meaning that the latter did everything in the day for nothing. Then Bob trips and the pie flies to Squidward's face - cue a huge nuclear explosion.
• Last Note Nightmare: The early APM track "Lovely Scenery A". While the title may suggest otherwise, it contains a dramatic stab at the very end, where the track is most used.
• Later-Installment Weirdness:
  • Although SpongeBob normally sleeps in his underwear, starting in Season 5 he frequently wears green pajamas and a nightcap. Squidward and Patrick also have their own takes as well.
  • The show has a greater emphasis on Wild Take humor from Season 10 onward. Episodes also have a greater focus on Continuity Nods to the point of bringing back various One Shot Characters for cameos, when before most episodes were comparatively self-contained and didn't reference each other much.
• Late to the Realization: In Season 12's "Jolly Lodgers", Squidward decides to vacation at Hotel Halibut while his home is being rid of a sea urchin infestation caused by SpongeBob. Unfortunetely, Squidward didn't realize until too late that Hotel Halibut is hosting a jellyfishing convention — something both SpongeBob and Patrick obsessively love — thus SpongeBob and Patrick are staying there as well.
• Laughing Mad: SpongeBob engages in a bit of this during the infamous "I've Been Waiting for You, Patrick" scene from "Bummer Vacation".
• Laugh with Me!: A variation. The Flying Dutchman take SpongeBob and Patrick onboard as his crew. When he demands that they "howl with me, that we might set the seven seas ABLAZE with fear!", they comply by various ridiculous noises, until he finally gives up on making them scary.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Sporadic through the series.
  • The time frame of 11 minutes, the approximate length of one episode, is brought up more than once, in-universe:
    • Squidward once complained, "Why must every 11 minutes of my life be filled with misery?"
    • From "Nature Pants":
      Sandy: I give him a week.
      Squidward: I give him 11 minutes.
    • After SpongeBob finishes a long-winded narrative about how he once "lost his identity," a waitress at the bar he was sitting in observes, "Well, you managed to kill 11 minutes."
    • From "Planet of the Jellyfish":
      Mr. Krabs: What happened?
      SpongeBob: Well, let me tell ya...
      narrator: Eleven minutes later...
      SpongeBob: ... And that's why we're covered in goo.
  • "Normal" SpongeBob: "One more thing, Squidward... you don't wear pants."
  • In "Born to be Wild", SpongeBob decides to take a shortcut to get back to Bikini Bottom. Said shortcut involves riding on one of the bubbles from the scene transitions to immediately arrive at the Krusty Krab. Understandably, Mr. Krabs is confused.
• Learning to Ride a Bike: "Ride Patrick Ride" centers on SpongeBob teaching Patrick how to ride a bike.
• Left the Background Music On:
  • Used several times, first when Plankton pulls out a tiny record player from Hammerspace to provide musical accompaniment for his Evil Laugh. The second time he does this is a funny moment.
  • The episode Clams an ominous tune starts up and Krabs takes notice. He discovers a full orchestra playing the song.
    Krabs: That's a 4/4 String Ostinato in D-Minor! Every sailor knows that means death!
• LEGO Genetics:
  • In "The Inside Job," when Plankton absorbs the secret recipe from SpongeBob's heart, Plankton turns into a miniature, plankton shaped SpongeBob. After being extracted, Karen's device gets stuck on Patrick, turning Plankton into mini one eyed Patrick.
  • In "Salsa Imbecilius," Plankton comes up with the idea to mix Patrick's DNA into a soup, and feed it Mister Krabs so as to make him so stupid. he'll unknowingly give away the secret formula. The plan backfires when Plankton tastes the soup, the soup evaporates, and condenses into a rain cloud, whose rain infects all of Bikini Bottom with Patrick's (lack of)intelligence.
• Lethal Chef: Squidward might be such a terrible cook that he's liable to burn your milkshake or serve you a literal fried boot instead of a sandwich, but unlike Mr. Krabs, he's never prepared a dish that will try to eat YOU.
• Lethally Stupid: SpongeBob and Patrick. Goes with them being Too Dumb to Live. In SpongeBob's case, it's not really so much that he's lethally stupid— "lethally naive" would probably be a better description. When Patrick has lethally stupid ideas, SpongeBob usually protests initially, but somehow gets talked into it by Patrick, whose intuition SpongeBob clearly trusts too much.
• Let Me Tell You a Story: Mr. Krabs' story to SpongeBob about spending a dollar on a soda to persuade SpongeBob to let his seahorse go.
• Let's Have Another Baby: Patrick says this to SpongeBob after they take care of a baby scallop.
• Lightbulb Joke: The basis of many of SpongeBob's "squirrel jokes" stand-up.
  SpongeBob: How come it takes more than one squirrel to screw in a light bulb?
  Audience: BECAUSE THEY'RE SO DARN STUPID!!!
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: The creatures of the sea can communicate with humans and generally most other land dwellers.
• Line-of-Sight Alias:
  • When the Flying Dutchman comes for Mr. Krabs' soul in the hospital, Mr. Krabs insists that he is "Harold Flower", after the flower on the end table.
  • In "Chum Fricassee", Mr. Krabs gives his fake name as "Sir Crumple O'Wrapper", after seeing a crumpled wrapper on the floor of the Chum Bucket.
• Literal Metaphor:
  • In "Missing Identity", Mr. Krabs initiates a surprise uniform inspection, declaring that any employee who doesn't pass "gets the boot." He then produces a literal boot, claiming that "it's very stinky," and the punishment is having to wear it all day.
  • This type of joke is very common after season 9, popping up once or twice an episode and usually combined with Visual Pun. For instance, in "Upturn Girls", we see a skyscraper literally tearing through the sky, Patrick thinks babysitting is literally sitting on babies in "Biddy Sitting", "Library Cards" has a sequence of various puns on books (an "abridged" book literally has a bridge pop out and a "log book" is inside a wooden log), SpongeBob keeps his "eyes on the road" while driving by literally taking out his eyeballs and letting them dangle on the road in "The Getaway", SpongeBob "eats Krabs' dust" in a race by stopping, taking out a fork, and physically eating some dust in "Pat the Horse"...
• Literal-Minded:
  • In "Squid on Strike", SpongeBob takes Squidward's advice to "dismantle the oppressive establishment" too literally and destroys the Krusty Krab.
  • In "Shanghaied", When a giant anchor falls from the sky and into SpongeBob's house (and then crashes into Squidward's house subsequently), Squidward angrily climbs the anchor's chain to find the culprit.
  Squidward: I'm gonna get to the bottom of this!
  SpongeBob: Wouldn't that be the top?
  Squidward: [glares at SpongeBob with a "Not amused" look]
  SpongeBob: [smiles goofily]
• Little Known Facts: Patrick Star comes up with loads of these, usually in The Blind Leading the Blind situations with SpongeBob. They both believe them.
• Living Drawing: In "Frankendoodle", SpongeBob and Patrick find a magic pencil that creates real objects out of their drawings. When SpongeBob uses it to make a self-portrait, the result is the evil "Doodlebob", who is eventually defeated by being trapped in a piece of paper.
• Living Museum Exhibit: Plankton becomes an exhibit in the Atlantean's museum to replace the World's Oldest Bubble, which SpongeBob and Patrick had accidentally popped earlier.
• Living Photo:
  • Happens twice in "Employee of the Month". The first time, SpongeBob believes that Squidward will be the next employee of the month and imagines Squidward occupying the next blank picture frame and laughing at him. The second time, he looks at the pictures of himself on the wall and they (now wearing Army helmets) give him an pep talk.
  • In "Have You Seen This Snail?", Gary runs away when SpongeBob ignores him to play a paddleball challenge. When he winds up in a new home, Gary looks at the photo of SpongeBob he brought with him and imagines him shouting "Gary, can't you see I'm busy?!"
• Lonely at the Top: Patrick in "Goodbye, Krabby Patty?". Thanks to the huge success of frozen Krabby Patty, whose 400 commercials Patrick stars, that leads him to his own success as a commercial star, he's been away from SpongeBob and always misses hanging out with him, which makes him lonely and miserable, despite all the fame and fortune he has.
• Long Song, Short Scene:
  • Buenos Aires B only plays for a few seconds during Squidward's party in "Home Sweet Pineapple" and has never been used since.
  • Taken this to a whole new level with the "Free-form jazz" scene. For reference, here is the original scene, and here is the full song. It's over 63 TIMES shorter than the original song.
• Look-Alike Lovers: Squidward's first impression of a female octopus in "Love That Squid":
  Squidward: SpongeBob, she's got it all! Class, style, grace, and looks like yours truly!
• Loophole Abuse: In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy III", SpongeBob and Patrick is about to drive away in the Invisible Boatmobile to stop Man Ray, but SpongeBob stops, reminding them that he doesn't have a driver's license. Patrick's solution is that because the boat is invisible, you're gonna need an invisible license to drive it, so he digs out "his" for SpongeBob to borrow.
• Lord of the Ocean: King Neptune is a rather self-centered and short-tempered old man who wields vast magical powers through his trident.
• Loser Protagonist: Zig-zagged with SpongeBob himself. There are several episodes (primarily the ones that take place at Goo Lagoon) where SpongeBob is mocked and/or humiliated for being a wimp, a geek, and having interest in childlike hobbies such as bubble blowing, reef blowers, jellyfishing, and toys (notably, his only real friends are Patrick and Sandy). However, he's also shown to be willing to stand up and unite everyone together for a greater cause such as "Band Geeks", and the townspeople often pity or stand up for him when he's publicly humiliated or hurt such as "Fools in April."
• Lost Him in a Card Game: Mr. Krabs lost SpongeBob to Plankton after he bet him in a card game, in "Welcome to the Chum Bucket".
• Loud of War: There's a jellyfish party at SpongeBob's that's been going for 18 hours that annoys Squidward, so he turns his house towards SpongeBob's and plays his clarinet through full-blast speakers. The jellyfish are not happy.
• Lounge Singer: Played by Squidward of all people in the game "Squarepants Mystery", wherein the characters are cast in a detective play. Subverted in that Squidward is playing a clarinet rather than singing, but he's decked out in full mascara, dark eyeshadow, and even complete with a thigh high slit dress. And yes, he gets hurt somehow.
• Ludicrous Gift Request: In "Christmas Who?", the citizens of Bikini Bottom first learn about the holiday and ask for crazy things from Santa such as "a glass of water for my teeth".
• Lying Finger Cross: Played with in "Hooky". When SpongeBob and Patrick promise Mr. Krabs not to play on the fishing hooks, Patrick claims he had his fingers crossed. SpongeBob then points out that Patrick has no fingers.

M

• MacGuffin: The Secret Formula, arguably.
• Madness Mantra:
  • FOCUS ON THE ROAD, THERE IS NOTHING BUT THE ROAD.
  • CHOCOLATE!!!
  • Backing up! Backing up! Backing up! Backing up...
  • Squidward: Fuuuuuuuture! Fuuuuuuuture! Fuuuuuuu— [future SpongeBob drops a brick on Squidward's head] ... thanks.
  • "The Algae's Always Greener" has three of them:
    • Uh...uh...uh...uh...uh...
    • SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT! SOILED IT!
    • And the next day...and the next day...and the next day...and the next day...and the next day...
  • Be the crane. Be the crane. Be the crane.
  • I don't need it. I don't need it. I definitely don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it. I don't need it. ...[Beat]... IIII NEEEED IIIIIT!!!
  • Darn it. Darn it. Darn it.
  • Have you finished those errands?
  • Tick, tick, tick, tick...
  • Muh-muh-muh-ma-muh-muh-ma-muh-ma! MAN RAY!
• Made of Indestructium:
  • From "Wet Painters", Mr. Krabs' first dollar survives everything SpongeBob & Patrick throw at it while trying to get the paint off.
  • The formula safe in "Frozen Face Off" also qualifies, taking no physical damage from everything short of Plankton accidentally splitting an atom and even then it is fairly intact compared to the rest of the Krusty Krab
• Made Out to Be a Jerkass: In the infamous "Stuck in the Wringer", Patrick's stupidity results in SpongeBob being trapped in a wringer and can't get out, and despite Patrick trying to convince him otherwise, nothing goes right for him anymore. Finally, at an amusement park, SpongeBob yells at Patrick, saying it's all his fault his life is ruined. After a sad Patrick leaves, the crowd around SpongeBob get on his case.
• Magic Feather:
  • The titular paper from "The Paper". Squidward learns the hard way it's not the paper itself but SpongeBob's creativity and optimism that made it fun, and it's worthless in the hands of anyone who lacks that.
  • In the climax of "Free Samples", SpongeBob saves the Krusty Krab by selling new krabby patties that taste differently. When Mr. Krabs is celebrating afterward, SpongeBob reveals he just made regular patties, but called them new.
• Make-Out Point: "Ah, makeout reef. Good times. Gooood times."
• Manchild:
  • SpongeBob is old enough to live independently, hold down a job, and drive a boat, yet he's so obnoxiously silly and childish that he's been referred to as an actual kid multiple times.
  • Patrick is one too, being nearly as naive and silly.
• The Man in the Mirror Talks Back:
  • Patrick's reflection berates him in "Roller Cowards" for…well, being a coward. He punches it out.
  • SpongeBob attempts to give himself a pep talk in "Wet Painters" after ruining Mr. Krabs' first dollar, but upon hearing Krabs return, the reflection informs SpongeBob he's on his own.
• Marshmallow Dream:
  • SpongeBob dreams of eating Krabby Patties and wakes up chewing on his pillow.
  • Also referred to on "Sleepy Time". When SpongeBob meets Gary in the dreamworld, the now erudite Gary tries to explain to him the concept of dreams as a view to another world. When an Emily Dickinson poem goes over SB's head, Gary recites one more his speed: "There once was an old man from Peru; Who dreamed he was eating his shoe; He woke with a fright; In the middle of the night; To find that his dream had come true".
• Martial Arts for Mundane Purposes: In one episode, it is revealed that SpongeBob is nigh-obsessed with karate, driving his boss Krabs to nearly fire him from his frycook job due to the fact this obsession is interfering with his work... until he realizes that SpongeBob's karate can also be used to mass-produce burgers and to put on a very entertaining show for customers.
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover:
  • The Nicktoons Unite! series of video games. Nicktoons MLB also counts.
  • SpongeBob has a cameo in "Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band", a Children in Need music video crossing over many significant British Stop Motion cartoons, a few 2D British and American cartoons, and the live-action Teletubbies. (The reason for having a mere cameo is that the 2D shows^*Including a character from Nickelodeon's "other side", just as the Children In Need telethon includes programmes from The BBC's "other side". Funny, no? only appear on TV screens to avoid major Medium Blending.)
• Mass "Oh, Crap!":
  • In "Sandy, SpongeBob and the Worm", a large amount of Bikini Bottomites are reduced to the same panic as SpongeBob when they hear of the Alaskan Bull Worm.
  • In "Krabby Land", all of the children, even SpongeBob, have an ENORMOUS one when Mr. Krabs goes right back into his office after pretending to be Krabby the Clown for only about ten seconds with no act.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Whether the toy conch shell from "Club SpongeBob" is truly magical or not is left ambiguous by the end of the episode. On the one hand, characters who believe in it are all complete Cloudcuckoolanders, and the miracles it performs could be just a result of luck or sheer coincidence. On the other hand, the conch shell trolls Squidward and shows hints of sarcasm, implying that at the very least it's sentient.
• Meat-O-Vision:
  • A variant in "Fear of a Krabby Patty", where SpongeBob develops a fear of Krabby Patties and sees Mr. Krabs and the customers as them.
  • In "Frozen Face-Off", Sandy sees SpongeBob as a sponge kebab.
  • In "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!", Patchy and Potty are stranded and hungry, and Patchy sees Potty as a plate of buffalo wings. Potty, in turn, sees Patchy as a cake of bird seed and starts pecking at his head.
  • At the end of "Feral Friends", when Neptune's Sun devolves Patchy and Potty into a caveman and a pterodactyl, Potty sees Patchy as a Krabby Patty and carries him away.
• Medium Blending: Above the surface of the water, everything's in live-action.
• Melancholy Musical Number:
  • In "Texas", Sandy gets homesick and sings a song about her missing Texas and wanting to go home. Another episode has the opposite, with Sandy singing a song about how much she'll miss Bikini Bottom when she thinks she's going to leave.
  • SpongeBob gets one in "Mimic Madness", as he is succumbing to Mocking Mimicry Madness and doesn't remember his true identity, flipping through various characters and objects while questioning who he really is.
• Memorial for the Antagonist: Zigzagged in the episode "SpongeBob vs the Patty Gadget", which ends with an unusual example. Having defeated the titular gadget, which was intended to take his job, SpongeBob suddenly collapses from exhaustion. Smash Cut to a funeral service, which appears at first to be SpongeBob's... until he walks into the shot and begins gleefully dancing on the grave. Turns out the Bikini Bottomites were holding a memorial for the Patty Gadget.
• Merchandise-Driven: In-universe example in "The Krusty Sponge". When SpongeBob's cooking was the sole thing that saved Krabs from a bad review from a food critic, he exploits that for as much as possible with many SpongeBob-themed items, including the Spongy Patty... which are just rotten Krabby Patties.
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: From "Squid Baby":
  SpongeBob: Do you like games, Squiddy?
  Patrick: Games? Games are our middle name!
• Metaphorgotten: In "Banned in Bikini Bottom":
  SpongeBob: If Krabby Patties are illegal now, aren't we breaking the law?
  Mr. Krabs: There's an old saying, lad. What doesn't kill ya... usually succeeds in the second attempt.
  SpongeBob: But what does that have to do with making Krabby Patties?
  Mr. Krabs: Nothing!
• The Millstone: Patrick fits more than the usual. Whenever SpongeBob or anyone has a plan, Patrick is sure to screw it up, or do something stupid to make it worse.
• Mind-Control Eyes:
  • Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy get red spiral eyes when under Plankton's control in "Mermaid Man vs. SpongeBob".
  • SpongeBob's eyes turn into blue spirals in "Bumper to Bumper" when Mrs. Puff's mantra gets to his head.
  • In "SpongeBob's Bad Habit", SpongeBob's eyes turn into red Kaa-esque swirls during his hypnotherapy session.
  • SpongeBob and Patrick have red spirals in their eyes when they see the epynomous Whirly Brains commercial.
• Miniature Senior Citizens: Exaggerated. Mermaid Man is only slightly taller than SpongeBob, and both he and Barnacle Boy are somehow the size of fish.
• Mini-Golf Episode: "A Friendly Game" has SpongeBob and Patrick build a miniature golf course inside SpongeBob's house when it's raining. They then try to play a round without disturbing their Cranky Neighbor Squidward.
• Mining for Cookies: The episode "Mustard O' Mine" is about SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward going to the Mustard Mines to get more mustard for the Krusty Krab. Other condiments, like mayonnaise, ketchup, and hot sauce are found in the mine as well.
• Mirror-Cracking Ugly: SpongeBob thought he was this, but it was just his reflection reacting to his smelly breath.
• Misleading Package Size: In "Idiot Box", SpongeBob buys a television set just to play with the box it came in. The TV was about three times the size of the box.
• Missed the Bus: Rock Bottom. Full stop.
• Missed the Recital: In the episode Best Day Ever, SpongeBob is denied entry to Squidward's clarinet recital, as he is supposedly Not on the List. It's ultimately discovered that SpongeBob was on the VIP list and manages to get in, but by the time he sits down, Squidward's recital is over.
• Mistaken for Brooding: In "A Pal for Gary", SpongeBob thinks his pet snail Gary is lonely while SpongeBob is at work when actually Gary is perfectly happy by himself. This is what leads to SpongeBob buying a second pet, who unfortunately turns out to be dangerous.
• Mistaken for Fake Hair: In "No Weenies Allowed", one of the fish at Weenie Hut Junior suggests SpongeBob have a cool hairdo to get into the Salty Spitoon, so he runs off to a wig store. A familiar-looking sponge with a black pompadour arrives at the Salty Spitoon to introduce himself as a drifter who wants to enter the bar, and Reg tells him that he can see through the disguise and pulls on his hair. SpongeBob then arrives with a rainbow clown wig, and Reg tries unsuccessfully to fix the drifter's hair before apologizing and letting him inside.
• Mistaken for Insane: In "The Hall Monitor", SpongeBob pretends to be the "Open Window Maniac" to scare some people into closing their window. However, this causes the citizens to think he actually is a maniac and he even ends up on the news.
• Mistaken for Own Murderer: SpongeBob and Patrick fall in love with one of Sandy's pets, a caterpillar named Wormy. When Wormy transforms into a butterfly overnight, they, having never seen such a thing, assume it's a monster that ate Wormy... and they were next!
• Mistaken for Thief:
  • In "The Pink Purloiner", SpongeBob thinks Patrick stole his jellyfishing net, which he actually left on the bus.
  • In "Can You Spare a Dime?" Mr. Krabs's favorite dime is stolen and he accuses Squidward, but really it was in his pocket. However, they argue about whether or not Squidward put it there on purpose.
• Mistaken for Toilet:
  • In "Plankton Gets the Boot", Plankton walks out of a door, thanking SpongeBob for letting him use his bathroom, only for the latter to reveal that it was actually his closet. Plankton then tells him he probably needs to get new shoes, implying he used one as a Jar Potty.
  • Zigzagged in "Roller Cowards" where SpongeBob and Patrick claim they're queueing to ride a rollercoaster called the Fist o' Pain, only to be told it's actually the line for the bathroom. Ordinarily, this would be an inversion, but since both are scared to ride the rollercoaster, it's unknown if it was a genuine mistake or if they were stalling.
• Mistaken for Undead: In "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost", SpongeBoband Patrick believe that they had killed Squidward (when really it was just a wax model of himself that he had made), so when he emerges from his bath - robed, covered in talcum powder in a bath of steam - they think that he is his own ghost. While at first annoyed, he goes along with it when they agree to be his servants to appease him.
• Mistaken from Behind: In the episode "Squidville", SpongeBob and Patrick are trying to find Squidward in a crowd of look-alikes. SpongeBob (and the audience) sees an octopus who looks like Squidward from behind, since he's wearing the same brown shirt that Squidward usually wears. But when SpongeBob embraces him we see his face and he has heavy eyebrows and a big black mustache.
• Mobile Fishbowl: The main cast is known to wear water-filled fishbowls on their heads when visiting Sandy's house. Bikini Bottom also once did a concert in a human stadium under a water-filled glass dome.
• Mock Cousteau: The French Narrator is intended as an homage to Jacques Cousteau, narrating the antics of the title character and those around him as if they were part of a marine biology documentary.
• Mock Millionaire: Double subverted when Squilliam Fancyson pretends to be one to bait Squidward... only to finally reveal he actually is rich.
• Money Dumb:
  • "Porous Pockets" features SpongeBob getting extremely rich after stumbling upon a large diamond. He spends the episode giving away free money to the greedy crowd that attaches themselves to him and ignores Patrick's attempt to make him stop. He eventually runs out of money and everyone abandons him.
  • Subverted in "Squid's Day Off": Squidward leaves SpongeBob in charge of the Krusty Krab (Mr. Krabs was in the hospital and Squidward wanted a day off). He has an Imagine Spot where Patrick asks for change for a cent, and SpongeBob gives away all the money on the till. Squidward runs to check that everything is okay, and tests SpongeBob by asking him for change of a dollar; SpongeBob proceeds to recite every possible combination of coins that he could get for it until Squidward simply goes away.
• Money Fetish: Mr. Krabs. It's his defining trait.
  Mr. Krabs: My whole life has been about money, saving money, collecting money... [rubs his fingers lustfully] touching money...
  • He's actually been seen doing exactly that on numerous occasions, whether bathing in money, sensually rubbing large amounts of it against his skin, having dinner with it, or going to ridiculous lengths to gain/avoid losing even the smallest amount of money (he once gave Pearl and her friends free water as a "gift." ... then he reminded them to leave a tip).
• Money Song: Two, both sung by Mr. Krabs.
  • At the beginning of "Selling Out," Mr. Krabs sings "Cha-Ching" about how much he loves money and values it over anything else.
  • In "Money Talks," Mr. Krabs sings a song called "If I Could Talk to Money" about how great it would be if he could talk with his money.
• Money to Throw Away/Money to Burn: In "Patty Hype", SpongeBob and Patrick earn so much money that they have no idea what to do with it all, as they are not materialistic at all. They try burying it, shredding it, and burning it. Still unsatisfied, they finally decide to open a "Free Money" stand, where fish queue to receive bags of money. "I'm getting back in line!"
• Monochrome Apparition: The Flying Dutchman is sickly green.
• Mood Whiplash: In "No Weenies Allowed" when SpongeBob calls Patrick tubby, Patrick cries very briefly about it and then gets angry.
• Morning Routine:
  • Many an episode begins with SpongeBob getting up to his blasting foghorn alarm clock and getting ready for work.
  • The episode "Rise and Shine" shows how Patrick starts his day.
• Moth Menace:
  • In "Night Light," SpongeBob and Patrick fill SpongeBob's house with an unholy amount of nightlights and other various light sources (like a searchlight and even a lighthouse). As a result, the entire house emits a very strong light that attracts the Moth, the most dangerous archnemesis from Mermaidman and Barnacle Boy. Don't underestimate his less-than-behemothic size: he is powerful enough to lift SpongeBob's entire house plus the lighthouse all at once.
  • The episode Wormy is an interesting example, since it is not the titular butterfly that is dangerous or unusual per se, but the reaction everyone has when facing it. After taking care of a caterpillar for a day, SpongeBob and Patrick discover in the morning that Wormy disappeared and instead, they see a butterfly (keep in mind that the two are underwater creatures, so they are completely clueless when it comes to insect metamorphosis). They are convinced the butterfly is a friend-devouring monster (and the Gross-Up Close-Up of the creature is no helping matter) and go on warning the town about it, which sends the Bikini Bottomites in a frenzied panic which concludes with the town completely in ruins. Meanwhile, the only thing the adult Wormy does is fluttering aimlessly, like a normal butterfly would.
• The Movie: The show has had three:
  • The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: SpongeBob and Patrick must rescue King Neptune's crown after Plankton frames Mr. Krabs for stealing it.
  • The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water SpongeBob and Plankton team up to figure out why the Krabby Patty secret formula has mysteriously vanished.
  • The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run: SpongeBob and Patrick must rescue Gary after King Poseidon kidnaps him for his youth-preserving slime.
• Moving Buildings:
  • One episode has Squidward installing an advanced security system. When Squidward accidentally sets it off, the whole building grows arms and feet and starts attacking Bikini Bottom.
  • In the episode "Secret Box", Patrick says that no one must know what's in the box, "not even... Squidward's house!" And sure enough, the house is leaning in to listen.
• Moving the Goalposts: Kevin's treatment of SpongeBob in "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic". SpongeBob is trying to get into the Jellyfishers' Club, but their leader Kevin keeps stringing him along with increasingly difficult tasks, at which SpongeBob succeeds with ease. When they finally come up with something sufficiently impossible, it winds up in Kevin being Hoist by His Own Petard as the fake "queen jellyfish" he creates attracts a real king jellyfish, and SpongeBob saves the day, revealing Kevin as a complete loser.
• Mr. Imagination: SpongeBob and Patrick create a world of scenarios with only a cardboard box in "The Idiot Box", much to Squidward's disbelief.
  SpongeBob: "Squidward, you can make this box whatever you want it to be with... *makes rainbow appear from hands* ...imagination!"
• Multiple Endings: "Shanghaied" has three (depending on whether SpongeBob, Patrick, or Squidward gets the third of Three Wishes), which viewers got to call in and choose between during the episode's premiere. Reruns of the episode show only the winning ending, though all three endings are available on some home video releases.
  • Patrick wishes for bubble gum.
  • Squidward wishes he never knew SpongeBob and Patrick.
  • SpongeBob wishes the Dutchman was a vegetarian (the winning ending).
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • "CHOCOLATE?! CHOCOLATE!!!!"
  • In the episode "Procrastination". As the name implies, SpongeBob grapples with his denial for hesitation in writing a 800-word essay. In one of his many time-wasting gimmicks, he spends an implied ludicrous amount of time and effort writing the "The" at the start of the paper, so the sequence ends up just looking "awesome" instead of being the Hard-Work Montage it initially appears to be.
  • The opening scene of The Movie features a dramatic scene based around the "crisis" of a customer being given a Krabby Patty without cheese, complete with a slow-motion sequence of SpongeBob putting some cheese into the patty. It's a Dream Sequence, but still...
  • How about any time the Krabby Patty is brought to the audience's attention by SpongeBob, or at least when it focuses on him making Krabby Patties?
  • When a customer gets a Patty with jellyfish jelly added, he's so enthused that he bursts into an impromptu musical number: "Hey all you people won't you listen to meeeeeeeee! I just had a sandwich, no ordinary sandwich, a sandwich filled with jellyfish jellyyyyyyyy!"
  • And in one of the "Legends of Bikini Bottom" episodes, SpongeBob is unconscious due to his Krabby Patty meter being empty. Mr. Krabs gets him to eat one. He then blasts up, explodes into pieces, then regenerates after all of them land together, and then... "OHHHHHHHHH, YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
  • Mermaid Man. "To the meatloaf... AWAY!"
  • Mermaidman and Barnacleboy's origin story (specifically, that they gained their powers from eating some overcooked popcorn)
• Mundane Solution: In "Fear of a Krabby", all SpongeBob needed to get rid of his fear of krabby patties was just a simple nap, thanks to Plankton's hypnotherepy.
• Mundane Wish: The episode "Shanghaied" had Patrick waste the first wish the Flying Dutchman gave him and SpongeBob on wishing that he knew about the wishes earlier. In one of the alternate Multiple Endings, Patrick used the third and final wish on a pack of gum.
• Musical Episode:
  • "Atlantis SquarePantis". It's justified (partially), though, in that Atlantean technology is powered by singing.
  • Several SpongeBob specials, such as "The Sponge who could Fly", "SpongeBob's Last Stand", and "Hello, Bikini Bottom!" are also musical episodes, the latter even being about the main cast forming a band.
• Murder Water: The Big One from "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One" is a sentient giant wave with an evil smile who kills anyone who rides it.
• Mutually Unequal Relation: SpongeBob generally respects his neighbor Squidward and thinks he's a good friend. Squidward thinks of SpongeBob as an annoying Manchild who bothers with his life a lot.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Band Geeks. "What kind of monsters are we?..."
• My Master, Right or Wrong: SpongeBob, despite his occasional disgust at Mr. Krabs's actions and sympathy for the people he victimizes, (even Plankton), generally follows through with his plans blindly, either due to his blind idolization of his boss or the fact his dream job may be at stake otherwise.

N

• Naked People Are Funny: Quite a lot of episodes involve characters being nude for the sake of laughs.
  • "Pranks a Lot" has SpongeBob and Patrick using invisibility spray to prank the town as ghosts with no clothes on.
    Tour Bus Driver: And if you look to your right, you'll see two naked guys fighting over a can of paint.
  • It is sometimes brought up that Plankton doesn't wear any clothes, one notable example being in "The Algae's Always Greener", where he switches lives with Mr. Krabs and finds himself wearing Krabs' clothes and Mr. Krabs walking around naked due to taking his place as his rival stealing the Krabby Patty formula. Plankton eventually explains in The Sponge Bob Movie Sponge Out Of Water that he goes naked because they don't make clothes his size.
  • "Feral Friends" ends with SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, Larry the Lobster, and Pearl being left in the nude after turning back to normal from the effects of Neptune's Moon. Patrick and SpongeBob are the only ones who aren't humiliated by their sudden nudity.
• Naked People Trapped Outside: Both subverted and played straight in "Feral Friends". The episode's premise is that Neptune's Moon makes its centennial orbit around Bikini Bottom, in the process causing the inhabitants to devolve into non-sapient sea life for two hours. Because the transformations cause them to lose their clothes in the process, everyone is left naked after they return to normal. SpongeBob and Patrick aren't shown to be bothered by their sudden nudity, but Larry the Lobster briefly panics before covering himself with a flower, while Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, Squidward, and Pearl run away while covering themselves in embarrassment the instant it dawns on them that they are naked in public.
• Named After the Injury:
  • In "Demolition Doofus", Mrs. Puff's inflation sac is punctured after SpongeBob crashes a boat for the umpteenth time, meaning that she can never inflate again. This trope is discussed when SpongeBob jokes that she should be called Mrs. Pop from now on. Mrs. Puff is not amused.
  • In "Graveyard Shift", Squidward tells SpongeBob a story about a man known as the Hash-slinging Slasher, who accidentally cut his hand off with a knife and replaced it with a spatula.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Jack M. Crazyfish. Tattletale Strangler, Flying Dutchman, Bubble Bass.
• The Napoleon: Plankton.
• Nasal Weapon: In the episode "Shanghied", where SpongeBob and Patrick try to escape from The Flying Dutchman while grabbing his favorite sock, the Dutchman catches up to them and tries to shoot flames coming from his nostrils. The Dutchman relents when SpongeBob defends himself with the sock.
• Needlework Is for Old People:
  • SpongeBob's grandmother knits sweaters with "love in the stitches".
  • In "Goo Goo Gas", Plankton tries to turn SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs into babies so he can steal the formula. One attempt turns them into seniors instead and SpongeBob decides to take up knitting. This gives Mr. Krabs the idea to join him so that together, they can knit a net to catch Plankton in. When they successfully knit the net and catch Plankton in it, they hang it out like a pinata so the other seniors can beat him up for calling them old.
• Nephewism: Played for a one-off gag in the episode "Stanley S. SquarePants". Mr. Krabs reveals he has identical triplet nephews who solve mysteries whom he tells to go solve the "mystery" of why they didn't get hired at the Krusty Krab.
• Negative Continuity:
  • Hoo boy. This is one show that earns this trope purposefully. There's no revealed order or canon for any of the episodes. Creative director Vincent Waller's stance on whether the series even has canon in it or not is "Not really. Though we do hint at it here and there."
  • Plenty of episodes suggest or outright state that SpongeBob and Squidward have to work every day of the week and all year, with no days off, even during holidays. This is especially true if the episode in question is stressing what a Bad Boss Mr. Krabs is, or if Squidward is trying to ditch work. But in numerous episodes, SpongeBob and Squidward are shown getting Sundays off, as long as it’s convenient to the plot. And if the plot doesn’t revolve around the Krusty Krab at all, SpongeBob and Squidward might be shown spending days, weeks, or even months never without ever going to work. Similarly, the working hours at the Krusty Krab shift all the time, from SpongeBob and Squidward literally working from dawn to dusk to arriving at and/or leaving the place in the middle of the day.
  • In the episode "MuscleBob BuffPants," SpongeBob is portrayed as being extremely weak physically— at one point, he's unable to lift a beverage glass (as well as the straw inside it). In subsequent episodes, he's lifted Mr. Krabs into the air with ease, dragged himself across the ground while strapped to a giant anchor, and pushed his own bed (with Squidward in it) through the wall of his house and all the way to the Krusty Krab.
  • The Krusty Krab wasn't depicted as having a drive thru window until "Driven to Tears". It's gone in subsequent episodes until "Drive Thru" focused on Mr. Krabs using a hole in the wall as an ad-hoc drive thru, then the Krusty Krab has a proper one again in Sponge Out of Water.
  • Also include the episodes ending with cast getting turned into fruit, snails or genetically mutated into Squidward's body...and everything's back to normal the next episode.
  • Glove World was shut down in "Glove World R.I.P." and replaced with a successor, Glove Universe, but it reappears completely operational in "Don't Wake Patrick", "The Night Patty", "Gary & Spot", "Sandy's Nutty Nieces", "The Ballad of Filthy Muck," "SpongeBob's Bad Habit", and "Handemonium", with Glove Universe nowhere to be seen nor mentioned. The reason behind this is unknown, though it's likely those episodes took place before Glove World closed.
• Nemesis as Customer:
  • Mr. Krabs generally averts this when it comes to Plankton by refusing him any service at all, because he knows that Plankton only needs one Krabby Patty in order to copy the Krabby Patty secret formula. However, in "For Here or to Go", Plankton calls the Bogus Business Bureau so that the Krusty Krab will be shut down if Mr. Krabs doesn't let him participate in a contest for a free Krabby Patty. Once he wins, Mr. Krabs spends the rest of the episode attempting to stall or find ways to avoid having to give Plankton his reward.
  • In "Pickles", SpongeBob is alarmed once he sees that Bubble Bass has arrived and acts a little smug after Bubble Bass takes the first bite. Bubble Bass hides the pickles from his Krabby Patty under his tongue so that he can pretend that SpongeBob forgot them and can get his money back for an unsatisfactory order, and the grief this causes SpongeBob sets the episode's conflict into motion.
  • In "Squid's on a Bus," Squidward is enjoying his job as a bus driver until annoying neighbor SpongeBob rides the bus. After some mishaps with SpongeBob, he asks how things could get any worse; other annoying neighbor Patrick appears and boards the bus.
• Nerd Hoard: Bubble Bass's bedroom has a wall-to-wall shelf of action figures, he uses an alarm clock with the superhero Mermaid Man on it, and he has boxes full of comic books. He's obsessively concerned with keeping his collection complete and intact, often going into tears if someone messes with his figures.
• Never-Forgotten Skill:
  • Inverted in the episode "Your Shoe's Untied". SpongeBob has not needed to re-tie his shoes in so long, he has actually forgotten how to do so.
  • In the episode "Pickles", SpongeBob goes through a Heroic BSoD when he thinks that he got an order wrong. It gets so bad that he starts wearing his pants on his head and speaking in scrambled sentences. Mr. Krabs figures that if he can get SpongeBob to make a Krabby Patty again, then he'll go back to normal; he even compares it to riding a bicycle, then notices a bicycle on a boiling pot on SpongeBob's stove.
• Never Learned to Read: Clem, one of Plankton's many relatives, after all the other plankton in his family see that the secret ingredient in Krabby Patties is "freshly ground plankton" (although it's just a ruse by Krabs to drive Plankton away, if only momentarily), and flee in horror:
  Mr. Krabs: Hey! Why ain't you runnin'?
  Clem: Well, I can't read.
  Mr. Krabs: [angrily] Get outta here!
  Clem: [runs off while laughing like a buffoon]
• Never Say "Die":
  • Lampshaded in "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost": SpongeBob thinks he killed Squidward and says, "I don't know how to say this, but our friend Squidward, he's... pushing up daisies!" Patrick calmly replies: "Oh, I thought he was dead."
  • Averted once again with The Ugly Barnacle, who (according to Patrick) was so ugly that everyone died.
  • "Dying For Pie" averts this trope by using the words "kill" and "die" throughout the episode.
  SpongeBob: You know, if I were to die right now in some sort of fiery explosion due to the carelessness of a friend, well, that would just be okay.
  Squidward: We'd better start now if we want to get through this list before you die... of anticipation.
  Mr. Krabs: So, you tried to kill me over a little new age management, eh?
  Mr. Krabs: You had to kill him. The boy cries you a sweater of tears... and you kill him. How are you gonna live with yourself?
  Squidward: Kill him?
  • "The Lost Mattress" subverts this last minute; Squidward threatens SpongeBob and Patrick with, "I'm going to mur-" but the police officer stops him before he finishes, as sending death threats would've gotten him in even more trouble.
  • In "That Sinking Feeling", Squidward threatens SpongeBob and Patrick to dig out his house on the count of three, otherwise he'll "grind them into chum."
  • Played straight in "Shellback Shenanigans."
  SpongeBob: You're- you're saying that he's... that he might... oh... Nurse? Nurse?! Oh, well, Gary, this looks like it might be... the end.
  • Played straight throughout "Demolition Doofus". Mrs. Puff obviously wants SpongeBob killed by entering him in a demolition derby, down to imagining him being smashed by all sides and replaced by a gravestone, but she never says "kill" or "murder" throughout the episode, and she comes close to such when he doesn't get hurt.
  Mrs. Puff: Why...are you still...ALIVE!!??
  SpongeBob: "Put it in drive"? Thanks, Mrs. Puff, you're the best!
  • Played straight in "Broken Alarm."
  Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob has passed away!
  Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob! You're alive!
  SpongeBob: Oh, thank goodness! Wait, why wouldn't I be alive?
• Never Trust a Hair Tonic: In the movie, King Neptune tries to use some hair tonic, but accidentally gets it into his eye. So his eyeballs grow hair.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • "Can You Spare A Dime?" features Squidward quitting his job at the Krusty Krab and attempting to go out into the world and "unlock his potential." He fails to find a new job, and winds up on the streets, living in a cardboard box (which actually gets repossessed), and begging for spare change. Just when it looks like the most arrogant, self-centered, narcissistic character on the show has finally been humbled (he even graciously, and sincerely, thanks SpongeBob for helping him... at first), SpongeBob begins to spoil him by tending to his every whim and turning him right back into the person he was before.
  • In "Friendiversary", as a last resort to stop SpongeBob following him around to celebrate his one-sided Friendiversary with him, he erases every memory of him from his mind and memory book so he doesn't remember him. Unfortunately, doing such also erases his memory of the combination to the Krusty Krab safe with the secret formula inside, because it was attached to one of the memories to begin with.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Plankton's hypnotherapy technique in "Fear of a Krabby Patty" as an attempt to get SpongeBob to tell him the formula ultimately instead ends up curing his fear of krabby patties, as it gives him a dream where a patty comforts him.
• Nice, Mean, and In-Between:
  • The trio of SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward. SpongeBob is pretty much the kindest and idealistic character of the series, often to the point where others are annoyed about it, taken for granted, and to the point of being naive. Squidward is an abrasive Cranky Neighbor (and coworker) who barely shows his heart of gold, but this is because of dealing with SpongeBob and Patrick as neighbors. Finally, Patrick mediates between the two, but this is mainly because of his stupidity.
  • Three characters who SpongeBob considers his best friends: Patrick, Sandy and Squidward. Sandy is the nice one, being the one who appreciates SpongeBob's company the most, always eager to do Karate with him and doesn't always throw him under the bus. Squidward stays the Mean one, having denied being SpongeBob's friend multiple times and wants to be away from him, though he has shown to care for him deep down. Patrick retains his role as the in-between, often willing to join SpongeBob to do certain activities and enjoy's being with him more than Squidward, but can fall into With Friends Like These... more than Sandy.
• Nightmare Face:
  • Horrific and grotesque faces are seen on several occasions. "Face Freeze!" is dedicated to this trope.
  • "Just One Bite" has Squidward say "Does THIS look unsure to you?", revealing a creepy closeup of his face.
  • "Whatever Happened to SpongeBob?" was infamous for a scene where SpongeBob asked a bystander in New Kelp City "Is there something wrong with me?" and we then see a horrifyingly detailed and nightmarish closeup of his face.
  • "Jellyfish Hunter" featured a montage of Mr. Krabs ordering SpongeBob to capture him more jellyfish. One part of the montage shows Krabs saying "more" while in a grotesque and creepy-looking state, which gave rise to the Moar Krabs meme.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: "Can You Spare a Dime?" gives us this exchange:
  Squidward: I could be anything I set my mind to. I could be a football player! Or a king! Or a spaceman!
  SpongeBob: Or a football playing king in space! With a mustache!
• No Badge? No Problem!: Because SpongeBob is an idiot, when Ms. Puff makes him a prefect he thinks that he can use the authority to help people outside of his boating school, so he goes to the Bikini Bottom city and finds that the traffic light's broken. Then he steps up as a traffic police and helps the boats cross the roads in his usual haphazard fashion. Nothing seems to be bad, until he goes off and it's revealed to the audience (unbeknownst to him) that those cars he helped are piling up in a giant crash. He's then wanted by the police for this.
• No Can Opener: In "The Camping Episode", Squidward attempts to eat a can of Swedish barnacle balls while camping but leaves his can opener in his house, and SpongeBob and Patrick refuse to let him break the camping spirit by going inside to retrieve it. Squidward is then left with no choice but to eat the marshmallows SpongeBob and Patrick brought with them.
• No Cartoon Fish: Parodied with the inclusion of Realistic Fish Head. Otherwise averted.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: The monocle and mustache appearance, as well as the vocal patterns of the wise-cracking Stockholder Eel in "The Executive Treatment" are patterned after Groucho Marx, with Stockholder Eel voiced by Frank Ferrante, who is noted for portraying Groucho in Groucho: A Life in Revue and An Evening With Groucho stage shows.
• No-Dialogue Episode:
  • "Reef Blower", aside from one brief caption reading "You!".
  • "Dream Hoppers" has a bit of dialogue at the start, but the rest of completely silent except for background music and grunts/groans.
• No Fourth Wall: Any episode involving Patchy the Pirate acknowledges that SpongeBob is a just a show. Other episodes do this as well, such as "I Had an Accident" showing a live family reacting to the Mind Screw ending to the episode and shutting off the TV.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The episode "Can You Spare a Dime?" features Squidward quitting his job over a misunderstanding. When he ends up losing his house, SpongeBob selflessly takes him into his own home, and takes care of him. Squidward "thanks" him by becoming a freeloader, forcing SpongeBob to wait on him hand and foot.
• No Hero Discount:
  Barnacle Boy: Listen, bignose. That guy's been saving your butt since before you were born. Don't you have a living legend discount or something?
  Squidward: This is a restaurant, not a lending library. And who are you calling bignose, bignose?
• Noir Episode: "Squid Noir" is about Squidward trying to find out who stole his clarinet. Most of the episode is in black and white, but the color is restored after Squidward gets the clarinet back from a jellyfish.
• No Matter How Much I Beg: The Trope Namer is this exchange from "The Paper":
  Squidward: Take it, SpongeBob. Take it, please. And promise me, no matter how much I may beg, and plead, and cry, don't give that paper back to me... ever!
• No More for Me: In "SquidBob TentaclePants", a customer who sees SpongeBob/Squidward biking into the Krusty Krab says that he's got to lay off the hot sauce.
• Non-Residential Residence: The episode "New Digs" has SpongeBob move into the Krusty Krab after arriving to work a minute late, much to the annoyance of Mr. Krabs. Immediately after SpongeBob moves out, Squidward moves in.
• Non Sequitur: In his debut episode, the elderly Mermaid Man keeps rambling nonsense.
  Mermaid Man:"If you don't get out of here, then by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife!"
• Noodle Incident:
  • In "Krusty Towers," SpongeBob is heard saying, "And that's the story of how I got my head stuck in the fry vat!"
  • Whatever SpongeBob did at the Christmas party mentioned multiple times in the episode about Patrick's box. The closest guess is it may be the picture Squidward took of SpongeBob in "Christmas Who?"
  • The time Mr. Krabs left SpongeBob alone at the Krusty Krab with a welding torch and rollerskates. This somehow ended with the Krusty Krab on fire.
  • Apparently, one time Patrick forgot how to eat and needed to be fed with a funnel. Another time, he ended up somehow choking on his remote control.
  • In "Fools in April," SpongeBob mentions something about lima beans and a car chase.
  • At the end of "Good Ol' Whatshisname" Squidward ends up in jail and for some unexplained reason Patrick is also there.
• No Party Like a Donner Party: Played with in "To Save A Squirrel".
• No-Sell:
  • Happens in the episode "The Bully" when Flats repeatedly punches SpongeBob and the blows don't hurt him at all. SpongeBob actually goes through his entire daily routine without missing a beat, all while Flats continues to throw punch after punch at him, the entirety of which SpongeBob completely ignores.
  • In "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!", Plankton's Jerktonium fruitcakes turn all of Bikini Bottom into jerks...except for SpongeBob himself, because of his deep love of Christmas and his pure heart.
• No Sense of Personal Space: SpongeBob (target: Squidward).
• Not Me This Time:
  • In "Best Frenemies", Mr. Krabs assumes Plankton was behind the new KelpShake store that's driving him out of business. It turns out Plankton had done nothing wrong for once.
  • During the episode "Plankton's Army," a suspicious-looking robot customer casually enters the Krusty Krab, remarking to itself (but loudly enough for all to hear) that it would like to "sample the wares" of the "quaint restaurant." Mr. Krabs immediately deduces that it's a plot by Plankton and that the "customer" will order a Krabby Patty. Instead, it buys a single serving of chili coral bits, even after Krabs suggests that the robot order a Krabby Patty instead.
    
    The trope is then subverted when Plankton leaps out of a hidden compartment in the dollar the robot used to pay for the food ("Plankton! You knew I'd never distrust a dollar!"), and demands access to the Krabby Patty formula. Krabs casually asks "... or what?" Plankton is left speechless, never assuming he'd have actually succeeded to this point. The page quote for Didn't Think This Through comes from this scene as well.
• Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You: In the special "Have You Seen This Snail?" Gary returns after SpongeBob has had a breakdown over him, in time to find him crying.
  SpongeBob: If only I could hear you meow one last time.
  Gary: (crawls onto SpongeBob's head) Meow!
  SpongeBob: Yeah, like that.
  Gary: (purrs)
  SpongeBob: Gary, your purring is making it hard to forget you.
• Not This One, That One:
  • "The Fry Cook Games": Cue the entrance of Plankton's entrant: what seems to be a massively muscled fish warrior, who actively smashed through the entrance, then turns around to reveal the real participant carried on his back: Patrick.
  • In "No Weenies Allowed", the bouncer at the Salty Spittoon redirects SpongeBob to the Weenie Hut Jr. ice cream parlor across the way. When SpongeBob objects, the bouncer corrects himself and points at... Super Weenie Hut Jr.
  • In "Mr. Krabs Takes a Vacation", Pearl is excited as Mr. Krabs drives up to their surprise vacation, and they go towards the teenage boy museum. Cue museum being demolished and Pearl being heartbroken.
• Not What It Looks Like: The Cruel Twist Ending of "The Bully" has Mrs. Puff enter and see Flatts passed out on the floor before SpongeBob, who has a fist raised from a Rousing Speech, making it look like he beat up Flatts.
• Not Where They Thought:
  • In "Sandy's Rocket", SpongeBob and Patrick mess around with the rocket and assume they've landed on the moon when in actuality they never left Bikini Bottom. This causes them to think all of their neighbors and friends are actually aliens, and they proceed to catch every other citizen of Bikini Bottom in their traps.
  • In "SpongeBob, Sandy, and the Worm", Sandy thinks she's in a cave when really she's in a worm's mouth.
  • In "Plankton Gets the Boot", Plankton decides to stay with SpongeBob (though he mostly goes with him because he has to pee really badly). After they get home, Plankton comes out of a door, thanking SpongeBob for letting him use his bathroom, but SpongeBob informs him that it wasn't his bathroom. Plankton then tells him that he should probably get new shoes, implying that he relieved himself in SpongeBob's closet.
  • In "The Inmates of Summer", SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally go to a prison camp, but they mistakenly think it's a summer camp.
  • In "Rock Bottom", SpongeBob and Patrick ride on a bus, thinking it's the bus to take them home. Actually, they've entered the wrong bus, and it ends up taking them to the eponymous Rock Bottom.

O

• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Sandy pulls this on SpongeBob in "Squirrel Jokes", acting just as stupid and insane like his squirrel jokes said about her, which in turn upsets him enough into never telling squirrel jokes again.
  • SpongeBob did this in "I Am Stupid" to make Patrick look smart when his parents visit. It falls apart when he starts thinking he actually is stupid.
  • It's implied that SpongeBob's antics in "SpongeBob Meets The Strangler" were deliberately done to injure and irritate the Tattletale Strangler. Halfway through the episode, SpongeBob accidentally calls his "bodyguard" a strangler and has to quickly correct himself. Later on, after the villain tears his disguise off, SpongeBob keeps stalking him and only stops once the criminal is put behind bars.
  • Patrick lampshades this in "The Card" when doing various things that would have destroyed the rare MM&BB trading card in many ways.
    Patrick: SpongeBob, you can't expect my usual brand of stupidity. I like to mix it up. Keep you on your toes.
• Oblivious to Hatred: SpongeBob, for the most part, is completely oblivious of Squidward's despise of him, to the point of considering him as a friend like Patrick. Even when Squidward holds a vendetta club against him in one episode, SpongeBob seems unaware that it's centered around him. However, there are rare times where SpongeBob is hurt by Squidward or frightened of him, depending on how he reacts.
• Obstacle Ski Course: SpongeBob, while snowboarding on a sand mound, using his tongue as the board.
• Obviously Not Fine: In "I Was a Teenage Gary", Squidward accidentally injects SpongeBob with a dose of snail plasma meant for Gary, and he assures him that nothing's going to happen to him. However, as SpongeBob starts to psychologically, and then physically, transform into a snail, he keeps insisting he's fine until it becomes impossible to ignore.
  SpongeBob: I take it back, Gary! Something's wrong with meeeeeeeeeee-ow!
• Obvious Stunt Double: It's obvious Sandy's doubling for Mermaid Man in the unofficial movie they make.
• Ocular Gushers: Usally happens anytime a character cries. Their tears stream out of their eyes in that fashion. This is done most often by SpongeBob.
• Odd Reaction Out: In one episode, everyone cheers when Mr. Krabs gets a new patty-making machine, except Patrick, who is too distracted by needing to pee.
• Ode to Food:
  • In "Jellyfish Hunter", Fred sings "The Jellyfish Jelly Sandwich Song" after SpongeBob gives him one.
  • In "Banned in Bikini Bottom", SpongeBob sings about how he loves Krabby Patties, then later, after finally trying one for herself, a fish sings a similar song.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • In "Boating School", SpongeBob has one of these moments after it dawns on him that having Patrick assist him in his test is cheating. The camera even zooms in on his horrified expression three times, accompanied by a dramatic sound effect.
  • Two in "Valentine's Day":
    • Sandy's reaction when she sees the chocolate eating scallops fly toward her, meaning she's going to be late in delivering it.
    • SpongeBob's reaction when Sandy tells him she's off-course and has to switch to Plan B, and he later has an even bigger one as Patrick closes in on him and prepares to face the inevitable of his furious wrath.
  • In "Opposite Day", this is Squidward's reaction when he sees the realtor's boat parked outside his unguarded house.
  • SpongeBob gets two of them in "Party Pooper Pants" when he sees his party guests not following his schedule and doing their own things, meaning in his words, the party will fall apart.
  • Gary has several Oh Craps in "A Pal for Gary", when he sees Puffy Fluffy beast up and go after him, and especially when he sees the creature as a monstrous giant.
  • In "That Sinking Feeling", SpongeBob and Patrick get a shared one when they are unable to dig Squidward's house out in time leading to the climatic underground chase. And they get an even bigger one when they have nowhere left to run and Squidward catches up to them.
• Oh, My Gods!: Residents of Bikini Bottom will swear to Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, in place of God.
• Ominous Music Box Tune:
  • SpongeBob's "whistly holes".
  • Heard in "Nature Pants", when Patrick, gone Yandere, tells SpongeBob he'll make him into a trophy.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: Heard in "Something Smells" when SpongeBob, convinced he's ugly, played a pipe organ in his house. Pipe organ motifs are also heard throughout "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost".
• 1-Dimensional Thinking:
  • In "Valentine's Day" when a raging Patrick corners SpongeBob and a crowd of carnival patrons against the end of the dock, it never occurs to SpongeBob (or the patrons) to jump into the goo and swim away to escape Patrick's wrath (though it is justified because it is revealed two seasons later that SpongeBob can't swim).
  • In "That Sinking Feeling", SpongeBob and Patrick face a rock blocking their way underground when running away from a furious Squidward, but they are too stupid to think of digging over, under, or around it so they can escape.
  • In "Lockdown for Love", Mr. Krabs accidentally loses the secret formula and it rolls over to the Chum Bucket. But since the Chum Bucket is under lockdown, Plankton can't immediately get to it. He manages to melt a hole in the wall just big enough for him to reach through and grab it. But when Plankton grabs the secret formula and tries pulling it through the hole, he points it upright and it continually hits the wall instead. Thus, Krabs steals the formula back in time. If Plankton had rotated the bottle facing forward, he could have fit it through the hole and secured it for good.
• One-Episode Fear:
  • In "Tunnel of Glove," SpongeBob is afraid of clowns, which is weird as he's never been afraid of them before or since and has even liked them in "Krabby Land". He shows said fear again in "Rodeo Daze" as the reason he wants to "save" Sandy from the rodeo is "there are clowns there".
  • In "One Course Meal", Plankton is afraid of whales, which has only shown up in that episode; he was not afraid of Pearl earlier in episodes like "The Algae's Always Greener" and "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture".
• One Man's Trash Is Another's Treasure:... but for Mr. Krabs, all trash is treasure.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted and Parodied in "Dear Vikings". All but the Viking Captain (Gordon) is named Olaf.
  • There have been SIX different characters named Larry: Larry SquarePants (SpongeBob's cousin, mentioned in the Operation Krabby Patty game), Larry the Lobster (a lifeguard at Goo Lagoon), Larry Luciano (a very old snail), Larry the Snail (a temporary replacement for Gary), Pinhead Larry (a criminal in Sandy's dream), and Lucky Larry (a shopowner mentioned in "House Sittin' for Sandy").
• The One Who Wears Shoes:
  • SpongeBob himself; he wears his shoes to bed every night.
  • Pearl and Mrs. Puff wear shoes more often than not.
  • Sandy's diving suit counts— when she's at home in her treedome, however, she goes barefoot.
  • Gary wears little sneakers under his shell, as seen in "Your Shoe's Untied".
• Onion Tears:
  • Happens three times in "My Pretty Seahorse".
  • In "Something Smells", SpongeBob chops onions for his sundae while crying.
• Only Sane Man:
  • Squidward, Mrs. Puff (sometimes) and Sandy (also sometimes).
  • SpongeBob sometimes. Notably when he's paired with Patrick.
  • Strangely enough, Gary, who often proves that he's at least somewhat smarter than his owner. It's pretty understandable, though.
  • Occasionally, Plankton falls into as well when dealing with SpongeBob.
• Only One Finds It Fun:
  • The only ones who liked Patrick's Brown Note song in "Sing a Song of Patrick" were SpongeBob, a random fish boyfriend, and Old Man Walker.
  • In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture", the homemade Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy movie by SpongeBob and the gang turns out to be quite terrible, complete with Bad "Bad Acting", poor settings and shoddy footage, and obviously received backlash from the audience. The only ones who liked it were SpongeBob, Patrick, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.
• Opening Shout-Out:
  • Used in "Truth or Square". "Who lives in a rock on the sea floor? PATRICK SEA STAR!"
  • Also used in "Unreal Estate" but with SpongeBob coming out of a banana, a hot pepper, and a chicken Parmesan club.
  • In "Karen's Virus", Karen sings a warped version of the theme song.
  • Exploited by SpongeBob in "Old Man Patrick". When Patrick doesn't recognize SpongeBob, he begins singing the theme song, and Patrick remembers.
  • Exploited again in "Handemonium". Plankton and SpongeBob have to stop the Chum Bucket glove after it comes to life, so SpongeBob takes off his pants and sings the theme song. When Hans, a live-action hand, arrives to give him his pants (as in the theme song), SpongeBob asks him for help with defeating the hand.
  • Patchy sings a birthday-themed version of the opening theme song in "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout."
• Opposite Day: The eponymous episode from season 1.
• Origami Gag:
  • The season one episode "The Paper" focuses on SpongeBob having fun with a paper candy wrapper. At one point, he uses his tongue to fold the wrapper into complex origami shapes. Squidward tries to replicate the feat, but only makes a mess.
  • In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II'', SpongeBob is riding on his heroes' Invisible Boatmobile and while fooling around with the controls, accidentally hits the origami button, which folds the whole thing into a paper crane.
• Origins Episode: "Mermaid Man Begins" explores how Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy became superheroes.
• Or My Name Isn't...: In the 76th issue of the comics, Sandy proclaims that she, SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs are gonna get the water back and save Pearl, "or my names ain't Sandy Sarsaparilla Cheeks!"
  SpongeBob: Your middle name is Sarsaparilla!? I thought it was Jennif--
  Sandy: YOU MIND YER BUSINESS!
• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: In "Model Sponge", SpongeBob overhears Mr. Krabs talking about how it's time for him to "let the little guy go", and assumes he's getting laid off from the Krusty Krab. After SpongeBob leaves the restaurant to find a new job, however, the audience sees that the "little guy" Mr. Krabs was referring to is actually a scallop. SpongeBob, of course, doesn't know this until he returns to the Krusty Krab near the end, asking Mr. Krabs not to fire him.
• Out of Focus: Many prominent characters, most notably the main females like Sandy and Pearl, don't appear as often in later seasons to the point where they are sometimes forgotten as characters. It's also driven to the point where they forgot Sandy's name in one episode (she's referred to as "Sandy Squirrel" in "SpongeBob's Last Stand").
• The Outside World: The show takes place exclusively underwater, but for a couple episodes in which the characters tentatively go above to dry land. they exhibit apprehension and horror at the thought. It is seen as a place of terror where creatures end up as pets or tourist souvenirs.
• Over-the-Top Roller Coaster: In one episode, SpongeBob and Patrick ride on the Fiery Fist O'Pain at Glove World, which goes just above the surface (next to the island) and when it gets to the ground, it explodes. It also has a list of side effects: Crying, screaming, projectile vomiting, amnesia, spine loss, embarrassing accidents, uncontrollable gas and explosive diarrhea.
• Overcomplicated Menu Order: In the episode "Bubble Buddy", SpongeBob asked Squidward to make a meal for his bubble buddy at Krusty Krab, which are not just overly specific, but has to be remade several times (it'd be hard to go to the details). And at the end, Squidward and Mr. Krabs are given bubble tips and money... which pop, maddening the two.
  • In "Pickles", Bubble Bass makes an order using a string of complicated Hash House Lingo. Squidward gives up trying to write it all down about halfway through, and dryly replies "We serve food here, sir."
  • Bubble Bass does it again in "Larry the Floor Manager". He asks for very specific stuff on his burger, driving away waiting customers to the point where Mr. Krabs shoves a regular Krabby Patty down his throat and kicks him out.
• Overcrank:
  • Parodied with SpongeBob's Big "NO!" in "Bubble Buddy", which cuts back and forth between him screaming and Squidward bringing down the pin that would pop Bubble Buddy; each time SpongeBob is shown, his screaming gradually slows down and distorts, until it becomes complete nonsense.
  • The climax of "As Seen on TV" has a scene cutting between SpongeBob slipping in the kitchen, the patties flying through the air, and the customers booing him from the window, as his "act" for them begins to fall apart.
  • "The Two Faces of Squidward" features a slowed-down scene of the more-handsome Squidward flying through the Krusty Krab after SpongeBob pushes him away to avoid a falling shoe.
  • Lampshaded in "Company Picnic" as SpongeBob stops Mr. Krab from signing Plankton's contract to work for him, causing the candy pen to fly towards Simmy the robot; the sequence slows down as SpongeBob runs to warn Simmy and comments that he's running and talking in slow motion. When the pen is about to hit Simmy in the eye, SpongeBob ends the sequence with a Slow "NO!".
• Overly Long Scream:
  • Plankton did it once in the episode where he and Mr. Krabs switch places. It's so long he takes a sip from his soda between screams.
  • Squidward's scream when SpongeBob and Patrick walk in on him during his bath, in a scene from "Have You Seen This Snail?" that has been subjected to Memetic Mutation.
  • The Snail Bites commercial in "Treats"
  • Not as long as others, but Mr. Krabs in "Born Again Krabs" screams until he simply runs out of breath. His head also splits apart and grows back.
• Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat:
  • Done by Mr. Krabs in the episode "Pickles".
  • In the episode "Squirrel Jokes", SpongeBob does this when his jokes are falling flat in front of the audience.
• Ow, My Body Part!: Whenever some sort of crash or other major accident happens, an unnamed character can be heard screaming "MY LEG!"

P

• Padding the Paper: In "Procrastination", SpongeBob is tasked with writing a 800-word essay on what not to do at a stoplight. A montage shows him ardently scribbling on a piece of paper and satisfiedly dropping a steaming pencil... only for the following shot to reveal that he has only written the word "the", in a ridiculously large and stylized font◊.
• Painful Adhesive Removal:
  • In "The Abrasive Side", SpongeBob gets an abrasive side to be able to say no. After he eventually decides to get it removed, Sandy rips it off for him, and the episode makes it clear the process isn't painless.
  • In "Survival of the Idiots", SpongeBob and Patrick get trapped in Sandy's tree dome during winter, when she's hibernating and has grown larger, with even thicker fur. To survive, the two are forced to rip strips of Sandy's fur off with duct tape and stick it on themselves. She screams every time this happens, but doesn't wake up.
• Palatial Sandcastle: In "Sand Castles in the Sand", Patrick and SpongeBob start quarreling while building sandcastles in Goo Lagoon. As the dispute escalates, their sandcastles get bigger and bigger, to the point they end up as big and spacious as actual castles.
• Parental Bonus: And how! Nosferatu, Dune and so on.
  • And Flats the Flounder, if you know that it's Biff Tannen voicing him.
  • Davy Jones' Locker is really guarded by The actual Davy Jones, complete with "Daydream Believer" in the background.
  • In the episode "Missing Identity", when SpongeBob imagines a bank robber entering a bank with his name tag, the robber yells "ATTICA!".
  • A musical bonus: In the episode where Patrick becomes smart when he switches his brain with brain coral, he mentions a clarinet piece by "Cornelius Bumpfish". Someone on the writing team must like Steely Dan, whose clarinetist was a man named Cornelius Bumpus.
  • In the episode "Professor Squidward", SpongeBob and Patrick are hypnotized by Squidward's metronome.
  SpongeBob: My whole life has been pointing in one direction...
  Patrick: I see it clearly now. There never has been any choice for me.
  • In the episode "Idiot Box", when SpongeBob and Patrick are pretending that they are mountain climbers, one of the lines Patrick said was "I AM THE LIZARD KING!"
  • "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm" has Sandy and SpongeBob trying to track a giant worm, leading to this gem:
  Sandy: [sniffs sand] Worm sign!
  [Sandy digs a small picket sign out of the sand with "WORM" printed on it]
  • The episode "Banned in Bikini Bottom" is a parody of the alcohol prohibition movement of the 1920s and '30s.
• Parenthetical Swearing: "Shrimp" is often used in place of "shit".
• Parents for a Day: SpongeBob and Patrick in "Rock-A-Bye Bivalve". SpongeBob was the mother. Patrick wanted to be the mother, but SpongeBob said he shouldn't because he doesn't wear a shirt.
  Patrick: You're right. If I was a mom... [pans out to show grotesquely flabby, hairy chest]... this would be kinda shocking. [Beat] JUST CALL ME "DADDY"!
• Parody Product Placement: The episode "Mermaid Man vs. SpongeBob" had an ad with Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy advertising the "New Krusty Kids Meal" at the Krusty Krab.
  Man Ray: How can I be evil with flavors this good?
• Passing Judgment: In "Pranks a Lot", SpongeBob and Patrick's joke competition deranges into the two of them roughhousing over a can of paint while being naked. A tour bus drives right beside them and the guide describes what the passengers are seeing. When they recover from their brief shock, the passengers start taking pictures.
  Fish Tour Guide: ...And if you look to your right, you'll see two naked guys fighting over a can of paint!
• Perfectly Cromulent Word:
  • Patrick invents the word "wumbo" in one Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episode. "I wumbo, you wumbo, he she we, WUMBO. Wumbo, wumboing... wumbology? The study of wumbo? It's first grade, SpongeBob!
• Penny Shaving: Mr. Krabs does with with Gary in the episode, "The Cent of Money", when he finds out that Gary can attract coins due to a Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy fridge magnet he swallowed.
• Persona Non Grata:
  • In "Cephalopod Lodge", Squidward is banned from the titular organization when he is held responsible for allowing non-cephalopods (SpongeBob and Patrick) to enter without warning. Despite the duo's successful Engineered Heroics allowing Squidward's ban to be lifted, he is re-banned when they revealed themselves.
  • In "Who R Zoo?", SpongeBob gets banned from the Bikini Bottom Zoo for walking inside the animal enclosures, with Patrick joining him. Fortunately, it doesn't stick.
• Pest Episode: "Eek, an Urchin!" is about a sea urchin invading the kitchen in the Krusty Krab and the crew trying to find a way to get it out of the restaurant.
  • "Bunny Hunt" involves a Jorunna Parva (commonly known as a Sea Bunny) invading Squidward's garden.
• Pet Contest Episode: In "Grooming Gary," SpongeBob prepares Gary for a pet show.
• Pet the Dog: While Squidward is usually mean to SpongeBob, on some occasions lashing out on him when he's not bothering him or is even trying to make up for the times he bothered him, there are some times where Squidward is nice to SpongeBob.
  • In "Pizza Delivery", when an Unsatisfiable Customer makes SpongeBob cry by refusing the pizza just because it didn't come with a drink (which he didn't even ask for in the first place), Squidward's response is to ring the jerk's doorbell and slam the pizza right in his face.
  • "Christmas Who?" has Squidward initially make fun of SpongeBob for introducing Bikini Bottom to the concept of Christmas and rubbing it in when Santa doesn't show up. After realizing how upset SpongeBob is, he chooses to impersonate Santa Claus to cheer SpongeBob up and even makes the big sacrifice of giving away most of his possessions to the citizens of Bikini Bottom as presents.
  • When SpongeBob is shown to have difficulty flipping patties with broken thumbs in "Two Thumbs Down", Squidward offers to help him, pointing out that his own thumbs work.
• Picnic Episode: "Company Picnic" is about SpongeBob, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs having a cruddy picnic to "boost morale." Plankton arrives, and his picnic is much better.
• Pie-Eyed: In the 10th Anniversary episode, Patchy shows a SpongeBob short in a 1920's style where everything has this eye style.
• Pity the Kidnapper:
  • The Tattletale Strangler's reaction to SpongeBob.
  • This happened to the Flying Dutchman TWICE. Once was when he tried to enslave Patrick and SpongeBob (they made horrible minions) and another time was when he bought SpongeBob from Mr. Krabs (SpongeBob was too annoying for him to keep).
• Platonic Valentine: The episode "Valentine's Day" features SpongeBob giving valentines to all his friends and neighbors. The main plot revolves around SpongeBob's gift for Patrick. However, circumstances prevent the present from being delivered on time, and after seeing all the gifts SpongeBob gave to other people, combined with apparently only receiving a handshake, Patrick goes on an Unstoppable Rage.
• Playing Catch with the Old Man:
  • In "A Day Without Tears", Spongebob watches a television program. A father is going to work, ignoring his son's request to play catch. When he sees how sad his son is, he decides to stay back and starts playing with him. Spongebob almost cries at this and throws the TV out the window so he won't.
  • In "Farmer Bob", Spongebob and Patrick's "barn raising" is portrayed by having a baby barn and raising it to an adult. While the barn is a child, they play catch with it, only to throw the ball into the window of an old man house, who shakes its first angrily.
• Playing Sick:
  • Squidward hates his job at the Krusty Krab and dealing with the general public, his cheapskate boss, and his annoying coworker (SpongeBob himself, of course, who is also one of two of his annoying next-door neighbors) every day that he does this to get out of work on some occasions, but some of these attempts backfire right in his face.
    • In "Accidents Will Happen", he supposedly twists his ankle while trying to sleep on the job in the storage room and threatens to get Mr. Krabs fined by the Office Worker Safety (OWS) Department for negligence. Near the end of the episode, a security camera reveals he was faking his injuries the whole time. After Mr. Krabs spent most of the day pampering Squidward for his so-called injury, Squidward now has to do so to Mr. Krabs as punishment.
    • "Squiditis" has him try to fake an illness known as "Squid's Disease", but SpongeBob really believes he has the illness and has infected him as a result, and both are sent home early.
    • Then there's "Squidward's Sick Daze", where he has a nightmare about what he will likely face for his upcoming workday, which eventually comes true the next day, and decides to feign illess in an effort to get out of work for the day. However, Mr. Krabs isn't fooled and sends SpongeBob to annoy and torture him until he decides to come back to work.
  • A non-Squidward example is in "Suds", where SpongeBob catches the titular illness by leaving his refrigerator door open all night, causing his house to freeze over. After SpongeBob gets a rather relaxing treatment for it at the doctor's office and gets a giant lollipop out of it, a jealous Patrick briefly pretends to have the same illness in the hopes of getting the same prize. It doesn't work, ending with him getting SpongeBob's treatment in a harsh manner after lying to him and Sandy about the doctor earlier in the episode.
    Patrick: Hey, Doc, I got the suds, too!
    Physician Fish: (Sarcastically) Oh, yes, Dr. Patrick, we have a special treatment for you!
    (Hans takes the guffawing Patrick into the back for his treatment)
    Patrick: (Hans washes him in the sink and painfully stretches out his limbs) Hey, wait! (then rubs him on a cactus) Ouch! Oh, that hurts! (then uses him to clean a toilet) WAIT! HEY, THIS DOESN'T SEEM RIGHT...!
• Please, I Will Do Anything!: SpongeBob gets Squidward to try a Krabby Patty.
• Plot Hole:
  • In "Sleepy Time", Gary and Pearl were among those annoyed at SpongeBob appearing in their dreams, but SpongeBob didn't do anything in those dreams which ruined them in any way.
  • In "Squilliam Returns", SpongeBob ends up forgetting his own name, but after he serves Squilliam, Squidward addresses SpongeBob by name, and SpongeBob replies as if he knows his name.
• Plot-Sensitive Latch: In the episode "Krabs Vs. Plankton", Mr. Krabs is sued by Plankton for slipping in the Krusty Krab, and his lawyer is indisposed, giving SpongeBob his briefcase, which he claims contains everything necessary to win the case. Unfortunately, the lawyer neglects to tell SpongeBob the combination to the lock, so he spends most of the trial struggling to open it. At the last possible moment, the briefcase opens, revealing a Krabby Patty, which is used to lure Plankton out of his ruse and lose the trial.
• Pooled Funds: Squidward does this on a pile of Krabby Patties after he becomes addicted to them. Mr. Krabs does this with money.
• Poster Patchup: A variant in the episode "Wet Painters." SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally paint over Mr. Krabs' prized first dollar, and try to cover it up by hanging several different paintings on the wall. When Mr. Krabs moves all the paintings away, SpongeBob hangs himself up on the wall.
  Mr. Krabs: SpongeBob, what are you doing?
  SpongeBob: [nervously] Oh, you know, just "hanging" around.
  Patrick: [gives a thumbs-down] Boo!
• Post-Treatment Lollipop: In the episode "Suds", after SpongeBob gets the sponge treatment for his suds, he gets rewarded with a lollipop. Patrick, wanting a lollipop too, fakes his suds, and gets the same treatment, in a harsh manner.
• Potty Emergency:
  • In "Snowball Effect", Patrick ends up having to go to the bathroom after swallowing snowballs. He begs Squidward to let him use his bathroom, but states that he doesn't have to go anymore when Squidward finally relents.
  • In "Plankton Gets the Boot", Plankton has to pee after he gets kicked out of the Chum Bucket by Karen. After he reluctantly accepts SpongeBob's offer to take him in, he finally gets to relieve himself, though it's implied he didn't exactly make it to the bathroom.
• The Power of Rock: "Band Geeks" has the band save the day thanks to forgoeing the marching show and surprising Squidward with a rocking spectacular.
• Prank Punishment: In "Hooky", after his warnings about the dangers of playing with hooks fall on deaf ears, Mr. Krabs resorts to a combination of this and Scare 'Em Straight. He gets Squidward to catch SpongeBob's pants on a hook, then when SpongeBob comes running to him for help, Krabs tells him that the only thing he can do is take off his pants — in front of a gaggle of girls. SpongeBob is left humiliated, terrified, and naked.
• Precision Crash: Played for laughs in one episode, in Goo Lagoon's anchor throwing contest, the contestants' thrown anchors always land on the referee no matter where he stands. Most ridiculous is when Sandy throws hers, we then see the anchor's Shadow of Impending Doom keep following the referee as he repeatedly moves away.
• Predator-Prey Friendship:
  • Patrick is friends with SpongeBob, even though starfish prey on sea sponges in real life. He and Gary are also friendly with each other despite snails also being part of a sea star's diet.
  • Mr. Krabs and Mrs. Puff are dating, despite pufferfish being natural predators of crabs.
  • Mr. Krabs takes this even farther by raising a sperm whale for a daughter, although these whales also prey on crabs.
  • If you count Krabs and Squidward as friends, octopuses eat crabs too.
  • SpongeBob himself is a filter feeder, which would be bad news for Plankton in real life.
• Predatory Business: Exaggerated with Kelpshake in "Best Frenemies", which drains business from both Mr. Krabs and Plankton, forcing them into an Enemy Mine pact to try and get rid of them. Off-screen, the stands themselves somehow divide like bacteria and Bikini Bottom has a ton of them. By the end of the ep, all the Kelpshake stands get shut down because not only were the drinks addictive, they were also toxic, Plankton having detected radioactive material in it, and everybody who drank one (including Krabs, Plankton and SpongeBob) somehow grew green fur as a side-effect.
• Pregnant Reptile: Has a lot of examples throughout the post-movie seasons.
  • In the episode "Truth Or Square", it is revealed that SpongeBob's first time tasting the Krusty Krab was when his mother was pregnant with him. He is shown in her womb, being fed Krabby Patties through an umbilical cord. While sponges don't actually give live birth, they are biological hermaphrodites and are capable of sexual reproduction in addition to the more-well known method of asexual budding that the show itself popularized much earlier in its run.
  • In the episode "Pets or Pests", SpongeBob adopts a worm whom he thinks is a male, but then she gets pregnant and gives live birth. SpongeBob then spends the rest of the episode trying to find someone to adopt the baby worms.
  • Although he wasn't actually pregnant, Mr. Krabs disguised as a pregnant woman in the episode "The Cent of Money".
  • Then there is the episode "Spot Returns" where Plankton's amoeba puppy gets pregnant and gives birth. This also turns out to be a case of Your Tomcat Is Pregnant like the worm example above.
• Prefers Proper Names: In "SpongeBob LongPants", SpongeBob's new, proper friends call him "SpongeRobert".
• Priceless Paper Weight: The hilarious ways Patrick uses a valuable trading card in "The Card".
• Prison Episode:
  • "Doing Time" has a surreal prison visit by Mrs. Puff.
  • "The Inmates of Summer" where SpongeBob and Patrick get on the wrong ship and end up on a prison island. Complete with a character voiced by R. Lee Ermey!
  • "Jailbreak!" features Plankton and his cellmates trying to escape prison.
  • "Call the Cops" explores two sides of the plot, with SpongeBob and Krabs as police officers while Patrick and Plankton are prisoners. Their plots aren't connected, as Plankton tries to escape the cell and SpongeBob interrogates a criminal, while Krabs searches the evidence room.
• Prisoner Performance: In "The Inmates of Summer," SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally board a Prison Ship and believe it to be a summer camp. To lift the other prisoners' morale, SpongeBob writes a musical play for them to perform for "amusement and inspiration." The prisoners are initially apathetic but agree to perform once they notice the giant boat prop, which they try to use during the musical number to escape... except it quickly sinks in the water because it's just a prop.
• Pro Wrestling Episode: "Krusty Krushers," with Mr. Krabs as SpongeBob and Patrick's manager in a tag match against two HUGE opponents in the hopes of making big money. The opponents totally squash SpongeBob and Patrick until their double-team diving headbutt collides with Patrick's iron butt. SpongeBob and Patrick have the choice of either $1 million in cash, or a chance to go to Wrestle Camp. To Mr. Krabs' dismay, they choose Wrestle Camp.
• Produce Pelting: Squidward is hit with tomatoes during his ballet skit in "Culture Shock".
• Propeller Hat of Whimsy: In "Shanghaied," the Flying Dutchman is looking for someone to scare, and SpongeBob suggests a muscular and intimidating metalhead. The Dutchman instead looks at someone who'd be infinitely easier to terrify: a small child skipping along and wearing a propeller beanie.
• Pseudolympics: The Fry Cook Games, including events such as patty throwing, artistic ice cream diving, bun wrestling...
• Protagonist Title: Unsurprisingly, the show is about a Bikini Bottom sea sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants.
• Psychopathic Manchild:
  • Squidward. While most of the time he acts serious, on several occasions he'll behave very childishly, to the point of becoming a dangerous madman. The clearest example of this is in the episode "Fools In April" (where he attempts to play an elaborate prank on SpongeBob in retaliation for annoying him with his April Fool's Day jokes), no doubt, but "Artist Unknown" (where he reacts to SpongeBob's inability to recreate Michelangelo's David by throwing a tantrum and messing up his art studio) and "Just One Bite" (where he tries Krabby Patties for the first time and becomes so obsessed with eating more that he tries to do so without SpongeBob knowing) are also good showcases of this.
  • When SpongeBob befriends Plankton in the episode "F.U.N.," he reveals a childish side to him never seen before. And it's generally assumed that Plankton is almost as old as Mr. Krabs is.
• Puff of Logic: Currently provides the page quote. In "Life of Crime", when SpongeBob and Patrick are keeping warm by a fire, Patrick asks how fire can exist underwater, which then causes the fire to promptly go out.
• Pulled from Your Day Off: A subversion occurs in the episode "Bubble Buddy". Squidward tries to enjoy SpongeBob's day off, but SpongeBob comes into work anyway to show Squidward his new friend, Bubble Buddy. He also makes Squidward make Bubble Buddy one of everything on the menu, with various alterations to suit Bubble Buddy's needs.
• Pun-Based Creature: Lionfishes are depicted as lions with fish fins, rather than the actual venomous and prickly species of lionfish.
• Punished for Sympathy: In "The Clash of Triton", King Neptune reveals that the reason he is sad during his 5,000th birthday is because he misses his son Triton, whom he locks in a cage in the Island in the Sky for 10,000 years (although specifically, Triton has only been in the cage for 1,000 years) because he made a cure for all mortal diseases, hoping that would teach him how to be a god.
• Pushed at the Monster:
  • In "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm", while running from the Alaskan Bull Worm, Spongebob threatens to trip Sandy and leave her to be eaten unless she admits that the worm actually is too big for her to handle.
  • Played for Laughs in "Pre-Hibernation", when the townspeople of Bikini Bottom all hide under Patrick's rock to escape from Sandy and her obsessive search for SpongeBob, they likewise find him under there (trying to hide after he finds her activities before hibernation too dangerous for his liking) and instantly throw him out into the open for her to find him. Luckily for him, she enters into hibernation when he confesses he doesn't like the activities she made him do.
• Put on a Bus: Following Ernest Borgnine's death in July 2012, the characters of Mermaid Man (Borgnine) and Barnacle Boy (Tim Conway) have been relegated to non-speaking cameos since "Patrick-Man!", which aired three months afterward. Conway would pass on seven years later, leaving the future of both characters ultimately in question.

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