SpongeBob SquarePants Cleanup

Whose TV Tropes page needs to be cleaned? SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!

In all seriousness, though, the SpongeBob SquarePants page is a bit of a mess, bloated with complain-y entries about Seasonal Rot and other controversial changes or moments, reading way too deeply into things, and potentially outdated information. The main problems I want to address are on the YMMV page and some of the moments subpages as well, as well as individual recap pages for more infamous episodes.

Recurring problems tend to be misuse of Designated Hero and Designated Villain that would fit better under Designated Monkey or Unintentionally Sympathetic/Unsympathetic, treating jokes in a show famous for Negative Continuity too seriously, complaints regarding Never Live It Down moments, and shoehorning of terms coined by The Mysterious Mr. Enter and other Caustic Critics like "Torture Porn" (Squidward or otherwise).

To start with, here are the Designated entries on the YMMV page:

(Also shoutout to Tropers/Mightymewtron, whose Nostalgia Critic cleanup thread served as great reference for writing this one.)

Edited by SpongeBat1 on Mar 8th 2021 at 12:47:47 PM

I agree on cutting all of the Designated Hero entries. Spongebob and Patrick, while mostly sympathetic, are clearly and deliberately shown to often be very annoying to others. And Mr. Krabs is pretty much always meant to be morally grey, and is sometimes a straight-up antagonist.

Also, while I don’t really remember “Shuffleboarding”, it sounds like that Spongebob and Patrick were meant to be in the wrong.

Found this on the YMMV:

• Scapegoat Creator: Post-movie episode haters have multiple scapegoats: Casey Alexander, Zeus Cervas, Derek Iversen, Sean Charmatz, Richard Pursel, and Paul Tibbitt. However, some of these people have worked on the show from the beginning, and are considered better as artists than writers.

This was obviously added by a fan of a a certain animation critic who I will not name, complete with some real dicey and wholly inappropriate potholes attached to the names of certain infamous writers. It barely even has context on top of that, making it a borderline ZCE. This seems like an obvious cut, so should I do it?

Yup.

Thanks, it's gone.

Really glad we're doing something about this. Complaining about Seasonal Rot is a pretty big pet peeve of mine, and I owe it all to the crap this show's gotten in the past 15 years.

Here's some cutworthy entries under Harsher in Hindsight.

• Some of the most reviled episodes of the show even make it hard to watch previous episodes. Try watching "Friend or Foe" (which is about how Mr. Krabs and Plankton used to be friends before Krabs' success with the krabby patty tore them apart) and "Best Frenemies" (where Krabs and Plankton form an Enemy Mine to investigate the success of the new Kelp Shakes) after "One Coarse Meal" (which had Mr. Krabs remorselessly use Plankton's fear of whales to drive him into suicide), or try watching "Have You Seen This Snail?" (where SpongeBob spends a good deal of the episode missing his pet snail Gary and desperately trying to find him) and "A Pal for Gary" (where SpongeBob is completely oblivious of his new pet Puffy Fluffy's violent nature and is an Ungrateful Bastard when Gary saves his life from the creature) in succession.
• Any episode where Mr. Krabs shows that he deeply cares for SpongeBob, like in "Welcome to the Chum Bucket" when he sings "I'll trade it all away, if you come back to stay" (referring to SpongeBob) in the "This Grill Is Not A Home" song, are a lot harder to watch after "SpongeBob, You're Fired", where he is willing to (and does) fire SpongeBob just so he can save a nickel.

Not to play devil's advocate, but I don't think it's an entirely baseless entry. The amount of vitriol Tibbitt received while he was showrunner is almost frightening, and people tended to blame him, Casey, and Zeus for everything.

The example as written had to go; we can probably write a new one.

I don't know about those ones, I think they may count. Could be rewritten, though.

I thought it would be worth mentioning that there is an entire WMG entire page dedicated to discussing the show's Seasonal Rot. While some of the theories are admittedly clever (such as the post-movie episodes being told from a more cynical character's point of view), quite a few entries are something along the lines of "The execs are deliberately trying to get the show cancelled for some reason". I'm aware that some of the entries on that page disregard the rule about WMG not being about stuff outside the work, but I thought I'd bring it up here first.

This was just added to WhatAnIdiot.Sponge Bob Square Pants:

• We see this recurring Con Man who sells candy bar bags at a reasonably high price, which SpongeBob and Patrick fall for. For his last scam, he pulls a Wounded Gazelle Gambit on them, which is enough to cause them to break down in tears and give up all the cash they've earned to sell more chocolate for him.
  You'd Expect: That guy to be arrested for stealing all the money SpongeBob and Patrick earned.
  Instead: He isn't.
  You'd also expect: For SpongeBob and Patrick to suspect something up with their "injured customer" when he asks them to sell chocolate in exchange for their cash, firmly tell him no, keep their cash and leave.
  Instead: They fall right for it, causing them to have a Despair Event Horizon having lost all their money and there's no one left.
  Fortunately: That guy was the only customer they didn't sell any chocolate to.

...Spongebob and Patrick aren't intended to be intelligent, shrewd characters. This is entirely in-character for them. (And, as kids, I feel like we all fell for the "glass bones and paper skin" speech the first time around too ).

I kinda wonder if we should do a what an idiot cleanup since we have entire for clearly stupid characters so giving them entries like that seems pointless. Lol.

There's one. Also a What An Idiot Wick Check so we can go to TRS one day.

I think there’s a clean up thread for that, though I don’t think it’s had a lot of activity recently.

Edit:

Edited by costanton11 on Mar 9th 2021 at 2:03:06 PM

I've removed that example (honestly, the first "you'd expect" comes off as complaining about the guy being a Karma Houdini). I may go through the rest of that page...

I don't know whether to bring this up here or the Analysis clean-up thread, but I assume I'll get more feedback here.

The Analysis subpage for the show is entirely focused on why the show underwent Seasonal Rot, which I think is beyond the scope for what an Analysis page should do. Honestly, there's nothing here that you can't find summarized more succinctly on a Seasonal Rot entry.

So, should this page be cut?

Yeah, that does seem a bit redundant.

Also found on the YMMV page:

• Catharsis Factor: Any moment where Squidward gets a victory that isn't snatched away from him at the last moment, it's incredibly satisfying. Especially when it's against Squilliam, which is a huge part of why "Band Geeks" is so enduringly popular. "Enchanted Tiki Dreams" has also become popular among fans, in which SpongeBob and Patrick build Squidward a tiki land where he can relax, full of things he likes to do. Even after the tiki land is destroyed, Squidward is still happy, as he gets to hit SpongeBob and Patrick with a swinging boat.
  • The ending of Pineapple RV. After acting like insufferable and ungodly lucky morons for yet another "Squidward Torture Porn" episode, it's very gratifying to see SpongeBob and Patrick freak out from the combined music of Squidward's clarinet and the Warbling Water Lily^note  that SpongeBob miraculously healed offscreen, no less in the last 30 seconds of the episode.

I don't know about the first bullet, but the second bullet seems needlessly complain-y. Should I cut the second bullet? And what, if anything, should be done about the first?

The first seems okay tbh.

Thanks. How about the second?

Yeah that just sounds like bitching which I would cut.

Thanks. I've cut the second bullet.

Other YMMV entries of note:

Edited by SpongeBat1 on Mar 10th 2021 at 2:27:09 AM

In regards to the Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped example, several recap pages for the show have An Aesop in the trope list. For example, this one for Pizza Delivery:

An Aesop: Be nice to the person who delivers your order (or anyone else giving you customer service, for that matter), even if they made what you perceive to be a mistake. And for that matter, don't lie about what you ordered just to get freebies. If you didn't lie, however, then try listening to the person about why your order came the way it did.

Or these for Hall Monitor:

• An Aesop:
  • Even if you're awarded for being outstanding (or given an award that everyone gets, like a participant award), it doesn't mean you're good at everything else. Know your limits.
  • Leave the jobs like policing to the authorities.