Laser-Guided Karma in SpongeBob SquarePants
- Squidward's horrific luck was initially presented as a product of this trope due to his jerkass attitude. As the show evolved, however, his Butt-Monkey role became less provoked and leaned more into Comedic Sociopathy territory. Now he's widely considered the show's biggest Woobie.
- This also makes the moments where he finally gets his revenge, or when karma hits either SpongeBob or his high school nemesis, Squilliam Fancyson, all the more satisfying.
- Mr. Krabs tends to be a victim of this in episodes centered on him. These are the episodes when he's at his greediest and being antagonistic. A good example would be in "Patty Hype", where he cons SpongeBob out of the Pretty Patty Stand, only to face the wrath of the customers when the side effects kick in. Essentially, Krabs was punished for something that wasn't his fault, but he still deserved it for other reasons.
- In the ending of "Patty Caper", when Mr. Krabs is revealed to be the one who stole his own secret ingredient to avoid paying (and tried to make SpongeBob take the fall for it), he is rightfully punished into giving away free Krabby Patties for a day, in addition to watching SpongeBob hand them out.
- In "One Coarse Meal", SpongeBob gives one to Mr. Krabs to get back at him for tormenting Plankton, by telling Plankton of Mr. Krabs' fear of mimes and creeping him out.
- In "The Cent of Money", Mr. Krabs is forced to use all the loose change he found to pay for his hospital bill, after spending the entire episode using Gary and nearly harming him.
- Plankton's schemes to steal the Krabby Patty always fail... except the one in the first movie, where he frames Mr. Krabs for stealing King Neptune's crown, steals the formula when it becomes unguarded, popularizes his Chum Bucket restaurant with the Krabby Patties, and, when Squidward catches on to his plan, uses his technology to brainwash everyone in Bikini Bottom and become its ruler. But in the end, SpongeBob recovers the crown and, through use of a music number, breaks the mind control devices. Plankton is trampled into a puddle and then arrested.
- In "Suds", when SpongeBob gets sick from the titular illness and decides to see a doctor, Patrick convinces him that the doctor's office is a horrible place and tries to treat SpongeBob himself, which, naturally, backfires horribly. When SpongeBob finally does see a real doctor and gets a rather relaxing treatment, he gets a giant Post-Treatment Lollipop out of it, so Patrick claims to have the suds himself to get his own, only for him to end up receiving SpongeBob's treatment in a harsh manner: being rubbed against a cactus and used to clean a toilet bowl as he yells that his treatment doesn't seem right.
- SpongeBob himself is dealt with this from time to time. On some occasions, it either involves Patrick dragging him into his convoluted antics or Squidward being fed up with their antics.
- In "Opposite Day", SpongeBob, Patrick and Squidward are all hit with this at the end. Fed up with SpongeBob and Patrick pestering him just one too many times, Squidward decides to sell his house, but the real estate agent he hired would foresee another sale about to fall through due to troublesome neighbors, so Squidward tries to make up the titular holiday so SpongeBob stays out of his way. It backfires when Patrick wants to partake in the so-called holiday. When they "remodel" SpongeBob's house by destroying it, Squidward is forced to fix it, thinking he'll never sell his home with SpongeBob's house in such atrocious conditions. While Squidward fixes SpongeBob's house, Sponge and Patrick impersonate Squidward at the same time the real estate agent shows up. Moments after Squidward finishes fixing SpongeBob's house, he sees too late his two neighbors harassing her, at which point she storms off in a huff and refuses to sell Squidward's house. As a result, SpongeBob and Patrick get a proper comeuppance from Squidward when he uses the bulldozer he used earlier to clean up the mess they made of SpongeBob's house to chase them off into the sunset.
- In the final scene of "Squid's Visit", Squidward sleeps in the replica of his room in SpongeBob's pineapple, with SpongeBob and Gary sleeping outside on the burnt wreckage of Squidward's house, as indirect karma for all the pain and suffering SpongeBob caused him throughout the episode for trying to get Squidward to visit him. Not that he minds it, however.
- SpongeBob gets it really hard in "A Pal For Gary", where Puffy Fluffy rightfully awards him for being a complete jerk toward Gary by trying to eat him alive after Gary warned him too many times Puffy was the monster that caused all the damage to the house.
- In "Jolly Lodgers", after everything SpongeBob and Patrick did to Squidward, they get a rightful comeuppance for ruining his peace and quiet and outright refusing to leave him alone and convince him to come to the jellyfish convention, when he calls pest control and Hotel Halibut gets steamed with green haze, forcing all the jellyfish fanatics to leave.
- In "Patrick the Mailman", Patrick decides to deliver the mail after the new rock he ordered accidentally crushes his mailman and SpongeBob appoints himself his postal pal. From Chimney Entries to delivering mail to the wrong recipients (such as a jury duty summons for Bubble Bass being instead delivered to Kevin C. Cucumber) to hijacking mail trucks so they can deliver more mail, it attracts the attention of real mail carriers, who take action to recover the stolen truck. At the end of the episode, SpongeBob and Patrick are delivered to jail in a large envelope for theft of mail and grand theft auto for stealing the mail truck; this is Truth in Television, as tampering with the mail, especially so much as impersonating a mail carrier, is a federal crime.
- Both Mrs. Puff and SpongeBob at the end of "Demolition Doofus" get a proper comeuppance for attempted murder and Bullying the Disabled when the boating school comes crashing down atop them. SpongeBob also gets a minor comeuppance for insulting Mrs. Puff's condition and not owning up to causing it when the doctor injects him with an anesthetic.
