It premiered on March 4, 2021, streaming its first six episodes on Paramount+, alongside the American premiere of The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run.
This series contains examples of:
- All-CGI Cartoon: Unlike the main series.
- All Your Powers Combined: In "The Perfect Camper", the Trawlers steal parts of each camp counselor to make a golem that has all their traits and can shapeshift accordingly. It uses Larry's tail and strength, Lady Upturn's long hair, Bubble Bass's butt, and Squidward's ink-spraying ability.
- Artistic License – Biology: The episode "In Search of Camp Noodist" features freshwater and saltwater fish living together in the titular camp. Then again, it's all for comedy.
- Art Shift:
- Done for the episode "Kitchen Sponge", which has a sequence of Plankton imagining himself as the ruler of the world with an army of sentient Krabby Patties, as well as the ending, both of which are animated in the 2D style of the main series, even by the same studio that animates it.
- In "Outhouse Outrage", Patrick's flipbook telling his story of how the outhouse exploded is done in a more simplistic and crude 2D style.
- Asshole Victim: In "Boo Light Special", the three customers at the camp store. Rea and Roh are snooty and uptight, Mo is obnoxious and rude, and SpongeBob repeatedly asks stupid questions and winds up wasting a lot of the Dutchman's time trying to find an item he can buy. The Dutchman curses all of the shoppers' items to make them evil, and we see them dealing with the consequences.
- Babysitting Episode: Pearl is just a baby in the spin-off, so naturally, "Hot Pearl-tato" is about finding a babysitter for her.
- Big Boo's Haunt: The Trawler cabin is home to creepy characters who are based on deep-sea animals, like blobfish and anglerfish. Sandy finds herself very unsettled when she has to spend the night there — while most of it's due to her paranoia, there are genuinely creepy things like bats, a dirty slime bath, and a spider camper having kidnapped someone.
- Bit Character: The series has a fair amount of original campers who have distinct designs and names, but often don't show up for more than a few scenes in an episode. A good example is Roh and Rea, Upturn's cabin-mates, who don't get any major roles but do get a scene every once in a while.
-
Broken Aesop: The moral of "Scaredy Squirrel" is that Dark Is Not Evil: while the Trawler cabin look pretty creepy and enjoy scary stuff, they actually turn out to be quite nice when Sandy gets to know them. Similarly, most of why Sandy thinks they're dangerous is just a misunderstanding. However, one of them was shown to have literally abducted a child and wrapped him in a cocoon, something that anybody in their right mind would legitimately take as a bad sign. While Sandy doesn't witness that, the viewers do, so she comes off as Properly Paranoid. - Call-Forward: As it turns out, Plankton worked the Mess Hall at Kamp Koral to save up for his college tuition.
- Christmas Episode: "The Ho! Ho! Horror!" is sort of one, despite being released on Paramount+ in July. It features Santa delivering gifts to Kamp Koral, but the campers confuse him for a giant and panic.
- Cloneopoly: In "Game Night", the board game Mr. Krabs chooses to play with Mrs. Puff and Plankton is called Money-Opoly. Plankton and Mrs. Puff deny it, saying that Krabs always plays the banker and always wins. Later on, the game Lobster Trap appears to be based on Monopoly; the game pieces include a battleship and thimble, and Mr. Krabs lands on a "Lose a Turn" space.
- Close-Enough Timeline: As it turns out, young Sandy meeting SpongeBob earlier than she should've was actually because of older Sandy sending her over to prevent Plankton from stealing the Krabby Patty Secret Formula. While this keeps the timeline from diverging into a Bad Future, unless Sandy leaves & everyone forgets about her, her first meeting with SpongeBob in the main series is retconned away in the timeline.
- Continuity Nod: In "Gimme a News Break", Perch interviews SpongeBob about the fact that he's the only camper who hasn't caught a jellyfish, which was established in "The Jellyfish Kid". SpongeBob is hurt by this until Perch says that if he had caught any, he wouldn't have gotten to be on the news.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Harvey, one of the new characters. He's quick to attribute aliens or Martians as the cause of anything slightly odd, partly due to his heavy interest in comics and science fiction.
- Dark Horse Victory: In "Hill-Fu", Sandy is able to curb-stomp all the competitors in the karate tournament. Prior to the battle, SpongeBob learns Hill-Fu from Nobby so he can stand a chance. After a big battle, he and Sandy end up tying, and agree to share the badge... and then Nobby appears, karate-chops them both, and claims the badge for him and Narlene.
- A Day in the Limelight:
- "Gimme a News Break" focuses on minor characters Perch Perkins and Harvey, as Perch investigates Harvey's claims of an alien invasion.
- "Eye of the Hotdog" focuses on Craig Mammalton, in his only starring role, as he tries to beat Patrick in an Eating Contest.
- "Regi-Hilled" is focused on Lady Upturn's butler, Regigille.
- Disproportionate Retribution: In "Regi-Hilled", Lady Upturn fires her butler Regigille because the tea he served her was two degrees too cold. To make matters worse, he did prepare it correctly at first; it only got cold over time because he had to make her two breakfasts, after she changed her mind and had him throw out the first one.
- "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The theme song is sung by SpongeBob himself.
- Drunk with Power: "Deep Sea Despot" has Squidward being appointed the camp master when Krabs and the counselors are sick with food poisoning. The first thing the campers do is party and wind up destroying the camp, and then beg Squidward to fix it. Squidward does, indeed, get the camp in better shape, and everyone praises him for it. However, he lets the appreciation get to his head and begins making the campers build statues in his image, while giving "unloyal" campers worse food and reserving special luxuries for himself. The campers stage a revolution, which is only interrupted by Krabs' sudden recovery.
- Eating Contest: Krabs holds three hot dog eating contests in "Eye of the Hotdog" to unload a military surplus he found. Craig Mammalton wins against SpongeBob in the first one, and Patrick wins the second and sends Craig into a Heroic BSoD. In the third, both of them tie, with the trophies being so cheap that Krabs just gives them to both to satisfy them.
- Embarrassing Password: Exploited by Mr. Krabs in "Game Night". The password he makes Plankton recite to participate in game night is an embarrassing kids' song and dance, based on "I'm a Little Teapot". He already knows it's Plankton, but is just doing this to mess with him.
- "Everyone Is Gone" Episode: In "Camp SpongeBob", SpongeBob wakes up late and misses a field trip, finding the camp deserted besides him and Gary. He begins recruiting random wild animals around the forest as new campers.
- Everyone Went to School Together: A lot of characters from SpongeBob's adult life show up at the camp. One of the characters, Kidferatu, is a kid of Nosferatu himself, who has been featured as a one-off gag character in the original.
- Exorcist Head: Patrick spins his head 360 degrees in "Squisery", creeping out Squidward, who's now stuck with him.
- Faux Horrific: None of the characters' initial stories in "Are You Afraid of the Dork?" are very scary. Bubble Bass's is just about him repeatedly rolling a 1 on a board game and being made to move back to the start, while Lady Upturn's is based around the premise that she doesn't know what normal kitchen items are because her butler always makes her food instead. The Flying Dutchman gets so annoyed with the lame stories that he interferes to make them truly horrific.
- Foregone Conclusion: Since this is a prequel to the original show, every character will end up taking up their most recognizable roles after they leave Kamp Koral such as SpongeBob becoming a fry cook at the Krusty Krab or Mr. Krabs and Plankton developing their budding rivalry.
- "Freaky Friday" Flip: In the episode "The Switch Glitch", Patrick and Karen accidentally switch bodies after the former eats all the lightning berries.
- Gross-Up Close-Up:
- "Squisery" has some of Squidward's dirty teeth after Patrick feeds him dirt soup, his swollen, twisted ankles, and his mouth with thorns around it from Patrick's pinecone toothbrush.
- "Game Night" has a shot of Plankton's swollen leg after Mrs. Puff ran over him in a game of Slot Boat Racers.
- "Help Not Wanted" and "Scaredy Squirrel" have close-ups of Squidward's disgusting, sleep-deprived face.
- Halfway Plot Switch: The plot of "Cabin of Curiosities" starts with SpongeBob and Patrick trying to fit in with different cliques around camp to earn their friendship badges. The second half of the episode drops it in favor of them doing night challenges with the Trawler cabin, with the friendship badges not coming up again until near the end.
- Hates Baths: In "My Fair Nobby", when SpongeBob and Patrick try to give Narlene a bath, she protests repeatedly.Narlene: I ain't doin' it! I already had a bath in February!
- Horrifying the Horror: The Trawlers are a creepy, but well-intentioned group. All of them love scary stuff and even decorate their cabin accordingly. However, in "Scaredy Squirrel", the sight of Squidward's ugly, sleep-deprived face has them running away screaming.
- If You Can Read This: In "Camp Crossbones", the pages of the Kamp Koral handbook are only visible for one or two seconds at a time. If you freeze-frame the episode, you can actually read
the instructions for the badges. They're pretty funny. - I Ate WHAT?!:
- In "Regi-Hilled", SpongeBob becomes Lady Upturn's new butler. He manages to prepare her tea at the perfect temperature, unlike her previous butler. However, Upturn walks in on SpongeBob making it and finds out how he does it: sticking his tongue into the tea to taste it. She's disgusted.
- In "The Taste of Defeat", Narlene cooks food for the campers entirely with her feet, including sticking her foot into soup and licking it off. When the campers find out, they abandon her restaurant entirely.
- I Just Want to Be Special: In "What About Meep?", one of the anchovies from the Barge cabin wants to be different from his brothers, who all look alike and can say nothing but "meep" all the time.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: In "Hill-Fu", the addition of a new badge to Narlene's shoddy jacket causes it to transform into a black leather jacket, studded with spikes and zippers.
- Inappropriate Pride: In "Night of the Living Stench", the campers want to win a trophy for being the smelliest camp ever, and show off how smelly and disgusting they've become to each other.
- Informed Species: The Narwhal twins look nothing like their species.
- Injured Limb Episode: In "Squisery", Squidward falls off a cliff and twists his ankles. He ends up lost in the woods with Patrick, who drags and carries him around (sometimes making his injuries worse). After a few weeks, Squidward's ankles heal, but Patrick has become too used to spending time with him to want to go back home. Patrick accidentally crushes Squidward, twisting his ankles again; he then ties Squidward around him while making his way back to camp.
- It Tastes Like Feet: In "Squisery", when Squidward is at the mercy of Patrick due to his twisted ankles, Patrick ends up feeding him some soup. Squidward is disgusted and says that it tastes like dirt. Patrick responds that it is dirt.
- Jaw Drop: In "Squisery", when Squidward learns that the weeks he and Patrick spent out in the woods was actually right next to the campgrounds, his jaw drops to the point it hits the floor.
- Jerkass Ball:
- In "Prickly Pests", Sandy suddenly abandons SpongeBob and Patrick in the middle of a dangerous situation out of nowhere.
- In "Patrick Takes the Cake", Patrick gets a cake in the mail and hides in the woods so no one can steal it. A small group go out to find him. SpongeBob is worried about Patrick, but the others only care about the cake. This makes sense for Kevin and Bubble Bass, who don't particularly like Patrick, but not Sandy, his other best friend who is strangely grouped in with them.
- Kindness Ball:
- Mr. Krabs, who usually couldn't care less about campers' well-beings and only gets involved if he can find a way to make money out of it (such as in "Sun's Out, Fun's Out", "First and Last Aid", and "Night of the Living Stench"), in "Boo Light Special". Here, he's constantly overworked with helping the campers play games, gives them safety equipment, unclogs the outhouse, helps manage the store, all at once for no particular reason; he's not getting anything out of it and it's not even set up like he has to do it to avoid a lawsuit or keep his job. He's just doing it all out of his own volition, and the only reason he hires the Dutchman is because he had no other options and had to save some kids from sudden death.
- Mrs. Puff, a teacher who hates children and has tried to murder a camper's beloved pet ("Camper Gary"), ignores Sandy's serious concerns ("The Ho! Ho! Horror!"), and enters a demolition derby to injure kids ("Lake Crashers"), gets the Kindness Ball in "First and Last Aid". Here, she's horrified by Mr. Krabs' apathetic reaction to the campers' injuries (which are more Amusing Injuries, like Patrick having a jellyfish net stuck on his head, than anything serious), and implores him to hire a nurse to take care of them. This is despite the fact that she's tried to do direct harm to the campers and has been shown to be equally as uncaring as Krabs other times.
- Literal Metaphor: In "Hill-Fu", Narlene teaches SpongeBob that his most powerful weapon is his brain, meaning that he should use tactics and strategy over just brute force. When fighting Sandy, SpongeBob takes his brain out of his head and throws it at her.
- Medium Blending: Again, in "Kitchen Sponge", Sandy's adult self (animated in the main show's 2D style) is shown talking to her past self, who is CGI.
- Just like in the main series, live-action elements make up a portion of the show's visuals, most notably with the crossing guard disguise Patrick dons in "Quest for Tire", and the Swamp Ape in its sister episode "Cabin of Curiosities".
- In "What About Meep?", live-action puppets were used for the song scene involving the anchovies.
- Mistaken for Murderer: In "Scaredy Squirrel", when SpongeBob and Patrick disappear inside the Trawler cabin, Sandy comes across various horrific sights that make her think they've been kidnapped or killed by the residents. Sea spider Preda Tory has two mummified cocoons shaped like SpongeBob and Patrick (which are actually just her dirty laundry) and Kidferatu's room has two coffins (which are actually tanning beds). Sandy sees Roxy wielding an axe and apparently slicing SpongeBob's face off, but it's just cheese for the dish she was cooking to welcome Sandy for spending time with them. SpongeBob and Patrick are alive and well, and even had a part in planning the dinner.
- Mondegreen Gag: In "Squisery", Squidward asks Patrick if he read the camp handbook.Patrick: What is... "canned ham brook"?
- Mutagenic Food: In "Midnight Snack Attack", Plankton is developing snack foods with a mind control serum, but at the moment, the formula just mutates consumers into monsters. SpongeBob and Patrick both eat some, becoming monsters and running around camp. Plankton has to rush to develop an antidote or else he'll be discovered and get fired.
- Narrator All Along: "What About Meep?" has an opening and closing narration. At the end, it's revealed to be SpongeBob unknowingly putting on a voice, once Patrick points out that he's talking differently.
- Negative Continuity:
- "Pat's A Li'l Sinker" has the campers discovering that they can stay under goo without drowning, even though they aren't aware of this in the future.
- "The Ho! Ho! Horror!" has Santa Claus visiting the camp and leaving presents, even though in the main series Santa never visited Bikini Bottom until the sea creatures learned about him and started sending him letters.
- Nighttime Bathroom Phobia: In "Game Night", SpongeBob interrupts Mr. Krabs, Mrs. Puff, and Plankton's game night to ask Mrs. Puff to walk him to the bathroom at night since he's too scared to go by himself. She reluctantly takes him. He then asks her to check for bugs, since he "can't go if there's bugs watching him". She goes inside and is suddenly grabbed by a large bug; SpongeBob then decides he'll wait until the morning.
- The Olympics: "The Perfect Camper" revolves around a stand-in for the Olympics called the Kamp Koral Summer Games. Every cabin has its own representatives for each contest, and the events include things like sports matches, a knitting contest, and a grossest camper contest.
- Orphaned Punchline: When the Dinghies and Trawlers have a sleepover in "Scaredy Squirrel", we hear Roxy telling a joke that ends with "...so we say to the guy, 'if that's your severed head, then why do we have the receipt?'"
- Out of Focus:
- SpongeBob has only one line in "Squisery" and doesn't appear until the very end.
- SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy only get two scenes in "The Perfect Camper". Most of the episode focuses on the Trawler cabin.
- "Regi-Hilled" is the only episode where Patrick has no dialogue. He only makes a brief cameo.
- Photo Montage: A viewfinder in "What About Meep?" shows a few of Chovy's unsuccessful attempts at finding new personalities.
- Pirate Episode: "Camp Crossbones" has SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy as pirates, turning their cabin into a ship. They begin looting other cabins for their merit badges... only for it to turn out that they were just stealing them so they could clean them.
- Prefers Proper Names: In "My Fair Nobby", after Lady Upturn gives Nobby lessons on manners, he speaks in a fancy voice and wants to be called "Nobbert" instead of "Nobby".Nobbert: Oh, please, sister, call me Nobbert. "Nobby" is so backwoods.
- Prequel: To the original series.
- Quarter Hour Short: Each episode pair consists of two separate, 11-minute segments.
- Retcon: Subverted with Sandy. In the series, SpongeBob and Sandy met as adults in Jellyfish Fields, yet here they are seen together at much younger ages. It is explained in an episode that this is because Adult Sandy sent her past self to Camp Coral to prevent Plankton from getting his hands on the Krabby Patty formula. How or if this ends up affecting the events of "Tea at the Treedome" is currently unknown as it still does not explain why SpongeBob and Sandy did not recognize each other in "Tea at the Treedome". This show does end up retconning certain other meet-ups that happen in the series, however:
- In "Treats!", SpongeBob is shown by Gary a photo of the time they met at the city pound, and in "Plankton's Pet", the exact pound this supposedly happened at is shown. Here, it's shown SpongeBob met Gary at Camp Coral as a stray snail. In "Truth or Square", SpongeBob is shown introducing himself to Squidward as an adult in a flashback, whereas here, they're shown meeting as children. It's lightly implied in "Plankton!" that SpongeBob met the titular character in said episode, yet here, again, SpongeBob is shown meeting him at Camp Coral as the chef.
- In fact, this show even retcons the characters' roles from Sponge on the Run. Here, Squidward is a junior counselor at the camp, when in the movie he was a camper roughly around the same age as SpongeBob and Patrick. Mr. Krabs is now a camp counselor when he was a chef in the movie, with Plankton filling the chef role. Also, the name "Camp Coral" is spelled with K's for the series instead of C's.
- Of course, some of the retcons could be justifiable as it is implied the show takes place a year after the Camp Coral scenes in Sponge On the Run.
- According to the episode "Kitchen Sponge", SpongeBob is the creator of the secret formula, even though, according to "Friend or Foe", it was Mr. Krabs and Plankton who created it.
- Safety Worst: In "First and Last Aid", the camp nurse goes to extreme measures to ensure SpongeBob's safety. At one point, she wraps him up completely in bubble wrap before he goes to play baseball.
- Shout-Out: In "Squisery", Patrick appears with a Nightmare Face and says "I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Squidward" in a Creepy Monotone voice.
- Snobby Hobbies: In "Helter Shelter", SpongeBob gets moved into the snooty Yacht cabin, whose residents mostly enjoy drinking tea and playing polo on seahorseback.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: In "The Jelly Life", a scene of SpongeBob running and screaming while being chased by jellyfish is underscored by the upbeat Hawaiian guitar track "Old Hilo March".
- Space Episode: "Hats Off to Space" has SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy flying up into space to find out where the campers' hats are disappearing to.
- Spin-Off Babies: Technically, most of the main cast are preteens, but you get the idea.
- Suddenly Speaking: In "What About Meep?", Chovy can only say "moop" in different tones, and once corrects SpongeBob by saying "isn't". Towards the end of the episode, he suddenly speaks a full sentence after seeing a mop:Chovy: Moop? (takes mop) Moop.
SpongeBob: Moop? Huh, no. Mop.
Chovy: (sarcastically) Oh, yeah, mop. That's what I meant to say. - That's No Moon: In the first episode, the rock that SpongeBob tries to catch Squidward (who's disguised as a jellyfish) in front of turns out to be an anglerfish-like monster.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: "Regi-Hilled" opens with Regigille making an elaborate breakfast for Lady Upturn, Roh, and Rea. However, when he goes to serve it, Upturn changes her mind and wants pancakes instead. Regigille goes back into the kitchen and dumps all the food into the trash.
- Unsatisfiable Customer: SpongeBob in "Boo Light Special." When the Dutchman gets a job at the camp store, SpongeBob shows up repeatedly to ask him irrelevant, nonsensical questions, and only has enough to buy a gumball. He has the Dutchman go through every gumball in the machine, rejecting them for superficial reasons, just to find one that he wants.
- Vignette Episode: "Are You Afraid of the Dork?" is a collection of scary stories told by the characters, tied together with a Framing Device.
- Younger and Hipper: Every character is aged down in this series. Even Karen, despite being a computer program, acts younger and more naive.
