How many times have you brought up an iconic SpongeBob episode to a friend? Once, twice, dozens of times? Maybe it’s Mr. Krabs playing a song on the world’s smallest violin, Squidward’s hidden love for Krabby Patties, or one of the infinite iconic musical numbers. Then, they hit you with the dreaded line: “My parents didn’t let me watch SpongeBob.”
You’re left dejected! How are you, a true fan of the Bob, meant to make friends with someone who has never even seen the show? What iconic memes and references that have stood the test of time can you possibly bring up? And, more importantly, how do you think they feel about it?
I was one of those No SpongeBob Allowed kids, and, let me just say, it wasn’t, and still isn’t, fun for us either. (And yes, I had to look up those iconic moments after the fact!)
The bad kids show
In less than two months, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants will hit theaters, and I won’t go see it. I hold no excitement for Sponge and Friends’ sixth big screen adventure, not just because of their historically shaky quality, but because I simply hold no nostalgia for the source material. I expect the film to do well, with all of the shows’ iconic cast reprising their roles, and I have friends who are excited, but I’m just not.
My parents put a hard ban on SpongeBob, and only SpongeBob, out of all shows. “I honestly can’t remember why I didn’t let you guys watch SpongeBob. I just think I heard it was inappropriate for young kids,” my mother responded when pressed for comment, showing our family was not alone in this phenomenon. So why is that?
People make a litany of excuses for why SpongeBob in particular was singled out, although all are anecdotal. I have another relative who wouldn’t allow her children to watch the show, and her reason was that the characters were just “too mean.” We’re not supposed to side with the more cruel characters like Mr. Krabs and Squidward. I believe more often than not they’re the real butt of the joke, but my knowledge is limited. Still, if you were a concerned parent and someone showed you Squidward making fun of SpongeBob or Patrick for their antics, it might make sense that you’d write the whole show off.
Another answer, as it is for a lot of kids’ shows, is that some parents just found the characters and especially the voices annoying. While many Gen Z watchers find SpongeBob iconic, it’s very likely that Tom Kenny’s high-pitched laughs could have been grating to tired adults.
Does this sponge absorb your intelligence?
Another factor in what made SpongeBob the target of so much ire was a 2011 study performed for the Pediatrics Journal. The researchers sorted preschoolers into three groups. One group would draw, one would watch a slow-paced cartoon, and one would watch a fast-paced cartoon: SpongeBob. The study found that the children who watched the fast-paced cartoon for just a few minutes immediately scored worse on cognitive exams and had worse impulse control than their peers. Surely, this must prove the wickedness of the sponge.
Nickelodeon defended their cartoon against this study, and I have to agree with them. This study was extremely flawed. For one, the researchers used a non-diverse group of upper-class, white-four-year olds, so extrapolating the data is functionally useless. This group was also relatively young compared to the recommended SpongeBob viewing age of six years old.
The test also failed to run what would have made a much more compelling control group. They should have had kids who simply did nothing but stare at a wall during the television/drawing period of time. If we’re concluding that the kids couldn’t pay attention because they went from high to low stimulation, shouldn’t we see if the inverse is true?
Regardless of the validity of the study, the fact that SpongeBob was used as the fast-paced cartoon in question was the linchpin. News quickly spread to worried parents that SpongeBob was making their kids dumb, and, regardless of the claims’ validity, it was banned in many households.
Missing the joke
So, where does that leave us no SpongeBob kids? Why should anyone care that we weren’t allowed to watch some random 90s-early 2000s era cartoon?
Really, the answer lies in the memes.
It is an undeniable fact that SpongeBob has permeated internet culture. Whether it’s audios found on TikTok or clips from the show, people love to reference SpongeBob. There’s also the references outside the show, as I mentioned earlier. It was never fun to have someone say, “Remember that episode when…” and just immediately have to go, “Sorry, no.” When it’s on the internet, at least I can look up the context I’m missing. In person, I’m out of luck!
It can seem like such a small thing, but being out of the loop so consistently can become really irksome. People act like I’m the one who did something wrong for not having seen the show. I, and I’m sure many others of my ilk, just want to shout, “It wasn’t our choice!”
Too little, too late
I have a specific proclivity towards kids’ media. Between A Series of Unfortunate Events and Gravity Falls, I seem beholden to nostalgia. Past experience aside, I do find that some of these properties can have surprising amounts of depth and humor that still entertains me. I love going back to older pieces of media and picking up themes I couldn’t understand as a kid, or jokes that were “meant for the grown-ups.”
Normally, I choose to stick to things I already know I like. The combination of sweet nostalgia and getting to revisit things with a new lens is half the fun. Still, I always feel like I missed out on SpongeBob, and after playing some of his more popular video games (and still not getting any of the references to the show), I gave the first few episodes a shot.
It definitely feels odd to be a man in his 20s chuckling at a sentient sea sponge, and yet there I was, cooking dinner while laughing at SpongeBob and Patrick’s adventures catching jellyfish. When he faced off against Larry the Lobster in a weightlifting competition, I soon learned the origin of the iconic Ripped His Pants song I had heard my peers sing since middle school.
It felt like a whole world was opened in front of me. So many lines I had heard quoted before, so many moments and songs brought up. Half the time I didn’t even realize they were from SpongeBob until I heard them myself. As much fun as I was having, I couldn’t help but feel a little bitter. I missed out on so many potential jokes and potential connections, all from one stupid kids’ show.
The butterfly effect
I can admit that, realistically, my life was not dramatically affected by not being allowed to watch SpongeBob. I probably wouldn’t have changed much as a person even if the yellow fry cook was along for the ride. Yes, understanding a cheeky reference here and there, an inside joke I wasn’t privy to, would have been nice. But, does it really matter?
No, but I present the following call to action anyway: current and future parents, put in a little bit more time into checking what media your kids consume. This goes both ways. I didn’t grow up with the sheer amount of slop on YouTube that there is for toddlers today. The iPhone wasn’t even around, much less the iPad, when I was truly in my googoo gaga stage of life. Still, kids today have access to nearly infinite content. It takes time and careful consideration to figure out what your kids should watch.
It’s admittedly very easy for concerned parents to accept that a piece of media is bad for their kids. I’m sure everyone had at least one seemingly random thing their parents didn’t allow for one reason or another. It’s also easy for parents to throw genuinely harmful content in front of their kids, especially in the digital age. There’s a healthy middle ground, and it requires a little bit of extra effort. That might be hard for busy parents, but I encourage everyone to take the extra minute or two. It might just prevent the same fate I and many others faced.
