SpongeBob SquarePants

Characters

SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob SquarePants is a 23-year old anthropomorphic sea sponge with the mind capacity of a five-year-old. He currently resides in a pineapple with his snail, Gary. Despite being a piece of fruit, his house is not the strangest place of residence on the block.

Since SpongeBob does not look exactly like a sea sponge, some speculate he is really a piece of cubed cheese posing as an animate object. However, SpongeBob's relatively squishy body and wavy outline lead to the conclusion that he is really a kitchen sponge posing as a sea sponge by living at the bottom of the ocean. This would, however, pose the question of why he hasn't absorbed any sea water, given the absorbing quality of kitchen sponges. The answer is simple. It's a cartoon.

Patrick Star

Patrick Star is SpongeBob's best (and only) friend. Although he is often depicted as dimwitted, fat, lazy, ignorant, and unemployed, he is not an American. Instead, he claims to be a starfish. Yet, while starfish are shaped like stars and have multiple miniature "feet" on their underside, Patrick tends to resemble more of a lopsided triangle with a pair of limbs.
Furthermore, he wears horribly ill-fitting pants and has a belly button, further enforcing the notion that he is a human with the intelligence of a starfish and possesses no other qualities of an underwater creature.

Mr. Krabs

Eugene "Mr." Krabs is the father of Pearl, a sixteen-year old talking whale, and the owner of the Krusty Krab, a fast food restaurant which can somehow obtain all the necessary ingredients for a hamburger despite being underwater where no beef, wheat, or vegetables are readily available.
Although his last name is "Krabs," Mr. Krabs is probably a crab, not a krab (which is a type of processed seafood made from white fish that is pulverized in order to resemble crab legs). However, this still would not answer the question of how it is anatomically possible for him to have a whale as a biological daughter.

Controversy and Criticism

During much of the show, the characters talk to each other in the same way that humans would: By speaking English. However, some parents accused this of being unrealistic and inaccurate. Since much of the show is set in Bikini Bottom, which is a name used by the show's creators to signify the lagoon beneath Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands, the characters should really be speaking in Marshallese, the official language of the Marshall Islands, not English.

For example, one of SpongeBob's catchphrases is "I'm ready! I'm ready!" Realistically, he would have said, "Na ewor pojak! Na ewor pojak!" which is the correct Marshallese translation. Likewise, common phrases such as "My leg!" and "Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" should really be "Ao ne!" and "Won mour i peinabol iu?wi-l?jet?" respectively, and Gary's classic "meow" would become "Fenoji-umfa-noojay-leefee-uhmhat-zhagg?t-phutta-gung."

Merchandise

The producers of the show have currently made it their goal to create SpongeBob-themed versions of every single thing in existence. This trend started with SpongeBob-themed clothing, including pajamas, shirts, hats, socks, bras, thongs, gloves, turbans, saris, and parachute pants.
SpongeBob versions of classic games ranging from chess and Monopoly to SpongeBob-themed black jack, Russian Roulette, and strip poker were also created. As SpongeBob's popularity grew, cereals, video games, toys, bicycles, and even college textbooks featuring SpongeBob characters were created.