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"Why Spongebob Squarepants became less funny and watchable after season three: a critical evaluation"
Spongebob Squarepants is a child-oriented cartoon that has, thanks to the brilliance of its staff, gained notoriety with virtually every age group. GIFs and screen captures from the show routinely get thousands of notes on Tumblr and quotes like “Art thou feeling it now Mr. Krabs?” will likely continue to make us laugh for years and years to come. But there is one thing to notice about these note-getting pictures and GIFs- they almost uniformly come from the first three seasons.
As loyal viewers are no doubt aware, there was a brief hiatus after the season three finale aired. During that hiatus, the Spongebob Squarepants movie was released, shortly followed by the premiere of season four. It was from that point onward that the series began to become gradually less funny. Why has this happened? After some thought, I have a few ideas as to how this has happened.
An over-reliance on songs. There is a reason that many people can recite “The Fun Song” or “The Campfire Song Song” from memory. Songs were used sparingly in the first three seasons and each and every one served some kind of purpose. From season four onward, songs began to be employed more and more often, and as a result the songs became less and less memorable. Can you remember the wishing well song that Spongebob sang in “Wishing You Well”? How about Patrick’s song in “Pest of the West”? Probably not, and this is due to the metaphorical “flooding of the market” on songs in the show.
Too many themed episodes. Part of what makes this series so funny is the seemingly random path the episode follows. “I Had An Accident” is a prime example; who knew that Spongebob breaking his butt could lead him battling a gorilla and a horse? Who knew that Spongebob and Patrick’s inability to prank would leave them naked in front of the entire town in “Pranks a Lot”? We laugh when something unexpected happens. When the new seasons premiered, quite a few storylines had already been played out, which meant that the creative team decided to go for more full-length episodes such as “Dunces and Dragons,” where Sponge and Pat travel back to medieval times. In these long episodes, minutes that could be filled with laughter are instead spent setting up important plot points. It’s rather telling that in the first three seasons of Spongebob, there were only three full-length episodes- “Christmas Who?,” “The Sponge Who Could Fly” and “Party Pooper Pants.” Each season now contains on average three full-length episodes.
Less focus on the main cast of characters. I’ve already referred to the dilemma of “all the good story ideas have been covered.” This has led to another problem- numerous storylines now revolve around the inclusion of minor characters who will never again appear in the series. Some of these minor characters are vehicles for semi-famous people; for example, Gene Shalit appeared as a famous restaurant critic. But there are a plethora of other characters who will no longer have any significance in future episodes. The monkeys in “Chimps Ahoy”; Spongebob’s family members Blackjack and Stanley; the grouchy old woman who wanted to ban Krabby Patties. All of these characters were drawn to look very different from the regular nondescript citizens of Bikini Bottom but will never be seen again. Much (if not all) the humour in the first three seasons was just between the main cast and recurring characters. Mrs. Puff’s all-too-realistic adult worries make her character hilarious every time she appears. The Flying Dutchman manages to be the funniest ghost possibly ever. They are recurring characters, as opposed to one-offs created solely to drive the plot of an episode.
The series is just plain dumbed down. Part of the reason the show’s first three seasons have lasted so long is because the humour in the episodes is ageless; there are jokes that kids will get, but there are some that only older teenagers and adults will be able to understand. For example, from “Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy III”:
Patrick: Looks like he got reconstituted.
Spongebob: Rehabilitated.
Patrick: Gesundheit.
Or from “Grandma’s Kisses”
Patrick: Puff out your chest. Now say “Tax exemption.”
Spongebob: Tax exemption!
Patrick: Now you must acquire a taste for free-form jazz.
Neither of these jokes will be understood in their entirety by children, and this is what makes the first three seasons so great. Adults can watch alongside their children and laugh just as much as the children do. Onwards from season four, the episodes seem to be sadly missing the “higher-level” jokes. There have been far too many instances now where I’ve come across an episode of Spongebob I’ve yet to see and predicting exactly what kind of jokes they’ll use. I don’t think most adults would have predicted that when Patrick said to Spongebob: “You’ve got to get that thing off your chest” that there would be a strange purple chest-sucker present in the next shot. It’s unpredictable, something that most new episodes aren’t.
These are just a few examples. Now, I will admit there are a few episodes here and there in the new seasons that I have actually found funny. “Krusty Towers” still retains that unpredictable spirit of the old episodes. “The Two Faces of Squidward” has been responsible for a meme.
But there are plenty of episodes that have fallen completely flat. “Squidbob Tentaclepants” comes off as really bad fanfiction, particularly the rather disgusting ending to the episode. “To Love a Patty” takes Spongebob’s caring for his Krabby Patties to stupid levels. “Sing a Song of Patrick” is an episode that could have been half as long.
The hiatus seems to have really done a number on the production of this otherwise-great series. An interesting thing to note is that the show’s creative director changed post-season three. Derek Drymon was responsible for seasons one through three; Vincent Waller has been the creative director ever since. Whether or not this is directly responsible for Spongebob’s fall into mediocrity isn’t a sure thing.
Whatever the case may be, I’d argue that most fans would say that if you still want to laugh while watching Spongebob Squarepants, stick to the first three seasons. You’ll have plenty to keep you going.