3. SpongeBob
SpongeBob is about an energetic and optimistic sea sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. Plots revolve around SpongeBob and the various main characters of the show.
A little backstory:
The show was created by Stephen Hillenburg, who worked on Rocko’s Modern Life as a writer, producer and storyboard artist during the series’ third and fourth seasons. SpongeBob became sucessful quite fast and by its second season it was Nickelodeon’s number 2 Nicktoon after Rugrats. The show surpassed Rugrats in popularity during its third season.
After Hillenburg completed the film in 2002 he wanted to end the series over concerns that they had begun to peak creatively and wanted to prevent the show from jumping the shark. Nickelodeon didn’t want to so Hillenburg resigned as the series’ showrunner. He continues to work on the show as an executive producer and reviews each episode and provides suggestions.
Rest of the story:
I have continuously watched this show since it premiered back in 1999 and still enjoy the new episodes. The biggest reason I like watching this show is that it has an ensemble cast and each characters’ individual quirks make them all so interesting.
The main characters of this show include, Patrick Star, a starfish; Squidward, an octopus; Mr. Krabs, a crab; Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel; Gary, a snail and Plankton, a form of plankton.
Patrick is dim-witted, friendly and lives under a rock. Squidward is arrogant, ill-tempered, lives in a Easter Island head, enjoys playing the clarinet and painting self-portraits and hates his job. Sandy is from Texas, a scientist, an expert in karate, lives in a underwater treedome and due to not having gills she wears a spacesuit that provides her with air. Mr. Krabs is a miser obsessed with money, owns the Krusty Krab restaurant and is SpongeBob’s boss. Plankton is Mr. Krabs’ rival, owns the Chum Bucket restaurant located across the street from the Krusty Krab and spends his time planning to steal the Krabby Patty formula to get success and put the Krusty Krab out of business.
With so many diverse characters the show has many interesting plots. Some of the best episodes revolve around the Krusty Krab and Plankton. I’ve lost track of how many times Mr. Krabs and SpongeBob have thwarted Plankton’s schemes to steal the formula.
Episodes with Squidward, SpongeBob and Patrick are also great to watch and lead to some wacky shenanigans. One of the best, in my opinion, is the episode entitled, “Club SpongeBob,” in which all 3 of them get lost in Kelp Forest and use a novelty toy, the Magic Conch Shell, to find their way home. Of course Squidward doesn’t believe it works. A lot of their episodes together involve SpongeBob and Patrick doing something crazy that Squidward doesn’t believe in and they drive him so insane he goes over the deep end and starts to believe in something he didn’t before.
The other kind of episodes I like are the tv movies and specials. One of my favorite tv specials is Friend or Foe, which reveals the cause of Mr. Krabs and Plankton’s rivalry. The first tv movie was Atlantis SquarePantis and involved the main characters traveling to Atlantis together. Of course now it seems every new episode that Nickelodeon airs is considered a tv special and makes it seem like every episode is important.
New episodes of SpongeBob have been airing on Nickelodeon since its premiere on May 1st, 1999. After Season 3 ended on October 11th, 2004, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie came out November 19th, 2004. Season 4 began May 6th, 2005 and the show is still on the air 9 years later with Season 9. The airing schedule has become erratic in recent years and seasons take over a year to two years to finish airing.
The future of SpongeBob consists of a Season 10 to start sometime this year and a 2nd SpongeBob SquarePants movie due out in theaters February 13th, 2015. Even though I still enjoy this show I’m kinda hoping Season 10 and a 2nd movie will be the end of the show. No show should be dragged out as long as The Simpsons. I figure the reason why this show has continued to air so long though is due to having fun characters and solid plots.
Places to watch it: Nickelodeon, Nicktoons, DVD Season Sets and Seasons 1, 3, 6 and 7 are available for streaming on Amazon Prime.
Tech Plus Things 
Just to let you know, Squidward Tentacles is not an octopus. He is a squid, hence the name, “Squidward”.
I always thought that too until I watched the commentary on the SpongeBob DVD “Tide and Seek” and Stephen Hillenburg confirmed that Squidward is indeed an octopus.
Oh . . . I’m so sorry. My previous comment probably sounded really irritable and such, but I didn’t mean it that way. I just get really defensive over the show and I thought that you were misinforming the public. I’m sorry. (Anyway, why would Hillenburg name him “Squidward” and the say he’s an octopus? He should have thought this through.)
That’s okay. But I have no idea why Hillenburg would name him Squidward. Maybe his design was based off of an octopus to begin with. Anyways I checked out your SpongeBob blog and it’s very nice. I hope you’ll stick around to check out my other posts in the future.