Hari's Reviews
Spongebob Squarepants (1999-present)
Created: Sat Mar 20 21:44:01 2010 | Last modified: Sat Mar 20 21:44:01 2010
Rating: 
Year: 1999-present
Language: English
Starring: Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick, Squidward, Mr. Krabs
Produced by: Nickelodeon
External Link: IMDb
An amazingly popular show, Spongebob Squarepants is a fairly nonsensical, yet hilarious toon set in an undersea settlement called Bikini Bottom. It mainly features Spongebob Squarepants (a sponge wearing pants!), his loyal friend Patrick, his grumpy neighbour Squidward and his money-grubbing, miserly boss, Mr. Krabs who runs the Krusty Krabs - a popular neighbourhood fast food joint. Most of the stories involve the principal characters and bring out their innate nature. Most of the plots vary from the wildly ridiculous to the cleverly witty, but the chief intent of this toon is to make people laugh. And it succeeds in its mission to a reasonable degree.
The characters themselves personify different aspects of human behaviour. Spongebob is the innocent, wide-eyed teenager - highly trusting, over-optimistic character while his neighbour Squidward has a more pessimistic and cynical view of the world. Several of the episodes feature him ridiculing Spongebob's excessive trust in their boss, Mr. Krabs, who places money above most things in life. Yet Spongebob and Squidward continue working for him throughout. The cast also includes Sandy - a squirrel which lives underwater wearing a glass bowl on her head.
The episodes themselves vary quite a bit and not all of them are equally witty, while a few of them can be quite boring. The show also parodies many aspects of popular culture like Batman and Robin. There are also quite a few episodes with very sensible messages conveyed through one of the characters' viewpoints. The drawings and animation are fairly adequate and not too detailed, but they do the job well. The voice actors also do a good job in giving each character a distinct personality - in particular, Mr. Krab's "ack-ack-ack-ack" laughter and Spongebob's unique giggle are worth a mention.