SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob SquarePants (born July 14, 1986), is the titular main protagonist of the . He is an optimistic sponge who lives underwater in Bikini Bottom. He is the primary fry cook at the Krusty Krab. He is also one of Plankton's two archenemies (alongside his manager and former close friend Mr. Krabs). 
He is voiced by , who also voiced Heffer Wolfe from , Dog from , the Mayor of Townsville and the narrator from franchise, and Spyro the Dragon from . 
==History==
===Debut and Creation===
He first appeared on television in the series' pilot episode Help Wanted on May 1, 1999. SpongeBob was created and designed by the late cartoonist, shortly after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life in 1996. Hillenburg intended to create a series about an over-optimistic sponge that annoys other characters. 
Hillenburg compared the concept to Laurel and Hardy and Pee-wee Herman. As he drew the character, he decided that a "squeaky-clean square" (like a kitchen sponge) fits the concept. His name is derived from "Bob the Sponge", the host of Hillenburg's comic strip The Intertidal Zone that he originally drew in 1989 while studying at the California Institute of Arts.
SpongeBob has achieved popularity with both children and adults, though he has been involved in public controversy. The character appeared in a We Are Family Foundation video promoting tolerance, which was criticized by James Dobson of Focus on the Family because of the foundation's link to homosexuality. SpongeBob is an anthropomorphic kitchen-type sponge with two buck teeth, blue eyes, wears brown rectangular-like pants (probably attached to the white shirt with the red tie), black shoes, and red/blue-striped socks.
===Character Biography===
SpongeBob was born to Harold SquarePants and Margaret Bubblebottom. According to his driver's license, SpongeBob's birth date was on July 14, 1986, making him 35 years old in Season 13. In the first episode, he applied as the fry cook of Krusty Krab, under the employment of Mr. Krabs.
SpongeBob doesn't seem to be very bright (although he is much smarter than his starfish friend). However, he is goofy and loyal. He lives in a pineapple house in the fictional underwater town of Bikini Bottom.
==Physical Appearance==
SpongeBob is an anthropomorphic sea sponge, although he resembles a kitchen sponge. His arms and legs are thin, retractable, and slightly disproportionate from his body. SpongeBob has three black, wiry eyelashes, and his eyes have sky-blue irises with very dilated pupils. Sometimes, when SpongeBob is upset or afraid, his nose points down. SpongeBob has two prominent front teeth on the upper part of his mouth and speaks with a slight lateral lisp. His body is flexible and capable of transforming into other shapes. SpongeBob can absorb physical attacks, such as punches, and large amounts of water. If SpongeBob's arms or legs fall off, he can either reattach them or regrow new ones.
Most of the time, SpongeBob is wearing a private school uniform consisting of a business shirt, a red necktie, and brown pants. He wears a pair of white briefs beneath, black, shiny shoes, and knee-length socks with a red stripe and a blue stripe. On special occasions, SpongeBob often wears a red bowtie instead of a necktie.
Before going to bed, SpongeBob is sometimes shown wearing a separate sleepwear outfit that consists of a light blue nightcap and pajamas, or in his underwear, and sometimes goes to bed in his clothes. While at the beach or going swimming, SpongeBob wears blue (in seasons 1-3) or red (in season 6 and onward) shorts with white laces. While working at the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob has a white hat with an anchor on it and a black front of the part of the hat.
==Personality==
SpongeBob is very optimistic, hard-working, clueless, hyper, fun-loving, jovial, kind-hearted, intelligent, honest, naive, and friendly. He works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab restaurant in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom. He is also a leader, he loves his job very much and performs it very well, even though his greedy cheap boss Mr. Krabs pays him poorly if not rarely. He can also get very overly reacted. Like from the episode The Bully, he started getting petrified of getting his butt kicked from new student Flatts the Flounder. 
But it was turned out that like a sponge, he did not get hurt much after all. SpongeBob also cares for his loyal pet snail, Gary, who only meows like a cat, and loves hanging out with his best brainless friend, Patrick Star, a friendly but dim-witted pink sea star who lives under a rock. Their middle neighbor is Squidward Tentacles, a grumpy, ill-tempered, and self-centered octopus who lives in an Easter Island Tiki head-shaped house and hates both SpongeBob and Patrick with a passion because of their annoying antics, maturity you would expect from a sponge and starfish, and them always ruining his day. However, they are both unaware of this and believe him to be their closest friend. He wants to get his boating license but unintentionally fails the test and drives badly due to his nerves but is able to drive other vehicles.
He is sometimes seen as Nickelodeon's mascot and is one of the most popular fictional characters distributed by Nickelodeon.
==Powers & Abilities==
===Powers===
Like many other cartoon characters, SpongeBob has been shown to have numerous extraordinary abilities and attributes throughout the series (even though physically weak).
*Soft Pliable Body: Due to his soft, pliable frame, he is capable of shapeshifting, has some degree of invulnerability, being able to absorb any type of physical impact, though there are also limits which depend on the plot of episodes he featured in.
*Regeneration: It is shown that he can quickly regenerate parts of his body that are injured or removed, but given that there is some instance where he shown treated in hospital, how good his regeneration depends on the plot of episodes he featured in.
*Boneless: SpongeBob mostly portrayed without any bones in his body, but sometimes otherwise depends on the plot of episodes he featured in (E.G: The Splinter and I Had an Accident).
*Reproductive ability: Being a Sea Sponge SpongeBob has very good regeneration and on top of that, when he's split in two those 2 halves will create another SpongeBob.
*Absorbent: Being a sponge, he is also absorbent, and can expand his body by absorbing liquids. When he cries, he often re-absorbs his tears. Like in "The Bully" when Flats kept on hitting him, but SpongeBob just absorbed all of his blows. Although, how good his body can absorb and endure physical trauma still depends on the plot of the episodes he featured in. For instance, with a precise hit, Patrick caused SpongeBob to have bruises all over on one of his eyes.
*Leadership: SpongeBob is a great natural leader for all of his friends in Bikini Bottom.
*Singing and Nose Playing: SpongeBob is shown to possess a fantastic singing voice and thanks to his physiology, his nose can be used as a flute.
*Fry Cooking: SpongeBob is highly skillful in cooking Krabby Patties at the Krusty Krab as a chef of the said restaurant, As He can cook Krabby Patties at a very fast pace, even faster than a machine.
*Jellyfishing: He has impressive skills in Jellyfishing, and he also has a code to release the captured Jellyfishes every time he managed to capture one.
*Tongue Boarding: SpongeBob's tongue can be expanded large enough to be used as the makeshift board.
*Survival Skills: SpongeBob had remarkable survival skills, where he and Patrick almost ate each other to survive.
*Bubble Blowing: SpongeBob can perform extraordinary moves with bubbles and even capable to create spectacular variations of bubbles includes bubbles-based constructs which, unfortunately, ridiculed by Squidward (perhaps he was the only one) due to their different views about art in general.
**Enhanced Bubble Blowing: As Invinci-Bubble, his bubble-blowing skill improved into a superhuman level, as he can conjure a destructive bubble tsunami (with help of Plank-Ton), a jet of bubbles for transportation, and bubbles that can carry objects as heavy as cannonballs.
*Driving: He is capable of driving various vehicles, but never passes his driving test at Mrs. Puff's Boating School because he stresses out and crashes each time. He was able to drive a boat blindfolded once and would be confident on occasion and drive good but would drive badly as soon as he gets nervous again.
*Karate: He trains in Karate perfectly, but he rarely mixes them up/performed them properly.
*Destruction: SpongeBob has a degree of talent in destruction, but most of the cases show that he mostly performed this involuntary due to his gullible and reckless personality. In "Sandy's Rocket". Sandy mentioned that SpongeBob was responsible for the accidental death of numerous fishes when his attempt on tampering whirlybird went wrong.
*Superhuman Speed: The Quickster, he can move very fast, but unfortunately lacks any proper training in mastering this ability. Although, he is certainly able to run faster than Patrick when he's about to tell Mr. Krabs in "Sailor Mouth" and Squidward when he's about to chase SpongeBob about the pizza in "Pizza Delivery".
*Enhanced Strength: SpongeBob has shown in many episodes to have strength beyond a normal Sea Sponge, including lifting Patrick and Mr. Krabs, and moving heavy objects. But also, has shown to a strength limit including not being able to even lift marshmallows.
*Teleportation: SpongeBob is too capable to teleport in various episodes (though merely implied since he teleported off-screen). Like in "The Wreck of the Mauna Loa" When he was chasing Patrick in a game of tag, Patrick was looking back at SpongeBob in the other direction, when he imminently bumped into SpongeBob in front of him.
*Dream-walking: In "Sleepy Time", a freak accident occurred during his nightmare when he sees his supposed driving license torn by Mrs. Puff to bits resulting in his dream self being accidentally projected to the real-world and enabling him to enter the others' dreams and even interact within them, revealing that he possesses the ability of dream-walking. His friends seem to be aware of his said powers, as by the end of the said episode, they demand him not to tamper their dreams anymore.
*Ghost Physiology: After he and Patrick accidentally shave Flying Dutchman's beard, the powerful ghost cursed SpongeBob and Patrick by stripping them from their flesh and blood, turned them into ghosts. This gave them various ghost powers including intangibility, flight, ectoplasm creation, and turned inanimate objects into the said object's ghost version (SpongeBob created a ghost version of his spatula by broke the original one, in which the ghost version of the said spatula materialized from its remains). Although, Flying Dutchman eventually have to restore SpongeBob and Patrick to normal due to their newfound cursed powers proved too much for them to handle (SpongeBob can't interact with the realm of the living as much as when still normal and accidentally made himself passed deeper through earth's crust when sleeping).
*Climbing: SpongeBob can climb on his own house in "Party Pooper Pants".
*Slide Whistle: SpongeBob can use the all-powerful slide whistle. The Slide Whistle can teleport, and control either SpongeBob or other objects. The whistle also grants SpongeBob the ability to control others slightly like what direction they walk in and other minuscule things. It cannot teleport other people, only the user. The downside of the whistle is that you need both hands to use it, and it can break. The slide whistle is the nerfed infinity gauntlet when paired with the infamous pencil.
*The Pencil: The pencil grants the user god-like abilities. The user can create anything and erase anything at will.
*Tail Growth: When imitating Sandy in the episode Gone, he can grow a tail like Sandy's in order to keep her memory alive.
===Weaknesses===
*Lack of Physical Strength: Due to his physiology, SpongeBob's natural physical strength appears to be below average. One instance exaggerated this whereupon close inspection, his hand was depicted in the emaciated state as if it was only skin and bone. Although, SpongeBob can also build up his strengths to several times of what he is normally capable of by sheer force of will, with his prowess depending on the writers of the episode. and he is pretty strong in some games.
*Gullibility: SpongeBob's gullible personality made him prone to the manipulation of others who used him for their gain or made him unknowingly hurt others, physically and emotionally. The most controversial of this is in A Pal for Gary, where he was too gullible by Puffy Fluffy's manipulation that made him mistreat Gary and be ignorant with the fact that Puffy Fluffy was in fact, one of the most dangerous sea predators.
*Cowardice: SpongeBob often lacks the willpower to stand up for himself. Even his arch-nemesis Plankton points this out in Walking Small when beachgoers were walking all over SpongeBob (ironically enough, Plankton himself was forcing SpongeBob to do his bidding in the same episode). Patrick even takes advantage of SpongeBob in Suds, Hooky, and Rock-a-bye Bivalve.
*Driving: He is not good at driving boats because he always crashes into buildings and/or hits people with his boat, although he is able to drive other vehicles, for example he can drive the patty wagon, or even a boulder (the former in the first movie, and the latter in Pizza Delivery).
==Quotes==
==Trivia== 
*While Tom Kenny has always been the voice of SpongeBob, his voice became significantly more high-pitched and effeminate after the first SB movie, especially around seasons 6-8. Starting with season 9-onwards, SpongeBob's voice has gotten slightly lower in pitch once again.
*According to the late creator, Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob is neither gay nor straight, but he is indeed asexual, meaning he reproduces by himself like all real-life sea sponges do.
*In 2009, SpongeBob appeared briefly in the music video to "The Official BBC Children in Need Medley" by Peter Kay's Animated All Star Band appearing via video link on Big Chris's phone.
*As noted by fans and suggested by writer/voice actor Doug Lawrence in the DVD commentary for the season one episode "Plankton!", main casts of SpongeBob SquarePants were intended to represent Seven Deadly Sins. In SpongeBob's case, he represented Lust through his craving for fame, attention, and love from everyone, a trait which, coupled with his gullibility, more than often clouded his judgment at worst.
*SpongeBob's early name was "Spongeboy", which he was later renamed "SpongeBob" in the final version due to the copyright name of a pencil which featured the obscure comic strip character of the same name.
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