Sheldon J. Plankton

**Sheldon J.** **Plankton**, more commonly known as **Plankton**, is a supporting character in the *SpongeBob SquarePants* franchise. He is a planktonic copepod who runs the Chum Bucket restaurant alongside Karen, a waterproof computer who is his sidekick and wife. The Chum Bucket is highly unpopular in Bikini Bottom because it serves chum, a type of bait made from fish meat.

Plankton despises his rival, Mr. Krabs, for running a successful restaurant because his own business rarely gets any customers. He is incredibly jealous of Mr. Krabs and his success. His main goal is to steal Krabs' secret formula for Krabby Patties and running Mr. Krabs out of business. Karen gives him a variety of plans to steal it, but their efforts always end up failing in the process.

Plankton's character was developed by both Mr. Lawrence, one of the show's staff writers, and Charles Nelson Reilly, his voice actor in the US English dub until 2007. Stephen Hillenburg originally planned for Plankton and Karen to be one-time characters, but Lawrence wrote them into many episodes and proved that Plankton could work as a secondary villain, since the main villain role was given to the Octopus in the Beaver Hat. Both Plankton and Karen first appear in the episode "Plankton!"

In "Friend or Foe," it is revealed that Mr. Krabs and Plankton were best friends during their childhood, but a dispute over the Krabby Patty secret formula ended their friendship for real, meaning that Plankton had a part in the creation of the Krabby Patty.

## Description

Plankton is, as his name suggests, a tiny green planktonic copepod who can fit in the palm of one's hand. He has some stubby appendages and one yellow eye with a red pupil. He has two long, skinny antennae with four small green spikes sticking out along them. He also has one black thick eyebrow. He has no ears or nose. His size constantly changes: in some episodes, he's the size of a Krabby Patty, meanwhile, in others, he can perfectly hide in a Krabby Patty. He also has no fingers or toes, but he can sprout four.

## Biography

Sheldon J. Plankton was born on the same day as Mr. Krabs. His parents were Mama and Gordon Plankton, and he is the grandson of Lily Plankton and Grand Dad Plankton.

Plankton and Krabs were considered outcasts by other kids, most notably a school group led by Incidental K1 because Krabs was poor and Plankton was already very intelligent, which earned him the image of a nerd. When they discovered that money could bring them out of their poverty, they decided to make money selling hamburger patties and set up a mini-restaurant in the local dump.

At first, their burgers were not successful; the first of their patties were tried by Old Man Jenkins, who was knocked out by the contaminated burger. Plankton started complaining about how Jenkins had been old and not able to handle the patty. Offended by this, Krabs tried to take the recipe from Plankton to improve upon. Plankton wanted to do this himself and both he and Krabs argued, but he only ended up with the corner of the recipe, which read: "And a pinch of chum."

Plankton stormed out of the restaurant and went to create his recipe, using only his memory, the corner of the recipe, and science. At school, Plankton tried to sell his chumburgers in a chum bucket and failed, while Krabs succeeded with his Krabby Patties, which he had created by accident when Plankton had forcefully slammed the door. Ingredients fell in the patty batter, thus creating the patty. Plankton later named his restaurant the Chum Bucket, after the secret ingredient of the original unsuccessful patty recipe. Mr. Krabs named his restaurant the Krusty Krab, after himself.

To this very day, Plankton has been single-mindedly obsessed with obtaining the Krabby Patty formula and running the Krusty Krab out of business. He often goes to incredible and quite ridiculous lengths to do so; sometimes even working for the series' main antagonist, the Octopus in the Beaver Hat, just to get the secret formula.