Chum Bucket

Temporary employees

Chum Coliseum (temporary project)

Chum Caverns (temporary project)

The ***Chum Bucket*** is an unsuccessful fast food restaurant that is located right across the street from the Krusty Krab. It is owned by Sheldon J. and Karen Plankton, where they both reside. It first appears in the episode "Plankton!"

The Chum Bucket is normally unable to compete with the Krusty Krab because it mostly serves awful and foul-tasting foods made from chum, so it rarely gets any customers. Creator Stephen Hillenburg has stated that the Chum Bucket is the only place in Bikini Bottom that serves meat. A running gag throughout the series is about Plankton's numerous attempts to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula to attract customers to his restaurant, all of which have failed, except in *The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie*.

Although both Plankton and Karen operate the restaurant, episodes such as "Krabby Road" and "Plankton Gets the Boot" show that Karen is the one in charge of the building. She has used her authority to kick Plankton out of the Chum Bucket on several occasions.

## Description

It is located directly across the street from the Krusty Krab, which is far more successful than the Chum Bucket. It is part of "Sheldon Plankton Enterprises, a division of No Fun Incorporated." The Chum Bucket's lack of business is not just because of the good food served at the Krusty Krab, but the result of awful and potentially poisonous food served at the restaurant.

### Exterior

The restaurant looks like a bucket with a giant blue glove holding on to the handle of it. Double doors are placed at the front of the structure. The design of the doors is similar to the way doors in hospitals and intelligence buildings are designed. It also has a drive-thru, as seen in the episode "Komputer Overload."

### Interior

The Chum Bucket features a cafeteria, where food is ordered and eaten. A door in the cafeteria leads to the lab room in which Plankton has his pet Labrador retriever on a computer screen. From here, the doors lead to the actual laboratory, which is labeled as the "kitchen" from the outside. The laboratory is where Karen's wall form is situated. It is the main living quarters and the most commonly-seen area of the Chum Bucket. It is also where Plankton does his evil experiments and builds his inventions.

In *Battle for Bikini Bottom*, it is suggested that the Chum Bucket may have a much larger laboratory than what is on the surface. Plankton also has an office, where he sleeps and writes his evil plans to steal the Krabby Patty formula from Mr. Krabs. As revealed in the episode "Evil Spatula," Plankton has a room filled with different spatulas.

In "One Coarse Meal," Plankton sleeps on a block of metal with a blanket. However, Plankton and Karen are later shown to have an entire bedroom in "Bottle Burglars" and "Gary & Spot." They sleep in two matching twin beds with purple blankets on them. There are photos of ballet dancers on the wall behind them.

In "Komputer Overload," the Chum Bucket is revealed to have a hallway with a door on the right side and a water fountain on the left side.

In a deleted scene of *The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water*, the Chum Bucket's living room was going to be revealed. It features the same metallic walls as the rest of the restaurant, but Karen designed it to be much homier and welcoming. It has floral curtains on the windows, a purple plush carpet, a coffee table with a vase of flowers on top, and a comfy green couch. There are also framed photos of Karen and Plankton. The room did not end up appearing, but its design was recycled into their bedroom.

## History

Plankton opened up the Chum Bucket the same day Mr. Krabs opened the Krusty Krab. It is not known why he opened his restaurant following these significant events, however, judging by his evil ways, it is presumed that Plankton wanted to rule the world and wanted to do this by stealing and selling the Krabby Patties, therefore bringing lots of people into the restaurant and ultimately ruling the world, as depicted in *The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie*.

When the Krusty Krab first came into being, the Chum Bucket was somehow built and opened by Plankton, so that he could start stealing the secret formula and soon start an ever-lasting rivalry between the two restaurants.

A more plausible explanation of the simultaneous opening of both the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket was revealed in "Friend or Foe" where it is explained that as school pals, Krabs and Plankton were picked on by the "cool kids." Their only refuge is behind the popular local burger joint.

They must sit in the back so the cool kids still want to eat there. After being shut down, Krabs and Plankton buy the space. Then both Mr. Krabs and Plankton tell their versions of why they parted ways until Plankton's computer wife tells the real story. The burgers they were making were lousy and each blamed the other. They begin to fight over the recipe they have and who can improve it. The recipe rips in half sending Krabs flying into the shelf full of spices, which all fall in his patty mix.

Plankton storms out telling Krabs he would show him one day. This is how the secret recipe was born and the reasoning behind the bitter rivalry.

### Destruction

The Chum Bucket has been destroyed on numerous occasions.

* **"Imitation Krabs:"** After the self-destruction system is activated, Plankton screams as he wheels back to the Chum Bucket but explodes when he gets inside.
* **"Spy Buddies:"** Plankton invites SpongeBob and Patrick into the Chum Bucket building, but Patrick's laser pants become so destructible that it starts carving holes everywhere and destroys the Chum Bucket. Later, the floor opens up, and a blimp emerges with Plankton controlling it from the inside.
* **"Bucket Sweet Bucket:"** The Chum Bucket was merely replaced with the Krusty Krab, and parts of it were used as decorations for the Krusty Krab. Near the episode's end, it is proven that the Chum Bucket was indeed destroyed: the Krusty Krab is fixed up to look fancy, and the fountain was sculpted from the material of the Chum Bucket's foundation. The swords and shields on the walls were made from the walls of the Chum Bucket.
* **"Stanley S. SquarePants:"** Stanley S. SquarePants destroys it by touching the inside.
* **"Spongicus:"** Plankton destroyed it with a wrecking ball and replaced with a colosseum. Later, when trying to get away from the lion, he runs outside, but the lion punches a hole through it and creates a larger hole.
* **"Slide Whistle Stooges:"** As Squidward is addicted to the slide whistling he gets behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler and runs straight through the Chum Bucket, and afterward Squidward also ran into the Krusty Krab.
* **"That Sinking Feeling:"** The Chum Bucket sinks underground with the rest of Bikini Bottom.
* **"Chum Fricassee:"** Gets burned down by the angry customers when they learned Squidward was feeding them, undercooked chum.
* **"Move It or Lose It:"** Gets destroyed after the bureaucrat fish accidentally hits "Reverse" on his bulldozer.
* **"Evil Spatula:"** It gets destroyed after Plankton was fooled by Mr. Krabs into mixing a bunch of items that caused a major explosion.
* **"Shopping List:"** Similarly to "Evil Spatula," it gets destroyed after Mr. Krabs fools Plankton into mixing the fake ingredients that end up making an explosion.
* **"Plankton Paranoia:"** It gets destroyed in the end when Mr. Krabs placed a stick of dynamite in the bottle where the secret formula is.
* **"Karen's Virus:"** Karen's virus causes her to destroy the Chum Bucket.
* **"King Plankton:"** When sea chimps began invading the Chum Bucket, Plankton was forced to throw his restaurant far out in the distance to get rid of them.