Spongebob Squarepants is more of an "I'm bored and everything else on tv sucks so I'll watch this" kind of show for me. It's not really my favorite thing, but it's actually decent enough that I would watch it whenever everything else on tv is really boring. The characters are appealing and almost approach childlike innocence. Of course. . . they also approach utter absurdity. Now I like strange and weird cartoons. Take Aqua Teen Hunger Force, for example. But Spongebob Squarepants is just so "smack your forehead and go 'What?!'". And the characters are often so stupid as to be almost annoying. Of course. . . what other cartoon can you watch where you can have water under water. And fire under water for that matter. Hmm. . . Maybe I'm just ticked off at its overratedness and the fact that it just recently beat Avatar for best writing at the Annies. Other than that, it's really a decent show.

It took me a while to actually sit down and watch an episode. I had heard so many negative things about it that I figured it was stupid and not worth watching. I was surprised to find that the show was actually funny and held my interest. I didn't find any of the characters real annoying. It's a pretty cheesy show, but that's what makes it funny. It's worth watching if there's nothing else on the tube.

Very funny show. Nicely animated, funny storylines, voices are great, just plain awsome :D
If I had a choice of what TV cartoon to work on it would probably be SBSP.

James

How can you not love Spongebob? The show is just an excellent one it's original, very funny, has appealing animation and characters...it's one of the only great shows on Nick right now, along with the Oddparents & Jimmy Neutron. If it were on Nick with Are You Afraid of the Dark, Rocko, Angry Beavers, and other wonderful old shows, the network would be perfect!

This is probably the easiest cartoon to review. SpongeBob is a hilarious and highly enjoyable cartoon with a great sense of wit and humor. it's one of the few shows i can just sit down and watch without having to worry about 'which episode' it is and whether or not i will enjoy it. SpongeBob is entirely versitle, making you feel silly in a fun way that your laughing at the same things a ten year old or younger would, but it's all good hearted and fun.

This series has its legions of adoring fans, so I doubt my relatively low grade will drag down the average in the long run.

Stephen Hillenburg cut his teeth doing a bit of everything on Joe Murray's classic 'Rocko's Modern Life'. A former marine biology teacher, it's unsurprising I suppose that when given his own gig it would turn out to be something aquatic.

For me, the show just fails to ignite. It doesn't have the inspired surrealism or whacked-out art design of 'Rocko', and opts for a more straightforward, and dare I say, less sophisticated sort of humour. Ok, there's certainly something 'zany' about a character who is a sponge-wipe living underwater with various crustacea, octopi and fish, but there is zany and then there is inspired. There is nothing here to match the scene in 'Rocko's Modern Life' where Heffer waves goodbye to his body fat as it ascends to Heaven.

Of course I'm acting like it's nescessarily preferable that a show be more whacked-out, and that certainly isn't true. Nor is whacked-outedness by itself enough to make a show, without everything else being good as well. It's clearly just my personal taste, but I found the characters, settings and jokes in SS fairly unremarkable. Certainly not bad, but at the time that I last saw it regularly (2001) there were probably half a dozen cartoon series in production that I preferred to watch. I gave it a chance to grow on me, and it just didn't. If it was on, I'd probably watch it if I had nothing else to do, but it never became something I looked forward to.

I can see how it's a quality show in most respects. There's certainly nothing wrong with the writing, or anything else really. I even read an academic stating that the show was 'subversive' because it was 'pre-ironic'. Well, the trouble with me is that I need some irony in my diet, as does our culture, it would seem. It might not be good for me, but I'm addicted.

(What a load of cobblers to write about a show as lightweight as this. It's a perfectly decent cartoon. Just not my cup of tea.)