Guest Post: Sponge Who? Square What?
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Dear Nickelodeon Animation People,
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in THAT brain-storming session. My guess is it went something like this:
Head Animator (hiccuping after a few too many): I've got it! It could be a sponge, um, yeah, that's it, a yellow sponge guy.
Second-in-command animator (drowsy from too much allergy medication...yawn): Yeah, that might work, he'll need a best friend, should we just do the star fish thing so it doesn't get too weird?
Head Animator: We're really cooking now (rubbing his hands together), and speaking of cooking, I just had the biggest idea since sliced bread, FRY COOK. He could be a fry cook for a cranky, greedy crab that runs a fast food joint the FDA wouldn't endorse if it were the last culinary establishment on earth...brilliant!!
Right, so you get the idea. My guess is, it went on like this for sometime with people who were not in their right mind throwing out ideas that were instantly ratified leaving us, the viewers, too stunned to even vocalize the questions bubbling (excuse the pun...but not really) up inside us. Questions like:
1.) Why a pineapple? Why not an eggplant (pause here for everyone to appreciate my brilliant reference and tie back to Aleisha's introduction post about me...snort)?
2.) How does a sponge named Bob cook fries at the bottom of the sea??? Hmm, I mean that defies every law of physics I ever slept through in high school.
3.) A squirrel? One of his friends is a squirrel...you don't think that's crossing a line somehow? A SQUIRREL?
4.) Why on earth would you go with briefs instead of boxers? Boxers are already square, doesn't that make more sense? This is madness!!
I digress. Originally, I drafted this letter in a vain attempt to suggest you re-think your programming. As a mother, I really couldn't find any redeeming qualities in your blue-eyed-phylum Porifera. Then one day I was watching an episode (hey, I'm a Mom, sometimes I zone out and this just happened to be on), where something catastrophic happened to poor Bob resulting in his being a melted puddled of goo on the ocean floor with two round eyes peering up at his peers. In the blink of an eye, he shook it off, bounced back (into his square shaped self) and tackled the trouble. As pathetic as this is going to sound, I realized that there have been plenty of times I, myself, have felt like a shape-less mass of goo; worn out, beat down, and um, um...less than attractive. In these moments, as much as it pains me to say it, I guess I can take a lesson from old Bob. That lesson being to say to myself, "Get with the program, you're a Mommy, time to pull yourself together and make some lunch." Sigh.
So, while I'm not asking you to pull the cartoon completely, maybe you could just limit it to one episode a day?
Now, "Who wants to lick my cheeks?"
-SpongeBob SquarePants
Sincerely,
Sunshine
(Cartoon connoisseur, common sense advocate, and exhausted Mommy)
Dear Nickelodeon Animation People,
I would love to have been a fly on the wall in THAT brain-storming session. My guess is it went something like this:
Head Animator (hiccuping after a few too many): I've got it! It could be a sponge, um, yeah, that's it, a yellow sponge guy.
Second-in-command animator (drowsy from too much allergy medication...yawn): Yeah, that might work, he'll need a best friend, should we just do the star fish thing so it doesn't get too weird?
Head Animator: We're really cooking now (rubbing his hands together), and speaking of cooking, I just had the biggest idea since sliced bread, FRY COOK. He could be a fry cook for a cranky, greedy crab that runs a fast food joint the FDA wouldn't endorse if it were the last culinary establishment on earth...brilliant!!
Right, so you get the idea. My guess is, it went on like this for sometime with people who were not in their right mind throwing out ideas that were instantly ratified leaving us, the viewers, too stunned to even vocalize the questions bubbling (excuse the pun...but not really) up inside us. Questions like:
1.) Why a pineapple? Why not an eggplant (pause here for everyone to appreciate my brilliant reference and tie back to Aleisha's introduction post about me...snort)?
2.) How does a sponge named Bob cook fries at the bottom of the sea??? Hmm, I mean that defies every law of physics I ever slept through in high school.
3.) A squirrel? One of his friends is a squirrel...you don't think that's crossing a line somehow? A SQUIRREL?
4.) Why on earth would you go with briefs instead of boxers? Boxers are already square, doesn't that make more sense? This is madness!!
I digress. Originally, I drafted this letter in a vain attempt to suggest you re-think your programming. As a mother, I really couldn't find any redeeming qualities in your blue-eyed-phylum Porifera. Then one day I was watching an episode (hey, I'm a Mom, sometimes I zone out and this just happened to be on), where something catastrophic happened to poor Bob resulting in his being a melted puddled of goo on the ocean floor with two round eyes peering up at his peers. In the blink of an eye, he shook it off, bounced back (into his square shaped self) and tackled the trouble. As pathetic as this is going to sound, I realized that there have been plenty of times I, myself, have felt like a shape-less mass of goo; worn out, beat down, and um, um...less than attractive. In these moments, as much as it pains me to say it, I guess I can take a lesson from old Bob. That lesson being to say to myself, "Get with the program, you're a Mommy, time to pull yourself together and make some lunch." Sigh.
So, while I'm not asking you to pull the cartoon completely, maybe you could just limit it to one episode a day?
Now, "Who wants to lick my cheeks?"
-SpongeBob SquarePants
Sincerely,
Sunshine
(Cartoon connoisseur, common sense advocate, and exhausted Mommy)
*sigh* i truly hate this show... but i adore the both of you so it balances out ;)
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