SpongeBob SquarePants/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

 * I always wondered why the same few fish were recycled over and over. Look in crowd scenes like "SpongeBob, Sandy, and The Worm" and "The Fry Cook Games". Notice anything? The same few fish are put into the crowd over and over, noticeably the pink female one. Well, turns out that it's not 100% lazy. There's probably just huge populations of the same species of fish in Bikini Bottom, hence why they're everywhere. Starfish and sponges just don't seem to exist in such high numbers. "Squidville" may justify this to some degree.
 * I just realized that the end of the episode "Squeaky Boots" is a reference to The Telltale Heart.
 * I just realized something about the decorations in SpongeBob SquarePants' living room. They're giant fishing lures, right? Seems kinda morbid, until I realized--they're like the underwater of fishing trophies. Fishermen have their best fish stuffed and hung up on their walls to show everyone what they managed to pull on... Fish put up the biggest fishing lures they've managed to take down with them for just the same reason.
 * Something about Mermaid Man has me thinking...the fact that he sometimes forgets where he is, people's names, and other things...I'm honestly thinking he has Alzheimer's disease.
 * Actually, I think its more then that. Remember Mermaid Man's line when SpongeBob turns on a certain orb. He doesn't have a disease or is just old...he is suffering from the side effects of prolonged exposure to the Orb of Confusion. Barnacle Boy was probably never let around it, so he isn't forgetful.
 * As a native Texan, I'm ashamed it took me so long to get this one: in one episode, Sandy goes after an Alaskan Bull Worm. When SpongeBob protests, she plays the Everything Is Big in Texas card...and is forced to eat her words when the worm, indeed, is much bigger than she can handle. For years, that was enough of a joke, but thinking about it got me to realize: the worm's Alaskan...the only state bigger than Texas!
 * When I first saw "Driven to Tears", I was pretty pissed; I thought that the only reason for this episode was to show that SpongeBob is so bad a driver that even an idiot can pass his test on the first try. Then it hit me; in the early episode, "Boating School," it was Patrick who helped SpongeBob during his drivers test to the point of passing the test. When I thought about it this way, it's no wonder that Patrick passed the test; he's a fricken' driving expert!
 * In the "F.U.N." episode, near the end when Plankton runs off with the Krabby Patty in the movie theater, he tells SpongeBob that he didn't ever really want friendship as he stated moments before, and that evil was "too much fun". Plankton only learns what fun is during the earlier portion of the episode, so as it turns out, it's thanks to SpongeBob that Plankton learned he has his most fun when doing evil things.
 * SpongeBob, Squidward, and Patrick throw away Mr. Krabs' crappy mattress in "The Lost Matress". Krabs gets angry about this and pins Squidward on the ground, asking if Squidward knew his money was in that matress. Terrified, Squidward asks, "H-h-haven't you ever heard of a BANK?!", which prompts a Big No out of Mr.Krabs. At first, I figured it was a joke, and that Krabs was ignorant, not realizing he could accumulate interest. But then I realized: this is Krabs we're talking about, whose Money Fetish must be so out of control that he actually sleeps on it!
 * I figured it was because he was around during the great depression so he doesn't trust banks. I mean, his first dime was a giant rock, so it's plausible.
 * In Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost Squidward threatens SpongeBob and Patrick that they will feel his wrath, and Patrick whispers to SpongeBob that they make a cream for that now. Patrick misheard "wrath" as "rash".
 * Have you ever wondered why Patrick Star is so unbelievably stupid? It's a joke based on the fact that starfish don't have brains.
 * Wouldn't that make SpongeBob dumber than Patrick since sponges are less developed than starfish?
 * Notice how SpongeBob goes along with almost every single plan Patrick has? It's because he's actually dumber than Patrick.
 * And Sandy, the only (fully mature) land mammal (more developed brains than fish) in the main cast, is a genius inventor!
 * She also does her underwater research for an organization run by apes, who are known to be intelligent and of course more closely related to our own species than squrriels, and they were quite intelligent as well (and also spoke more formally). Sandy and her bosses' higher intelligence as well as the fact that Pearl's the only aquatic mammal that appears frequently (and unlike Sandy she's still a teenager and thus still has some stuff to learn) raises the question of what an adult bottlenose dolphin would be like in Bikini Bottom, since they're among the more intelligent aquatic mammals.
 * That might explain why Mermaid Man and Barnacle boy have all sorts of crazy gadgets, not because they're just some parody of an aged Batman and Robin mixed with Aquaman, but because they're following that (exaggerated) ladder of species intelligence.
 * In the episode The Krusty Sponge. When Mr. Krabs hears a review from a food critic about the Krusty Krab favoring SpongeBob above all other qualities, he takes the advantage and recreates the restaurant in SpongeBob's image. The customers favor the changes going on around the Krusty Krab, and SpongeBob's importance in the restaurant sky-rockets. And then it all goes down-hill from there as Mr. Krabs starts selling Spongy Patties (really Krabby Patties gone bad). When the customers take a bite out of the meat, they become sick, and SpongeBob's popularity decreases. How is this familiar? If you look at this from Nickelodeon's view, this is exactly what happened to SpongeBob within the studio. If you see the studios as the Krusty Krab in that episode, then you'll see the resemblance between that episode and reality. This makes the entire story into one Self-Deprecation episode by Nickelodeon.
 * In "Plankton's Regular", when Krabs makes Chum to lure away Plankton's customer, he claims that it's the second most foul thing he ever tasted. This sounds a bit strange at first, but by the end you realize that Plankton's chum, which he pretended to like, was the first most foul thing...
 * Do you remember how SpongeBob only had to write "THREE! MORE! WORDS!" to pass his boating "exam" in No Free Rides? "What I learned in boating school is..." The obvious answer to this is "how to drive" (or maybe "how to boat"), which he didn't learn how to do. Maybe that's why he couldn't answer properly.
 * He does have a moral aversion to lying...
 * In Tea at the Treedome, SpongeBob lasts for almost half the episode without water at Sandy's house, while Patrick barely lasts a minute. It doesn't make a lot sense why one sea creature would last longer without being able to breathe than another, until you realize that a sponge will retain water for a lot longer than a starfish.
 * Plankton not knowing the whole alphabet at the beginning of The Movie explains why he had that "letters of the alphabet" song in Plankton!
 * In "Jellyfish Hunter", SpongeBob had to struggle to open the door, because it required a voiced activated code. However, even if wasn't voice activated, SpongeBob still wouldn't be able to open it because he was holding onto the sides instead of the handle.
 * In "The Secret Box", SpongeBob tries to steal Patrick's secret box. When SpongeBob accidentally ends up in Patrick's arms, Patrick (while sleeping) reaches inside SpongeBob's mouth and pulls SpongeBob's tongue and laughs. Why did he pull and laugh? Because you have to
 * Pretty much every character's Flanderization post-movie makes sense now that the movie's been confirmed to be, chronologically, the last episode. Plankton being an Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain will lead up to him snapping and turning Not So Harmless, Squidward's Woobie-ness will make him strive to work harder and have him become the manager, Mr Krabs' Money Fetish has him become distracted enough for Plankton's plan to work, and, most of all, SpongeBob and Patrick's further progress into Man Child territory will have them wonder what they've done and go on a quest to become adults.
 * Squidward always manage to fail epically whenever he has to fill in for SpongeBob at the Krusty Krab (except the one time he was stuck in a happy mood, but in that case, he was actively trying to be close to SpongeBob and had reason to learn, since it was a screw up with his brain, he probably just forgot when he returned to normal). Then it was revealed in a newer episode that he doesn't actually know the formula for the Krabby Patty. He fails so miserably at making them normally, everytime he has to make it, he's normally suddenly forced into cooking a dish he has no idea how to make!
 * In Born Again Krabs, Mr Krabs is frightened into becoming generous. This leads to him becoming bankrupt. I now realize why Krabs is such a miser-he needs to be in order to stay in business.
 * In "Missing Identity", when SpongeBob (first) tastes Gary's snail food, he says "Oh well. At least I'll never have to do it again." That seems to foreshadow when he later retraces his steps to find his nametag, and has to taste the snail food again and again.
 * The movie shows that Spongebob and Patrick are tiny compared to humans...so what about Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy? Then you remember that the entire town got shrunk with Mermaid Man's belt, and they never reversed it. They used to be in scale to humans on dry land, but not any more.
 * They never were. See the episode "Suds", particularily the ending.
 * Or, as seen in "Tea At The Treedome", SpongeBob and Patrick shrink when exposed to air. By the time Sandy arrived, they were the size of a normal sponge and starfish. The reason they were small compared to the diver underwater is because it was super-polluted.
 * Actually, piggy-backing off of that Shrink Ray theory, that might explain why Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy were retired. In their twilight years, MM & BB must've accidentally shrunk themselves causing them to be the same size as the fish they were defending, to which point they stopped fighting crime. Remember how huge Man-Ray is when we first see him? And what about the fact that Mermaid Man doesn't remember how to unshrink the town? Of course he wouldn't know how then, he couldn't do it when he and Barnacle Boy first shrank. -Rocky Samson
 * In the episode "Slimy Dancing", Squidward is wrestling with leg cramps and everyone mistakes it for dancing. But earlier, when he actually was dancing, he was apparently so bad at it that a fish in the audience commented, "Is he hurt?"
 * In the Halloween episode "Scaredy Pants", Squidward asks what Sandy is dressed as. She's a goldfish in a bowl, he says "I don't get it", and she acts as if he's being a stick in the mud. But of course he doesn't get it; the sea creatures don't keep fish as pets--fish are people there.
 * In the episode: "Inmates of Summer" Spongebob and Patrick go to a maximum-secrurity prison on an island confusing it for a summer camp. Spongebob and Patrick write and create a musical for the inmates to perform. The warden supports the play because he appreciates theater. I think this may have been a parody of the ending of Mel Brooks' 1968 film: The Producers where the main protagonists end up in prison for fraud and create a musical with the other inmates; and the warden invests into its creation.
 * Why did no one have any problem with Mr. Krabs printing counterfeit money at the end of The Krabby Chronicle? Well, it's not as if he's actually going to spend it, is he?
 * In one episode when Sandy asks Mr. Krabs if he need a helmet while he's in her treedome he doesn't need one. This is because crabs can survive on land with ease.
 * In Frankendoodle, the artist at sea is Mr. Lawrence, a writer and storyboarder for the show. Of course everything drawn with his pencil would become real in SpongeBob's world.
 * I've always wondered why, in Spongebob Versus the Big One, JKL's prophecy of "one of you will not be returning" never comes true. Then I realised...he never said that someone would die, just that they wouldn't return. What if he meant that the sacrifice wouldn't be able to return to the island? Of course, this is also a Fridge Tear Jerker, because if the theory is true, then JKL can never return to his home.
 * Squidward can't play well due to his lack of fingers.
 * In "One Coarse Meal" Mr. Krabs disguises himself as Pearl to scare Plankton. The costume looks identical to Pearl until he takes it off, at which point we see very obvious flaws in the costume. Until Krabs took off the costume we were actually seeing what Plankton was seeing.

Fridge Horror

 * In the episode "The Other Patty", Plankton attempts to steal a Krabby Patty, only for it to explode. Mr. Krabs then boasts that every Krabby Patty undigested explodes after 10 feet away from the Krusty Krab. Cut to fat guy walking away without digesting his patty with his wife and exploding. Black Comedy Burst anyone?
 * In "Pressure", SpongeBob, Patrick, Mr. Krabs, and Squidward laugh at Sandy as she realizes she needs her helmet to breathe. They were laughing at her as she drowned.
 * In "Stuck in the Wringer" SpongeBob can't eat with the wringer on, and he can't get the wringer off. Eventually he would of died of starvation.
 * He's a filter feeder, so he doesn't need to eat. Hope that helps.
 * No Free Rides. Mrs Puff, worrying about the damage Spongebob will cause in his new boat, says "What have I done?! Everyone will know I let him slide through school! I'll have to move to new city, start a new boating school with a new name! No. Not again! I've got to end this before it begins." The question is, has this happened before?
 * What are Krabby Patties made out of? All creatures made out of meat in the show have human-esque minds. One type of creature must have been cannibalistic.
 * Except... not. Sandy is seen wrangling Manatees, or Sea Cows, in "Blackened Sponge". Krabby Patties are likely made of Manatees. Not to mention seahorses and urchins and jellyfish, and snails (other than Gary, who has a fairly human mind but a very animalistc body), and worms, etc. who have animal minds.
 * Nick.com has a recipe for Krabby Patties using imitation crab meat. Though it isn't considered canon, for obvious reasons, kids could get confused and think all those fish are eating good ol' Mr. Krabs's relatives.
 * On the other hand, that might explain why he adopted Pearl, a giant whale who must eat three times as much as he does, despite being such a cheapskate: the patties ARE crab (how many crabs do you see in Bikini Bottom besides Krabs and his mother?), and he adopted a non-crab daughter so he wouldn't have to worry about using his own children for more material?
 * Robot Chicken provided their take on the above here.
 * Forget the Krusty Krab; what about its rival business, the Chum Bucket? Chum is made out of dead fish! Considering that most of the citizens of Bikini Bottom are fish and Plankton needs to get the ingredients for his food from somewhere...
 * Used in this fanfiction.
 * Another one: Remember how SpongeBob attacks a group of scallops who are about to eat "Patty" in the episode "To Love a Patty"? While attacking them, SpongeBob very clearly rips one in half...
 * Doubly traumatic if you see it immediately after the episode in which he cares for a baby scallop. Your mind will jump to a thought somewhere between "How could he do that to a scallop after raising an orphaned one so lovingly?" to "Oh my God, did he just rip his adopted child in two?!".
 * Even worse, if it really is his adopted baby scallop, he killed it for an extremely shellfish reason.
 * What about the voices in Squidward's blank void? Where were those voices coming from? Were they the voices of other people who had been trapped in the same void?
 * Even worse: what would have happened to Squidward if he wasn't able to find the machine?
 * He'd probably become one of the voices.
 * In "Dying for Pie", pirates sell Squidward a pie that turns out to be a nuclear bomb, which he gives to SpongeBob as a gift (without realizing). The pie ends up hitting Squidward's face and blowing up Bikini Bottom. Now, the pirates that sold the pie bomb to Squidward had a massive load of them (at least a good 40). Think about that - pirates and criminals with a 40+ nuclear arsenal. And that's terrible.
 * That look like food. Sweet dreams.
 * The location of Bikini Bottom is supposedly under Bikini Atoll, where there were a bunch of nuclear tests during the late 40's and 50's. This means that perhaps the only reason that the characters are anthropomorphized is the radiation -- making the lovable characters we all grew up with radioactive mutants.
 * Jossed. SpongeBob and Patrick are shown to have anthropomorphic ancestors from prehistoric times to the 1800's.
 * Not necessarily. How do we know what time period Spongebob takes place in currently? Moreso, how do we know how fast time progresses down there? Generations could be twenty years. Keep in mind the average lifespan of a sponge/fish/squid/... oh, crap, I just had a Fridge Horror moment in the Fridge Horror section... O.O
 * What makes that even worse is that there are both anthro starfish and normal ones (Nature Pants), and anthro and normal whales (One Coarse Meal).
 * This is Played for Laughs in "Dying for Pie." Why else would that pie be a nuclear bomb?
 * In "Sandy's Rocket" Sandy tells SpongeBob that he is to never touch one of her inventions again after the "Whirly Bird Incident". Cut to a field full of graves; just imagine the carnage from that loose propeller that caused so many deaths.
 * In Mermaidman and Barnacleboy 6: The Motion Picture, SpongeBob eats worms. Worms are like dogs. Could those worms, due to their size, be puppies?
 * I think it's a different species of worm, like foxes are different from dogs.
 * In "One Coarse Meal", how do we know that Mr. Krabs didn't use this tactic on other business rivals...and succeed?
 * "Bubble Buddy."  So that means
 * And.
 * Redirect to the WMG about how that guy is just a figment of SpongeBob's imagination.
 * Parodied in this YouTube Poop.
 * Hooky. Patrick mentions a kid came by earlier.
 * Umm, the  are in the foreground. It's pretty obvious what happened.
 * Squidward often says stuff like, "Too bad that didn't kill me," and, "I wonder if a fall from this height would kill me." Is Squidward hiding a terrible, dark secret?
 * In Penny Foolish Mr. Krabs goes crazy just to find a penny that Spongebob found. At the end of the episode, it's revealed that . In Born Again Krabs we saw Mr. Krabs try to tear a guy's arm off over a penny. What would he do to Spongebob had he known that the latter was housing ?
 * So, we've all noticed how much more violent Spongebob has become ever since (and even after) the Seasonal Rot. But would if we let it run for another decade? Do we really wish to know what the show would become?
 * In Graveyard Shift and Fear of A Krabby Patty, Spongebob has to work at the Krusty Krab for 24 hours a day. This is happiness for a Workaholic like Spongebob. Then you realize: Who will feed Gary?!
 * Gary seems to be sapient Depending on the Writer.
 * In F.U.N., when Spongebob and Plankton are in the movie theater, Bubble Bass comes over and sits on Plankton. Spongebob asks Bubble Bass to move, because his friend is there. What does Bubble Bass do? He DELIBERATELY STARTS CRUSHING PLANKTON WITH HIS HUGE ASS! Trying to KILL Plankton in other words. Along with an evil grin at Spongebob, as if he knows that SB is being forced to watch his friend suffer, and BB is happy about it. Is Bubble Bass more of a Complete Monster than we think?
 * In "The Algae's Always Greener", episode where Plankton uses the machine to switch lives with Mr. Krabs, we see that Plankton can't survive ONE DAY in his new life, due to Spongebob's perfectionism, Squiward's and customers behaviour, Pearl's bratiness and finally constant attacks from Mr. Krabs, who tries to steal the formula. Since Plankton switched places with Mr. Krabs and we see that Plankton is driven insane in ONE DAY by living Mr. Krabs life. Mr. Krabs has to suffer from Spongebob's, Squidward's, Patrick's and Pearl's antics and constant attacks from Plankton, who might ruin this business and if Plankton can't survive ONE DAY and was already driven insane, imagine what this must have done to Mr. Krabs: to be annoyed by his fry cook, less than enthusiastic cashier, his bratty daughter and constant danger of his business going down due to attacks from his Arch Enemy, and he must endure it EVERY SINGLE DAY, while Plankton couldn't survive one day. Image psychological effects of it on Krabs. Maybe Krabs is insane and very twisted because of the torture he must suffer everyday and his Jerkass actions are result from constant torture from other characters)?
 * Thing is, Mr. Krabs and Plankton are different characters with different mindsets, personalities, ways of life, and opinions. Mr. Krabs is a great friend of Spongebob and has frequently shown that he admires or tolerates his perfectionism and (at least some of) his quirks; Plankton has always disliked Spongebob and finds him extremely annoying, so he couldn't possibly be expected to deal with him every single day without snapping. Krabs also understands Squidward's snarkiness but maintains a relationship with a level of respect to him; Plankton has little experience with snarky coworkers (then again, Karen may be snarkier than Squidward) and would prefer an efficient employee, possibly one who prefers not to talk to the boss. Mr. Krabs gets many customers every day and knows how to deal with and cater to them, which is what makes him such a successful businessman; Plankton can count the number of customers he ever had up to that point in the series on one hand, if he even had any by that time, and does not know how to handle the flow of customers that the Krusty Krab usually sees. Mr. Krabs has been a father for eighteen years and loves his daughter unconditionally; Plankton has no experience in parenting and simply sees her as a very annoying burden of a teenage girl. Lastly, Mr. Krabs is experienced in dealing with ludicrous attacks by business rivals; Plankton has never had even one attack by Mr. Krabs towards him (not to mention that Krabs has always had an upper hand with his size). Simply put, Krabs isn't going through a living hell every day because he has more experience living Krabs' life than Plankton.
 * In one episode, Plankton steals Sandy's fur. Long story. He turns Sandy's fur into a robot and goes to the Krusty Krab in it. The fur has the bikini on it, but not the diving suit. So Sandy, dressed like she usually is whenever she's at home except for the fish-bowl thing on her head and her lack of fur, goes to the Krusty Krab. On the way, everyone yells at her to put some clothes on while she's wearing a bikini! And at the end, the police arrest her at the Krusty Krab for indecent exposure while she's wearing a bikini! Keep in mind that Squidward doesn't wear pants. Could this mean Squidward lost his private parts? Possibly even having Krabs cut them off? It is not like Krabs wouldn't cut off people's genitals (he's commited genocide once)... Or worse: what if Bikini Bottom's government is stacked against women?
 * Just to add more on this: some of Bikini Bottom citizens are not fully dressed (like Squidward) or do not wear clothes at all. Squidward did not wear any clothes in episodes like "The Paper" or "Squid's Day Off", but cops don't arrest him and citizens do not treat the same way they treated Sandy. comes along when you think about it: Sandy, a land animal, was treated horribly by others even though she was wearing a bikini and was even arrested, yet Squidward  a sea creature did not wear any cloths at all and was simply ticketed and wasn't treated badly. Does this mean people of Bikini Bottom hate Sandy, because she is a land animal?
 * Episode "Squidward in Clarinetland" has a major fridge horror at the beginning of the episode: Krabbs opens the locker and there are bones and skull inside. He says "Appears to be Corporal Sterling, lad. Heh...forgot all about that prank". Does this mean that he locked someone in the locker and that person DIED. Mr. Krabs KILLED SOMEONE.
 * Mr. Krabs has a severe Money Fetish and has been shown going on a date with money on atleast one occasion, which raises the question: Just how far around the baseball field is Krabs willing to go with money?!
 * In "The Lost Mattress" Squidward said "If you don't get Mr. Krabs mattress back from the dump, I'm going to murd... ". Now think what letters come after murd? Der, as in MURDER. In "No Hat For Pat" he says "You want me to push you off your precarious perch into a bucket of spiny sea urchins? Oh, if only you were Spongebob" while saying this with glee and rejoicing. And in one episode he tried using Voodoo Dools on Spongebob and Patrick. Finally in "The Curse Of Bikini Bottom" he imagined Spongebob and Patrick playing with his lawnmoner and getting killed and then he laughs and looks very happy at this thought. Does it all mean that Squidward wants and is willing to murder Spongebob and Patrick and has attempted to kill them several times...?

Fridge Logic

 * In "Shanghaied!", Squidward told SpongeBob to wish for something that could get SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward out of being eaten. But Squidward hadn't been around to hear that the Flying Dutchman was going to eat Sponge and Pat; how did he know?
 * In "Rock Bottom", Spongebob doesnt have change for the bus, but then later when he gets hungry, he has enough money for a Kelp Nugget Crunch snack in the vending machine.
 * It was probably an 'exact change' sort of thing.
 * Wouldn't Plankton's business do better if he relocated in a shark-heavy area?
 * For that matter, Bikini Bottom does have some shark species within the populace. Why they haven't discovered the Chum Bucket despite being so close to the Krusty Krab is anyone's guess.
 * Maybe he's afraid the sharks will eat him. He was scared of Pearl (not a shark, but still) in "One Coarse Meal", after all.
 * He was afraid of Pearl because she's a whale and whales (at least the ones with baleen teeth, which this troper always assumed Pearl was) eat plankton and other small aquatic organsims. Sharks (i.e the big scary ones that everyone is familiar with) do not, so they wouldn't be much interested in Plankton.
 * That episode where Patrick prepares his house for a visit from his parents really bugs me. If the couple that first came to visit Patrick were not only not his real parents, but also remembered that they had no son to begin with, how were they aware of Patrick's previous blunders? It also doesn't help that Patrick clearly doesn't know who these people are after their names are revealed.