Spongebob Blog - Help Wanted Review - He Lived in a Pineapple

Are Ya Ready Readers?...

I hope you are, because we will be tackling the first episode of Spongebob shown on air! Taking us all the way back to May 1, 1999, this episode set up some of the most important foundations for the rest of the show. So let's dive in...get it..dive in..cause they're underwater...ok cool moving on...

Before going further, please take time to watch the episodes or you will not understand some references:

https://www.watchcartoononline.com/spongebob-squarepants-season-1-episode-1-help-wanted-reef-blower-tea-at-the-treedome

(you should be fine, no viruses so far)

Help Wanted

Right off the bat, we are welcomed to our setting by a relaxing French narrator. According to the creator of the show, Stephen Hillenburg, the narrator being French is apparently some sort of shoutout to Jacques Cousteau, who also liked the ocean and water and stuff...Anyways, Frenchy somehow read my mind when I saw the Pineapple and says "well of course he lives in a pineapple, silly!" Still to this day as a 23 year old I don't get how you make the logical conclusion that a sponge must obviously live in a pineapple, but I've grown to accept a lot of things didn't make sense in this show. As a 7 year old, though, I was ready to scrap with this French dude though. Callin me silly is asking for it. Moving on.

A rarely known fact is that Spongebob's first words in the show were NOT "I'm Ready!" but instead were, "Today's the big day, Gary." And that day was a big day indeed. But before we get to some of the meat (anchovies) of this episode...I'm going to discuss a weird observation. I've heard this a million times: "my parents wouldn't let me watch it." This statement baffled me...I mean it's Spongebob! How could a parent find this inappropriate? But as we got older, more and more adult references started to become apparent. And what do you know? Within a minute of the show starting, our first look at our new favorite undersea acquaintance is him walking around in his underwear...but wait...he's casually jumping on his bedroom diving board...I don't know seems pretty unsafe-GOOD GOD HE'S NAKED!! parents turn TVs off across the nation....So yea, this might have been the point when parents decided this wasn't going to be the show for their kids. But if this episode wasn't enough to do it, just wait...we will encounter a plethora of underwater nudity in the coming episodes.

So for those who's parents weren't present for that or just didn't care, we got to see Spongebob embark on his legendary first day at the Krusty Krab. (Another fun fact: the Krusty Krab is modeled after a lobster trap.) We get to meet Squidward...a 6-tentacled octopus who, according to the graffiti he is wiping off the window, is a loser. We are introduced to Mr. Krabs, his sweaty, money-addicted boss. And best of all, we meet Spongebob's best friend Patrick, the big pink starfish who we all come to know and love. There is so much to say about each of these characters, but for now, I will only discuss what we learn each episode. So to sum it up, Squidward is a pessimist loser, Mr. Krabs is a savage startup business owner, and Patrick is motivational and can somehow do a split?...

Just a quick aside here, another reason you should watch the episode is because I will not be summarizing the episode very often, but rather just talking about important or funny observations.

Here are some:

One, Spongebob is an amazing fry cook. I don't know why they chose for him to be a fry cook...nor do I know what kind of burger meat they use in the ocean...or how the heck he shoots patties from his eyes!...but I do know that Spongebob is a wizard with the spatula. In fact, I'd like to know the statistic of the amount of people who went into the culinary arts because of this show. One of my friends ended up working at a fast food place...and I think I know why....everyone insisted it was because he dropped out of high school but I know there's something way deeper at work here.

Two, anchovies are scary and savage and somehow can combine to form a liquid-like wave. They also are all transported together on buses...honestly I don't know what to think of this. I've theorized plenty of times. Are anchovies the mentally handicapped of the sea and all of these anchovies came from the same group home? Are anchovies supposed to be symbolizing another race of some sort? I have no clue! Mr. Krabs smells them and gets this wide eyed look so clearly he has some sort of prejudice towards anchovies. So perhaps anchovies are just known to be savage creatures in the ocean. On that note, I find it interesting how (other than anchovies) we rarely find any stereotypes being thrown around or racial undertones throughout a lot of the episodes. I may eat my words on this when I watch later episodes, but I feel like this show is rather void of controversy for the most part...anyways.

Three, Spongebob lifts.

He loves pain...which is evident after seeing his horrendous clean and jerk form. As a small 10 year old it was uplifting to see the main character of a show be a weakling. It definitely made being shoved in lockers more tolerable.

And finally, snails are cats. But what are dogs?...we will see.

In conclusion, this episode is a solid start to the show. SpongeBob gets the job, thus beginning probably the most popular fast-food restaurant in the sea, as well as the worst case of embezzlement one could imagine. Next time we are in the Krusty Krab for an episode I'm going to go into more detail about this, but for how little SpongeBob and Squidward are paid, Krabs must be raking in that dough. But we rarely ever see him living in luxury, so does he have an insane amount of debt or something? It can't be from schooling...perhaps gambling....or alimony? Put a pin in this one for now...there is so much more to discuss about this and other ideas but we'll save it for later.

Until next time....I'm outa here....