For the past eight or so years Spongebob fans, including me, have noticed a rapid decline in the quality of episodes. And by quality, I don’t mean how the episodes look. It looks amazing if you ask me. I mean the plots, the way characters act, say, and do things. Prime example being Spongebob himself. After the ‘death’ scene in the 2004 movie, fans noticed Spongebob slowly got dumber. Like he was a younger version of himself. Since of course, sponges can reproduce without a mate. (I don’t fully believe this theory though.) The decline in quality definitely had to do with Stephen Hillenberg leaving Spongebob, AGAIN. Things only got worse when he passed in 2018. 

Spongebob was just annoying and unfunny, torturing everyone around him. Oh, don’t get me started on Squidward! He’s become such a jerk that it’s hard to feel bad for him – but I still do anyway. He’s gotten way more miserable, because his pain is supposed to be funny. And it is! Or was. It’s only funny to an extent. For example, the famous pizza episode where Spongebob just annoys him the whole time. Nowadays, he’ll end up utterly miserable the whole episode. This sums up every episode that revolves around him in season 9 to 12. Mr. Krabs lost everything that made him funny.  

Now sometimes, I feel like new-gen Spongebob delivers really well. There are a lot of episodes I actually like. Some include, season nine episode “Married to Money.” Mr Krabs delivers really well in this episode. It’s an interesting plot and very funny! Other examples are the season 10 episode “Mimic Madness” and my favorite episode ever in season 11 … “Squid Noir”! Squidward’s clarinet gets stolen, and the scene changes to the classic detective theme in black-and-white. I really enjoyed these episodes and I feel like the writers could accomplish great things if they really tried. “Squid Noir” was an amazing change of pace from normal episodes, the plot was simple yet it was very well executed. Although Squidward’s detective act wasn’t the best, it was refreshing. And it didn’t end with him being miserable! 

Now I’m just gonna say it. Modern Spongebob is for kids. What once was watchable for both kids and adults alike is now for babies. The way the characters move now is very cartoonish, made to be more pleasing for kids. Spongebob acts dumber and never faces any consequences for his actions! 

But, last night I watched Sponge on the Run and I must say… It wasn’t bad! Spongebob acted more like his usual self, Patrick wasn’t just dumb and unhelpful and there were hardly an scenes of Squidward being miserable. The sets were beautiful, and there were more characters that were actually funny (King Poseidon being one of them). I loved how they portrayed him, he was my favorite in the movie. No, the movie wasn’t perfect, and it was a major promo for Kamp Koral, it was still good. This movie proves that Spongebob can be amazing again.