Top 20 Worst Things That Ever Happened to SpongeBob SquarePants
#20: Breaking His Butt
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"I Had an Accident" SpongeBob really should’ve listened to Sandy and been more vigilant while sandboarding. He goes over a cliff, and breaks his bottom when he lands on it — ouch. After having it glued back together like some bizarre puzzle, the prospect of possibly being put into the “iron butt” leads to SpongeBob becoming scared of getting hurt again. He grows so scared, in fact, that he sees danger everywhere he goes and isolates himself at home. At least he makes some new unlikely friends to share his time with? It’s hard not to feel for him — the injury itself is bad enough, and the psychological consequences end up (temporarily) being devastating!
#19: Getting Yelled At
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“Pizza Delivery” SpongeBob traverses the desert, braves a tornado, and worst of all, survives Squidward’s relentless negativity all to deliver the first and presumably last ever Krusty Krab pizza. When a customer calls to have a pizza delivered, Mr. Krabs decides that his dining establishment now provides that service and menu item. But SpongeBob and Squidward’s wayward journey is all for naught when the customer freaks out at our favorite yellow sponge for supposedly forgetting his drink. Oh, the ingratitude! Seeing SpongeBob sob uncontrollably breaks our hearts — he hasn’t done anything to deserve this, especially considering the effort he put into completing the delivery in the first place. At least some good comes out of the ordeal when Squidward shows the guy what’s up.
#18: Getting Fired from the Krusty Krab
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“SpongeBob, You're Fired” SpongeBob loves his job at the Krusty Krab, but one day, the unthinkable happens – Mr. Krabs fires him just so that the greedy crustacean would save a measly nickel. SpongeBob goes into a depression before finally attempting to get back out there, only to get harshly rejected by other restaurants for only being able to produce burgers. That is, until they decide they want him back and forcefully take him. The only other times SpongeBob had been fired were for more legitimate reasons, but the reasoning for THIS termination is just absurd. Even when he does get his job back, it feels unsatisfying knowing how poorly Krabs can treat what is arguably his best employee – not that SpongeBob seems to mind.
#17: His Horrible Insomnia
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“InSPONGEiac” Cheap old Mr. Krabs snaps at SpongeBob for using a LITTLE too much mustard on a Krabby Patty and accuses the little fry cook of not getting enough sleep. This frightens poor SpongeBob until he actually CAN’T sleep –and when he asks Patrick to help, the bloated starfish only makes it worse. After a horrific night of hallucinating, he comes into work exhausted and unable to beat his newfound insomnia. SpongeBob was perfectly fine until Krabs got into his head; it makes you wonder who’s more likely to jeopardize the Krusty Krab – a slightly tired SpongeBob, or a stingy tightwad who overreacts to a minor inconvenience and scares his employees sleepless.
#16: Krabby Land
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"Krabby Land" SpongeBob has repeatedly proven that he’ll do anything for work. When Mr. Krabs opens a disastrously unsafe play attraction to get the kids to the Krusty Krab, the little ones aren’t impressed — until he mentions Krabby the Clown. So Krabs has SpongeBob entertain them until it’s time for the central act. Unfortunately, the only thing the children enjoy is when SpongeBob hurts himself. None of us would blame him if he didn’t engage — this can’t be part of his job description! But in true SpongeBob fashion, he goes all in, only to realize that Mr. Krabs has no plan and puts on a poor performance as the clown. Poor sponge, he gives his blood, sweat, and tears for his career, and isn’t appreciated for it.
#15: Gummy
“The Gift of Gum” SpongeBob and Patrick are celebrating Best Friends Day, and Patrick gives SpongeBob his most beloved possession – a giant wad of used chewing gum –affectionately named Gummy. A touching gesture, except that the ball is a foul-smelling eyesore, and apparently other poor citizens were trapped in its gooey center. Unfortunately, SpongeBob becomes Gummy’s next ensnared victim as the gum covers his entire house –and no one is safe from its sticky grasp. On top of that, when Patrick sees everyone tangled in this mess, all he can think of is how much fun they’re all having with HIS Gummy. Yes, because nothing says ‘friendship’ like letting your best friend get forcefully entrapped by moldy gum.
#14: Squidward Reading His Diaries
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"Little Yellow Book" SpongeBob’s grumpy neighbor isn’t typically a great friend, but this is bad even for him. Squidward gets a hold of SpongeBob’s diary and reads it aloud to the customers –who don’t even try to stop him- and then turns the fry cook’s more embarrassing secrets into a humiliating spectacle. SpongeBob runs out in tears, but rather than apologize, half of Bikini Bottom goes out of its way to shame and antagonize Squidward to ease their own guilt –because hypocrisy is always the way to go. Sadly, SpongeBob’s the only one to take the high road and forgive his grumpy neighbor… until Squidward reads his SECOND diary –relishing in SpongeBob’s sorrow while being pelted with tomatoes by angry hypocrites.
#13: House Eaten by Nematodes
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“Home Sweet Pineapple” Your place of residence being destroyed is devastating under any circumstance. And SpongeBob’s pineapple house is iconic, making it sting a little extra when he loses it. While he and Gary are sound asleep without a worry in the world, a slew of nematodes invade Bikini Bottom. Soon, they devour the home around our sponge and his pet, leaving them without a place to live. Talk about pure bad luck. They try staying with Patrick and even Squidward, though those arrangements don’t work out so well. Thankfully, SpongeBob gets his house back in the end. But we could all feel his sorrow when he thought he would have to leave Bikini Bottom.
#12: Le Spatula
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"All That Glitters" At the Krusty Krab, a customer orders a Monster Krabby Patty, but it proves too much for SpongeBob as he breaks his beloved spatula. SpongeBob must reluctantly find a replacement spatula, and comes across the technologically advanced –and stupidly overpriced- Le Spatula. He ends up selling his whole house, and his clothes, to buy Le Spatula… only for the sentient tool to rudely leave SpongeBob in the dust. This was obviously a lesson about not falling for all the glitters, but this was needlessly cruel to have SpongeBob literally give up everything for a useless, snobby, glorified cooking device. Thankfully, in the end, SpongeBob is happily reunited with his loyal, one true spatula.
#11: Attacked From the Inside
"Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy IV" Mermaid Man accidentally leaves his belt behind at the Krusty Krab, and SpongeBob gets a little trigger happy with it. It isn’t long before he shrinks every Bikini Bottom resident, paranoid they’ll get him in trouble with Mermaid Man. When the townspeople realize that nobody knows how to unshrink them, they revolt in a major way. Indeed, they crawl into SpongeBob’s body through his pores and attack him from the inside. Admittedly, SpongeBob brought this one on himself a bit, but we can’t help but feel this might have been a bit of an overreaction. Getting hurt from within like that is just brutal.
#10: The Suds
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“Suds” Oh no, SpongeBob has got the Suds! But never fear, Dr. Patrick is here. Actually, SpongeBob should’ve feared Dr. Patrick a lot. Being too sick to stay at work is bad enough given how much our yellow friend loves his job, but essentially being experimented on just makes everything worse. Patrick scares SpongeBob out of seeing a real medical professional and takes over his care, with disastrous consequences. The starfish clogs up all of SpongeBob's pores in order to keep the suds in, but that’s obviously a bad idea. Our guy practically explodes after all that build up. How much suffering can one sponge take?!
#9: Getting Lost in Rock Bottom
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“Rock Bottom” Anyone who’s ever gotten turned around on public transportation in an unfamiliar place can probably attest to how scary it is to find yourself lost all alone. SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally get on the wrong bus on the way home from the theme park and find themselves in a town called Rock Bottom. The name of the place alone should tell you how terrifying the ordeal is. SpongeBob is abandoned by Patrick, misses several buses, and has to wait in that neverending line with all those unfamiliar creatures, not knowing if or when he’ll make it home. Of course, he eventually does – but that doesn’t make this any less traumatic.
#8: SpongeBob NoPants
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“Hooky” Mr. Krabs warns everyone about the invading fishermen hooks. SpongeBob tries to heed his boss’ warnings, but the temptation to play on the hooks –made worse by Patrick’s prodding- is too strong for our little fry cook, and he ends up getting his pants hooked. In danger of being dragged up to the surface, SpongeBob has no choice but to strip naked… in front of a group of teenage girls. It turns out that Mr. Krabs set up this particular hook to scare SpongeBob straight, and while he definitely needed to learn his lesson, it was still a little mean to publicly humiliate the little guy like this.
#7: Not Having Access to Water
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"Tea at the Treedome" He needed it. When SpongeBob first meets Sandy, she invites him over. But she doesn’t realize that he needs water to live, and he can’t bring himself to confess he can’t breathe in the air. He tries to hold out, with Patrck encouraging him outside the dome. But he’s suffering more than any person (or sponge) ever should. The only positive might be that this gave us one of the show’s most quoted moments. No amount of pinkies up or other kinds of fanciness can help SpongeBob out of this one. He (and Patrick, who comes in trying to help) eventually dry up completely, before Sandy saves the day – yikes. To say this was a horrifying near-death experience would be an understatement.
#6: Squidward’s Prank
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“Fools in April” After an initial April Fool’s Day prank, SpongeBob vows to leave Squidward alone, and starts playing jokes on the customers instead. They laugh, he laughs, but the octopus can’t take all the joy, and decides to ruin the poor guy’s favorite holiday. SpongeBob isn’t even bothering him anymore, but he still pulls a really mean prank on the fry cook in front of the whole establishment. He tricks SpongeBob into a trap he’s laid out, sending the sponge all around the Krusty Krab. Our guy flies into the walls, gets dragged under a customer’s butt, slams into the ceiling, and winds up in the trash – while Squidward cackles and celebrates. Nobody deserves treatment like that.
#5: Getting Stuck in the Wringer
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"Stuck in the Wringer" After taking a shower, SpongeBob accidentally gets lodged in his wringer, and Patrick –the ‘best friend’, stupidly makes it worse with “forever glue”. Unable to work, SpongeBob is treated to a day out by his pink pal –which mostly consists of PATRICK having fun while SpongeBob suffers because of his condition. He finally blows his stack and rightfully calls Patrick out for his blundering …but the townsfolk shame him for yelling at his so-called friend. How is it fair to call SpongeBob the bad guy for standing up for himself –especially since this was literally all Patrick’s fault? These two may be best buddies –but moments like this make us wonder why.
#4: The Splinter
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"The Splinter" At work, SpongeBob gets a nasty splinter jammed in his thumb; not only is it extremely painful, but it can’t be removed without graphically ripping off his own skin. When Squidward scares him into thinking he’ll be sent home due to his injury, SpongeBob desperately seeks help from Dr. Patrick …who only makes the affliction worse than it already was. Not only is the episode needlessly graphic, but it’s extremely uncomfortable to watch our absorbent protagonist suffer a gruesome injury, and the paranoia of leaving work early, while two of his ‘friends’ do absolutely nothing to help him. Even the removal of the splinter leaves a disgusting taste in our mouths.
#3: Being Sold
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“Born Again Krabs” By now we know that SpongeBob always gives his all to his job, no matter how terrible Squidward or Mr. Krabs are to him. When the Flying Dutchman threatens to take Mr. Krabs to Davy Jones Locker for his horrendous cheapness, SpongeBob has his employer’s back. But though he defends his boss, Krabs wastes no time letting him down by trading him for every penny the Dutchman has on him – which is only 62 cents, by the way. The greedy crab condemns his best worker to spend an eternity suffering for less than a dollar. Even Squidward doesn’t like that one.
#2: Snail Plasma
"I Was a Teenage Gary" SpongeBob goes out of town for the weekend and leaves Squidward to look after Gary –only to return home and find his snail pal neglected and sick. When they call a doctor, Squidward accidentally injects SpongeBob with snail plasma – while Gary makes a full recovery, SpongeBob undergoes a painfully hideous transformation into a snail –not unlike the iconic “An American Werewolf in London” scene. This is even worse than the later episode where Gary runs away; at least THAT has a happy ending. But here, SpongeBob is forced to endure the consequences of Squidward’s carelessness when all he wanted was a fun weekend away. Thankfully, Squidward gets rightfully punished at the end.
#1: National No SpongeBob Day
"Gone" Everyone in Bikini Bottom has mysteriously vanished, leaving SpongeBob all alone. After weeks filled with paranoia and loneliness, we finally find out what became of the townsfolk – it turns out they were off celebrating “National No SpongeBob Day” –a whole ‘day’ dedicated to getting away from him. That’s right, they created a whole holiday with the sole purpose of avoiding their porous ‘friend’ and having fun at his expense. Even Patrick took part! We get it, SpongeBob can be tiresome, but this is just too much –and making him feel flattered about it doesn’t make it any better.
