The Life and Times of Squidward Tentacles -- Part 1 of 8

You should read the end of the last post first. Well... you don't have to. In fact, don't. But I said that I was probably going to talk about SpongeBob in my next entry at the end of the post, and lo and behold, that's what I'm doing. How about that?

So I'm a big SpongeBob person. The "everything about the show was pretty OK up until the movie, then it never was the same" type of person.

A bit of history about me and the show: back when it debuted in 99 or so... back when I was a wee youngin' and still watched Nickelodeon because my younger siblings still watched it and because Nickelodeon still had Rocko's Modern Life reruns showing, I saw the advertisements for the show and pretty much thought it was the end of quality TV animation as we knew it. Or, the debut of the show would mark the transition from the "glory days" of Nick to the channel's utter ruination. (As it turns out, the SpongeBob period turned out to be the "glory days" in tandem with Rocko's "glorier days" compared to whoever the hell is on the channel now.)

I ended up watching the show a year or two later... I think it was the "Ripped Pants" episode, and thought it wasn't as stupid as I thought it might be... not really wowed or impressed, but you know. Then when I watched another episode later (I'm thinking it was "Squid's Day Off"... not that I have any reason to be remembering things like this anyway), I was pretty much floored and how cool it was. I began to tape the show every single time it came on TV (because I taped EVERYTHING I liked back in the day... which might be something else I write about later), and after my fandom increased I realized how stupid my initial skepticism was when I realized that the creator of the show actually came from Rocko's Modern Life. So there you go.

Flash forward to 2009, I take a trip to the Mall of America armed with 5 buckaroos, when I notice a pretty sweet Squidward Lego key chain and decide to buy it. I'm considering it one of the best purchases I've made in my life, basically. Oh, and thanks to the keychain, I have slowly begun to start rewatching all the episodes from those first few seasons.

Actually, I do have a complaint about the Squidward Lego dude... here's what the keychain looks like:

Pretty cool, right? I searched for this image on Google and found some other Squidward Legos, but THOSE put Squidward's face onto the standard Lego head... and feature him smiling. Mine is totally better, since it's got his distinctive head and a huge resigned frown on his face, which pretty much sums up his essence better than anything else. Unfortunately, Squidward's shirt looks like this:

I can forgive the slight differences in the Lego and animated form's skin color, because it probably changes a lot anyway. But the shirt? Always been brown. Don't know why they fnerked that one up.

Anyway. My main intention heading into this post was to extol the virtues of Squidward, which is what I'm going to do now. Because although there's certainly a calvacade of whimsical and enjoyable characters, without Squidward there is no huge SpongeBob craze, there is no movie, no merchandise, etc. Squidward is pretty much the quintessential glue that holds the show together. In fact, I dare argue that Squidward JUST MIGHT BE the single greatest American character of the 21st century, and I intend to prove it here.

I don't actually intend to prove that. I was just saying things.

But really. You have a sponge who is hyperactive and relentlessly and ridiculously cheerful. You have a starfish whose sole existence on the show is thanks to the creators' attempt to create the dumbest character alive. You have a squirrel... living underwater. You have a crab whose every thought is about money. I mean, these characters are pretty over the top ridiculous, sometimes bearing on overkill. So you need something to balance pretty much all that craziness out. And Squidward does that all so wonderfully by hating his life, cursing the day he met all the characters of Bikini Bottom.

In other words, he's the straight man. But still. That straight man act proves enough to withstand the cheerful zaniness and add a cynical edge to the show. I don't know how to describe why he does this so well... it's like every moment on screen you can hear him thinking "this is stupid, this situation is dumb as hell, these people are morons and I hate life and want to die." Which I guess is appealing to me...

I don't know. I've always found Squidward to be more relatable than any of the other characters as well, although that might be due to the fact that Squidward is a would-be (and yet terrible) artist that is frustrated with his current status in life, which is sort of how I view myself anyway. But you know. SpongeBob is almost too relentlessly hyper (I would say he's too cheerful as well, but certain episodes have him possessing doubts in attempting to overcome adversity... because you know, storylines have to have extra meat on them) for my tastes, and the rest of the characters (save maybe Plankton) seem too one dimensional for one to relate with. But Squidward? He's stuck with a crappy job, has dreams that he'll never accomplish, and tries to be a good person and do the right thing which always ends up getting foiled. Who couldn't relate to that sort of guy?

OK, so maybe he's a little too depressing for everyone to relate to.

Probably, now that I think about it, since the trip to the Mall of America (with all its Nickelodeon tie-ins) involved a rigorous search for Squidward stuff in mountains of SpongeBob and Patrick stuff.

Maybe he isn't cuddly enough.