Is SpongeBob Losing Its Imagination? 

One thing I don't like about the newer SpongeBob episodes is that the writers don't seem to get the older material they keep referencing. They think just saying "hey guys remember this?" will make up for the episode’s lack of quality, instead of figuring out why it was popular.

SpongeBob went from being funny without trying, to not being funny while trying their hardest.

How ironic! The creators lacked the imagination necessary to create a good sequel.

I swear they're trying too hard to capture the magic of what made old SpongeBob good while misinterpreting what made old SpongeBob so good.

Seasons 1 - 3 of spongebob was pure gold, it should've ended after the first movie, but nickelodeon said: naw, we gonna milk this bone dry.

I hate the premise of there being a store that sells imagination boxes. It really defeats the purpose of SpongeBob and Patrick taking a mundane object and getting hours of enjoyment out of it. The whole joke was it was a normal box housing a TV, not something specifically designed for having fun in.

tom kenny is 61 years old (spongebob) Bill Fagerbakke is 66 years old (patrick) Mr. Lawrence is 55 years old (Plankton) Clancy Brown is 65 years old (mr krabs) Rodger Bumpass is 72 years old (squidward)

That's the issue with executives. They're so money hungry that they're willing to milk franchises that many shows are losing their charm to the point where they recycle plots. Loud House is also guilty of doing this. Too many episodes with Lincoln's friends and too many lying/misunderstanding episodes.

Squidiot Box is a good example of taking something that worked before without understanding why it was successful in the first place I would say.

God. You can hear the age in Tom Kenny's voice. It's like hearing Marge's voice in a "recent" Simpson's episode.

"hey guys! MEME!!! react please" "guys please, spongebob did the rainbow" "please, generic meme channel, put the meme in your meme please"

Spongebobs voice has gotten a lot more high-pitched and kid like, and it's weird.

Spongebob's Birthday Blowout shows how the things are for the show. The people working there does it with love, but sometimes executives mess things up

I know people are attached to Tom Kenny and he’s most likely going to voice SpongeBob until the day he dies but yeesh… he sounds rough.

I remember thinking, back in season 9, that the Little Yellow Book episode was basically the April Fools episode from season 1, but without all the stuff that made that episode work. Everyone was mad at Squidward for reading Spongebob's diary, *_DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY WERE ALL LAUGHING ALONGSIDE WITH HIM!!_*

Friendly reminder: this May, the show will be celebrating its 25th anniversary… let that sink in for a second.

Oh my god, SpongeBob didn’t even sound fun when he said imagination

Remember when Stephen Hillenburg said that he wanted no more episodes after the first movie? Nickelodeon doesn’t.

I really dislike the way modern spongebob is animated Everything is so saturated and high energy, like its trying to make up for its lackluster writing to keep viewer retention The old seasons really felt much more expressive without needing to go for over the top wackiness every 5 seconds And the quiet moments really felt special, too

I can just feel Tom Kenny's growing age in the performance. Not a knock at him, I'm just a little concerned

I mean, I can’t really blame the show… because it’s been on since 1999 I honestly blame Nickelodeon for letting the series go on the way it did

8:17 It's nice that Patrick asks for advice here, although that reminds me of something. In the early seasons, especially season 1, a defining feature of Patrick was that SpongeBob would often go to him for advice. That advice would sometimes be good (like motivating him to get the job at the Krusty Krab in Help Wanted) and sometimes bad (like telling him not to visit the doctor in Suds). But it was always advice in good faith.

I also really hate the fact that they destroyed the point of the whole episode. The original was about imagining adventures and them having the time of their lives with simplistic things. In this episode, the idea is that they weren’t imagining anything and that the box has some kind of power. This is just such a disgrace to SpongeBob golden era.

I never see anyone talking about the overuse of face humor in modern SpongeBob. Old SpongeBob enhanced certain jokes with a funny face, but nowadays every single line is said with a different facial expression and it’s just not funny at all

Season 1-3 will always be untouchable and the real canon to SpongeBob. The series should’ve ended after the first movie.

Nick has been killing imagination for years lmao

There is something different in each era of the show I find charming and can't explain why.

Literally, every other episode makes more sense to have a sequel other than Idiot Box. We could get a Sequel to Krusty Krushers. They can show what happened when SpongeBob and Patrick were at Wrestle Camp. They could have done a sequel to Original Fry Cook. We never got to see what Jim's restaurant looked like.

He lose it when season 4 begun, but then his creator brought it back, and when he died, he lose it again.

Those two clips really shows how tom kenny is getting older but im suprised he has managed and is still managing to do spongebobs voice

Seasonal rot was something that Hillenburg was trying to avoid. Too bad he created solid gold back then and was oblivious.

Now the creators just see whatever SB meme template is trending and create an entire episode dedicated to that singular joke from the show's golden era.

People are barely NOW realizing that SpongeBob's lost it's imagination? 😂

I feel like a lot of the people working on SpongeBob probably grew up watching SpongeBob. So, I think a lot of their reference material are old SpongeBob material

I had a physical reaction of disgust at the right half of that thumbnail.

I get why they decided to show what happens in the box. It’s the easy way. It worked for the Salty Spatoon, they figured it’ll work here too

It’s crazy 2013 was the last year SpongeBob was good. Not saying it was amazing but there were plots and it still had normal animation style

The thing that bothers me most about new spongebob is Spongebob's cheek going sideways instead of up now. It was just so charming, now it feels like it's trying to be cutesy

I also hate the new animation.

Nickelodeon: (Flanderizes Every Character In SpongeBob). Also Nickelodeon: Why are we losing viewers again?

In recent episodes they also brought back that Dracula like guy in the night shift episode (I'm NOT even gonna try and spell his name!), and the old lady and her daughter in Chocolate With Nuts. They're either out of ideas or want to bank in their more iconic/Nostalgia episodes!

I wish they branded post-movie SpongeBob as a reboot series. That way they could’ve continued the show without harming it’s legacy.

Anyone else notice how sore these character's voices sound compared to older episodes?

Honestly this episode is a RESKIN of another episode from a decade ago “Swuidward in clerinet land!

As someone born in 2009 yes really young, i still watched the box of imagination episode, the old spongebob made me want to expand my imagination, made me do bunkers, and cool stuff basically nowadays spongebob just seems like something u would want to watch but not enjoy,you dont get any energy from it, you dont get imagination or happiness.

Imagine if they made sequels to infamous episodes like I'm With Stupid or The Great Snail Race (Update. I mean that I'm afraid that they could make sequels to infamous pre movie episodes. And somehow being EVEN WORSE)

putting these episodes next to each other shows how badly spongebob's design deteriorated

Another difference between these two episodes is that the original wasn't filled with scenes of Squidward suffering for no reason.

“Is Spongebob losing its imagination?” is a question you could’ve asked 15-20 years ago.

I miss SpongeBob OG. It stopped being good after season 5 to 6. Edit1 after season nine Steven died, and they took advantage of that

It died with its creator

new SpongeBob episodes are so hard to watch . the way its animated is so like sensory overload and loud they always make crazy faces every other scene. its like they rely on silly faces and loud noises to make it seem good but its lost its charm

It doesn't have any imagination anymore, hasn't for a long time now

You can just imagine that SpongeBob ended with the first movie.

Nickelodeon doesn’t care about quality. They only care about image.

This is basically the writers saying “hey everyone look! It’s a sequel to that old episode you love so much! Please watch our desperate show!” The new episodes are nothing but nostalgia bait, recycling and referencing old episode plots solely to get views and make memes.

9:05 "I'm the rock groomer" The Rock:

0:00 Imagine what Tom Kenny's Spongebob voice will be like in 10 years?

It feels like the writers used too much IMAGINATION.

After the owner died, SpongeBob gradually started to flow down he drain

The new SpongeBob design really hurts my eyes

In the early seasons, there was a method to the madness. Now, it's madness for the sake of madness

New SpongeBob artstyle is also just stiffer in poses and too much has stretch and pull to make up for it

It’s frustrating how the current era just reuses jokes and old characters and makes references to the golden era without understanding the context or nuances that made those jokes hit so hard.

This isn't Spongebob, this is Ren & Stimpy: Spongebob Edition.

Based of this snippets so basically they combine "Squidward in Clarinetland" and "The Idiot Box" together and it suck?

I hate new episodes. I know a lot of people say "Some new episodes are good" and I'm glad some people can enjoy them. I am not one of those people. The over expressive art, the new background characters constantly coming in that don't look like they belong, it's all so far from what made me fall in love with this show as a kid. Now that I'm an adult, I truly believe that the movie should've been the end of spongebob. Sure, we would've missed out on quite a few good episodes from season 4-6, but I prefer that over seeing the current state of the show.

SpongeBob is pretty much the kid version of the Simpsons, it has gone for so long that's it's even reusing old jokes.

"Nostalgia is not an excuse for a good story" - Teen Titans Go episode title

I'm glad Hilda ended on a high note instead of continuing way past it's prime like SpongeBob & The Simpsons.

The way I immediately started smiling when the bomb sound went off. Loved those old episodes, man.

One thing you dont get is the feeling you would get on older episodes. Like back then the show wasnt always making horrible puns, jokes, and just not aging well. Nickelodeon is gonna run these older shows literally until either the actors move on or they go out of business

The cow has been milked dry.

It feels like the show is losing it's imagination at times and I feel very sad. 😢😢😢

Can they just put an end to the show? Nothing goes on forever and the show keeps ruining itself.. even the voice actors are struggling at this point. I mean after decades of doing the same voice it becomes extremely hard.

I'll always miss the days when the show was full of reliability, the OG episodes had such quality and none of that is there anymore.

And Paramount wonders why we’re not watching nick

Spongebob has been losing it's imagination for years.

Ever since the end of season 6 Spongebob never felt the same again

The Thing With The First One Is It Had Us Use Our Own Imagination But In This One It Shows Us All The Stuff Ruining What Was Special About The Old Episode

9:36 man is that nosferatu chillin back there 🤣

He can't lose what he no longer has.

The video froze after Squidward fell on the box but the audio kept playing, and honestly? Just seing the box as squidward screams with other sound effects made for a better scene.

The animation in the new episodes looks strange

Of course not. Spongebob lost its imagination A LONG time ago

SpongeBob writers: "Let us all agree to never be creative again!"

Y'know, Spongebob having the box could have been handwaved so easily if he said something like "Oh hey, my old box! Woof, still smells like the dump." Just acknowledge that it was in the dump and the audience will immediately assume Spongebob went to get his box back.

My personal opinion... the old Spongebob felt like something designed for the entire family to watch. The new Spongebob just feels like either spoonfeeding imagination to children, or mocking children for having an imagination, which results in no age range admiring the episodes anymore.

The original Idiotbox was one of my favorite episodes as a kid, I remember after we saw it my brother and I, found big box and played in it like SpongeBob and Patrick did.

SpongeBob has lost it's imagination since like around 2006 or 2007.

It’s sad. Cuz idiot box (2002) is my all time favorite episode. And I find it disrespectful that they would remaster the episode, especially since SpongeBob has been long on a downswing

Ever since 2005 spongebob was slowly died

If there's one thing most people can agree on, the background art is really pretty.

2002 hits different

When listening to how he says imagination in both episodes it's clear Tom Kenney does not care anymore, he's been in the same role for over 20 years now and I think he's just sick of it by now, not to mention the shows deteriorating quality for years and years. Spongebob season 1-3 were really a pefect piece of love, and dare I say, *imagination*. They put care and effort into the ideas and execution they put on screen and you get episodes like Idiot Box which is also a play on a term for a TV as older generations like my grandpa have referred to a television as an idiot box. I digress but still what made it work was that we never see what was in that box while they were imagining it, because there was nothing it was truly just there imagination allowed them to run wild with themselves and not some magic crap, to be honest the episode is kind of about re-discovering lost imagination because Squidward has always been a sort of adult stand in character especially in the eyes of a child, and adults tend to lose their imagination with age so perhaps it's saying no matter how old you're never too old for a little imagination. To think the show is still practically riding off of it's first three seasons success, really was something special wasn't it

Using the Idiot Boxes as fast travel points in Battle for Bikini Bottom was honestly more of an imaginative take on the boxes than setting up lore that they're made from one specific guy....

In the thumbnail, why does the 2024 version look WORSE than the 2002 one??

and why does 2024 look worse than 2 decades back?

When comparing ONLY the two scenes, spongebob looks so... dead inside in the new one, the rainbow even lost a color, goodbye purple...

saying the pet rock episode drew inspiration from the great snail race is such a far stretch.