And thus ill leave, but thanks, for everything, ill be a pig, or a bat, but ill be what I want to be

1. Spongebob Squarepants
Spongebob Squarepants is a Comedy cartoon that has been on the air since may 1999,
originally airing on nickelodeon, the channel it continues to be on to this day. It has garnered
a huge amount of respect over its nearly 20 year run, with three movies, (a fourth on the
way), and 11 seasons. It has won many awards, including six Annie Awards, eight Golden
Reel Awards, four Emmy Awards, 12 Kids' Choice Awards, and two BAFTA Children's
Awards.
Genre
The conventions of a Comedy Cartoon are simple,
they feature well designed cartoon characters, often
feature a small ensemble cast of bright recognizable
characters. The visual medium of cartoons allows for
strong visual humour without risking injury, and without
showing any explicit violence, so many of these
cartoons take a slapstick approach.
Narrative
The narrative of episodes of spongebob are all very
similar, and follow a simple Set-up, conflict, resolution
style, the conflict is usually character driven, such as
in “SB-129”, being an episode where the conflict is
driven by squidward wanting to get away from
spongebob, or driven by chance and circumstance, such as in “Rock Bottom”, where we see
spongebob trapped in a bad neighborhood due to missing a bus.

2. Message
Due to the nature of the show being targeted towards children, it is common to have morals
tucked within the show, to teach children when they are at their most teachable and
malleable as people, an example of this is the episode, “Have you seen this snail”, in which
the titular characters pet runs away due to spongebob neglecting him to play a game, this
teaches children the importance of feeding and looking after your pets regardless of
whatever else you have going on.
The episode Procrastination also has a message for younger audiences, in which
Spongebob repeatedly procrastinates an essay for his class, with the obvious message of
keeping on task and doing your work.
Target audience
The target audience for spongebob is actually larger than most cartoons, considering its
airing in the late 90’s., there are three generations of cartoon watchers who have watched
the show, meaning as well as the stated by creator 6-11 age range, who watch it because
that's the intended audience, 4-6 year olds also watch the show due to it being a kids show
that's easily accessible, and 11-19 year olds also watch it for nostalgia purposes, this means
away from the show itself, merchandise has a far reaching target audience, ensuring the
shows continued life.
Impact on audience:

3. Spongebob is a hugely famous show, partly for its recognizability and fantastic character
design, partly due to how long its been running and how many people have and continue to
watch it, this means that as any famous property, spongebob makes a lot of money on
merchandising. We can also see Nickelodeon, the studio behind spongebob, use his name
for many different products, such as Nickelodeon land in blackpool beach using spongebob
for multiple rides, such as “Spongebob’s splash bash”, shown left. It even made enough of
an impact on a group of young biologists, Dennis E. Desjardin, Kabir Peay, and Thomas
Bruns, that they were willing to name their new found species of fungus after the famous
cartoon character, leading to the species Spongiforma squarepantsii
Audience effect theories
Moral Panics
Spongebob did encounter a fair few moral
panics throughout its run, as any show that
garners a large audience tends to do, for
instance, american conservatives oftentimes
complained about spongebob’s “homosexual”
attitude, citing his higher register and
oftentimes camper attitude, as well as lack of
any sexuality involving woman. This was only
furthered when Spongebob was allowed to be
featured in a video for “We are family”, that
served as a fundraiser for “we are family”, a
foundation that went toward tolerance and
education for all ethnicities and sexualities,
which many people were angry with, as they hated those of different sexualities and races. .
On a slightly less ridiculous notes, research was done by the university of virginia’s
psychology department that claimed that spongebob inhibited skills including attention,
working memory, problem solving and delay of gratification that are associated with success
in school. Meaning that spongebob was making people do worse in academic environments.
Many people boycotted the show after this, but little came of it in the end.
Encoding / Decoding
As with any show, interpretations of it differ from place to place, and with race, class, and
various other socio-economic factors, as previously stated, some in right leaning america
and britain state that spongebob is “gay coded”, and dislike the show because of this,
despite the fact the creators likely did not intend for the show to be viewed this way. Though
due to the passive spectator nature of the show, as well as its oftentimes simplicity, there is
little to be debated within its characters and themes, and thus most of the time, the intended
message is received regardless of demographic

4. Uses and Gratifications
1. be informed or educated
2. identify with characters of the situation in the
media environment
3. simple entertainment
4. enhance social interaction
5. escape from the stresses of daily life
These are the main five tenets of the uses and
gratifications theory, Spongebob bases itself around
numbers 2, 4 and 5, 4 and 5 for obvious reasons, but there
is a case to be made for two, spongebob has a famous
cast of well developed characters, who have each had
time to have multiple episodes dedicated to them, as well as a multitude of well known side
characters, seeing these characters interact is part of the joy of the show and thus a reason
many people watch it.