Analysis

Algae’s Always Greener analysis paper

SpongeBob SquarePants is a cartoon that was created by Stephen Hillenburg, and in this television series, SpongeBob, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs all work at the same place: the Krusty Krab.  However, Plankton, and his computer wife Karen work at the only competitor of the Krusty Krab, the Chum Bucket.  In the majority of the episodes, Plankton is the criminal of this series, however, in the episode “The Algae is Always Greener”, Mr. Krabs is the criminal.  The episode of SpongeBob SquarePants entitled “The Algae is Always Greener” tells the young children four key life lessons: poor people are most likely to steal, they are dedicated while they are stealing, don’t judge people until you walked in their shoes, and don’t take your life for granted.

            Perhaps the most obvious lesson that this episode of SpongeBob tells the young children is the fact that poor people are more likely to steal items than people who have money are.  However, this episode gives children the false perception of crimes, as most of the time, when a crime occurs, the criminal does not get caught until after the crime has been committed, but in this episode, Mr. Krabs is caught during the crime of stealing a Krabby Patty.  This is achieved in the beginning when Plankton is sitting inside of the ketchup bottle, waiting for the ketchup to be squirted onto the Krabby Patty, most likely so he can take some of the Krabby Patty back to the Chum Bucket decipher what the secret ingredient to this burger is.  This same line of thinking is carried into the second half of this episode, as when Plankton becomes the manager and switches his life with the life of Mr. Krabs, Mr. Krabs comes into the Krusty Krab and tries to steal the Krabby Patty sandwich.  In both of these thieving attempts, however, the person trying to steal the sandwich is caught and leaves without the sandwich. 

            The second lesson that this episode tells children is the dedication of criminals.  Throughout the entire series of SpongeBob SquarePants, Plankton tends to try to steal the Krabby Patty formula at least once per show.  However, in the episode The Algae Is Always Greener, Plankton tries to steal the Krabby Patty formula from the Krusty Krab, gets caught, and after he switches lives with Mr. Krabs, Mr. Krabs tries to steal the Krabby Patty formula and he gets caught.  However, towards the end of this episode, it shows children the amount of dedication that criminals have when they are trying to get something that they want, as he calls the Krusty Krab and basically tells Plankton that he will come back to the restaurant as many times as he needs to in order to achieve his end goal, stealing the secret recipe for the Krabby Patty.  This is shown when Mr. Krabs says that he will ‘come back the next day, and the next day, and the next day’ then calls the Krusty Krab and continues to say ‘and the next day, and the next day’.

            The third lesson this episode gives is don’t judge people until you have been in their shoes.  In the beginning of this episode, when Mr. Krabs stopped Plankton from trying to steal the Krabby Patty (although he never got to the Krabby Patty because the ketchup missed), as he was thrown back to the Chum Bucket, his exact words were “curse you Krabs”.  After he got to the Chum Bucket, his wife Karen, asked him if he was once again unsuccessful at his attempts to steal the Krabby Patty from the Krusty Krab, which made him want to change lives.  After he told his wife that he wanted to change lives with Mr. Krabs, Karen reminded Plankton about the device that he created that would allow him to change lives with anyone else in the sea, if he wanted to see what their lives were like.  When Karen brought this up to Plankton, he immediately wanted to use it to change lives from his current lifestyle to Mr. Krabs’ better appearing lifestyle.  However, when Plankton achieves his goal of getting Mr. Krab’s lifestyle, he quickly realizes that Mr. Krabs does not have that good of a life while he is in the Krusty Krab.  The four examples that the audience sees in this episode are when Plankton makes Squidward the new grill cook, Squidward cooks the Krabby Patty, and when the Krabby Patty looks very disgusting, and when a customer ordered a medium soft drink, but Spongebob gave the customer a large soft drink.  A family issue that the audience sees about Mr. Krab’s life is when Pearl, who is Plankton’s daughter at this time of the episode, comes into the Krusty Krab and asks Plankton if she could have a raise on her allowance.  When Plankton gives Pearl her $1 allowance raise, she calls him cheap and starts crying in the store, while SpongeBob is still yelling that he “soiled the good Krusty Krab name”.  However, miraculously, when Mr. Krabs comes in to the Krusty Krab to steal a Krabby Patty, everyone in the restaurant goes into hiding behind their barrel chairs, and SpongeBob and Pearl stop yelling and crying.

            The final lesson that this particular episode of SpongeBob SquarePants tells children is not to take your life for granted.  This is shown when in the beginning of the episode, after Plankton was unsuccessful at obtaining the Krabby Patty formula, he came home, and when Karen made him his holographic meatloaf, he did not eat it, and instead went straight to wishing that he would be able to change his life to match the life that Mr. Krabs has.  However, when he did get the life that Mr. Krabs usually has throughout this series, he realized that he did not enjoy the life that came along with having success.  When he realized that he had finally got a Krabby Patty from the Krusty Krab, it still meant a lot to him, but not as much as it would have meant if he didn’t switch lives with Mr. Krabs, since the Krabby Patty is the sandwich that Mr. Krabs created, and since he switched lives with him and he now had Mr. Krabs’ life, obtaining the Krabby Patty now would have been like taking his own sandwich.  Towards the end of this episode, when Mr. Krabs tries to steal the Krabby Patty sandwich, and eventually gets stopped by Spongebob, he runs off to the Chum Bucket, then calls the Krusty Krab, and threatens to go to the Krusty Krab every day for as long as it would take him to get the Krabby Patty formula.  Like I said earlier, this threat from Mr. Krabs ends up being the breaking point for Plankton, and he yells in the restaurant, and says goodbye to all the customers of his Krusty Krab, before returning back to the Chum Bucket to eat the holographic meatloaf that was prepared by his computer wife Karen.

            In conclusion, this episode of SpongeBob SquarePants teaches children four key life lessons.  These lessons are shown in this episode thru demonstration in this episode primarily, and these four life lessons are poor people are most likely to steal, they are dedicated while they are stealing, don’t judge people until you walked in their shoes, and don’t take your life for granted.  If these lessons are being taught to young children, and not noticed, what other lessons does this show teach them? 

Works Cited

“The Algae’s Always Greener”.  SpongeBob SquarePants.  Nickelodeon.  22 Mar. 2002.  Television.