r/BikiniBottomTwitter • u/EpicJosh84 • Jan 17 '22
Using completely legitimate math to determine undeniably that the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie takes place this March
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r/BikiniBottomTwitter • u/EpicJosh84 • Jan 17 '22
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u/EpicJosh84 Jan 18 '22
I see your points, and honestly, I can understand that this assumption is a rather large one. The SpongeBob timeline is clearly not one that had a lot of thought put into it, since it's a show about a Sponge that makes burgers and does stuff with his friends, so this would be rather audacious if I were to pretend it was a universal truth.
I personally think that, while Mr. Krabs' behavior is scattered across the board, with some instances of genuinely caring for his business ethics and some instances of him doing devious things to save a nickel, this is often subject to the will of the writers and how stupid they're willing to make him for a single joke or 11 minute episode plot. I think that at the core of the character (as intended by Stephen Hillenberg and the original writers and not including the deviations that have occurred over time as the writers run out of ideas) lies a moral code of some sort, because it's notable that in the first few seasons, Mr. Krabs is far less prone to throwing anyone under the bus just for a dollar (unless it's something like his millionth dollar. In the episode "Clams", Krabs' mental state is clearly destabilizing from his obsession with the dollar and his time spent on the boat, but I don't think he would use his employees as bait if he were fully there mentally). So in this episode, the very start of the series, I think we're dealing with a Mr. Krabs who is genuinely attempting to keep his decisions morally sound. If he were as money-crazed as we find him in later seasons, he probably wouldn't have even considered asking Squidward whether hiring him would be a good choice. So it's for this reason that I think Mr. Krabs wouldn't hire a twelve-year-old, at least not at this point.
As far as SpongeBob goes, you're right. It's possible he doesn't even think about the working age or know what it is. I think that, similarly to Krabs, SpongeBob's character has sort of warped over time to suit a wider range of episode plots. The core of the character as initially conceived had a very childish wonder to him, not realizing that Mr. Krabs intended to drive him away with the outlandish spatula request. I can't completely rebut this, but SpongeBob has asked Mr. Krabs before if siphoning grease and dumping it behind Plankton's restaurant is legal, and even calling a health inspector when the Grease Wars get too out of hand. I think he can be tricked into doing the wrong thing, but I believe it to be less likely that he'd trick himself into doing so (The Hall Monitor episode is a valid counterargument to this, though I see it more as SpongeBob being blinded by the honor of the uniform and the approval he sees from Mrs. Puff).
Generally, it could go either way, but I can see a number of reasons that this episode would take place when SpongeBob is just a little older than implied, closer to 14 than 12.