Failed Spin-Offs from Spongebob Squarepants By Francesco Marciuliano
When a TV series is a huge hit, it makes perfect sense that a network would want to spin off other shows from it. Such was the case with “Spongebob Squarepants.” But every time Nickelodeon tried to build a series around a supporting character, the results were unfortunate to say the least.
Patrick Star
Series Title: “Shelf Life”
Series Premise: Patrick is caught by fisherman, dried out, and placed on a shelf in a Florida tourist shop. The series planned to have a now still Patrick try to make friends with the other items in the store, including a flamingo in a snowglobe, a conch shell that constantly worred about shattering in some visitor’s suitcase, and a beach T-shirt that read “Sexy Grandma.” Alas, young viewers weren’t quite ready to accept the fact that Patrick was more or less dead and priced to move in Daytona, and so the show was pulled before Patrick wound up in the $1 bin.
Plankton
Series Title: “And Baby Would Have Made Three”
Series Premise: Having repeatedly failed to take over the world or even defeat the Krusty Krab, Plankton decides instead to focus his energies on starting a family. And so he tries to conceive a child with his computer wife W.I.F.E....only to electrocute himself. This results in a small, charred mark on the floor where the series star once stood, leaving the remaining 21 minutes of the pilot to focus on W.I.F.E. slowly restarting herself after upgrading her iTunes software.
Sandy Cheeks
Series Title: “Lonely Star State”
Series Premise: Due to an unfortunate sexting scandal, Sandy moves back home to Texas only to find she now has trouble relating to her fellow park animals, all who wonder why she continues to walk around with her head seemingly stuck inside a gumball machine. To make matters, her several years living underwater means Sandy no longer knows how to store nuts for the winter, causing her to almost stave to death in the pilot when the series was cancelled just in the middle of her madly devouring her 12th squirrel.
Squidward Tentacles
Series Title: “Instrument of Torture”
Series Premise: Squidward leaves Bikini Bottom behind to pursue his dream of becoming a professional clarinet player (raising the funds for his trip by blowing up his tiki house for the insurance money). But after being rejected by every orchestra underwater, Squidward finally gets a gig with a “Phish” cover band that consists entirelly of 45-minute clarinet, tuba, and theremin slow jams, causing the initial test audience to spend most of their viewing time trying to fashion nooses out of their own shoelaces.
Mr. Krabs
Series Title: “Deep Trouble”
Series Premise: A hard-hitting weekly legal drama, “Deep Trouble” begins with the media finally finding out the secret ingredient to Krabby Patties is drunken human passengers who fall off passing cruise ships. Mr. Krabs must then vigiourously defend himself in court with the cheapest lawyer he could find, prevent his daughter Pearl from exposing the even more horrifying secret behind the fries, and keep his business afloat by turning it into a brothel that tests the limits of what Nick Jr. morning programming will allow.
Gary the Snail
Series Title: “Gary Sits There”
Series Premise: Gary smiles. Gary purrs. And Gary occasionally looks around wondering where Spongebob is in a series that actually made it a whole season before viewers realized it consisted entirely of just three animation cels and episode titles like “Gary Blinks,” “Gary Doesn’t Blink” and “Gary Wanders Off-Screen for 15 Minutes.”
What other series' could potentially replace Harry Potter? Let us know in the comments!
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