- Joined
- Aug 20, 2022
Basically this happened because Hillenburg wanted the movie to be the finale, while Nickelodeon wanted to keep the series going, so he pretty much left the show. As a result they started going the Ren and Stimpy direction, I think they hired writers from that show too, and it slowly got worse over time. When Hillenburg came back for Season 9, there were a couple of standout episodes, and the 2nd movie was pretty decent, but after that, starting with Season 10, it just turned into ADHD bright lights and flashing colors to keep toddlers' attention. I think the better writers slowly left the series over the years too, you can kind of tell when you watch seasons 4-9 and see less and less memorable quotes and clever jokes, and less comedic timing as it goes on.It's right around after the 1st movie aired in theaters that the show decided to go down south, and i firmly believe it decided to just copy "Ren & Stimpy" (which is a bit ironic since I think a few people from Spumco/Games went to work on Spongebob) but completely forgets what made R&S popular in the first place. Instead you have Spongebob and Patrick being the "Stimpy" (loveable retards that get constantly mocked for being retarded), while Squidward is totally the Ren (prick who get's the shit kicked out of him constantly, hence the "Squidward Torture Porn").
The show went from "sea creatures having cooky adventures in the sea" to "sitcom #83278323 in which we can try to push the envlope as much as possible without getting canceled"