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Spongebob Squarepants

While watching the Kukla, Fran, and Ollie clip in Monday’s class, I could not help but think of a contemporary children’s show that adults enjoy watching. I am speaking of Spongebob Squarepants. First aired in 1999 on Nickelodeon, Spongebob Squarepants has enjoyed mass success for the past thirteen years. While it was obviously marketed for children, it has been a very popular show for people of all ages. It has aired on both MTV and Spike TV, which are intended for more adult and young adult audiences. I still enjoy Spongebob on occasion, and I find jokes in old episodes that I did not understand enough to get when I watched the show at nine years old.  Of course, that is not a suprise, since the creator, Stephen Hillenburg, and a lot of the people behind the scenes were involved with Rocko’s Modern Life. Rocko’s Modern Life is an older Nickelodeon cartoon that is notorious for it’s provocative jokes that were geared towards the adult crowd. The clip I included is a short YouTube compilation of 10 more adult jokes in Spongebob Squarepants. Adult Jokes in Spongebob Squarepants. The compilation was put together by YouTube user maishah123 in January of 2010.  When I thought of Spigel’s “transgression of generational roles,” I thought of this show immediately. First of all, there is a large adult following of Spongebob. There is also adult content integrated into the writing.  There is even, at times, an adult figure in the show.  My association of Spongebob Squarepants with the ideas conveyed by Spigel helped me to grasp those ideas.

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