Here's how an 8-year-old describes his favorite cartoon, SpongeBob SquarePants.
"There's this guy, SpongeBob. He's a sponge. He lives in a pineapple. There's this other guy Patrick. He's a star fish. He's pink, and he's SpongeBob's best friend. SpongeBob works at the Krusty Krab. He's a fry cook and his boss is Mr. Krab. He's a crab . . . It's a really cool show."
Here's how Dave Boede, who was introduced to SpongeBob by his 10-year-old daughter, describes the top-rated kids program on television: "The best part is that we both find humor in it. They are very light-hearted, funny situations, and I don't have to worry about hitting the mute button."
Here's how the show's creator, Stephen Hillenburg, describes the oddness that accompanies the SpongeBob phenomenon:
"When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask ourselves if it's appropriate for children."
Here's how Tawny Wray, a 20-year-old Weber State University student describes the Nickelodeon show: "I don't have kids, I don't want them and I never watch cartoons. But I love SpongeBob and so do my friends."
Here's how Nickelodeon cable television boss Herb Scannell talks about the main character: "It could be a kinder, gentler world if SpongeBob became a global icon."
And here's how a Wall Street Journal reporter describes the show in an October front-page article:
"SpongeBob," writes Sally Beatty, "is also the biggest children's phenomenon to capture the imagination of gay men since the purple Teletubby named Tinky Winky started carrying a purse."
Welcome to the bizarre and beautiful world of SpongeBob SquarePants — a crossover hit that belies all expectations about children's television programming.
Throughout Utah and the rest of the country, kids, college students and corporate executives all tune into watch the SpongeBob opening chant, "Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!"
"How can you ever know how successful something is going to be?" asks Nicole Mazer, director of animation publicity for Nickelodeon in an interview with the Deseret News this week.
The program gives new meaning to the phrase "cross-over hit."
"I mean, this is Nickelodeon," Mazer said. "Our target audience is 2- to 11-year-olds. So to have such a huge college audience, and a huge adult audience . . . that's pretty rare. I don't think anything could have predicted this would happen."
SpongeBob SquarePants offers up a delightful cast of characters who all live in the underwater town of Bikini Bottom.
Patrick Starfish is a simple-minded pink surfer dude who is SpongeBob's best buddy. He lives under a rock.
Squidward Tentacles is SpongeBob's grouchy neighbor and also an employee at the Krusty Krab. He plays the clarinet and subscribes to Martha Stewart Living.
Mr. Krab owns the Krusty Krab, where the culinary specialty is the Krabby Patty. Mr. Krab can usually be found counting his money and is in a major fast food rivalry with Plankton, owner of the Chum Bucket.
Sandy Cheeks is a squirrel from Texas. She's the only rodent in the underwater world and is a good friend of SpongeBob's and Patrick's. She wears a bikini top and a diver's air-bubble helmet because everyone knows squirrels can't breathe under water.
When SpongeBob meets Sandy in the first episode, she greets him with, "Hold on there, little square dude."
SpongeBob is a square, yellow sponge who lives in a pineapple house. He wears knickers and a gap-toothed grin. He has an unending bounty of innocence and old-fashioned ethics and has earned his dream job as an underpaid fry cook at the Krusty Krab. SpongeBob has a pet snail named Gary who writes poetry and inexplicably meows like a kitten.
SpongeBob's personal motto: "Go SpongeBob, Go SpongeBob, go self!"
And "Go!" he has, especially in the retail merchandising department, where sales are expected to reach $600 million this year.
A walk through a Salt Lake County ShopKo store finds SpongeBob stuff on every aisle. There are SpongeBob pajamas, tooth brushes, sheets, sleeping bags, lunch boxes, folders, T-shirts and mugs.
A survey of other retailers turns up SpongeBob SquarePants aquariums, a Bikini Bottom mini alarm clock, a SpongeBob edition of Uno playing cards and a SpongeBob Sno-Cone maker. There are SpongeBob Magic 8 balls, Game Boy games, playboards and a "5 in 1 for Slumber Fun" SpongeBob tent.
Hot Topic in the Crossroads Mall goes one step further. "We have everything, literally everything," said Heather Gaither, assistant store manager. A whole store wall is dedicated to all things yellow and porous. Shower curtains, slippers, bubble bath, eye masks and finger puppets.
But SpongeBob-specific toys aren't doing as well as some other hot items this holiday season, said Tomii Crump, a spokeswoman for Toys R' Us.
"It definitely does very well for us, but as far as it being one of the hot sellers this holiday season, it really hasn't been," Crump said from the company's New Jersey headquarters.
Cabbage Patch Kids, Chicken Dance Elmo, Yu-Gi-Oh! playing cards, Spiderman Web Blaster, Fur Real Friends — a cat that looks like a real feline — these items are much more popular than the SpongeBob figures, Crump said.
And that may be because of the show's cross-over appeal, said Paul Hammond, an owner of Utah's Hammond Hobbies & Toys. "When Power Rangers were big a couple of years ago we sold tons of it, but when Beavis and Butt-Head came along, we sold some but not as much."
Hammonds isn't stocking any SpongeBob paraphernalia this season, and the store's owner says no one's asking for it. Instead, his customers are snatching up Hammonds top-selling radio-controlled cars at $15.99 each.
Still Hammond won't say if he wishes he'd ordered some products from the show to get in on the marketing blitz. "Sure, but it's hard to know what's going to be popular."
That popularity might not be obvious by looking at the story lines — on the other hand, it might.
The character is certainly resolute. In one episode, SpongeBob is flipping patties at the Krusty Krab, but can't remember how to build the burger. Is it ketchup, pickle, meat? Or vice-versa? When the spongy one gets home, he can't remember the order of his bed. Is it mattress, blanket, sheet? Dawn finally breaks and SpongeBob is still pondering the question.
He and Patrick are certainly moral. In another episode, the two took a free balloon without asking and then turned themselves in for stealing.
Hillenburg, a marine biologist-turned-animator told the Associated Press this about his creation: "SpongeBob is an innocent, and people respond to an innocent. I don't think it matters if you're young or old."
SpongeBob first appeared on the cable station in July 1999.
The show featuring the upbeat, honest sponge recently passed "Rugrats" to become No. 1 in kids' ratings. And of about 50 million viewers who tune into SpongeBob each month, about 20 million are adults.
This year, TV Guide ranked SpongeBob on its list of the 50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of all time, No. 9 below Bugs Bunny, Homer Simpson, The Grinch and a few others.
The show regularly grabs one of the top 15 weekly cable-ratings slots when it airs three times each weekday and once on Saturday and Sunday.
In August, the Parents Television Council rated "SpongeBob" third-best among prime-time shows from a family-values perspective, noting the show's appeal "spans generations."
"My surprise was that older kids, even college kids and adults, were into it," said Yamil Castillo, owner of three Red Balloon toy stores in Utah.
"I hadn't heard anything about it, but the teenagers who work in my stores and my office said, 'It's my favorite cartoon. It's funny. You have to watch it.' "
Sales have cooled somewhat, but for a year, Castillo has watched customers in their 20s and 30s snatch up SpongeBob key chains, puzzles and other items in his stores. Sales in his Provo store, boosted by BYU student customers, were particularly brisk.
The show offers simple, funny comedy with no vulgarity and no violence, Castillo said. "It's just clean humor that attracts the little kids and their moms and dads.
"Parents were buying more for their own pleasure than for their kids; that's my opinion."
Indeed, office spaces and cubicles throughout Salt Lake City are decorated with SpongeBob characters and figures.
Boede has a poster up in his office and is a big fan. President of Boede and Partners, a Salt Lake City advertising agency, he was attracted by the show's characters, the situations, the whole creative premise. "It's so out of the whole cartoon genre. It's so different, plus it's really, really funny."
People can't seem to get enough of the character. There are innumerable Web sites dedicated to SpongeBob.
The Church of SpongeBob SquarePants Web site offers scriptures, services, sacraments and hymns. Another site helps online visitors determine which SpongeBob character they resemble.
Now SpongeBob is headed to local movie houses, Mazer said.
After producing 60 half-hours for television, Hillenburg is on hiatus writing a movie scheduled scheduled to reach theaters in 2004. The show's creator is not doing media interviews right now while working on the film, Mazer said last week.
But the show, Hillenburg has said, is basically about fair play. "You shouldn't steal. Those sort of things. When SpongeBob's perseverance shines through, and you root for him — that's when the show is working."
E-mail: lucy@desnews.com