You’ve seen “SpongeBob SquarePants,” right? There’s, like, no way you haven’t. I’m pretty confident in saying it defined a generation — that’s not too far-fetched. “SpongeBob SquarePants” was a show filled with wit, character and charm. The comedy was smart despite its status as a children’s show, so we look back on it with warm regard rather than just with nostalgia goggles. But, its quality has declined in past years; the show is really a conch shell of its former self, and it’s something I’d like to analyze.
I’m set on writing this for the same reason I write all of my columns: I want to convince you comedy is important, is powerful and can be discussed intelligently for society’s benefit. And, to me, looking at what made us laugh as kids is more important than looking at what makes us laugh now. Children’s entertainment has a pretty bad reputation for being mindless. “SpongeBob SquarePants” was an exception up until about its fifth season, when the show’s creator, Stephen Hillenburg, left the show and the animation process changed from hand-drawing to digitally animating.
So, what changed? What can we see in the show that reflects the drop in quality and comedy? This week, let’s talk about the visual design of “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
Everything’s so vibrant now. Seriously. Early episodes are much darker; it feels more relaxed. Early “SpongeBob SquarePants” was much less whimsical and much wittier. The darker colors kept a focus on dialogue and kept the energy controlled. A more controlled atmosphere is really what made those smarter jokes bite, and it made the zanier moments that much more zany. SpongeBob’s yellow hue has become so much brighter, too. This wouldn’t be an issue if the backgrounds weren’t so over-saturated as well. Any given shot in a recent episode proves to be pretty messy, because every part of the screen demands your attention.
Hand-drawn animation has this neat quality that makes foreground elements easily identifiable because they’re drawn much more simply than background elements — after all, foreground elements have to be drawn many times over in animation, so they need to be easy to draw. In the digitally animated episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” characters no longer stand out in the foreground, so a lot of the visual comedy gets bogged down. And although you can argue that this makes for a more visually cohesive world — where it’s not obvious what’s being animated and what isn’t — the shots lack direction and focus.
The transition to digital animation allowed the artists to easily incorporate three-quarter poses into their shots, because these traditionally complex poses could now be easily replicated. Eventually, the digital animation allowed any character to be seen from any angle, which provides some flexibility in how certain scenes are staged. The side effect of this, however, is the characters no longer feel like they’re posing; their blocking feels more organic, but less purposeful.
Sometimes crisper animation produces less potent visual comedy. You know how Peter Griffin from “Family Guy” falls down the stairs in a series of poses rather than fluidly? That effect comes from the animation team cutting frames of animation, so Peter literally jumps from one position to another as he falls. That process makes each impact and each pose more potent — and therefore funnier. Early episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants” make full use of cutting frames; not only does it look better in some cases, but it saves time for the animators.
I am by no means well versed in animation, nor can I claim to understand any medium of visual art. That being said, I want to look at the show’s sound design next week. I know even less about that.
Michael Smith is a clod. A clod is a lump of dirt or clay. His column appears on Tuesdays as dirt and on Wednesdays as Clay Aiken.
