10 things I learned from watching Spongebob Squarepants

I don't just watch Spongebob Squarepants because I have a mental age of five. I also watch it so I can hang on to something resembling a moral compass in my chaotic, cock-fighting life. I tell you, the Bible, the Qur'an, even Lord of the Rings have nothing on the teachings of the spongey guru.

1. Always look on the bright side of things - it's good to be optimistic

   Episode of note - every single one 

You never see Spongebob being a pessimistic, world loathing fuck. That's because Squidward was put in the sea to do just that. While Squidward is attempting to combust with anger, Spongebob can be found following the code set by Tony Robbins, Richard Simmons or similar. And things always turn out alright for Bob, while Squidward generally ends us with a face full of snail poo and his house repossessed.

2. Learn how to laugh at yourself

     Episode of note - "Squirrel Jokes"

It's all very well attempting to make yourself look big by making others look small, but you can guarantee in life that you can't laugh at yourself, everyone else will do it for you. No one ever thought badly of someone who fell over and laughed about it, but plenty thought badly of someone who fell over, then proceeded to cry, blame everyone else, and shit their pants.

3. Pursue your dreams, even if the money is terrible

Episode of note - "Help Wanted"

Spongebob spends his days at the Krusty Krab up to his elbows in grease, scrubbing out toilets, and having to work with Squidward. In one episode it is revealed that Spongebob had to pay Mr Krabs to let him work there in the beginning. Despite this, he's happier than I would be if someone paid me a million quid to go to Alton Towers for the day. Spongebob loves his job. The moral of this story? There's no point earning £10,000 a day if you go into work every morning feeling like... well... like Squidward.

4. One good turn deserves another

Episode of note - "Best Day Ever"

Bob has big plans. He's going to spend the entire day doing all the things he loves with all his best friends. But things don't go to plan, and instead Bob is forced to spend the day sorting out the above friends' individual catastrophes. Instead of branding him a doormat and demanding to borrow fivers, Bob's friends realise what he's done for them, and work together to give him an extra special end to the day (not a "happy ending", you filthy perverts). Spongebob ends up having a better time than, say, if he'd just stood around and let everyone die.

5. Never stop trying

Episode of note - any where Spongebob takes, and fails, his driving test

Spongebob will pass his driving test one day. This is a certainty. However, it wouldn't be a certainty if Spongebob gave up and decided to get the bus for the rest of his life instead. Where would we be if everyone decided to give up and 'get the bus'? Nothing great would ever be achieved, nothing great would have been invented, England would never have won the World Cup, and the buses would be awfully crowded.

6. You're braver than you think

Episode of note - "Roller Cowards"

People tell me I do brave things. I have tattoos, I go on rollercoasters. I've even been known to eat my mother's infamous sausage curry. I'm not a particularly brave person, in fact I'm scared of most things most of the time. However, I feel the fear and do it anyway. Once you make up your mind to do that, it's amazing what kind of things you can achieve. Whether it's riding the Fiery Fist O Pain, or asking out your crush, life becomes more exciting when the thought of possibly soiling yourself doesn't stop you. 

7. Don't fall for scams - or - if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Episode of note - "Karate Island"

"Spongebob, you've been crowned King of Karate despite not being very good. Please come and accept your award." "Jenny, I am a Nigerian prince who needs your help to transfer my vast fortune to the UK." "You, yes you, can lose three stone in just three days, by eating only chocolate!" "With my genuine magic powers, I can make the man of your dreams fall in love with you for only 6 easy payments of £1,999." Do you see?

8. Everyone has a talent

Episode of note - "Big Pink Loser"

We're not all supermodels, or nuclear physicists, or Olympic athletes. And trust me, it's not easy being all three. But Naomi Campbell couldn't understand quantum entanglement (or Quantum dishwashing powder). Stephen Hawking might never win 'Miss Butlins Bikini'. And I'm pretty sure Usain Bolt couldn't do a spot on impression of her majesty Mrs Queen. We all bring something different to the party, as Patrick finds out in this episode. He won't win any prizes trying to beat Spongebob at his game, but he wins one by playing his own game. He is the best at doing nothing, and doing nothing is definitely a talent. Again, trust me on that.

9. Don't try to be something you're not

Episode of note - "No Weenies Allowed"

On a similar note to above, it does not do to pretend to be something that goes against your very nature in order to impress someone else, or to prove a point. Not only will you probably fail and look stupid, but have you thought about what you'd do if you actually succeeded? No, neither have I, because I've never succeeded at anything. But suppose you did, are you prepared for this occurrence? Best case scenario - you'll have to keep up the pretense forever. Worst case scenario - you'll get injured and end up in Weenie Hut General with a boo-boo. Stick to who you are, and if people don't like it, chances are they suck and they're not worth your time anyway.

10. Sit there and do nothing, and the Magic Conch will take care of everything

Episode of note - "Club Spongebob"

If you ever find yourself stranded in the woods, you don't have to worry. Just ask the Magic Conch what you should do. If it says "do nothing", then that is what you must do. Have faith, and a picnic table full of food will eventually fall out of the sky. This last one was a bit of a joke, but thinking about it, I guess you could also say 'stop worrying so much, because things will generally turn out ok in the end'. Unless you don't have a Magic Conch, then you're screwed.

Jerry Springer vs. Jeremy Kyle (or how I learned to stop worrying and hope for the fucking bomb)

No matter who you are, there's always someone who makes you relieved to be you. For us in Britain and the U.S, it tends to be the various circus performers that make up an episode of a talk show. For those people, well, at least they didn't marry their sister/have sex for a fiver. If they did, well...well...at least they're not dead.

Shows like Springer and Kyle have a very special place in society – as a sort of holding pen for the deranged and the socially/sartorially unstable among us. 

Our American readers might be familiar with Jeremy Kyle, as he was recently farmed out to the U.S. for a bit to give the rest of us a fucking break. You guys seemed to warm to him, yet inexplicably we now have him back. On the other hand, I'm not sure how you guys feel about Jerry Springer, but us Brits have definitely adopted him. Trade?

But would you want to trade, and more to the point, would we? Do we maybe have the better deal with Kyle? I'm going to look into this, but the answer is probably no.

Round one – host likeability

Springer appears to win this round hands down at first, because people actually like him. And it's not hard to see why people like Jerry – he has an affable, easy going nature and seems to be offended by nothing at all. Even KKK members on his stage shouting “Die, Jew boy” don't faze him. The other side of this is that Jerry could perhaps be accused of being too easy going. His habit of poking fun at guests, even when they appear to be having a nervous breakdown, could lose him some points.

Kyle has no such problems. If anyone even remotely hints at smiling on his stage, he has them carted off and appears to take personal offence. Misery peddling is a serious business to Kyle, and he's not about to let some upstart in the studio make it look like entertainment.

The common consensus in Britain is that Kyle is everything Springer is not – judgemental, hyper serious and completely unable to crack a smile.

Winner – Jerry Springer


Round two – insane behaviour

A typical episode of either of these shows doesn't include debate about Ibsen. Generally it's people who have been caught screwing someone else. Usually there is a petrol station involved, for some reason. Occasionally an episode will centre around someone's who's done-something-fucking-stupid. Maybe they have a life size tattoo of Justin Bieber covering their body, or maybe they traded their house for a bra. Granted, Springer has the more insane guests, but Kyle more than makes up for this with his incensed reactions to anyone doing anything out of the ordinary, so it's a tough one to call. Since everyone appears to be insane on Springer, you can sometimes become desensitised, and for this reason I think I'm going to have to go with Kyle – quality over quantity.

Winner – Jeremy Kyle


Round three – audience interaction

The Springer Show is widely regarded as a free for all – a veritable hotbed of debate. Audience participation is encouraged, even rewarded (if you get your tits out). Kyle's audience, meanwhile, is encouraged to sit obediently around him like disciples of some kind. Speaking without putting your hand up and waiting your turn is severely dealt with, usually by a harsh look from Kyle.

Since the reason we tune into these shows is to watch goons fighting, surely this enjoyment is multiplied when the audience gets involved with the fist happy fun as well?

Winner – Jerry Springer


Round four – level of actual help provided

Although neither show is ever going to produce anything like a U.N. approved treaty, it must be said that Kyle overtakes Springer by leaps and bounds here. Kyle's backstage team includes counselling “genius”/Gary Glitter lookalike Graham Stainer, on hand to offer advice and kleenex. All Springer's guests have appears to be a pole to dance around. To be fair, this method of settling disputes seems to work surprisingly well; I may try It myself sometime.

Winner – Draw


Round five – fights (frequency of and reaction to)

I'm not sure there can be much debate here, certainly not as much as there is on Springer. Springer fighting is so frequent that they now have a bell at the ready to divide an episode into rounds. The security guards don't so much secure as stand there and laugh. Kyle's show couldn't be further from this – at the slightest hint of aggression, his henchmen arrive to carry the perpetrator off under one arm. If by some slim chance a contestant on the Kyle show does manage to get a sly punch past the guards, rest assured the show will A) not be aired and B) make the national newspapers -

PS nice advert, very appropriate

In other words – Kyle and his henchmen spoil everyone's fun.

Winner – Jerry Springer 


Looking at the evidence brought forth by this impartial scientific study – are you sure you guys don't want to trade?

I don't remember an American Gladiator called facelift...

This dude -

Look at this dude, with his small head and his lovely blue bra. I found him the other day in a charity shop, 50p well spent I say. I know he's some kind of American Gladiator, or he was in a past life, but apart from that I'm rather stumped. Obviously his hands were made to hold a big phallic pugil stick, but I can't find a corresponding real gladiator to match him.

There are so many things I love about this dude, but I especially love the oversized arms that are bigger than his legs, the tiny head that may or may not be the head he was born with, the gelled back grey hair, and the manic grin plastered across his chops -

He looks like a smooth old man who's had extensive surgery, botox or similar. Further proof of this is the way his head is a different colour to his body.

I had to buy this dude because, as a child, I used to stay up late once a week to watch American Gladiators on ITV Nightshift. I'd tune in just in time to see the closing credits of The Equalizer, then a whole, heady hour of pugilistic fun. Although in reality it was probably more like eight minutes before I fell asleep with my face pressed up against the screen.

Since no one I've asked knows who his real life counterpart is, we've decided to call him Jesus.

Rainbow annual 1983 - the letter F was invented the year I was born

I was perusing the 1983 Rainbow annual, as I sometimes do. This has a special place in my heart because I was born in 1983. Not really, it's just that all the others are in a box underneath other boxes, and I can't be arsed to get them.

Geoffrey's youth and Bungle's hairiness aren't the issues here - what I'm more concerned with is a full page, illustrated tribute to words beginning with the letter F -

"There are lots of things in the picture beginning with the letter F. How many can you find?" Okey dokey then, challenge accepted. Here is my list -

1. Fat man cooking fish
2. Fish being cooked by a fat man
3. Fruit on a plate that looks like some tits
4. Fucking stupid haircut
5. Fucking stupid dungarees
6. Fire burning the fat man's balls
7. Faeces (in the orange baby's nappy)
8. Fancy picnic rug
9. Fapping (out of shot)
10. Fictional family (I can tell this because they all get along)

I think my answers are all 100% correct, and I will bitchslap anyone who says otherwise.

Rainbow - A trip to the seaside

Rainbow - A visit from the doctor and A bus ride

Let's just take a minute to appreciate the joy of syntax here. According to this title, there are several possibilities as to what is going on in this book -

1. The gang get a visit from the doctor, and a visit from a bus ride. How is this even possible?

2. It's the lyrics to that well known song "A visit" from the smash hit musical "The doctor and a bus ride"

3. It's one long saga about how the doctor visits someone, then someone else rides a bus, for a reason that could only be connected to the first story by Ingmar Bergman

4. It's two separate but equally fucked up stories

Sadly, #4 is the correct answer. How I wish the correct answer was #2.

One more note on the cover - what the hell is "Station 7"? That sounds far too much like something out of The Hunger Games.

In this post I shall be reading the first story - "A visit from the doctor" - and probably laughing heartily while I do it.

"George isn't feeling well." Not surprising really, since he appears to be composed entirely of dots. Apart from this, he is apparently entering the menopause.

"You look like shit" say Zippy and Bungle.

"I feel like shit" says George.

Bungle, whose head has shrunk, decides George better go to bed. 

Zippy, as usual, decides to develop a case of Munchausen Syndrome, citing the time he caught the plague. He also appears to have caught George's Pointillism disease.

Oh yes? Bungle takes the doctor upstairs? This could be getting interesting.

Oh bollocks, it's only so she can give George a rectal examination or something. Chin up G, it's only the menopause.

Incidentally, how big is George supposed to be? or is the doctor really small? I mean, compare that picture with one of George next to Geoffrey -

Anyway.

The doctor "takes out a thing that looks like a snake with a mirror on one end and two long tubes on the other."

My god, this reads like something from 50 shades of grey, which I am ashamed to admit I've read. And when I say 'read', I mean 'make myself look at while simultaneously trying not to gouge my own eyes out'. Never again.

George asks what a stethoscope does, and whether it will hurt. How old is George supposed to be, one? Why doesn't he know anything ever? More to the point, why is Bungle in charge? Bungle, who once started crying because Zippy wouldn't share his crayons?

Also - "Doctors don't hurt people - they make them better." Try telling that to Harold Shipman.

Zippy demands a go on the stethoscope. Apparently George's heart goes "bar-boom, bar-boom". I'm pretty sure my heart doesn't do that. Also, I can't say 'bar-boom' without sounding like Fred Elliot.

Then George has a go on the stethoscope. I'm dying for the doctor to just get pissed off with them and start shouting into the other end.

For fuck's sake, George doesn't know what a temperature is. Bungle does though, with his large forehead. Why is Bungle in charge? Is it because the artist can't draw Geoffrey? I wouldn't be surprised.

The doctor takes George's temperature, sadly only orally. This scene has massive potential -

Sadly, this potential is never realised. Not that I actually wanted it to be. Eew.

The doctor declares that George has got a bit of a cold, and should stay in bed all day. Listen lady, having 'a bit of a cold' does not justify staying in bed for the day. That privilege comes with a hangover.

George whinges about being bored in bed. I hesitate to suggest what he could do to pass the time.

Luckily for George, Zippy and Bungle keep him company upstairs. Zippy amuses himself by giving Bungle the finger. I love Zippy.

Fin.

Rainbow - Is it true that milk comes from cow sex?

Once again I find myself apologising profusely for my latest absence, especially since I seem to have some new followers since my last post. I could give any number of reasons for not posting, but the truth is I'm just a bit crap.
Now then. I've never seen this episode of Rainbow before, but with a title like Where does milk come from? I couldn't pass up the opportunity to critique it in reasonable and adult manner.


Part 1 -

We begin by getting a bizarre view of life in the Rainbow house - Geoffrey has reservations about letting the others watch TV. He must think TV is a bad thing, despite BEING ON FUCKING TV HIMSELF.

Note that, when the TV is finally switched on, it's under the window where no one can see it anyway.

We are treated to a free milkshake recipe, courtesy of the Why Don't You rip of on the TV*

While George and Zippy are chatting away about how much they love milkshakes, Bungle appears to be having an existential crisis -

Look at that expression - it just screams "Oh God I'm nearly 40 and I'm Bungle for a living."

The gang decide to make milkshakes, but realise there is no milk left to shake. Luckily, Geoffrey saves the day by coming in and putting two pints down on the table, a table which he then tells the others to clear. God I love Geoffrey logic. 

George asks the bajillion dollar question - "Where does milk come from?" this is an ace question because it will inevitably lead to "Where do babies come from?" At least it will if it's got any sense.

NB - milk doesn't necessarily come from cows. I saw almond milk the other day. Although I didn't actually see the almonds being milked.

Yessssss, a film of some cows, I love cows, I...hang on, what the fuck is Geoffrey doing there? With a flat cap and a sinister smile? No wonder the cows are running away.

I wonder if cows know they're being milked? I wonder how they feel about it?

Ha, ha, ha ha, ha ha ha ha ha ha, Geoffrey just said "Sorry Mr Cow!" Mr Cow? I can see how he'd be having to apologise if he'd been trying to milk a bull.

Cut to a Lines And Shapes. I wonder what it's going to be? I predict it's going to be the Earth, after it got too hot and melted a bit -

I was wrong. I am ashamed.

Holy hell, how much milk did that cow produce? no wonder she looks so pleased with herself.

Thank god it's the interval now, I need a rest after all that excitement.

Part 2 -

Since the uploader has decided to be a bit of a dick today, here is the Youtube link to part 2 just to be on the safe side. Because I know you're all dying to watch part 2 so much.

Part 2!

Best. Song. Ever. Accompanied by some very fancy dancing courtesy of Geoffrey.

Bugger. When Bungle asks "how does the milk get into the bottle?", I genuinely thought he was going to ask "how does the milk get into the cow?" WHEN is Geoffrey going to explain about cow sex?

How I imagine cow sex.

There follows a rather nifty, Sesame Street style film, detailing the life cycle of a wild milk.

Wow. Rod Jane and freddy don't just know a song about milk, they know a song about actually being milk.These three really do know songs about everything. I bet they also know songs about European fishing policy and hotel employee union regulations.

Incidentally, who makes the best milk bottle? I'm voting for Freddy, just because I like Freddy the best. Plus, Freddy's bottle top hat is worn at a jaunty and rakish angle -

Back to the action. the guys are making milkshakes.** And then, ooh, Zippy and George are going to tell today's story! 

Why is Bungle always the milkmaid? I mean, only when a milkmaid is required, of course.***

I know this cow. This cow has moonlighted in several episodes. I hope she got paid Equity rates.

THIS. THIS SCENE RIGHT HERE -

This is what Rainbow's all about - two grown men, one in a bear suit, trying to wrestle a pantomime cow to the ground.

Hang on, they're feeding the cow milk so it will produce milk? On what planet will that help? That's like making a human being drink their own piss in order to be able to go. Also, eew.

The show ends rather abruptly. I think they got the cow milked in the end, although if there was any logic in the Rainbow universe, the cow would squirt grass as a result of being fed milk, since everything appears to be the wrong way round. if I ever have a pet cow, as is my ambition, I'll feed her properly, not with Bungle's crappy milkshake with hair in it.

* Fuck that recipe. For the best milkshakes, all you need is milk, ice cream, and my super duper electric whisk thingy. None of this fruit bullshit. Fruit is evil.

** Also, your milkshake might be more successful if you don't let Bungle anywhere near it. Less hairy.

*** I just remembered, George was a milkmaid once, in Tommy Tucker.

Childhood stuff # 10 - Lionel

Everyone has a teddy bear or an equivalent stuffed best friend - one toy you've had ever since you can remember, and who will stay with you until you die, aged 40, in a bizarre scrabble related accident. Your teddy will probably be buried with you. I imagine it will have its own group of teddy mourners, all dressed in knitted top hats and tails, all crying knitted tears.

This is my partner in crime, his name is Lionel -

Lionel is my best friend in the whole world. He's seen me through ten house moves, school (both attending and bunking off), university, jobs both good and bad, and any number of failed relationships. To some people he is a sad looking mouse, but those people are wrong/stupid. He is a bear, albeit a very angry, disappointed looking bear. 

Lionel is named after light entertainer and all round 1980s staple Lionel Blair, who I was obsessed with as a toddler. I was also obsessed with Leslie Crowther and Tosh from The Bill, for some godforsaken reason. Children are weird.

So. A disgruntled looking bear/mouse, knitted from insanely scratchy wool. I wonder what made the 3 year old me take to him so readily and with such gusto? God knows really, but I'm glad I did, because he's certainly stuck it out. Whereas millions of Beanie Babies, Care Bears and Mickey Mouses (Mickey Mice?) will undoubtedly have fallen long ago, Lionel is badass. He sits, to this day, looking like a knitted Ena Sharples, disapproving of everything. Just like me. That's why I love him.