This is the ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ Clip That Fans Say Predicted Our A.I. Purgatory
Some SpongeBob SquarePants jokes are far too real. Others are so ahead of their time that they’re practically caked in chrome.
Of all the animated comedy shows to come out of Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants stands alone as the single most accessible kids’ show that parents could enjoy, too. When SpongeBob first premiered in 1999, DreamWorks Animation and their magnum opus Shrek hadn’t yet blown the doors off of kids’ comedies with hidden adult humor hidden, so SpongeBob was ahead of the curve.
For instance, take the SpongeBob SquarePants Season Four episode “Selling Out,” in which the greedy Mr. Krabs sells the Krusty Krab to an ultra-wealthy tech enthusiast who replaces the love-based assembly system for the greatest burger in Bikini Bottom with an automated conveyor belt operation that makes Krabby Patties out of gray sludge.
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Needless to say, no generative artificial intelligence tools were used in the making of this gag:
While SpongeBob SquarePants writers Zeus Cervas, Erik C. Wiese and Tim Hill likely wrote “Selling Out" as a satire of how actual, real-life fast food chains treat the creation of their food products, everything about the above 92 seconds, from the robotic slop assembly line to the automated cash register to the “Code Red: Free Thinker!” is painfully applicable in an era when Fortune 500 companies are shoehorning artificial intelligence into their daily operations while laying off human workers in the process.
In the creative space, all this A.I. “innovation” is creating a facsimile of human artistry that only passes for the real thing when the customers are asleep at the table. Peel back the layers, and all the uncanny valley crap that companies like Coca-Cola are now pushing is just like the innards of the artificial patty: gray sludge in the shape of true inspiration.
Thankfully, Mr. Krabs had more integrity than so many modern money-grubbers who continue to embrace A.I. at the expense of their work force, their final product and their customers, and he bought back “Krabby O'Mondays” in order to return it to its former glory. Maybe, one day, someone will do the same thing to Sports Illustrated.
