Are you ready kids?

If you recognize that question, then you know the answer:

Kids:    Aye-aye Captain.
Captain:    I can't hear you...
Kids:    Aye-Aye Captain!!
Captain:    Oh! Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
Kids:    SpongeBob SquarePants!
Captain:    Absorbent and yellow and porous is he!
Kids:    SpongeBob SquarePants!
Captain:    If nautical nonsense be something you wish...
Kids:    SpongeBob SquarePants!
Captain:    Then drop on the deck and flop like a fish!
Kids:    SpongeBob SquarePants!
Captain:    Ready?
EveryBody:    SpongeBob SquarePants! SpongeBob SquarePants! SpongeBob SquarePants!
Captain:    SpongeBob.... SquarePants! Haha.

It's the lyrics to SpongeBob's theme song, of course.  Did you sing it as your read it? Of course you did. Well, good old SpongeBob just celebrated his 10th anniversary on Nickelodeon and the yellow sponge has made a positive impact.  

New York Times writer Alessandra Stanly did a nice spread on him last July. "There have been books, dissertations and seminars dedicated to the study of the fun-loving yellow kitchen sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea," she wrote. "There was a theatrical-release movie version. President Obama said during the campaign that SpongeBob was his favorite television character, and that he rarely misses the show because he can't; it is always on in the Obama household. David Bowie and Johnny Depp are among the many stars who boast or blog about having been guest stars.

"Part of the show's mystique," she continues, "is precisely that it has so little edge or subversive double-entendres."

Other long-running shows of that genre, The Simpsons, now in its 20th season, and South Park which first appeared in 1997, have a strong and loyal following but they also have a lot more edge, for sure. SpongeBob Square Pants is a 'nice' show with plots and characters that almost everyone can enjoy without a censor or social translator.

"SpongeBob is an optimist, a naif and a child, and the unifyiing joke is that he is impervious to danger or dislike--as were Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Rocky and Bullwinkle and even Charlie Chaplin," says Stanley. "Mostly he is happy, though when he is upset, tears gush out  of his eyes like an open hydrant; in one episode SpongeBob cries so hard at having to leave his best friend, Patrick Star, to go to summer camp that he misses the 'Sun&Fun' boat, and boards a convict ship bound for 'Inferno Island' instead. He thinks the prison is a really enjoyable summer camp, and not even solitary confinement, breaking up rocks or prison slop can dissuade him."

SpongeBob is also a very good example. Just recently, a 12-year-old New York girl saved her best friend's life using a trick she learned from SpongeBob--the Heimlich maneuver. When saw her friend choking on her gum, she remembered how SpongeBob saved Squidward who had swallowed a clarinet, and did likewise.

Now who can't not like SpongeBob now? Seriously.

For much more fun, check out SpongeBob and his friends on his web site.