Western Animation - Discuss American, Canadian, and European cartoons here (or just bitch about wokeshit, I guess)

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Coolio55 said:
Literal EPI show where they repeatedly have Sandy Cheeks half-naked.
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I've been wondering this, is Sandy Cheeks a bad character? I don't feel particularly strongly either way about her, but when you look at her from a distance, she's certainly odd. My main issue is that she just has too many things going on.

  • Female, and the primary female character in the show. I know the show likes to pretend that Pearl and Mrs. Puff are on an equal playing field with her, but they're really not.
  • She's a squirrel. It's her main gimmick; she's a mammal under the sea. This is sometimes used for plots like the episode where she's hibernating.
  • Hardcore Texan, has a southern accent. Does rodeo stunts, yodeling and horseback riding.
  • Is an engineer/mechanic/scientist/inventor. This aspect of her is used more in later seasons, from what I remember. She has her suit and underwater biodome. Makes all sorts of inventions depending on what the plot needs.
  • Martial artist. Probably the strongest character in the main cast.
  • Does extreme sports.
  • Voice of reason in a lot of scenarios, usually when Patrick is present.
  • Main love interest(?) I'm mostly remembering a scene where they show Spongebob and Sandy getting married.

This is just from what I remember, I bet you I'm missing some things. Doesn't this just seem like a little much to you? It feels like she's two or three characters that have been combined into some super character who can be used in any plot. She steps on Plankton's toes a lot too. He's already the mad scientist character, but then you have this second, more sensible scientist now? So now, if you want to do a sci-fi plot, you have two characters you can do said plot with. You would probably pick Sandy in most cases, considering she isn't the main antagonist of the series and that's easier to write around.

She basically replaces Pearl and Larry the Lobster as well. If Spongebob is going to hang out with a girl, nine out of ten times it's going to be Sandy. Is there some sort of physical, sports plot? You could use Larry, I guess. But ehhhh, too complicated of a character design, too hard to animate, just use Sandy.

It's a really strange thing to do when setting up a cast of characters. Just have one that is good at everything.
 
Slumbie said:
Main love interest(?) I'm mostly remembering a scene where they show Spongebob and Sandy getting married.
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That was just a joke bit from that bizzare special Truth or Square, but the ratings trap advertising did try to make it seem real. Either way it was never brought up again, even as a joke.
 
Slumbie said:
Doesn't this just seem like a little much to you? It feels like she's two or three characters that have been combined into some super character who can be used in any plot. She steps on Plankton's toes a lot too. He's already the mad scientist character, but then you have this second, more sensible scientist now? So now, if you want to do a sci-fi plot, you have two characters you can do said plot with. You would probably pick Sandy in most cases, considering she isn't the main antagonist of the series and that's easier to write around.
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I'd say another issue with writing Sandy is that she isn't as easy to insert into a story as the other characters in SpongeBob's life. Patrick and Squidward are his neighbors, while Mr. Krabs and Plankton are a constant at his job. Sandy's treedome is far away from SpongeBob's house, so she can't pop over as often as Patrick can.
 
Slumbie said:
It's a really strange thing to do when setting up a cast of characters. Just have one that is good at everything.
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Not really? The primary characters are Spongebob, Squidward, Patrick, Sandy. Every other character is a secondary or tertiary character that exist to serve the plot involving those four main characters, it just so happens that Sandy is the most flexible of the four is all, and this is probably due in large part to the fact that Sandy is the odd one out being both female and a terrestrial animal.
 
Slumbie said:
  • Hardcore Texan, has a southern accent. Does rodeo stunts, yodeling and horseback riding.
  • Martial artist. Probably the strongest character in the main cast.
  • Does extreme sports.
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Those three traits are basically the same thing. The main point of Sandy as a main character (at first) was that she's a radical sports girl and the only non-sea creature in the cast. And then the writers remembered that she built a rocket once and abused the fuck out her scientific side.

Slumbie said:
She basically replaces Larry the Lobster as well.
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Not only Sandy was introduced first, Larry wasn't even part of the main cast in the original pitch bible, he's a recurring character at best.
 
Slumbie said:
Is an engineer/mechanic/scientist/inventor. This aspect of her is used more in later seasons, from what I remember. She has her suit and underwater biodome. Makes all sorts of inventions depending on what the plot needs.
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Even as a kid, I was never a fan of them focusing on the sciencey part of her character when that was easily the least interesting aspect of her.
 
Slumbie said:
Doesn't this just seem like a little much to you?
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i mean, it didn't seem weird as a child. "she's a woman, she's from land, she's smart, and is very stereotypically Texan" is a way of saying "she's nothing like patrick or spongebob" her doing karate lets her relate to spongebob. granted i havent watched since i was nine years old so some of the details are a little hard to remember.
 
My understanding of Sandy's existence isn't that the show needed "female representation", it's to emphasize the oddity of SpongeBob's world in that they just accept there's a squirrel living underwater with them and interacting with everyone. For one thing, it's a cartoon, so it's a "lol weird" aspect of it, but the show early on showed some realism with the characters (as in emphasizing characteristics of their biology) while using them in exaggerated situations. So Sandy's debut episode played around with that in having this well-meaning scientist squirrel living underwater and making fishy friends by inviting them to her place, but didn't disclose that her dome was full of air (possibly because she had previously explained she has to wear a helmet for air). But SpongeBob also didn't ask for water out of pride, and Sandy didn't think much of it even though she showed concern for him.

Also there's the episode where she went into hibernation playing everything up to eleven and breaking off the dial in the process. Lives rent-free in my head.

Anyway, I think the point is that Sandy over time got to be as nutty as SpongeBob in her own way, but can be trusted to turn to when things turn dicey. Just goes to show slapstick knows no gender. Or species. But it is telling that Sandy over time started showing up less, but not before getting Flanderized into being a stereotypical "smartass girlboss". "Karate Island" was the first I noticed that, even though the episode was a whole shout-out reference to martial arts media and was a nice send-off for Pat Morita.
 
I actually like how different she is to most of the characters, it adds a nice contrast as the only land creature along with the general distance she has between the main cast and reminds you that they're underwater in some episodes, (at least, back then, probably not anymore) so it makes episodes where she shows up with them, like that one where she competes to see if land and sea creatures are better, more interesting. And while she IS generally more sensible than Spongebob, she was at her most interesting when they played into her frequently taking things too far like the episode about too much kata, or the pre-hibernation one.
 
Sandy's a straight man who isn't a wet blanket like Squidward, a friend who isn't retarded like Patrick, and at times can boss Spongebob around but isn't as greedy/cruel as Mr. Krabs. She's a good character! Any weirdness with her is just an artefact of the show's decline after the movie; everyone got worse.
 
I'm realizing now that they 100% added the tutu to Sandy's bikini design to draw attention away from her crotch. It's not in the pitch bible.
They still tricked Nick into giving her pronounced breasts though (and depending on the costume model, they may still be visible even when not in bikini)
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Chromeo said:
Sandy's a straight man who isn't a wet blanket like Squidward, a friend who isn't retarded like Patrick, and at times can boss Spongebob around but isn't as greedy/cruel as Mr. Krabs. She's a good character! Any weirdness with her is just an artefact of the show's decline after the movie; everyone got worse.
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True, I still think of this classic moment.
 
Patrick's friendship with Spongebob is like something out of the Iliad for how emotionally intense it is.
We real people can only dream of having someone cry over our funerals as much as he does every time Spongebob moves away.
 
The Ultimate Ramotith said:
How is that a problem? I truly, honestly am confused.
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Griz is an asshole, Panda's a faggot, and Ice Bear is OP. I wanted to like this show especially since one of my closest friends loved it, but I just couldn't. The only exception was the giant burrito episode, and the opening song is catchy.
 
31 Black said:
Griz is an asshole, Panda's a faggot, and Ice Bear is OP. I wanted to like this show especially since one of my closest friends loved it, but I just couldn't. The only exception was the giant burrito episode, and the opening song is catchy.
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I’m still wishing they finished ice bears arc
 
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