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Stuffs (COMMS OPEN!!)@essnstuffs · Sep 3, 2025

everyone is kinda being dumb, so I want to make a quick thread on this topic right quick. 🧵

16 tweets2 min read♥ 58.2Koriginal

Summary

A thread debunking common misconceptions about SpongeBob's animation, explaining that classic seasons had storyboard translation issues resulting in poor art quality, and modern SpongeBob's expressive faces are actually consistent with the original vision rather than a decline in quality. The author argues criticism of modern SpongeBob often stems from nostalgia bias rather than actual production knowledge.

Summarized by ThreadOut AI from the full thread. May miss nuance — read the thread below.

  1. #1

    everyone is kinda being dumb, so I want to make a quick thread on this topic right quick. 🧵

    Hendony old acc@Hendy_is_here · Sep 2, 2025
  2. #2

    let's start with the "golden ratio" thing. while this advice is absolutely something to keep in mind depending on the artist, it shall be known that this is NOT an actual drawing done during production of the first three seasons. just a preference done by jay lender for a fan.

  3. #3

    classic spongebob is always seen as this on-model and reserved comedy when that was just far from the truth. look at the storyboards we have so far and you'll absolutely notice a clear life sucked right out of these drawings.

  4. #4

    the series always had these poor storyboard translation issues and it's really something that needs to be discussed more because I think it can help people reach a common ground with this strange idea of a cartoon having some wild takes with the expressions.

  5. #5

    seasons 2-3 were absolutely the worst at this, plenty of episodes having fucked over the storyboards absolutely hard. this entire bit from "dumped" genuinely messes me up dude because it feels like it could be straight from around season 4 or later!!

  6. #6

    modern spongebob, while absolutely being a bit on the sillier side compared to early on, is merely fixing the issue of these storyboard struggles and I think it's pretty cool that these artists can have a lot of fun now, especially when the outsourced studio has a good budget!

  7. #7

    the whole "meme face" thing is just kind of a disingenuous and borderline stupid mindset to have as well. the artists on the show are probably more worried about having a roof over their head than what some guy uses as a profile picture on here or whatever, this was confirmed.

  8. #8

    it's really funny how spongebob gets a lot of flack for this nowadays when a majority of cartoons today often have facial expressions that I'd say are on the same level but don't get much flack for it because I don't know. (it's nostalgia but that's just between us! 😉)

  9. #9

    and when I say it's because of "nostalgia" it isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's good to remember the show for what it once was. ..but it's really funny how many hurdles people will jump to say classic handled extreme faces different when it's damn near the same usage!

  10. #10

    this whole "putting a limit on what faces spongebob can make" thing just feels like talking to a wall sometimes because while yeah, you can prefer classic over modern, you can't say that a group of cartoonists (that came from ROCKO, mind you) weren't trying to make silly faces.

  11. #11

    the issue with these spongebob discourse topics is just that it's mostly from people not really in the art field that has researched this type of stuff because honestly it's like obvious when you learn a bit!

  12. #12

    now, the issue with modern spongebob is moreso a problem with the current studio. rough draft has a timing issue which makes a lot of the expressions happen a bit slower, holding onto what were probably keyframes a bit to long. season 12-14 absolutely suffered a budget slice.

  13. #13

    hell, if you want me to be honest, I think modern spongebob is visually the best cartoon nowadays purely for sticking so close to the boards, I appreciate it a lot and I completely get that it's not for everyone, but let's not spread misinformation about the production, k?

  14. #14

    one last thing I wanna add is just something that low-key doesn't need to be said since it's common sense, buuuut. if you want to claim modern spongebob does it every 2 seconds then provide a clip. other than that, it's just unfair to the artists and crew behind these seasons.

  15. #15

    i don't care if santy clause or jack frost are makin' snowcones, respect the people behind this show for singlehandedly carrying one of the last hand drawn cartoons we have left. don't claim respect all artists, then make a backhanded and biased comment towards these folks.

  16. #16

    anyways, thread over, I just wanted to give an artist's perspective on this whole ordeal, sorry non-sponge followers o' mine, but I like being an animation nerd lol. love y'all! 🧵