Squidward Tentacles

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SpongeBob SquarePants character
Squidward Tentacles
General Information
Gender:	Male
Color:	Pale Aquamarine
Eye Color:	Maroon
Marital status:	Single
Address:	122 Conch Street, Bikini Bottom, Pacific Ocean
Occupation(s):	Cashier of The Krusty Krab Fry Cook of The Krusty Krab (Pickles, Hooky, The Algae's Always Greener) Briefly waiter at Krabby O'Mondays Manager of The Krusty Krab 2 (The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie)
Aliases:	Squid, Squidder, Squidwardiar, Squidster, Squiddy, Mr. Tennisballs, Squidward Tentpoles, Squidward Tortelleni, Santa Claus, Reflecto, Captain Magma, Mr. Squidward, Smelly
Classification
Kingdom:	Animalia (Animal)
Phylum:	Mollusca
Class:	Cephalopoda
Order:	Octopus
Family & Friends
Family:	Mother (Mrs. Tentacles) (Seen in Fools in April, Krusty Towers, and Ghost Host Father (Mr. Tentacles, possibly deceased)
Ancestors:	Squog Squidly (7th great grandfather)
Pet(s):	Snellie (Temporarily)
Friends:	Clari (his clarinet), SpongeBob (Naughty Nautical Neighbors), Patrick (Naughty Nautical Neighbors)
Employer:	Eugene H. Krabs
Employees:	SpongeBob SquarePants (Squilliam Returns) Patrick Star (Squilliam Returns) Eugene H. Krabs (Squilliam Returns) Residents of Bikini Bottom (Band Geeks)
Enemies:	Squilliam Fancyson Sheldon J. Plankton
Favorites
Food(s):	Krabby Patties Canned bread Chocolate Swedish Barnacle Balls
Song(s):	"Solitude in E Minor"
Series Information
First appearance:	Help Wanted
Portrayer:	Rodger Bumpass Tom Kenny (laughing voice in Funny Pants) John Sterchi (Story Reader book, Grand Prize Winner!) Renzo Jiménez (Latin America)
Other Information
Interests:	Art, Music, Dance, Reading, Fancy Living, trying to have a nice Sunday, having a foot massage every Sunday, and trying to have peace and quiet.
Powers/Abilities:	was Captain Magma in the Mermaidman and Barnacleboy 5. Spinning 5 plates at once (Pressure) Can transform into a typical octopus (Squid's Day Off)
Phobia(s):	claustrophobia[1]
License Plate:	Don't ask me about my day (Dying for Pie)

Squidward Tentacles is a fictional character in the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is the grumpy cashier of the Krusty Krab. The character is voiced by Rodger Bumpass.

Contents 1 Character 2 Residence 3 Occupation 4 Leisure 5 Annoyance 6 Tentacle Acres 7 Family 8 Rivalry 9 Animation 10 Cultural References 11 Name and classification 12 Trivia 13 Footnotes

[edit] Character

Squidward's character is a complex bundle of adult failings and successes, and, like the show, presents a rich social commentary. While his failings are of his own making, he is also a victim of modern society.

He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of the arts, unable to spot raw talent and creativity, even belittling it. He lauds "cultivated taste" and accepted standards. In the episode "Artist Unknown", he insists that his pupil SpongeBob "show his method", even when it's painfully clear that SpongeBob is creating works of artistic genius. In "Bubblestand", he belittles SpongeBob's brilliant bubble-blowing. Such episodes can be taken as a punch by the cartoonists at their pretentious but failed art-school classmates who, instead of being recognized masters, must now work at low, demeaning jobs.

In certain ways, Squidward's life is portrayed as a failure. In "One Krab's Trash", he visits a cemetery to lay flowers at a headstone that reads, "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams." Yet he has not sunk into despondency: he is tireless in his pursuit of music, his painting, his sculpture, oblivious to his lack of talent. (Season 4 implies that it's because his 7th Great Grandfather Squidley could not play the clarinet right, and cursed Squidward ten-fold, as seen in "Dunces and Dragons".

Outwardly, he in fact shows signs of modest success: he lives in a nice, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life. Not conscious of his failings, he acknowledges them subconsciously by his outsized sarcasm. All of his most famous and most quotable lines are sarcastic.

He is well-educated, knows his history, and has a strong anti-capitalist bent. At work, he is not only careless, sloppy and lazy, but even occasionally engages in Marxist, labor-party sloganeering. In the episode "Squid on Strike", he organizes a worker's strike at the Krusty Krab, replete with talk of "the proletariat", working-class oppression, protest techniques and organization. He even incites labor unrest, resulting in the destruction of the Krusty Krab.

In the end, Squidward finds a way of redeeming himself. He has various endearing traits, and, despite himself, often manages to keep an open mind. In the episode "Squidville", he moves to a town filled with his own peers, other octopuses who share his tastes and outlook on life. Here, he is forced to face how boring and oppressive his desired lifestyle really is, and he is able to ultimately break free of its bonds with a bit of inspired silliness.

Even though Squidward has tentacles, it is revealed in the episode "Once Bitten" that he has both fingers and toes. However, this could just be a sight gag.

In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V," it is revealed that Squidward used to have a girlfriend when he remembered the good times he had at make-out reef.

[edit] Residence

Squidward lives in a house resembling an Easter Island moai, placed between SpongeBob and Patrick's houses at 122 Conch Street. It has been personified several times. Despite Squidward's wish for peace and quiet, his two neighbors, SpongeBob and Patrick, make it nearly impossible, due to their high level of childish immaturity and silliness. If Squidward had the choice, he would move. He did in "Squidville", but ultimately decided that he had moved somewhere even worse. Similarly in "Opposite Day", Squidward tried to move but SpongeBob had scared away the Real Estate agent and Squidward had to stay.

[edit] Occupation

Squidward Tentacles works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, along with his co-worker, SpongeBob. Generally, he despises his job and loves the thought of getting fired, as he revealed in As Seen on TV when he told SpongeBob to keep the customers waiting, though he only attempts to quit in one episode. He wouldn't work there if he didn't need the money. He doesn't take his work very seriously, being the exact opposite of SpongeBob. In "Just One Bite", it was revealed that Squidward had never eaten a Krabby Patty. He insists that they are disgusting, but after trying a bite of one, he falls in love with it. He also was the manager of the Krusty Krab 2 for six days in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

[edit] Leisure

An avid patron of the arts, Squidward has a strong affection for interpretive dance, sculpture, painting, and playing the clarinet, but seems to have almost no talent for any of them whatsoever, although he does play the clarinet beautifully at the end of the Christmas special, and at the end of the Bubblestand episode. He has often tried to impress the public with his artistic exhibitions, but is always either unrecognized, mocked by his audience, or upstaged by SpongeBob. Squidward always wants to be the center of attention but rarely ever is.

All his artwork, from sculptures to paintings, depicts himself in a way, even over-painting done works with his own face.

He has tried several things to reach the fame he desires: hosting a talent show, starting his own astrology spin-off, forming a band, and so on, yet he can't seem to get much of a following. Mr. Krabs and Patrick also seem to like him, though it may be argued that Mr. Krabs only likes Squidward because of his allegiance with the Krusty Krab. Squidward considers himself the greatest and most unrecognized clarinet player of all time, though most undersea life that hear him play will argue that he is a mediocre clarinet player, and his clarinet playing often gets him into trouble (or injured in a comic and brutal fashion, such as Spongebob launching an airborne marshmallow into his throat in an attempt to get him to stop playing). SpongeBob has told Squidward he doesn't play the clarinet well. It is amusing to note that Squidward once said that anyone can be a bigshot in a hick-town like Bikini Bottom, but he can never make a name for himself. It is sort of ironic how the person in the town who probably tries most to make a name for himself can't, even though it doesn't seem too hard.

In "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V," it is revealed that Squidward used to have a girlfriend when he remembered the good times he had at make-out reef.

[edit] Annoyance

Squidward finds SpongeBob a complete annoyance. He tends to let everyone annoy him, especially those who want to be his friend, although at many times his impatience of the loud and overbearing SpongeBob is quite justified. Often, Squidward infers Spongebob's simple-minded comments to be challenges. Proceeding this, he often goes out of his way to prove Spongebob he win the "challenge", often taking the whole thing entirely too seriously. His best friend is his clarinet, whose name is Clary (revealed in I Was a Teenage Gary). One of Squidward's greatest dreams and desires is to either have hair or to buy a wig. He seems to think he would look good with hair. Aside from his musical "talents", he enjoys painting several pictures of himself and hanging them up around his house. There are new paintings in his house in almost every episode, constantly changing and almost never the same. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward assigns SpongeBob to man the cash register when Mr. Krabs is at the hospital getting his arms reattached. Meanwhile, Squidward leaves the Krusty Krab for a day of relaxation, but he foolishly had SpongeBob convinced that he was doing "very important boss-like errands."

SpongeBob and Patrick always encourage Squidward to participate in their games, but this only annoys him. In particular, Patrick and SpongeBob often ask him to go jellyfishing with them. One time while he was trying to avoid Patrick and SpongeBob, he froze in the Krusty Krab's freezer and landed in the future, then went to the past. While in the past, he inadvertently invented jellyfishing, which was supposed to be SpongeBob who invented it.

While seemingly the eternal pessimist, he occasionally tries to be like SpongeBob (often with hopes that doing so will stop SpongeBob from bugging him), but does not ever get the hang of it. In one episode, however he finds himself putting a piece of paper on his nose and dancing a jig in insanity. When SpongeBob isn't looking, Squidward will start to act more like SpongeBob from time to time, especially in the earlier episodes like "Bubblestand" and "The Paper". Squidward's voice reveals a lot about his personality and attitude, much like SpongeBob's voice. In one episode, "Selling Out", he is forced to keep a smile glued to his face by the manager of Krabby O' Mondays which creates an interesting effect, as Squidward hardly ever smiles while showing his teeth.

Deep inside Squidward's chest of things he likes, it appears he actually likes SpongeBob! He would feel bored and sad if SpongeBob isn't there (see the episode Squidville for clearance of this.) Still, he doesn't like Patrick so much.

[edit] Tentacle Acres

In one episode, he sees an ad on TV about a town called Tentacle Acres, also known as Squidville, where many octopuses live in Easter Island heads just like him. He decides to move there, and for a while life is spectacular, as he finds a large community of like-minded octopuses into which he fits perfectly. Eventually, though, he starts to miss SpongeBob's reef blower games and the city of Bikini Bottom. In Tentacle Acres, daily life is all one big routine that Squidward tires of after a week or so. He begins to wreak havoc throughout the overly structured civilization of Tentacle Acres with a reef blower. Angry citizens corner him in an alleyway and demand that he leave. He obeyed their wishes, except he did so by launching himself into the open water above him via reef blower, screaming, "Woohoo! FREEDOM!".

[edit] Family

[edit] Rivalry

His rival is Squilliam Fancyson, from high school band class, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Squidward, but wears a robe and has a unibrow. He is living Squidward's dream (with a private island, a private heliport, a private lake, a private boat, a private mansion and even a private hot-air balloon/casino) and succeeded in everything Squidward failed in. He is a wealthy six-legged squid (or octopus, like Squidward is said to be at the beginning of this article), usually with many admirers following his presence. He constantly shows up to make fun of Squidward, however Squidward makes a jerk out of Squilliam when his ragtag band plays for the Bubble Bowl and turns out to be much better than he ever expected. At this sight, Squilliam has a heart attack and is taken to the hospital to recover.

Squilliam unintentionally gets back at Squidward in the episode "Squilliam Returns" which he is featured, when Squid's plan to turn the Krusty Krab into a five star restaurant blows up in his face when SpongeBob (who, on Squidward's request, emptied his mind of everything "except fine dining and breathing") forgot his name and subsequently everything else, in addition to Mr. Krabs's "appetizer" coming to life.

[edit] Animation

Squidward's animation style has changed throughout the series. In the episode "Squid's Day Off", Squidward mentions his bluish glow. This was an obvious in-joke, about Squidward's random color changes. In the very first episodes, Squidward actually does have a blueish glow, and almost looks blue in a few of them. In Season 4 episodes, he is completely green.

[edit] Cultural References

• Squidward looks and sounds similar to actor Ned Sparks (minus the cigar). Ironically Sparks was once caricatured as an underwater creature in a 1939 cartoon by Tex Avery.
• Squidward's vocal inflection is also very similar to famed Rat Packer Sammy Davis Jr.

[edit] Name and classification

Although his name is Squidward, he is actually an octopus. This was stated in a 20 minute "behind the scenes" feature of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie DVD with creator Stephen Hillenburg and a few voice actors. The following was quoted by Squidward's voice actor, Rodger Bumpass:

"I am Rodger Bumpass, and I play Squidward J. Tentacles. He's more of an adult, tries to be at least. He's an octopus, but they call him Squidward. I never understood. I guess Octoward just never worked for a name though."

Also, in another feature on the DVD, entitled "The Case of the SpongeBob," Stephen Hillenburg quotes the following:

"This is Squidward the octopus." Later in the feature, he quotes, "It was easier for animation to draw him with six legs instead of eight."

Squidward's name is a portmanteau of the word 'squid' and the name 'Edward' (Squilliam bears a similar combination of 'squid' and the name 'William').

[edit] Trivia

• Squidward is left-tentacled.
• Squidward owns a 'boat-mobile' (car), which can be seen briefly in , "Pizza Delivery", "Dying for Pie" and "Fools in April". However, they look different in each episode, indicating he might trade them in often. Bicycling is his preferred mode of transportation.
• In the Spongebob Squarepants Movie, Squidward is shown riding a recumbant, which is a reference to the preference to his voice-actor, Roger Bumpass.
• Squidward is claustrophobic, although Patrick Star thinks it means he is scared of Santa Claus. Perhaps this was brought on by the traumatic ending to Idiot Box.
• Squidward is ticklish as revealed in the episode "Once Bitten."
• Squidward is an octopus, not a squid (shown must clearly in "Pressure")
• Squidward has a button that says "I really wish I weren't here right now". (as seen in Krusty Krab Training Video)

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ as revealed in "Wishing You Well"

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