Squidward

Squidward J. Quincy Tentacles is a fictional character in Nickelodeon's animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. Created and designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, he is voiced by actor Rodger Bumpass. Squidward first appeared on television in the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. He is SpongeBob and Patrick's grumpy next-door neighbor and the former's coworker at the Krusty Krab who lives in an Easter Island moai head. He is a mostly unpleasant artist and musician, and his favorite hobbies are painting self-portraits and playing the clarinet. Squidward is depicted as a grumpy and bitter turquoise octopus. He lives in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom in a moai situated between SpongeBob SquarePants' pineapple house and Patrick Star's rock.[25] Squidward is annoyed by his neighbors for their perpetual laughter and boisterous behavior, though SpongeBob and Patrick are oblivious to being a nuisance to Squidward.[26] Squidward lives in a constant state of self-pity and misery; he is unhappy with his humdrum lifestyle and yearns for celebrity status, wealth, hair, and a glamorous and distinguished career as a musician or painter with a passion for art and playing the clarinet, although he has no actual talent for either.[27] However, he is left to endure the lowly status as a fast-food cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant. Squidward resents his job and is irritated by his greedy employer Mr. Krabs and by having his own resented neighbor SpongeBob as a colleague but basically refuses to take his chances with more valuable lines of work.[28] He is a very cynical, selfish, sassy (as Patchy the Pirate stated in a deleted scene), introverted (as he stated himself), and a stick-in-the-mud individual. He works as the cashier at the Krusty Krab, a job he usually hates, due to SpongeBob's annoyance and Mr. Krabs' cheapness. Squidward is frequently annoyed by SpongeBob's loud and cheerful behavior, but he sometimes sticks up for SpongeBob and sees him as a friend. He can also have a supportive side for his boss on occasion. Patrick also annoys him due to his stupidity and both Patrick and SpongeBob unknowingly annoy and trespass into his house. Squidward is a turquoise (specifically PMS 333) colored octopus with purple suction cups at the end of his tentacles. As an octopus, Squidward has eight limbs in total. Two of his tentacles are used as arms, as well as six composing legs always having one tucked behind the two in front, which also tend to make the shape of a plus sign when he stands in place. Whenever he walks, his suction cups stick to the floor, meaning that he walks with a distinct squelching noise. Squidward has a large cranium with eight spots on the top of it. He also has a nasal voice, a skinny body, a big droopy nose, a wide mouth, and yellow eyes with rectangular maroon irises. When he laughs, his nose appears to deflate and inflate repeatedly (in earlier episodes, this was accompanied by a sound effect.) He wears a golden-brown polo shirt. Squidward is considered grumpy, rude, sassy, introverted, stubborn, bad-tempered, sarcastic, egotistical, snobby, unhappy, miserable, apathetic, pessimistic, hypocritical, and sometimes sadistic. He views the world in such a negative light that he is rarely seen greeting anyone with a smile. He hates his job at the Krusty Krab and is often seen sleeping or reading on the job instead of working as he is continually lazy on the job. Despite his bad temper, he is still one of the most intelligent and educated characters. He has a cynical attitude, a grandiose sense of self, and sees others as uncivilized morons while failing to accept his shortcomings. He often believes that Patrick and SpongeBob are morons due to their annoying behavior. Squidward sees himself as misunderstood and unappreciated, blaming society for his failures. Oftentimes his anger happens due to SpongeBob and Patrick annoying him even though they do not see how annoying they are. He is often a jerk due to this, though Squilliam is often even more of one than Squidward is. He is annoyingly pretentious in his pursuit of fame and is either unwilling or unable to spot 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 is painfully clear that SpongeBob has artistic genius. Furthermore, Squidward takes credit for creating the David statue when SpongeBob is the actual creator. His motive was to impress the art appraiser. In the episode "Bubblestand," he belittles SpongeBob's bubble blowing. As such, Squidward is also jealous of those who are more artistic or talented than he is, for example, Incidental 41, Patrick Star, Mr. Krabs, Squilliam Fancyson, and even the puppet Mini Squidward which SpongeBob created. In "Slimy Dancing," Squidward cheats during the dance show by hiding in SpongeBob's body and using the latter's physical identity and talents to win the trophy. He attempts to steal the dance trophy after being criticized by the judges, only to be thrown out by the security. In "Professor Squidward," Squidward impersonates Squilliam Fancyson while exercising his power as a music teacher, preceding his arrest by the police. In "Sold!," after knowing that SpongeBob and Patrick think Nick Fishkins has bought their homes, Squidward lies that a 14-member family has moved into SpongeBob's pineapple and an 8-member rock band with several instruments has moved into Patrick's rock. SpongeBob and Patrick would both fall for this lie until they find out that they still own their houses. When SpongeBob and Patrick come to their old houses, he puts on outfits to match the characters that he made up. Squidward is generally portrayed as an overall failure. His musical skills with the clarinet are generally portrayed as sub-par, from mediocre to excruciatingly horrible. In "Sweet and Sour Squid," Squidward's disastrous clarinet playing creates a mass noise disturbance throughout the town, prompting the authorities' arrival. However, there have been numerous exceptions - such as in "Bubblestand" and "Hello Bikini Bottom!" - where he plays nicely. At the end of "Christmas Who?," he manages to play well with the wooden clarinet SpongeBob carved for him. In "That's No Lady," he manages to play a nice tune to woo "Patricia," who he does not know that it is Patrick in disguise until the end of the episode. Also, in "Best Day Ever," he even has a concert where he plays beautifully and receives thunderous applause from the audience. SpongeBob was even on the VIP list for it. It seems that he is capable of playing the clarinet very well by providing a full effort. He plays well enough in "Hello Bikini Bottom!" for a musical manager to offer him and SpongeBob a job. He also - if the player plays well - plays well in the Rock Bottom mini-game in Lights, Camera, Pants!, along with Beats Me. He is also first chair in the Bikini Bottom Orchestra.[30] He often lets this success go to his head. In "Skill Crane," Squidward's final success in winning from the toy claw machine goes to his head and influences him to use a construction crane; his out-of-control usage of said crane leads to the demolition of the future site of a mall, and eventually the Krusty Krab. In "Snowball Effect," after pelting SpongeBob and Patrick with snowballs, he takes the snowball fight too far and builds a massive fort and throws a bunch of snowballs, believing he is dominating the snowball fight. His overall artistic style is shown to be abstract and overly sophisticated, and his works are commonly panned by his audiences. His failure is shown to be due to his bad taste and arrogance, rather than a genuine lack of talent as he thinks he is a good artist. This is supported by "MuseBob ModelPants," where he is a successful artist when he uses SpongeBob as a muse. All of the art Squidward usually creates centers on himself, apparently holding his very being to be an artistic wonder and never even considers depicting anything else. In the episode "One Krabs Trash," Squidward is shown bringing flowers to a gravestone reading "Here Lies Squidward's Hopes and Dreams," with Mr. Krabs responding "What a baby." Because of this, he is portrayed to be the failure of an artist. In "Out of the Picture," an art dealer mentions that none of Squidward's artwork will ever have any monetary value unless he is "out of the picture," in which Mr. Krabs takes literally and attempts to kill him. In "The Googly Artiste," when Squidward showed an art dealer one of his artistic creations, the art dealer was repulsed by it. In "Can You Spare a Dime?," when Squidward went homeless after quitting his job, he mentions that no one would take his paintings, so he had to eat them. However, in "Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost" he has shown to make good art in some artistic mediums, including wax-sculpting, pottery, and even paintings, but gets no recognition for them. Despite his lack of success, Squidward is tireless in his pursuit of artistic achievement. Squidward does have artistic talent, but he is just too lazy and arrogant to practice. Given how Squidward is depicted as a loser in most regards, he can use his narcissism as a defense mechanism to make him feel as if he has some form of self-worth. Outwardly, he shows signs of modest success: he lives in a big, well-tended house, with no signs of slothfulness, and finds plenty of time to lead an active, involved life. Squidward is well-educated and knows his history. He is intelligent and has a lot of worldly knowledge, especially compared to those of SpongeBob and Patrick. Squidward is also a skilled driver, as he manages to drive virtually everything, from a traditional bike, a boat, car, and even a tractor compared to SpongeBob who can't really do so with a boat due to his nervousness. When he is at the Krusty Krab, he is a lazy, s