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What If The Movie Never Happened?


Young Nug

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Kudos to jjs for the idea.

We all know the story. SpongeBob was good. The movie happened. Now he's not good anymore. There are a multitude of reasons why this happened. The series was supposed to end with the film, so many writers and artists left after Season 3, leaving a skeleton crew to do the Season 4 episodes at the start. A lot of new writers came on as well. But, this raises a question.

What if the movie never happened?

What if the show was just renewed for a new Season after Season 3 ended? This would undoubtedly change the show, but it would also change the face of animation at that time. If the movie never happened, Camp Lazlo never would have aired. CL had almost 3/4 of the SpongeBob crew from pre-movie on it. If the movie never happened, would the old writers have stayed? Would new faces like Luke Brookshier or Zeus Cervas ever have come into play?

Would the show have gotten worse still? Would it have stayed the same? Would people still complain? I myself question if the series would even have continued, since the Movie is what made SpongeBob the worldwide phenomenon that he is today. But what do you think would have happened if the movie was never made?

Discuss.

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I think a majority of the Season 1-3 writing crew would've been retained, but like any show, new writers are an inevitability and after three seasons of (give or take) the same writers, I believe some writers would've left and some new ones would've been welcomed aboard. That being said, Season 4 would've probably been another Season 3 (if not better) if the movie hadn't happened and a large portion of the crew had stayed.

Season 5 probably would've been good too. After that, though, I don't know if the movie would've had much of a lasting impact on seasons after Season 5. Then it would be up to how unique the show itself could've stayed, and whether or not people would stay interested; it probably would've gone the way that most shows go and gone downhill in despite of itself.

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Well obviously there would be no post-movie haters. But people would eventually maybe leave anyway. So the earlier seasons after the movie would be better but the present would be the same.

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If the series never had a movie, it would have still declined, albeit more slowly. It would have been like The Simpsons, where the writers exhausted all of their ideas, moved on to other projects, and let inferior writers take their posts. The movie and cancellation just sped that process up. It's unfortunate, but hey! We got an awesome movie out of it.

If the movie never happened, Camp Lazlo never would have aired.

I don't think so. Camp Lazlo was an idea that Joe Murray had before SpongeBob even existed. He would have found a way to get his original crew back together to do the show, even if it did mean waiting a bit longer for their contracts with Nick to expire.

the Movie is what made SpongeBob the worldwide phenomenon that he is today.

SpongeBob was already a worldwide phenomenon when the movie came out. If he wasn't, Nick would have never put their money behind it after the failure of the Hey Arnold and Wild Thornberries movies. SpongeBob's flick made more than the aforementioned movies combined, so it was obviously a good decision. I'm not sure whether it made him even more of a phenomenon, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

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SpongeBob was already a worldwide phenomenon when the movie came out.

That may have been the case, but the movie is what put SpongeBob over the top and promoted him to the God-Tier he sits on today. The Movie increased SpongeBob's popularity by a margin.

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Obviously the old writers would've stayed since they wouldn't have had to work in such a big project that happened to be the movie. As for overall quality, I don't know but it would've continued until at least one more season since the show would've had a period of stagnation by Season 5 due to the lack of ideas. But no matter the scenario, I think the movie would've happened either way since the popularity of the show made enough profit for such project which seemed inevitable in the long run.

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Then again, the movie was sorta of a comeback for Spongebob in it's time, since the show was on hiatus for a while. But of course, all that Nick had in mind was to squeeze all the juice left of the show, considering it was and still is by far the most successful show they have.

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I really don't know. It would depend on how long Hillenburg would want to remain on board. I think the writers like Povenmire, Greenblatt, etc. would all eventually leave to make their respective projects. I mean think about this? Johnny Bravo originally had Butch Hartman and Seth MacFarlane as writers for the show. Johnny Bravo never had a major motion picture, but Hartman would go on to make The Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phantom, etc. while Seth MacFarlane would go on to make Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show. I think SpongeBob would probably still remain the same today if the first movie never happened. Maybe Hillenburg would be around a bit longer, but I think eventually he would leave the series. Just not as soon as he did. The only major difference would be the classification of pre-movie/post-movie episodes like teenj pointed out earlier.

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