SpongeWeb
When I was just a little kid, I absolutely loved SpongeBob SquarePants. For those who are unsure, SpongeBob SquarePants is an American children's animated T.V sitcom written and (used to be) produced by popular marine biologist Steven Hillenburg. The show aired on Nickelodeon on May 1st, 1999. It is about an anthropomorphic sponge known as SpongeBob SquarePants getting involved in all kinds of wacky and zany shenanigans with his friends like Patrick Star (an incredibly unintelligent yet lovable sea star), Squidward Tentacles (a grumpy, cynical, and pessimistic octopus), Mr. Krabs (a crab who is a greedy and selfish yet born leader), and Sandy Cheeks (a tough and prideful Texas squirrel).
Like most other children who knew this show, I would religiously watch this show every single day. As soon as SpongeBob's silly yet catchy theme song started playing on the T.V -- I would hog the television all to myself and wouldn't allow parents to catch a single glimpse of the so-called precious T.V.
Around season 7, when I was 16, there was a now-defunct website literally called "SpongeWeb". The website was pretty terrible, to say the least. It was poorly designed, had a lack of available content, and had actual microtransactions. You use Bikini Koins; a fictitious currency you used as coupons for various pieces of SpongeBob Merchandise on the website. The top price for Bikini Koins is genuinely $599.99 -- which is utterly ridiculous. About a year after season 8 was out, I saw on the news that the website was temporarily unavailable due to allegedly being tied to a crime. To me, I thought it was just some corporate bullshit specifically made to gain attention. Boy, was I wrong at the time.
Last year, I saw some news that said "Nickelodeon brings back popular children's website SpongeWeb"! I was relatively ecstatic to hear about this. Not piss-yourself levels of excitement obviously, but I just got excited to show my little brother the website, as he binge-watched SpongeBob at the time. So, I got on my computer, and looked up this particular website. I got to the website, and the memories came flooding back like a tsunami. The horrible yet memorable website design made me nearly sob a little bit out of nostalgia, as I remembered all of the memories and good times me and my at-the-time little sister had on the website.
However, I was pretty disappointed to find out my little brother was on vacation in New York City. I just went immediately to the website-exclusive episode section to look for some currently available SpongeBob webtoons. As I scrolled around this particular section, I found an episode that said "Deformed Doofus". It had a simple glue-white background and the lettering for the title card was a light red color. It had a few bits of red on it, was poorly made, and had binary code at the top. Confusing, but obviously not scary or anything. I clicked, and it immediately went to the episode, which wasn't necessarily odd and was rather normal for the website.
It started pretty normal, the silly theme song and the typical title card played as usual -- except the music playing during the before-episode credits had a noticeable "spooky" vibe. It overtly wasn't creepy, but it likely would be creepy to children. What was most odd was that the executive producer for the episode was someone named Jonathan McElroy.
The beginning of the episode wasn't anything special. The episode beginning was the complete definition of a typical seasons 6-8 episode, extreme overuse of dumb shit like fart jokes, butt jokes, and overall stupid gross-out jokes; except the usage of the humor was genuinely insane. The beginning overall just wasn't anything special to talk about, it was just SpongeBob and Patrick being obnoxious dumbasses and being a nuisance to Squidward. Overall, the episode beginning reminded me of a generic Ren and Stimpy knock-off -- except completely lacking the charm or fun of Ren and Stimpy.
Unexpectedly, Patrick immediately said "Lets go to Squidward's room!". "Yeah!" SpongeBob replied in an annoying voice. As they opened the door to the cranky bluish cephalopod's house, it let out a cringe-inducing and surprisingly realistic creak. It kinda sounded like they recorded a real old door creaking for this specific scene.
As the duo walked about, they're wasn't really anything notable I could talk about. It was just awkward silence and the occasional quiet noise made by SpongeBob or Patrick. So, because it was getting boring, I decided to play on my phone for a bit. That is, until my ears were attacked with an incredibly loud door slam.
I looked at my computer, and noticed that the animation was choppy and sub-par. I didn't know why, but it heavily reminded me of The Wacky World of Tex Avery's animation (an Animaniacs ripoff). SpongeBob and Patrick quietly walked through the barely visible doorway, and walked into what looked like Squidward's clarinet-playing room.
The lights began to flicker violently and quickly, and there were multiple blink-and-you'll-miss-it moments during this light flickering segment. I, however, somehow managed to successfully see a glimpse of who I thought was Mr. Krabs. Suddenly, the lights fully turned on, and SpongeBob let out a rather irritating scream, with Patrick doing the same. (The screams still had the exaggerated cartoonish vibe to them).
I thought it was just going to be a stupid attempt at random=funny humor, but I was completely shocked to discover what came after that shot. It was a maniacal Squidward, having large, circular teeth, grayish hairs on his chin, black eyes lacking irises and having small, white dots for pupils, and was drooling profusely like a rabid dog. He was standing directly by a chained up Mr. Krabs who was constantly screaming for him to let go.
SpongeBob demanded for Squidward to let Krabs go, but Squidward didn't even seem to realize. I could hear the fear and horror in SpongeBob's voice, and he clearly tried his absolute hardest to be as intimidating and strict as possible. Everytime he tried to reason with Squidward, he would just let out quiet, whimpery chokes of fear.
Patrick, however, was the complete opposite. He seemed furious. He fast-walked towards the octopus; only to be greeted with a feral, shrill screech. Squidward grew disgustingly long, out-of-proportion nails resembling that of a human's and slashed the poor starfish across the face, effortlessly tearing through his skin the way a cougar's claws would rip through a human. Pink skin ripped off of his face. He casually picked up the unconscious body of Patrick and tossed him several meters away. Patrick, however -- thankfully didn't die. He was still breathing and making goofy noises, which at least toned down this shit for me.
SpongeBob was horrified, and instantly opened up the window and jumped through. The episode then suddenly ended. I sat there, contemplating about what the hell I just saw. I couldn't ever let my little brother see this. I knew SpongeBob SquarePants had some pretty messed up stuff here and there when it came to gross-up shots and hidden sex jokes, but what kind of sick fuck would put this in a children's show? I immediately went to block the site.
Out of some morbid curiosity, I looked up Jonathan McElroy on Google. The first result was a news article that said that John would create disturbing and inaccurate representations of cartoon characters to lure in kids and avoid similarities with the originals, and would wear costumes of popular children's characters (primarily Mickey Mouse and SpongeBob) so he could kidnap them and kill them. The latest bodies were discovered in an abandoned building; stuffed inside crudely-made suits of children's characters.
The site also said that Nickelodeon didn't actually own the website, rather that John illegally made the website without Nick's permission and specifically designed it to torment children about what he's done, Apparently, some of the more violent scenes in these videos on the site were based off of how John killed his victims.
I was horrified, disgusted, and angry. I couldn't believe this was all true. I REALLY hope there is a special place in hell for that sick bastard. After the incident, I didn't see SpongeBob the same way for a while. Yes -- I've stumbled upon offensive memes, crude parodies, weird fan-art, and countless more. But the crimes tied to an already creepy "episode" just ruined a good part of my childhood.
A few months later, I read that John was finally arrested and will get the death penalty. He admitted that he killed multiple people with the approximate estimate being about 64 confirmed deaths. I was so excited and happy to find out that this revolting motherfucker would be killed.
During the same day, my little brother came to visit my house after his vacation was over. He told me about a story during the vacation. It was mostly just about him talking about the cool stuff he found over there; but he said one thing that made my heart drop into my stomach.
He said that outside his window, was SpongeBob, waving at him through the door, telling him to come to Bikini Bottom. I told him it wasn't SpongeBob, and that it was a bad man. My mom found out about the horrific news, and she didn't let my little brother watch SpongeBob until he was old enough to understand.
I don't really know why, but I always liked that she didn't let him watch SpongeBob anymore and that she never told him the backstory until he was 12. Because he didn't need SpongeBob ruined for him as soon as he started watching it.
Credited to SkullcrawlerBuddy
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