I have a lot of thoughts about the Nickelodeon series “SpongeBob SquarePants.” I am sharing these thoughts for no other reason than the fact that I have a platform to do so.

I grew up with “SpongeBob.” The show premiered in May of 1999 when I was five years old. Needless to say, I was a fan.

I remained a fan through the show’s first three seasons and the end credits of “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie,” which was released in November 2004, one month after my 11th birthday.

It was an excellent film, with even the Pulitzer-winning film critic of the Chicago Sun Times, Roger Ebert, giving it three out of four stars.

Unfortunately for all, SpongeBob’s star soon faded, and now the show is an empty husk of its former self.

The movie was originally intended to be the finale of the series, but the movie’s success put the show back into production where it has remained ever since.

The show should have ended in 2004, along with the career of Jimmy Fallon after his starring role in the impossibly awful movie “Taxi.”

Prior to the start of the show’s fourth season, SpongeBob was a somewhat intelligent, well-meaning and ultimately likeable character. Since, he has become an obnoxious and idiotic vehicle for subpar jokes and gross visual gags.

Yes, I am a 26-year-old man publicly complaining about a children’s TV series. But that does not mean that I am not correct.

The first three seasons of “SpongeBob” produced some surprisingly complex jokes and genuinely brilliant comic moments.

For example, in the episode where SpongeBob and Patrick mistakenly think that Squidward is a ghost and he convinces them to become his servants, they carry him in a throne outside. They take him to one spot and he says, “too hot.” They move him further. He says, “too cold.” They move him further still, until they are in front of a Post-Impressionist French painting, and Squidward says, “Toulouse-Lautrec.”

In another brilliant episode, SpongeBob and Patrick are terrorized by a butterfly that has been trapped in a bubble. It is shown in closeups with a real butterfly’s face. The entire city descends into chaos as the townspeople flee this tiny monster.

Maybe I am being too critical of new “SpongeBob” episodes. After all, there are bigger problems in the world that the diminished quality of a cartoon.

Actually, no there aren’t. The quality of “SpongeBob” cannot be allowed to decrease any more. Something must be done. It has been 16 years in the waiting.

Adam Tumino is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at ajtumino@eiu.edu.