SpongeBob Goes Casual

SpongeBob Goes Casual is a comic featured in Nickelodeon Magazine and Comic Crazy...Take 2!. In the comic, Patrick gives SpongeBob new clothes that impress the citizens of Bikini Bottom, making SpongeBob famous.

Plot

SpongeBob heads to work when a motorist drives across a mud puddle, splashing mud on SpongeBob's clothes. He runs to Patrick, who gives him a green sweater, blue jeans and brown boots. SpongeBob tries them on, but finds that the clothes are making him itchy. Patrick just has him wear them anyway, telling him "The clothes make the sponge."

At the Krusty Krab, SpongeBob's new clothes impress the customers. Mr. Krabs notices and tells him that the new clothes have "captured the spirit of today, tapping into the public unconscious and providing a cultural fulcrum for underlying social currents to erupt to the surface!" He adds that "it's a zeitgeist thing" and tells SpongeBob that he's gonna be a star. Indeed, SpongeBob becomes famous because of the clothes, but Gary feels that the clothes don't give him an image of the "real SpongeBob." SpongeBob explains that "people grow apart from clothes," but as he remembers his old clothes, he realizes that he's a "monster" and rips his new ones off. He finds his old clothes, which he threw away, in the trash bin outside his house, but it's surrounded by sea moths. Soon, he gets an idea; he uses his new clothes to lure the sea moths and throws the clothes onto Patrick, with the sea moths following the clothes. SpongeBob then closes Patrick's rock and puts his old clothes back on. The motorist once again drives across a mud puddle and splashes mud on SpongeBob, but he vows to never take his old clothes off again. Patrick then arrives, wearing the clothes he gave SpongeBob and encased in a cocoon with caterpillars surrounding him.

Trivia

• In one of the newspaper articles ("SpongeBob Signs with Modeling Agency"), someone known as "Tyra Bass" is mentioned. This is an obvious parody of Tyra Banks.