Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years
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Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years is an American CG-animated television series that premiered on Paramount+ on March 4, 2021. The series is a spinoff of SpongeBob SquarePants, featuring the main cast as aged-down children attending a summer camp, and is considered a prequel to the original series.
Plot
A 10-year-old SpongeBob goes to a summer sleepaway camp called Kamp Koral, with younger versions of his friends.
Good Qualities
- Great voice acting, just like the main series it's based on.
- The theme song is catchy.
- Despite some lighting issues during the first half of Season 1, the animation is solid and captures the expressiveness of the main show's recent seasons.
- It got better when second half of Season 1 and 2 when the lighting is less harsh, the color are now brighter then before, and 2D artwork and animations are now appearing more in Season 2.
- The characters are still charming and lovable as always.
- SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy have extra charm to them. For example, SpongeBob still has his love for jellyfish when he tries to catch them for good grades, Patrick has funny behavior such as when he takes one of SpongeBob's jellyfish to make toast with jelly, and Sandy is a little dumb and clumsy to make her funnier.
- The show even introduces a baby version of Pearl Krabs, which is cute.
- The show introduced that was from the original series (like one-off, or old and new), as Mo, Craig Mammelton (despite the fact that he was unlikable in his debut episode, Sun Bleached), Nosferatu (tho named as Kidferatu), Nurse Helga, Rea and Roh, Lady Upturn
- Even Kevin C. Cucumber has a recurring role, and his first major role since the SpongeBob second season episode "I'm Your Biggest Fanatic".
- The designs of the characters look cute.
- Hilarious, well-done gags.
- The time cards are carried over from the main series, and are as hilarious as ever.
- As with the main series, the APM tracks are used here, and the show still has a fitting Hawaiian-esque soundtrack.
- Unlike Thomas & Friends: All Engines Go, Bob the Builder (2015), The Powerpuff Girls (2016), and Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" (despite the latter being created by the same guy who made the original Ren and Stimpy), it actually respects its source material and the formula set up by it.
- The second half of Season 1 and Season 2 had started to get better as the side characters started to have spotlights and the plots are getting creative.
- Some creative and good episodes such as:
- "The Jellyfish Kid" (which started season 1 and the show on a high note)
- "Sugar-Squeeze" (Narlene and Nobby's debuts)
- "Tag, You're It"
- "Quest for Tire"
- "A Cabin of Curiosities"
- "In Search of Camp Noodist"
- "Kitchen Sponge"
- The Treasure of Kamp Koral"
- "Camper Gary"
- "Midnight Snack Attack"
- "Hot Pearl-tato"
- "What About Meep?"
- "Hard Time Out"
- "Pat's a Li'l Sinker"
- "Camp SpongeBob"
- "Squisery"
- "Game Night"
- "My Fair Nobby"
- "Gimme a News Break"
- "Wise Kraken"
- "Squatch Swap"
- "The Ho! Ho! Horror!"
- "Outhouse Outrage"
- "Are You Afraid of the Dork?"
- "Help Not Wanted"
- "Camp Spirit"
- "Hill Fu"
- "Sun's Out, Fun's Out"
- "First and Last Aid"
- "Lake Crashers"
- "Painting with Squidward"
- "Eye of the Hotdog"
- "Hats Off to Space"
- "Mad Science Squirrel"
- "High and Dry"
- "A Tale of Two Roxies"
- "Nite Owls"
- "Putt Up or Shut Up"
- "A Finful of Sand Dollars"
- "Cretins of the Night"
- "End of Summer Daze" (which ended season 2 and the show on a high note)
- Its TV movie in the main series, "Kreepaway Kamp," is amazing.
Bad Qualities
- Some minor retcons such as:
- Sandy meeting SpongeBob as kids when they actually meet each other as adults in "Tea at the Treedome", which was explained in the episode "Kitchen Sponge" as Sandy's adult self sending her younger self to Kamp Koral to prevent Plankton from stealing the Krabby Patty formula.
- Another inconsistency is that in the regular series Squidward is older than SpongeBob and Patrick and is a similar age to Mr. Krabs.
- This can be proven in “The Curse of Bikini Bottom” when SpongeBob and Patrick refer to him as “Old Man Squidward” and Squidward having worked at the Krusty Krab long before SpongeBob.
- Mr Krabs being rival with Plankton despite being friends in the main series episode "Friend or Foe".
- Sometimes, it may be too similar to Camp Lazlo, though it shared the same writer, Kaz.
- The animation, while still solid, isn't perfect and has some issues.
- It can be a little off, dim, and uncanny, and can give people a negative impression on the look of the animation.
- Despite the character designs being cute, they don't really match up to their Sponge on the Run designs.
- The lighting looks quite off due to bad light rendering during the first half of Season 1.
- There's some mediocre/bad episodes such as:
- "Night of the Living Stench"
- "Kamp Kow"
- "Patrick Takes the Cake"
- "Reveille Revolution"
- "The Taste of Defeat"
- There's also some weird/strange storylines (whenever good or bad) such as "Five Times the Fun", "Nite Owls" and "The Suit Suits You"
- While the voice acting is good as mentioned above, all of the characters have the same voices as their adult counterparts in the main show, despite the fact that they had kids do the voices in Sponge on the Run. Why couldn't they do the same thing here?
- The Squidward Torture trope is still a consistent problem throughout a lot of this show, with "Reveille Revolution" being the worse offender.
Reception and Controversy
When Kamp Koral was announced, a lot of people did not take the then new spin-off well and expected Kamp Koral to be bad due to rumors saying "Hillenburg did not want any spin-offs to be made or connected with SpongeBob", especially to the point where the spin-off received many negative reviews and feedback on IMDb before it was ever released. Two years later, the complaints mostly subsided once it was revealed that Hillenburg knew about the series before he died in 2018, and what he actually said in one of his interviews is that "he didn't see any potential spin-offs for SpongeBob", not that he has a dislike or bias against spin-offs in general, which proves this whole "Hillenburg was against spin-offs" rumor was all a big misunderstanding from the start.
Since then, the show received mostly mixed to positive reviews from critics and fans of the original series despite some still not liking the show due to what is listed below.
However, despite getting more positive reviews, it currently has a 3.6/10 on IMDb, which makes it review-bombed, just like The Patrick Star Show. This is likely due to the fans that think Kamp Koral and The Patrick Star Show "disrespects Stephen Hillenburg's Legacy" although Stephen Hillenburg worked on this show before his death unlike The Patrick Star Show.
NICKtendo put it as the third place, as it had more spotlights than The Tidal Zone, it's wasn't strong enough compared to Saving Bikini Bottom.
Videos
Trivia
- According to the official SpongeBob timeline, Kamp Koral is likely set between 1996 and 1999.
- However, NICKtendo said that it take on the alt timeline.
- Some of the characters such as Elwood, Harvey and Mo later make their appearances in "SpongeBob SquarePants" and "The Patrick Star Show" as well as the SpongeBob SquarePants special "Kreepaway Kamp", though having their older appearances, besides Elwood.
- Some characters who only appear in the original series, like Craig Mammelton, Nosferatu did appear in their young versions.