Sheldon J. Plankton
The SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki - Your SpongeBob resource since 2007.
For the character's debut episode, see "Plankton!"
| Sheldon J. Plankton | |
| |
| General Information | |
| Gender: | male |
|---|---|
| Color: | Green |
| Eye Color: | Red and Yellow |
| Birthday: | November 30, 1942 (age 67) |
| Height: | 2 inches (in "Komputer Overload") |
| Weight: | 4g |
| Address: | The Chum Bucket |
| Occupation(s): | Owner and Founder of the Chum Bucket |
| Aliases: | Peter Lankton, Planky, Mr. Brain-a-tron 5000, Professor Plankton |
| Family & Friends | |
| Family: | Karen (Wife) Clem (Cousin) Zeke Rufus Jeke Billy Bob Billy Jim Billy Billy Bo Willy Banana Fanna Fo Filly Doug Enis Rainchild Gram Gram (mentioned in Krabs vs. Plankton) |
| Friends: | Queen Amphitrite Former friends: SpongeBob SquarePants (F.U.N.) Mr. Krabs (New Leaf, Friend or Foe) Mama Krabs (Enemy In-Law) |
| Pet(s): | Labrador |
| Employer: | Queen Amphitrite (Neptune's Party) Judge Horace A. Whopper (Punishment/Neptune's Party) |
| Employees: | SpongeBob SquarePants (Welcome to the Chum Bucket) Patrick Star (The Fry Cook Games) Stanley S. SquarePants (Stanley S. SquarePants) |
| Enemies: | Eugene Krabs SpongeBob SquarePants Patrick Star Squidward Tentacles King Neptune Princess Mindy |
| Series Information | |
| First appearance: | Plankton! |
Sheldon J. Plankton (born November 30, 1942) is the recurring main antagonist of the series, and SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs' arch-nemesis. He is a technologically savvy, deep-voiced zooplankton with one central eye, a real-life characteristic of some copepods. Plankton is the smallest of the main characters in the series, able to fit in small places such as SpongeBob SquarePants' hand and under Mr. Krabs' foot, although his size has greatly differed throughout the series. Plankton is voiced by "Mr." Doug Lawrence.
Plankton is Mr. Krabs' tiny, green, oval-shaped, one-eyed business rival who runs a "competing" (though remarkably unpopular) restaurant called the Chum Bucket, which is located directly across the street from the Krusty Krab. In addition to being his workplace, the Chum Bucket is Plankton's home, and also contains his "secret" laboratory, where he develops his inventions and schemes. Plankton views Mr. Krabs as greedy (which he is), and Mr. Krabs views Plankton as a thief (which he is).
Plankton is made of "1% evil, 99% hot gas" as shown in his debut episode, "Plankton!" He is Mr. Krabs' arch enemy, and is SpongeBob SquarePants' occasional nemesis, though many times SpongeBob is naive of Plankton's evil powers. Plankton is a science wiz, and has created several robots and other devices for use in his schemes. His primary catch phrase is " You can't do this to me Krabs! I went to college!!!", which he usually says while flying back towards the Chum Bucket after one of his schemes to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula has failed, though it has been used in other context. His other catch phrases include "I WIN! I WIN!", "You're all mine you sweet Krabby Patty!", "I wish to rule you!", "Hehhehehaaa!!", "Ouch." and others. Plankton's desire is to put Mr. Krabs out of business and make his own restaurant successful. His numerous nearly successful but ultimately foiled plans typically involve getting hold of the secret recipe for the copyrighted Krabby Patty, the main food item served at the Krusty Krab, in order to produce them himself. However, in more recent episodes, he has occasionally executed plans that do not involve stealing the formula. Plankton frequently plays on the naive trusting nature of SpongeBob to try and get the recipe, along with engaging in various forms of trickery or theft to get either a Krabby Patty or the recipe. These schemes have ranged from posing as a psychiatrist for SpongeBob to using a self-controlled robot version of Mr. Krabs. In the episode "The Algae's Always Greener", Plankton switched lives with Mr. Krabs for a day, and he found he preferred being himself and living with his computer wife. Most of the time it is his own evil desire to steal the secret Krabby Patty formula that causes his plans to end badly, such as in the episode "Plankton!", in which his lust over a Krabby Patty made him fall into his own ingredient analyzing machine where it was determined that he was "1% evil, 99% hot gas".
Plankton lives at the Chum Bucket with Karen, his dear computer "W.I.F.E." (Wired integrated Female Electroencephalograph), who irritates him to no end. Plankton speaks in a deep, melodramatic voice, and enjoys pursuing various forms of villainy, such as Krabby Patty theft and mind control. He not only wants to be the king of fast food, but the supreme ruler of the world.
He made his first appearance in the episode "Plankton!", where he takes control of Spongebob, and has since then had numerous episodes devoted to his attempts at stealing the formula. In the episode "Plankton's Army", Plankton's first name is revealed to be Sheldon, which amuses Karen to no end. In the same episode, it was also revealed that Plankton has been trying to discover Mr. Krabs' secret formula for the past 25 years.
Plankton is often shown to be miserable and depressed over his numerous failures, and is occasionally portrayed as a sympathetic character. Mr. Krabs is just as ruthless towards Plankton as Plankton is towards him, if not more so. In "Plankton's Regular", he refuses to allow Plankton to have even one customer.
In "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie", Plankton learns there are 26 letters in the alphabet and executes "Evil Plan Z", where he steals the crown of King Neptune, delivers it to Shell City (a gift shop located on the surface), and frames the theft on Mr. Krabs, whom Neptune freezes and gives six days for his name to be cleared before his execution. While Krabs is frozen, Plankton successfully steals the Krabby Patty formula and begins producing Krabby Patties, giving free bucket helmets away with each one. The helmets are, in fact, mind-control devices which Plankton uses to make the citizens bend to his will and change Bikini Bottom to suit his image, renaming the city "Planktopolis." Unfortunately for Plankton, SpongeBob and Patrick manage to retrieve the crown and bring it back to King Neptune, and frees everyone under Plankton's control by using the power of rock and roll. Plankton is stomped on and soon arrested, taken away by the authorities, but vows to return and destroy everyone, saying "I will destroy all of you!" However, the movie has been stated to be the last episode in the series chronologically.
Plankton's size varies greatly between episodes. Sometimes he is microscopic, and other times he is about knee high. In "Patrick Smartpants", Patrick studies him under a microscope. In "Komputer Overload", he is shown to be two inches tall on the scale used by sea creatures, which is much smaller than the human scale.
Plankton was born in 1942, on the same day as Mr. Krabs. Assuming that the show takes place in present day, Plankton is currently 67 years old.
While the "secret" ingredient of a Krabby Patty is unknown, in the episode "Spongicus" Plankton reveals to a customer the ingredients of his chum, which are Jellyfish squeezings, seahorse snout, whale blubber and anchor rust. In the same episode he apparently also realizes that his chum is "inedible".
Contents |
Early life and career
Plankton's best friend from birth was his future rival Eugene Krabs. This history was revealed in "Friend or Foe". Both Krabs and Plankton were considered outcasts by other children, because Krabs was poor and Plankton was a nerd. When they discovered that money could bring them out of their poverty, they decided to make money selling hamburger patties, and set up a mini restaurant in the local dump. At first, their burgers were not successful. the first of their patties was tried by Old Man Jenkins, who was knocked out by the contaminated burger. Plankton started complaining about how Jenkins had been old and not able to handle the patty. Krabs, offended by this, tried to take the recipe from Plankton to improve upon. Plankton wanted to do this himself, but only ended up with the corner of the recipe which read "and a pinch of chum". Plankton stormed out of the restaurant, and went to create his own recipe using only his memory,the corner of the recipe, and science. At school, Plankton attempted to sell his chum burgers in a chum bucket and failed, when Krabs succeeded with his Krabby Patties, which he had created by accident when Plankton had slammed the door. Ingredients fell in the patty batter, thus creating the patty. Plankton later named his restaurant the Chum Bucket, after the secret ingredient of the original unsuccessful patty recipe. Mr. Krabs named his restaurant The Krusty Krab.
In "Dunces and Dragons" it is implied that the Plankton/Krabs feud began centuries ago when Plankton's evil overlord ancestor Planktonamor was vanquished by a Krabby Patty. Since there is not any feud between Krabs and Plankton in their early childhood, it is possible that these families settled their differences until the childhoods of Krabs and Plankton.
In a comic story, Krabs and Plankton are shown to have been college roommates. Their rivalry is shown to have been caused by a series of things, including Plankton being stepped on by Mr. Krabs (which did not annoy him at all), being closed inside Mr. Krabs' book (which aggravated him a little) and Mr Krabs going out with his date and Plankton's date (which started their rivalry). Since it was revealed in "Friend or Foe" that they were rivals earlier than college, this story is likely non-canonical. Even in the present day of the series, Krabs and Plankton are occasionally shown to somewhat get along, such as in "New Leaf" and "Best Frenemies".
Plankton's restaurant, the Chum Bucket, has always been extremely unsuccessful, not only because of competition from the Krusty Krab, but also due to the extremely poor quality of the food. As its name implies, the Chum Bucket serves chum-based foods, all of which taste terrible. In "Plankton's Regular", the Krusty Krab adds chum to its menu in an attempt to steal Plankton's single regular customer (who was in reality being paid by Karen to eat at the Chum Bucket and pretend to like the food there). The customer is disgusted by their chum, and says that it is the second foulest thing he has ever tasted (it can be inferred that Plankton's chum is the number one worst). This implies that chum is inherently disgusting, and cannot be made to taste good.
It should be noted that in real life, chum is made of grounded up fish parts that are inedible to humans, such as heads and guts, and is used as bait for sharks and similar creatures. This would mean that Plankton is killing fish (or at least collecting dead fish) and serving their remains to other fish. This has only ever been touched upon in "The Krabby Kronicle", where Spongebob prints a story claiming this. However, Spongebob was being tricked by Mr. Krabs into printing absurd lies to appeal to customers, and this story was supposedly false.
Plankton has no regular employees, and runs the Chum Bucket entirely by himself, although he spends most of his time in his laboratory, due to having no customers. Plankton actually runs the restaurant only when he has potential customers.
Although it has been stated on multiple occasions that Plankton has never had a single customer, he has on several occasions had brief success, particularly in more recent episodes, such as "Spongicus" and "Chum Caverns".
Family with Plankton and King Neptune
Plankton's "wife" is his computer system Karen, although neither of them fully consider the other their true soulmate, and their relationship is a very troubled one. Being a microscopic organism, Plankton's biological family numbers in the thousands. In "Plankton's Army", he recruits his entire family to help him steal the formula, thinking them all to be criminal masterminds like himself. However, much to his surprise, his family consists entirely of uneducated, red-necked hillbillies. These Relatives include (but are not limited to): Clem, Zeke, Rufus, Jeke, Billy Bob, Billy Jim, Billy Billy Bo Willy Banana Fanna Fo Filly, Doug, Enis, and Rainchild.
Plankton has two known ancestors. One is the evil wizard Planktonamor, who lived during medieval times and appeared in "Dunces and Dragons". Another is Dead Eye Plankton, a wealthy citizen who attempted a hostile takeover of Bikini Gulch but was defeated by Sheriff Spongebuck Squarepants. Dead Eye Plankton lived during the Wild-West era and appeared in "Pest of the West".
Video games
Plankton appears in virtally all Spongebob-realted video games, usually as a major antagonist.
- In SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom, Plankton devises a plan to take over Bikini Bottom and obtain the Krabby Patty formula by creating a robot machine called the "Duplicatotron 3000". However, the robots do not obey him and begin mindlessly rampaging across Bikini Bottom, because he forgot to set the switch from "Do not Obey" to "Obey". Plankton convinces SpongeBob and friends to defeat the robots, as SpongeBob believed the situation was his fault.
- In The Spongebob Squarepants Movie Game, Plankton is the main antagonist, reprising his role from the movie.
- In SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants!, Plankton appears as a playable character. In the game, he uses a robotic suit to act in the auditions (the parts that are played). Also, the "Captive" role, as well as the auditions for it, take place in the Chum Bucket.
- In Nicktoons Unite!, Plankton is one of the four main villains of the game. He uses a crab mech to fight the heroes.
- In SpongeBob SquarePants: Creature from the Krusty Krab, Plankton is one of three playable characters, as well as the final boss of the game. He enlarges a Krabby Patty to massive size, only to have it come to life and begin chasing him. Eventually, Plankton enlarges himself to gigantic size, and begins rampaging across the city in pursuit of the giant patty. He is eventually defeated and reverted to his original size by Patrick.
- In SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge, Plankton has a brief cameo, in which he yells at SpongeBob for stealing his time machine. "Blast you SpongeBrat! You have found my secret time machine! Well whatever you do, make sure you fill it up before you bring it back!"
- In Spongebob Squarepants and Friends in: Globs of Doom Plankton and 4 other villains team up with the heroes to defeat Globulous.
- In Nicktoons Racing Plankton appears as an unlockable character.
Inventions
- Hypno-Pod: Hypnotizes jellyfish to be slaves as seen in the online game, Plankton's Pernicious Plot.
- Time Machine: Seen in SuperSponge
- High-Powered Mechanical Bio Arm: Opens anything - revealed but malfunctioned in the episode, "Best Frenemies."
- Enlargetron: Makes things bigger, seen in Creature from the Krusty Krab.
- Robo-Krabs: Robot version of Mr. Krabs, Seen in Imitation Krabs, Operation Krabby Patty, New Leaf, and Spy Buddies.
- The switch-lives-just-to-know-what-it's-like-o-microfier. Seen in "The Algae's Always Greener".
- New computer inventions, seen in "Komputer Overload".
Plans
Trivia
- Plankton appears in the "United Plankton Pictures" logo.
- Interestingly, although his name is "Plankton," he bears more resemblance to the real-life class of Organisms, Copepoda (Cyclops), which feed on phytoplankton. Do note that plankton are known to come from a different Kingdom than Copepods.
- Despite all of Plankton's schemes, he has only been arrested two times, in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Krabby Road.
