Tide Pool Runs Amok With ‘SpongeBob’

He’s big-eyed, buck-toothed, long-nosed, rectangular, full of holes, and his pantsare, well, square. Meet the star of “SpongeBob SquarePants,” Nickelodeon’s newest cartoon series of the same name.

Starting today, it’s a bubbly half hour of inventive silliness set in Bikini Bottom, an undersea city around Bikini Atoll, where scallops chirp, the fish wear clothes, the underwater “sky” is patterned like a Hawaiian shirt, and the Krusty Krab diner has the best burgers in town--just ask the anchovies.

Offbeat animation is the norm today, but creator Steve Hillenburg--animator and former marine science educator--has come up with some fresh wackiness in the detailed tide pool fantasy environment, the zany characters, and the unexpected injections of 3-D images and real-life film footage into the animation.

Sly humor mitigates the more obvious silliness and use of old and new, goofy, good-time music--tropical slack key, ukulele, rock ‘n’ roll--is positively inspired.

In the simple premise, little well-meaning SpongeBob, who dwells in a pineapple on the ocean floor, tootles along in his world, creating unintentional havoc for himself and everyone else.

In the first half of today’s two-cartoon episode, SpongeBob’s crabby, clarinet-playing neighbor, Squidward, succumbs to vanity and tries to match SpongeBob’s fantastic bubble-blowing skills, with roof-raising results.

Next, SpongeBob, trying to compete for the limelight at Mussel Beach with weightlifting hunk Larry Lobster, goes overboard with a ripped pants joke. He makes a big splash, though, singing falsetto in a Beach Boys-type musical finale.

It’s the usual ‘toon slapstick delivered with a whimsical twist that just might hook adults, too.

* “SpongeBob SquarePants” is broadcast at 10 a.m. Saturdays on Nickelodeon.