Patrick Star

Template:SpongeBobCharacterPatrick R. Star is a fictional animated character in the Nickelodeon animated series, SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by Bill Fagerbakke. He is about the same age as SpongeBob, and is a plump, pink, friendly, well-meaning but highly stupid (though he did attend a community college) Sea star with good intentions. Starfishes are said to lack brains, and Patrick lives up to that image, as his head is frequently seen deflating. However, SpongeBob himself frequently attests to the "genius" of Patrick's harebrain ideas.

He is SpongeBob's best friend and has quite a lot of things in common with him. Like SpongeBob, Patrick is an invertebrate, which means that he has no backbone. He often walks into the Krusty Krab with the greeting "Good morning, Krusty Krew!". Patrick has crazy ideas that often get SpongeBob and himself into trouble such as alien hunting, acting as adults with sideburns and not as babies in front of SpongeBob's grandma, sneaking into Sandy's Treedome in the winter, riding on fishing hooks, and many other situations such as going after King Neptune's crown. He fancies himself quite the jellyfisher, and loves many of the same things that SpongeBob loves. His erstwhile goal in life was to defeat the giant monkey-men and save the ninth dimension, but SpongeBob convinced him to aim lower.

Patrick is somewhat jealous of SpongeBob's various awards and once tried to imitate everything he did hoping to get awards for it. Finally, he got an award for doing nothing longer than anyone else, which he was pleased with. Later, we find out Patrick won the Dirty Bubble Challenge many years ago and then he lost the trophy they sent him in "Have You Seen This Snail?", which also reveals one of his talents, being good at paddleball. Patrick Star, like his pal SpongeBob is a big fan of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy. He also likes a lot of food (especially ice cream and cheese, which probably contributes to him being overweight), and riding on fishing hooks. When writing a movie script, he suggested the characters should drink "Cheese Coffee", and he requested that his room at the Krusty Towers be filled with cheese. In an older episode entitled "Hooky", he risked his life for cheese. Arguably, one of the most difficult experiences of Patrick's life was when he had to open a jar in order to copy SpongeBob. He overcame his immense stupidity and was able to pull it off with flying colors thanks to SpongeBob's instructions and Patrick's perseverance. Unfortunately, after his success at jar-opening, he "spiked" the glass jar through the floor in jubilation.

Patrick lives under a rock, literally, on 120 Conch Street — two doors down from his best friend. Like most Sea stars, he sleeps on the ceiling (although he is shown sleeping in a bed in at least one episode). When he isn't jellyfishing, or adventuring with his friends, he's sleeping under his rock. There are many inconsistencies in the depictions of his house due to the absurd nature of the cartoon and utility treatment of backgrounds; in one episode, his house is depicted to be nothing but a bed and a chest of drawers, yet in others he appears to have a kitchen and a living room. He can get very angry about very silly things. He also wakes up at 3 a.m. to eat Krabby-Patties. Patrick once got a job working at the Chum Bucket when Plankton was searching for a tough competitor for the Krusty Krab in the Olympic-esque Fry Cook Games. The audience was at first fooled into thinking an enormous purple championship wrestler fish would be the competitor, when in reality he was only carrying the real contestant, Patrick Star (a parody of a scene in Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls). He then reveals to SpongeBob that he only worked for five minutes.

Patrick Star will often appear to get really excited about a particular thing, then later the viewer realizes he was excited about something completely unrelated to what he originally appeared to be in a tizzy about. Examples of this include "Where's Gary?", and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, in which SpongeBob and Patrick are driving in the "patty wagon" through a threshold of fish skulls, to which he is oblivious; it seems he starts to notice his surroundings, when in reality he was only going to shout "Make my ice cream a chocolate!" In the aforementioned episode, "Where's Gary?", Patrick sees that SpongeBob is on the floor, shouting "Darn it!" when he failed his paddleball challenge. Patrick appears to be shocked and startled about the way SpongeBob is acting, but it was then revealed 5 seconds later, that he was worried about a picture on the pineapple wall being crooked.

Although we've hardly ever, if never, seen him drive, it can be assumed Patrick has a driver's licence. In the episode Boating School, he manages to navigate SpongeBob perfectly around the course via a walkman antennae in his body, until the last moment, when SpongeBob realised he was cheating, and crashed.

In the early episodes, Patrick simply wears his trunks to bed. Later on he appears in pajamas. In the newer episodes, including the one that showed his 3 a.m. eating habit, he is seen wearing underwear to bed, just like his friend SpongeBob. Patrick is arguably one of the most popular and greatest characters on the show, due to his hilarious character and tendency towards acting before he thinks, which happens very often.

Patrick's other side

Although he is unintelligent and is often portrayed as SpongeBob's carefree, magnanimous, and generally detached friend, Patrick has demonstrated a cold, shrewd, even sociopathic side at times. For example, in I'm With Stupid, SpongeBob volunteered to act like an idiot around Patrick's parents in an attempt to improve their image of Patrick. In the end, Patrick ended up betraying the favor by denying that this was a part of an agreement, and that he was indeed the intelligent one who has been trying desperately to educate his poor hopeless friend. It is a transgression he has still never apologized for, although SpongeBob seems to have forgiven him anyway.

In "The Secret Box", he intentionally beguiles SpongeBob by advertising the fact that he holds a box that contains "the most powerful secret in Bikini Bottom". After SpongeBob succumbed to temptation and tried to look in the box, Patrick initially berates him for breaking their promise not to look in the box, and cancels their friendship. After SpongeBob confesses he didn't look in the box, Patrick cheerfully reveals its contents to be nothing more than a piece of string. In reality, he had deceived SpongeBob about the string's true nature: it was the mechanism for opening a secret compartment which contained an embarrassing photograph of SpongeBob "at the Christmas party". (Note that the music played during this time is to make the viewer believe that Patrick is a killer who placed his victims heads in the box.)

Patrick has also shown a disregard for oaths and promises by going back on a vow to Mr. Krabs. While he had agreed to put himself under Mr. Krabs's "sailor promise" to not go near a nearby area filled with fishing hooks, he changed his mind under the justification that he "had crossed his fingers". As SpongeBob pointed out, this was impossible due to the fact that Patrick has no fingers to speak of.

Patrick has also been known to become violent when he feels that his interpersonal relationships are falling apart. After SpongeBob fails to present a gift to him on Valentine's Day, he concludes that SpongeBob must hate him. Patrick went as far as to declare his intentions to harm his yellow friend (as well as some innocent bystanders who also failed to give him a gift) for this horrible crime. Appearently, he was ready to kill Spongebob and the rest of the bystanders, according to this line:

Patrick: It's too late... for all of you!

Once Patrick finds out that SpongeBob has indeed gotten him a gift, his anger is forgotten. In another episode, once SpongeBob decides to live away from home, Patrick attempts to capture him and keep him in a jellyfish jar on his dresser. In another episode where Patrick and SpongeBob believe that they have taken a balloon illegally, SpongeBob decides to share with Patrick his last two candy bars to keep them from starving. Once Patrick eats his, he forgets ever doing so and decides that SpongeBob must have stolen it. Also in "No Weenies Allowed", Patrick gave Spongebob a black eye after Spongebob called him "tubby".

Patrick's fickle disrespect for others may stem from delusions of his own superiority over those around him. In "Something Smells", he fears that he has become ugly and expresses that he was "one of the beautiful people", but now is "almost as ugly as SpongeBob". In the episode mentioned earlier during which he denies that SpongeBob is only pretending to be foolish, he easily took the opportunity to declare that he was in fact a genius, a possible revelation of his inner subconscious desire to be better than SpongeBob. In "Fry Cook Games", he decided to join the competition (despite not being a fry cook) for the sole purpose of defeating SpongeBob. This may, however, be simple rivalry. It was one of the few occasions upon which Patrick actually sought to gain SpongeBob's forgiveness.

Even though Patrick seems foolish and "behind the game" at times, he has also had moments in which he not only used complete, intricate sentences, but has become the mastermind of many a devious plot that displays his opportunistic tactical skills. In one of the countless episodes during which SpongeBob attempts to get his driver's license, Patrick not only devises a system that allowed him to give SpongeBob the answers to the exam, but he also found a way to conceal it from others.

On the first season of SpongeBob on DVD, the writer's commentary reveals that several of the characters' personalities were based off of the seven deadly sins. Some are more obvious than others (such as Mr. Krabs' representation of greed, and Squidward's representation of pride). It has often been disputed as to whether or not Patrick represents sloth, gluttony, wrath, or envy. For want of enough characters in the show to cover all 7, it's possible that he is all four of these. Sloth, though perhaps better represented in Squidward, has obviously been a confirmed flaw in Patrick (as is seen in the fact that he once received an award for "doing nothing longer than anyone else"). Gluttony, he shows by his incessant eating of anything in sight. (Though Gary the Snail might also be someone who fits into this when he is found eating a couch). Wrath, he has demonstrated by trying to violently repay those who he felt has wronged him (although it is possible that Sandy represents wrath, as she has been known to become very quick to anger). Envy often manifests itself in his desire to be more like SpongeBob. An interesting fact to note here is that the only one of the 7 deadly sins not mentioned in this paragraph, Lust, may be attributed to SpongeBob himself. Lust, according to its traditional definition, is not just sexual impurity but also an unhealthy desire for excitement, or a need to be recognized by others. SpongeBob shows both of these in his lack of forethought before jumping into something he deems amusing, and his desire to please a crowd of people even if it meant making fun of Sandy.

Patrick's jail time was 3 seconds in one episode but, in "SpongeBob Meets the Strangler", Patrick turns himself in for being the strangler.

Patrick has been known to sometimes state intellectual terms. "It seems we have come to a mutual disagreement".

Video Game Appearances

He appears in the game Lights, Camera, PANTS!. In the PC Version, he owns a lemonade stand. His roles in the episode of "The New Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy" are Barnacle Boy and the Sneaky Hermit. In the second version, available for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox consoles, he auditions for roles he can gain in the episode of "The New Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy". He also appears in SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.

Trivia

Patrick is a big fan of the underwater Rock band, "Stingray 5000", as hinted in "Missing Identity". The band is a reference to the heavy metal band Powerman 5000, as they sang a song entitled "When Worlds Collide" which was also the name of the song played in SpongeBob B.C.
Patrick lives 400 yards away from the Krusty Krab.
Patrick made a three-dimensional model of DNA out of snow when asked to make a simple snowball.
Patrick is often seen being somewhat intelligent at certain times but he usually misunderstands the words and takes it to literal terms. E.g., in "Patty Hype", Patrick says to SpongeBob that sometimes we have to go deep inside ourselves to solve our problems. Then he is seen going inside SpongeBob's body to search for the problem.
Patrick once had a massive I.Q. after he fell off of a cliff. It is revealed later on in the episode that SpongeBob had mistaken a piece of brain coral for the tip of Patrick's head (although he was walking around without a brain and yet seemed to maintain his normal level of intelligence and was capable of living without it) and put it in place of Patrick's real brain.
Patrick's eyebrows have changed during the course of the series. In Season 1 and a few episodes of season 2, they were shown as squiggles. After that, they became noticeably thicker.
Patrick writes with his left hand, as seen in "The Camping Episode". He also holds a jellyfish net in his left hand, as seen in "Jellyfishing"
As seen in "Patrick SmartPants", a loose socket and plug are used as a metaphor to personify Patrick's intelligence.
In the episodes "Band Geeks" and "The Camping Episode", Patrick is able to play drums.
On the short "Patrick the Snowman" that comes on Nickelodeon around Christmas, Jimmy Neutron, Carl Wheezer, Sheen Estevez and Cindy Vortex make a snow model of a sea star, and when Jimmy uses his invention on it, it comes to life and is revealed to be Patrick. Shortly after that, Cindy screams "It's alive!" and the kids chase it.
As seen in at least 2 episodes, Patrick has used axes in a very destructive manner.