When arguably one of the best cartoons in history was released on May 1st, 1999; “SpongeBob SquarePants” was an instant hit. We were introduced to a content young sponge by the name of SpongeBob. He lives under the sea in a pineapple with his snail Gary. SpongeBob usually gets into some kind of trouble with his best friend and neighbor Patrick Star. His other neighbor, Squidward is always negative and grumpy and hates SpongeBob because of how childish he is. SpongeBob and Squidward work at the Krusty Krab where SpongeBob is a fry cook and a very good employee to his greedy boss Mr. Krabs. 

While “SpongeBob SquarePants” gave us many laughs and gave some of us kids something to watch as we grow up it also taught us lessons such as one of the most important things to know in life like how to tie your shoes. 

In season 2 episode 2 of “SpongeBob SquarePants” SpongeBob realizes he doesn’t know how to tie his shoes, as he runs frantically through his hometown bikini bottom while tripping over his untied laces, he asks almost everyone in town if they can teach him how to tie shoes, only to find that almost all the fish in the sea don’t wear shoes. As SpongeBob returns home, he cries to his pet snail Gary that he doesn’t understand how to do it. Gary being the intellectual he is, pulls up his shell to reveal a turn table when he then throws on a record singing a song about how to tie your shoes. This helped SpongeBob to quickly learn how to tie his shoes. This also could have helped any child watching the show.

With this being said it brings me to my point of where I believe that Gary the snail is the most underrated character in the entire TV show. Gary is always smart even though all he can say is “meow” Gary knows many things other than just how to tie shoes. In another episode Gary decides to run away for being mistreated and he then learns how to survive out in the real world without his beloved owner SpongeBob. I believe that in the episode “Sleepy Time” Gary is shown in his true form through SpongeBob’s dream. Gary is shown as a very smart snail who knows how to speak English and spits some knowledge.  

Because of how smart Gary the snail is I believe that if he ran things around Bikini Bottom the city would be a lot better off. Gary knows a lot more than you would think a house pet would know. Gary is also superior in the fact that he is a sea snail. In the real ocean sea snails feed off dead organisms and algae which cleans the ocean up. So therefore, Gary the snail is always cleaning up bikini bottom just by living his life.