The show might be titled SpongeBob SquarePants, but SpongeBob is not the only star of the show. (Get it? Star? Starfish?) Patrick stole our hearts withꦦ his lovable demeanor and sweet simplicity. He was the best and the worst of friends simultaneously. His low intelligence caused SpongeBob and company numerous problems, but his loyalty and innocence could never be denied. Patrick has some of the most quotable lines of the show, and his moments interacting with the other characters are just as memorable as SpongeBob's. If a show were to be created that revolved solely around Patrick, odds are, we would watch it.
Throughout the course of the long-running show, Patrick has featured in many episodes, sometimes as the main characters, other times as a beloved side character. His history has been developed over time, and there are quite a few diamonds hidden in his past. And by diamonds, we mean amazing tidbits that made us laugh or drop our jaws open in shock. When we first meet Patrick, all the way back in the first season of SpongeBob SquarePants, if you can remember that far back, all we know about him is that he's SpongeBob's friend and neighbor, he lives underneath a rock, and he annoys Squidward n﷽early as much as SpongeBob does.
The small truths behind Patrick's character reveal more than this first glimpse, and we're sure glad it does. Some of these things are insane, but for a show like SpongeBob SquarePants, insane is par for the course. Here is our list of 25 shocking things we've learned about Patrick dur♔ing the time we've know🎉n him.
25 💞 Big Sister Sam 🍌
Patrick's sister was not introduced until season 7, but when she did make her appearance, she did it with a splash. Larger than Patrick, and even more brutish, she immediately comes across as a callback to a Neanderthal. She i🍷s intensely protective of Patrick, and grossly over-punishes those who she thinks have slighted him. T😼he reason for her absence in Patrick's life until now was that when they were both younger, they had been separated by the surf. Funnily enough, her presence makes us appreciate what intelligence Patrick possesses. And while it was nice to get a glimpse at Patrick's older sister, we were not too devastated when she departed by the episode's end.
24 He's Got A Degree?! 🐼
That's right. Patrick went to college. This is mentioned in the episode where SpongeBob has to deal with a bully at Boating School. In a panic, SpongeBob calls Patrick to help protect him, only to find out that Patrick was best buds with the bully at community college. That can mean only one thing: Patrick went to community college! The idea is astounding in its absurdity. Patrick could barely last one day at Boating School when he accompanied SpongeBob one day to his class. How are we supposed to believe that he made it through college classes? His attention span is not the greatest, and his base intelligence is self-admittedly poor. But if there is one thing SpongeBob SquarePants is great at, it's presenting us🌃 with absurd notions that we laughingly 𝔍accept.
23 𒐪 A Bad Case Of Arachnophobia
In at least two episodes, we learn that Patrick is terribly afraid of spiders. When SpongeBob has to spend the night at Patrick's because his pineapple house was devoured by nematodes, we see that Patrick suffers from nightmares of spiders attacking him. Unfortunately for SpongeBob, during his nightmare, Patrick unconsciously slams his house up and down on top of SpongeBob. And when Squidward starts wearing a toupee that looks eerily like a sea spider, of course Patrick wants to smash it off of his face. Arachnophobia, in our opi🙈nion, is a very rational fear. Similar to being afraid of snakes, t❀here is something about the shape of the arachnid that instills an almost instinctive fear of the creepy crawler. The fact that Patrick shares this fear with some of us (me, definitely me) makes us like him more.
22 The Nose Controversy 😼
Patrick's nose is a surprisingly tough nut to crack. Does he have one? Did he get one? Can he grow one? The answer to all of those questions is yes. Several times in several episodes, Patrick is seen with a single nostril defining the area where a nose should be. But another episode was devoted to the story of Patrick obtaining his first true no꧃se. It shriveled up and died when it smelled a stench too horrible to be smelled. Yet another time, when SpongeBob and Patrick were engaged in a dirty/clean war, Patrick grew his own nose in order to poke it and spread his boogers around. So which is it? Does he already have one that we just can't see? Did he only truly have a nose during that one episode where he got a nose job? Or can he grow one on command? The nature of the show makes it so that all these circumstances can be valid. It is hard to understand, but not difficult to enjoy.
21 Patrick💯, The Fast And The Furious
One𒉰 of the mainstays of the show is that SpongeBob cannot drive, no matter how much he tries to learn. He has attended Boating School since season 1, but to no avail. Patrick, clearly not as smart as SpongeBob, should be in the same boat. (Boat? Boating School? Get it?) But for some unexplained reason, Patrick is a better driver than SpongeBob. When SpongeBob desperately wanted to pass his Boating Test, he called on Patrick to help him during the exam. This counted as cheating, but the two of them didn't know it at the time. Another time, angry on SpongeBob's behalf for failing the test, Patrick took the test to see if it was rigged. And he passed! Driving is more of a physical skill than an academic one, but it takes moderate intelligence to operate a vehicle. So either Patrick is a savant at driving, or he has been fooling us this entire time into thinking he's dumb.
20 It's a No Bra💎iner
When rolling around ideas for Patrick's character, one of his traits that his creators decided early on was that he would not be intelligent. It is an attribute that sets him apart 🌸from the other characters of Bikini Bottom. Squidward, Mr. Krabs, and SpongeBob all possess an average level of smartness, hampered only by their own character flaws (arrogance, greed, and naivete, respectively). And Sandy Cheeks is beyond intelligent. Patrick being dumb has made him unique. The reason for this particular characteristic belonging to Patrick is biological. Starfish themselves do not have a brain, so a character based on a slow-moving starfish would not make sense if he was quick-witted. And as seen in the show, Patrick spends most of his time with his brain not properly connected.
19 W෴hat's In A Name? 🙈
One of the neat things about SpongeBob SquarePants is that the cartoon characters in the the show (at least the main ones) have last names. This is not always the case in children's cart❀oon TV shows. We all know SpongeBob's last name, and we learn about Sandy Cheeks, Eugene Krabs, Squidward Tentacles, and even Sheldon Plankton. And we think we know that Patrick's last name is Star, but that turns out to not really be the case. It actually has changed in various episodes. The majority of the time he is Patrick Star, but sometimes he is called Patrick Seastar or he is called Patrick Star🍬fish. The reason for this mutability is not explained.
18 💃 The Amazing Flying Starfish 𝄹
There is one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants where SpongeBob harbors the great desire to fly like the jellyfish. He searches for any way in which he can soar in the "sky," but nothing seems to work until he discovers the joy of infatable pa꧋nts that cause him to float around Bikini Bottom. It is a delightful episode, which ends with the jellyfish carrying SpongeBob so that he can fly with them. That's not the part of the ending that makes it so special. When the jellyfish drop SpongeBob at his home, Patrick amble along as per usual. But what is unusual is that when Patrick leaves, he takes off into the sky, flying away like a super hero. So apparently, Patrick has the ability to fly.
17 ൲ Daddy Issues 🐲
The characters in SpongeBob SquarePants are stuck in this limbo between childhood and adulthood. They hold jobs, but they also partake in childish activities. In a great episode where Patrick and SpongeBob take on the responsibility of caring for a baby scallop, we get a look at what Patrick would be like if he ever matured into parenthood. It was not a pretty picture. Patrick did not care for the baby with the same diligence that SpongeBob did. He would traipse 🍃off every morning to go to "work" and come home too tired to give SpongeBob a break from scallop-rearing. And this "work" consisted of sitting underneath his rock and eating ice cream while he watched TV. So for future reference, we know that Patrick would make a horrible father. Not that we thought he would make an excellent dad before we saw that episode, but it definitely provided proof against it.
16 🉐 Poor Broke Starfish
A big mystery revolving around Patrick is how he receives money. We've seen in several episodes Patrick pull out some money to pay for certain items. But how did he get the cash? Patrick has never proven that he can hold a job. When he tries to get a job at the Krusty Krab, he practically fires himself with his incompetence. Plankton has hired him a couple of times too, but to be frank, we've never seen Patrick show a lick of interest in money, so it stands to reason that he worked for Plankton for nothing. This doesn't explain how Patrick gets money to buy anything he wants. It is one of the big unsolved mysteries of the ℱshow.