SpongeBob: Kamp Koral’s Series Premiere Now Available For Free on YouTube
The series premiere of Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years has been released on YouTube for free following the show's debut on Paramount+.
It must be six o'clock somewhere, because the series premiere of Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years has just been released in full on YouTube. The children's cartoon is a spinoff of the long-running Nickelodeon show SpongeBob SquarePants about the underwater adventures of an optimistic, loveable talking sea sponge with a pronounced rectangular body type. Creator Stephen Hillenburg came up with the idea for an animated kids' show set in an underwater ecosystem after working as a marine biology teacher and later the creative director for another cartoon, Rocko's Modern Life. SpongeBob SquarePants has continued to produce new episodes for over two decades since its premiere in 1999.
In the whimsical undersea world of the original show, SpongeBob lives in a pineapple in a coral reef town called Bikini Bottom. SpongeBob is passionate about his job working as a fry cook for the Krusty Krab, where he flips "Krabby Patties," a hamburger-esque sandwich made using a secret recipe of oceanic ingredients. Outside of work, his primary hobby is jellyfishing, a sport that consists of catching and releasing jellyfish. Although the cartoon is explicitly intended for children, SpongeBob is notable for appealing to an adult audience by incorporating subtly sophisticated humor and serious themes into its silly, 10-minute plotlines. Season 13, the first season of SpongeBob created after Hillenburg's passing in 2018, aired its first two episodes last October before pausing mid-season.
On Thursday, Paramount+ released all 13 episodes of Kamp Koral season 1 on its website. A subscription to the streaming service costs $5.99 per month, but episode 1 is available for free on YouTube for undecided viewers. Kamp Koral reverses the Rugrats: All Grown Up premise by throwing it back to SpongeBob's youth. The spinoff flashes back to a 10-year-old SpongeBob, who's spending the summer at sleepaway camp with his pals Patrick and Sandy. An ambitious Mr. Krabs is already running the place, while Squidward is feeling self-important and put-upon as usual at his counselor job. Per Paramount's synopsis, in the first episode, "a young SpongeBob is determined to catch his first jellyfish, so his friends do whatever they can to help him." Here's the first full episode:
Unlike the 2-dimensional style of the original, the prequel renders SpongeBob and friends in 3-D computer animation. The franchise has used CG animation in the past for two of its three movies, Sponge Out of Water and Sponge on the Run, but a cubed Spongebob is definitely a new look. The original SpongeBob cast has thankfully returned with higher-pitched versions of their characters' unique voices, bringing a sense of continuity to the old gang. Kamp Koral was created by Hillenburg and developed by Luke Brookshier, Marc Ceccarelli, Andrew Goodman, Kaz, Mr. Lawrence, and Vincent Waller.
The YouTube series premiere is a slightly misleading introduction to the rest the Kamp Koral season, as it tells an abnormally long, 22-minute story. Each subsequent episode contains two shorter tales like the original does and most childrens' cartoons do. Adult-aged viewers who grew up watching SpongeBob will get a kick out of watching a teenaged Squidward go on his very first power trips while little SpongeBob and Patrick engage in even sillier antics than they do as grown-ups. Because of its kiddie kontent, however, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years will likely appeal to an even younger audience than its predecessor.
Source: Paramount+