Mr. Krabs

Eugene Harold "Armor Abs" Krabs, or simply Mr. Krabs is a fictional character in the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by actor Clancy Brown, and first appeared on television in the series' first episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. Mr. Krabs was created and designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg.

Role in SpongeBob SquarePants

Mr. Krabs is the greedy founder and owner of the Krusty Krab restaurant, where SpongeBob works as a frycook, and Squidward works as a cashier. The success of the restaurant is built in part on a lack of competition and in part on the success of the Krusty Krab's flagship sandwich, the Krabby Patty. The formula for the Krabby Patty is an extremely closely guarded trade secret.

His rival and former best friend, Plankton, has a struggling restaurant called the Chum Bucket located across the street from the Krusty Krab. A recurring gag throughout the series is Plankton's futile attempts to steal the Krabby Patty formula, under the assumption that it would eventually put the Krusty Krab out of business. To avoid this, Krabs goes to extreme lengths to prevent Plankton from obtaining the formula (going so far as to refuse to allow him to even buy a Krabby Patty legitimately, out of fear that Plankton might reverse-engineer the formula) or to prevent the Chum Bucket from having any business whatsoever, not even just one single customer (as seen in the episode Plankton's Regular).

SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. The series chronicles the adventures and endeavors of the title character and his various friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The series' popularity has made it a media franchise, as well as the highest rated series to ever air on Nickelodeon, and the most distributed property of MTV Networks. The media franchise has generated $8 billion in merchandising revenue for Nickelodeon.

Many of the ideas for the series originated in an unpublished educational comic book titled The Intertidal Zone, which Hillenburg created in 1989. He began developing SpongeBob SquarePants into a television series in 1996 upon the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life, and turned to Tom Kenny, who had worked with him on that series, to voice the titular character. SpongeBob was originally going to be named SpongeBoy, and the series was to be called SpongeBoy Ahoy!, but these were both changed, as the name was already trademarked.

Nickelodeon (UK and Ireland)

Nickelodeon UK and Ireland is a television channel dedicated to kids' programming. In the UK and Ireland it is operated under a joint venture between Viacom International Media Networks Europe and Sky plc.

On 1 September 1993, a localised version of the US channel launched in the United Kingdom and much later in Ireland. In the United Kingdom, the channel is available on Sky, Virgin Media, and TalkTalk Plus TV. In Ireland, the channel is available on Virgin Media Ireland, eVision and Sky Ireland.

History

The channel launched on satellite (as part of British Sky Broadcasting's Sky Multichannels package) on 1 September 1993, originally airing for 12 hours and showing both cartoons and live action series. Off air the channel would air static logos, schedule information and teletext. Live presentation followed in 1994, branded as Nick Alive! From October 1995 it shared space with Paramount Channel. When Sky launched in 1998, Nickelodeon was in the original channel line-up on Astra 2A, and the channel was aired for three more hours. However, analogue satellite services continued to shut down Nickelodeon at 7 p.m. each day until analogue satellite was discontinued in 2001. Later, additional channels were added such as Nick Jr. and a timeshift version.