"Karen's Baby" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode from season 12. In this episode, Karen quickly learns that kids grow up too fast after her new child arrives in the mail.

Characters[]

• SpongeBob SquarePants
• Karen Plankton
• Sheldon J. Plankton
• Chip I ^{(single appearance)}
• Chip Plankton II ^{(single appearance)}
• Eugene H. Krabs
• French Narrator
• Stork drone ^{(single appearance)}
• Machine #1 ^{(single appearance)}
• Machine #2 ^{(single appearance)}
• Machine #3 ^{(single appearance)}
• Machine #4 ^{(single appearance)}
• Weird machine ^{(single appearance)}
• Incidentals
  • Incidental 49
  • Incidental 103
  • Incidental 151
  • Incidental 107
  • Incidental 67
  • Incidental 160
  • Incidental 162
  • Teen 15
  • Incidental 161
  • Incidental 25 ^(cameo)
  • Incidental 104 ^(cameo)
  • Incidental 42 ^(cameo)
  • Billy ^(cameo)
  • Incidental 106 ^(cameo)
• Chum Bucket glove ^{(as a living character)}

Synopsis[]

At the Chum Bucket, Karen is anxiously waiting for her baby to arrive in the mail. Plankton becomes horrified, because he does not want the baby, but Karen states that it is already too late to cancel the order. Plankton tries to prevent the baby from being delivered by having the Chum Bucket Glove fight the stork-shaped drone, but the drone delivering the baby stops him. Karen starts taking care of her new baby and names him Chip after her grandfather, much to the dismay of Plankton. SpongeBob comes along to greet the baby and give compressed air as a present.

Karen takes a good care of her baby, while Plankton neglectfully ignores his son. Later, Chip upgrades from baby into toddler, as seen he grows feet and starts walking. Plankton tries to show off by walking himself, but ends up tripping and falling into a nearby trash can. Chip then upgrades and grows up to be a walking handheld payment terminal.

Karen brings Chip to the arcade to have fun, but Chip goes inside of a video game to battle the monsters inside. This worries Karen, who tells Chip to get out of the game. Chip does not listen, so Karen grabs the arcade machine and forces Chip out of the game. When he gets out, he upgrades again, this time into a teenager, and curses at his mom for preventing him from playing the game. Karen gets offended by this and angrily drags Chip home. There, she tells Plankton he needs to talk to his son while she cools off. While talking with Chip, Plankton thinks Karen does not get Chip, as he was beating the game very easily. He tells Chip that he should run away, so Chip leaves the Chum Bucket and heads out into the Bikini Bottom streets.

Once Chip's gone, Karen arrives and asks Plankton how his conversation with Chip going, which Plankton tells her that he is a good bot. Karen agrees, until she sees no sign of Chip and asks where is he. Plankton tells her that he told him to run away. Karen gets angry at Plankton for telling Chip to run away. Karen explodes in rage and unleashes electronic weapons to physically harm Plankton and tells him he needs to bring him back or else he is not allowed in the Chum Bucket.

Meanwhile, Chip meets a robot gang in an alley and wants to join it. However, it turns out they want to take Chip's parts, which frightens him and causes him to try and escape the gang. Plankton, who is searching for Chip via a tank, hears the commotion and heads off to rescue his new son. However, the robots destroy Plankton's tank and chase him around the alley. Chip breaks free from the magnet he got attached to and saves Plankton by using an ice cream machine to defeat the robot gang. The two go back to the Chum Bucket, with Plankton bragging to Karen about how Chip said his name before he said her name. At the same time, Chip upgrades again and has to go to college, causing both Karen and Plankton to cry tears of joy.

Eight semesters later, Chip, now adult, is shown working as an ATM at the First Nautical Bank, playing a trick on Mr. Krabs by not letting him get the money he earned. Karen and Plankton are shown to be very proud of their son. Plankton gives his newfound pride towards his son for doing something mischievous and he says: "That's my boy!" as the episode ends.

Production[]

The episode was confirmed by Vincent Waller on March 23, 2019.^[3]

Storyboard[]

Music[]

( ‣ ) Production music

( • ) Original music

( ◦ ) SpongeBob music

 ‣ Vacation A - Kapono Beamer, Mac Prindy [Title card]
 ‣ Apples And Pears - Bruce Campbell [Karen pacing around the Chum Bucket nervously]
 ‣ Uh Oh Flutter-Eyed - [ProjectSAM Symphobia Colours: Animator] ["A baby?! I don't want a baby!"]
 • Silly Bob Conversation 2 - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony ["It's too late to stop it now. It's been nine months and the baby is no longer on back order."]
 ‣ Comedy Punctuations and Bridges 3 - Fredric Bayco [Drone stork arrives at the Chum Bucket with Karen's baby]
 ‣ Fairy Coach - Ernest Tomlinson ["My baby's here!"]
 ‣ Comical Clowns - Ronald Hanmer [Plankton tries to stop the baby from being delivered to the Chum Bucket]
 ‣ Little Garden - Johnny Hawksworth [Karen's baby is revealed]
 • Fooling Around 2 w e gtr - Nicolas Carr, Barry Anthony [Karen names her baby Chip]
 • Whats This Sting - Nicolas Carr ["I don't get it."]
 ‣ Lullaby Box - Leo Nissim (The original song was composed by Johannes Brahms) [Chip is asleep]
 • Skipping to School - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [SpongeBob arrives at the Chum Bucket with a present for Chip]
 • Lap Steel - Nicolas Carr [Transition to next scene]
 ‣ Whimsey - Arthur Wilkinson [Chip starts walking]
 • Chiho O's Disco - Nicolas Carr [Plankton walking around the Chum Bucket]
 ‣ Whimsey - Arthur Wilkinson [Chip continues walking]
 ‣ ? ["Upgrade" appears on Chip's screen]
 ‣ Fairies A - John Fox, Otto Sieben [Chip upgrades and becomes a little walking calculator]
 ‣ Comedy Punctuations and Bridges 3 - Fredric Bayco [Plankton slips on some sheet of paper]
 ‣ Comedy Punctuations and Bridges 4 - Fredric Bayco [Plankton falls into a trash can full of Chip's dirty diapers]
 ‣ Comedy Punctuations and Bridges 3 - Fredric Bayco [Plankton coughs from inside the trash can]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 7A - Jeremy Wakefield ["This stinks!"]
 ‣ Domestic Fun (A) - Ernest Tomlinson [Karen takes Chip to the arcade to make some friends]
 ‣ Fight for Your Life! - Gregor Narholz [Chip gets inside a videogame and plays on it]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 13B - Jeremy Wakefield [Chip upgrades and becomes a teenager]
 ‣ Domestic Fun (B) - Ernest Tomlinson ["So you think you can do whatever you want because you're a teenager now. You just wait until I tell your father."/Karen grabs Chip by the button ear]
 ‣ Comedy Punctuations and Bridges 4 - Fredric Bayco [Karen tells Plankton what happened in the arcade with Chip/Karen growls angrily/"Just talk to your son! I need to cool my circuits."]
 ‣ Gamineries - Achille Alberto Scotti [Plankton tells Chip to run away and he leaves the Chum Bucket]
 ‣ Happy Links 1-5 - Paul Fenoulhet [Karen asks Plankton where Chip is]
 ‣ Comedy Punctuations and Bridges 4 - Fredric Bayco ["Why would my baby run away?"]
 ‣ Horror-Scope - Ronald Hanmer [Karen gets very angry with Plankton and orders him to bring back Chip to the Chum Bucket]
 ‣ Dramatic Episode 2 - Kurt Rehfeld [Plankton searching for Chip around Bikini Bottom driving a tank]
 ‣ This Space For Hire - Sam Fonteyn [A robot befriends Chip and shows him his buddies]
 • Vibraphone Bits and Pieces - Nicolas Carr ["If you wanna be part of us, we're gonna need your parts."]
 ‣ The Escape - John Scott [Chip sees a robot being taken apart and tries to escape from the robots]
 ‣ Armed Attack - Jean Clero [Plankton hears Chip's screams]
 ‣ Air Power - Sidney Sager ["Don't worry, son! Daddy is coming!"]
 ‣ Attack - Anthony Hymas [Robots chase Plankton and Chip defeats them]
 ‣ Beyond the Deep Blue Sea - Lisa Doby, Lionel Wendling [Plankton telling Karen how Chip saved him]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 13B - Jeremy Wakefield [Chip upgrades and becomes an adult computer]
 ‣ Walking on the Beach A - Kapono Beamer, Mac Prindy [Chip leaves his parents for college]
 ‣ Comical Clowns - Ronald Hanmer [Eight semesters later...]
 ‣ Bridge 3 - Wilfred Burns [Karen and Plankton spying on Chip's first day of work as an ATM]
 • Hot Steel and Slide Licks 27B - Jeremy Wakefield [Mr. Krabs' money comes from Chip]
 • Puka A - Sage Guyton, Jeremy Wakefield [Ending]

Release[]

• This episode is available on the SpongeBob SquarePants Vol. 20, The Complete Twelfth Season, Another 100 Episodes, and The Best 300 Episodes Ever DVDs.

Trivia[]

General[]

• This episode was paired with "The Krusty Bucket" during the original American airing, but has since been re-airing with "Broken Alarm."
  • Coincidentally, this episode started production directly after "The Krusty Bucket." ("Krusty Bucket" has the production code of 325-1204, and "Karen's Baby" has the production code of 325-1205)
• This episode premiered on the same day as the 2019 Kids Choice Sports. Because of this, the original airing featured a screen bug that was a countdown showing how much time left until the premiere.
• This episode, alongside "Gary & Spot," "Sandy's Nutty Nieces," its sister episode, "Shell Games," "Mind the Gap," "Biddy Sitting," "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout," "SpongeBob in RandomLand," and "Handemonium" serve as the 20th anniversary special episodes.
• This episode reveals that Karen has a grandfather named Chip, as she named her child after him.
• Plankton passes the same building twice with the same people outside when looking for Chip.
• This episode reveals that Karen has the ability to create solid objects out of her own energy.
• Mr. Krabs' PIN number is revealed to be 1234.
• This is the second episode to end with Plankton winning instead of Mr. Krabs. The first was "The Krusty Slammer."
• The tank that Plankton drives while searching Chip is the same one he used in "Teacher's Pests."
• The Fun Arcade appears for the first time since "The Cent of Money."
• SpongeBob somewhat breaks the fourth wall by hearing and reacting to a crowd cheering for him.

Dub facts[]

• In the German dub, this episode is titled "Karens Baby," without the apostrophe, making the title card of the German dub almost identical to the original English dub.

Episode references[]

• The dolphin chirp noise that Chip makes when talking to Plankton is a reference to bad word #11 from "Sailor Mouth."
• After Plankton says, "I went to college...," it references the episode "Plankton!," where he first says this. He also says this in a few other episodes as well.
  • In the same scene, when Plankton is about to cry, it looks the same as his "sincere face" in "Grandmum's the Word."

Cultural references[]

• Chip's head as a teenager resembles the Game Boy Advance.
• Every time Chip upgrades, the Challenging Stage sound effect from Galaga is heard.
• Karen telling Plankton she put "4445" in Chips keyboard, when she flipped him, it means "shhh." In real life, one is able to input words on a calculator by typing in the numbers and then flipping it to show words.
• When Plankton show Chip how to walk, one of them was the Moonwalk by the late singer Michael Jackson.
• Chip tricking Mr. Krabs may be a reference to Turkish ice cream vendors tricking their customers.
• Machine 3 looks similar to an iMac G4.

Errors[]

• In the French dub, Andrew Overtoom's name is misspelled as Andrew Overtoon in the opening credits.^[4]

• When Karen says, "Oh, Planky-poo," her on-screen mouth does not move.
• When Plankton shows Chip how to "walk," Karen's lines or mouth is stuck.
• When Weird machine guides Chip to the meet the other robots, Weird machine guides Chip with his left arm, but in the following scene, he guides Chip with his right arm.
• When SpongeBob is admiring the audience cheering, his eyelashes disappear for a frame.

Videos[]

Names in other languages[]

Language	Name	Meaning
German	Karens Baby	Karen's Baby
Russian	Малыш Карен Malysh Karen	Karen's Little Boy

References[]

1. ^ This was found using the Unix timestamp of the thumbnail, which is 3/26/2020 @ 19:39:29.287.
2. ^ Google archive of the episode page is from this date.
3. ^ https://twitter.com/VincentWaller72/status/1109514030987665409
4. ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT90rO10N3Y