Spongebob Square (never pleated) Pants and his gay friends

Thanks to James "I Can't Stop Thinking About Gay Men" Dobson, I now have a recurring image of Spongebob decorating his pineapple in hot designer colors while humming "Don't Rain On My Parade." What with the hoopla over Spongebob and Tinky Winky, it has occurred to me that Falwell, Dobson, and their fundamentalist gang somehow missed Ren & Stimpy, one of the gayest shows to ever air on television.

Sometimes it was subtle, other times it was overt, but the highly entertaining antics of the cat and chihuahua with gay sensibilities somehow escaped the attention of knuckle-scraping moralizers. Perhaps it was because Ren & Stimpy was more of an adult cartoon and operated under the radar. It was never a "kiddie" show, so it didn't attract the kind of attention that Spongebob has. Adults and children could watch the show and come away from it with totally different interpretations, which was one of the show's strengths.

I wonder when the Dobson gang is going to deconstruct cartoon favorites from long ago; it has to happen some time. After all, despite having a longterm girlfriend, Donald Duck never married, and was given to verbal histrionics. Popeye was engaged to Olive Oyl for decades, never married her, and obviously worked on his body obsessively. There are a lot of possibilities if all you think about is gay, gay, gay all the time.