Astrology with Squidward (found series of "SpongeBob SquarePants" Nickelodeon animated shorts; early 2000s)

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Title card.

Status: Non-existent

Astrology with Squidward is a 2000 Nickelodeon series of interstitial shorts, where, during different times of the year, Squidward Tentacles would explain the different parts of the Zodiac. The Zodiac symbols that are in the shorts are represented by crudely redesigned versions of the main characters (like SpongeBob as Sagittarius and Patrick as Taurus), although Mr. Krabs and two Ambulance Fish are represented in their normal designs as Cancer and Gemini, respectively.

Despite the shorts becoming nearly as popular as its predecessor, Nickelodeon made the decision to pull them from the air in 2001 (interestingly, the recording of the Gemini short below shows a version of the Nickelodeon logo that wouldn't be used until 2009), but they later reappeared on Nicktoons in 2002, where they continued airing until 2005. Having last aired at a time when both recording television and Nicktoons' availability weren't as prevalent as they are now and due to the series' lack of information online, several variants and entire shorts were rumored/speculated to be missing.

The "Missing" Shorts

Though it was later confirmed that only six shorts of the series were made that has surfaced in its original English language, there were popular rumors that two other shorts (Libra [Squidward] and Virgo [Pearl]) that exist, but the only evidence provided for their existence was anonymous Wikipedia contributions, with some people believing that those two shorts were never made in the first place, which later turned out to be true.

There were also rumors that the Aquarius, Capricorn, Aries, and Scorpio shorts also existed, as they would complete the zodiac. However, the only source of this rumor was a German Nickelodeon Wikia page on the series.[1]

In March 2019, YouTube user SSTEAS uploaded a video discussing a new lead. The video discussed the closing seconds of a 2005 Nickelodeon Germany promo for Spongebob Squarepants, in which a small snippet of Squidward in Spongebob's house wearing his turban was shown. The scene, given its low animation quality and background design, appears to come from Spongebob's Nicktoon Summer Splash, a programming block that Nickelodeon aired during the summers of 2000 and 2001. The discovery of this clip has increased the possibility of more segments existing, but this is not fully confirmed, as the clip has no audio, and is allocated to a very small section of the frame, revealing very few details.[2]

On April 8th, 2019, Vincent Walker has confirmed that no other shorts of the series exist online other than the ones that have already been posted online (i.e. Cancer, Taurus, Gemini, Pisces, Sagittarius and Leo).[3]

Videos

The surviving English, Russian, and Polish shorts are listed below.

"Taurus" in English (Russian here/Polish here)

"Gemini" in English (Russian here)

"Pisces" in English (Russian here)

"Sagittarius" in English (Russian here)

"Leo" in English (Russian here/Polish here)

References