YMMV / Kamp Koral

• And You Thought It Would Fail: When it was announced, the reception was rather negative due to the perception that Stephen Hillenburg didn't want a "baby spin-off." According to Paul Tibbitt here, Hillenburg said to him, "You know, one of these days, they’re going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That's when I'm out of here." When the sneak peek was released, many people criticized the animation for being too outdated and ugly. However, when it was released, the show garnered high ratings and was greenlit for a second season.
• Ass Pull:
  • "Gimme a News Break" has Perch and Harvey inexplicably coming across soulless, eyeless husks of the campers. Turns out they were piñatas to celebrate "Piñata Day" at camp. This raises more questions than it answers: why were they spread throughout camp, how and why were they designed to look mostly identical to the campers, and how did everyone but Perch and Harvey know about this?
  • In "Deep Sea Despot", the campers elect Squidward as their leader, and he does a pretty good job at it. When "Camp Squidward" is started, the first thing we see is smiling campers throwing a parade in his honor. However, as soon as Squidward steps outside and walks around camp, everyone is suddenly miserable and hates him, and this drives the conflict.
  • At the end of "The Perfect Camper", Clay suddenly wants the trophy for himself and brags to his team about doing all the work. He had never been shown to be a Jerk Jock before this, just The Stoic, and it comes out of nowhere.
  • Narlene and Nobby showing up in the middle of outer space in "Hats Off to Space". Despite their entire thing being that they're hillbillies who live in the woods and have low-tech lifestyles, they somehow have an entire alien spaceship that they know how to operate. They come out of absolute nowhere and this is never explained.
  • The main conflict of "In a Nut's Shell" revolves around a never-before-seen "Prank the Adults Day" at camp, which starts at the worst time for Narlene and Nobby. All of the adults dread it and try to escape. This leaves the question, why would they even hold such a thing in the first place?
• Awesome Art: Lighting issues aside, even detractors admit that the exaggerated animation is otherwise fun to look at, employing many of the same tricks and exaggerated poses as the recent seasons of the main series.
• Awesome Music:
  • As with the main series' theme music (listed under its own page), the theme music for this series is appropriately jaunty and fits the series' tone.
  • The original track "Swinging on a Star" is a Hawaiian song that sounds right at home with the classic seasons of the original show. It mostly plays during happy endings, too.
• Broken Base:
  • The series as a whole. Either it is a decent spin-off or a Continuity Snarl-filled wreck.
  • Was the third batch of episodes better than the second? While "Camp Crossbones" and "Boo Light Special" are generally well-liked, it contains the very unpopular "Kamp Kow", which is loaded with Squick. Others feel that the show remains So Okay, It's Average, especially considering the second batch was pretty empty itself, and we still get some "nothing" episodes in the third ("Sun's Out, Fun's Out", "Painting with Squidward").
• Creator's Pet: Nobby and Narlene, but especially the latter, are two trickster narwhals who live in the woods behind camp. They're disliked for how often they show up out of nowhere to mess stuff up, and often get away with it entirely. Most of their actions go beyond innocent fun and lean into creepy or flat-out disgusting (shoving a sea urchin into SpongeBob's pants, pretending to flash her breasts at a group of children, selling an addictive G-Rated Drug to kids). A lot of Narlene's scenes are also heavy in foot close-ups and gross-out, with the widely-hated "The Taste of Defeat" dedicating an entire sequence to Narlene putting her foot in soup, shaving toenails into it, and then serving it to kids. Narlene also tends to hijack episodes that otherwise have nothing to do with her, such as "Hats Off to Space" and "Regi-Hilled". And yes, other characters do regularly talk about how great Narlene and Nobby are.
  SpongeBob: Those narwhals are simply nar-velous!
  Sandy: Those two rascals never stop amazing me!
• Demographically Inappropriate Humour:
  • Narlene and Nobby's sugar squeeze is a clear allegory of moonshine, imitating the Hillbilly Moonshiner type. There's not a Drugs Are Bad moral, either; the kids think Narlene is "so cool" and "so funny" after she gives out a bunch of it.
  • "In Search of Camp Noodist" is an entire episode revolving around a nudist camp. While it's all part of a Medium-Shift Gag, the way Narlene explains it is completely accurate.
    Narlene: Why, it's an entire camp of folk who like to wander around in their birthday suits, like, totally naked.
  • "Camper Gary" has Mrs. Puff making various Implied Death Threats to Gary, flat-out telling people to "salt on sight" if they see him (as in, "shoot on sight"). The way she chases him around with a saltshaker is portrayed as if she had a loaded weapon.
  • In "My Fair Nobby", SpongeBob knits a sweater that has text saying "Hug Addicts" on it.
  • In "Wise Kraken", Mr. Krabs enforces a "two milk minimum" for comedy night, akin to a "two drink minimum" for alcoholic drinks that comedy clubs have.
  • In "The Jelly Life", SpongeBob's erratic jellyfishing net avoiding style is dubbed the "Pickled Clown". "Pickled" is slang for drunk.
  • In "Painting with Squidward", a robed Narlene stands on a stump as an art model for SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy. She takes off her robe, which we see from the back; the campers react in disgust. Then it turns out she's wearing pajamas underneath.
  • In "Regi-Hilled", we see Lady Upturn's toenail getting ripped off on-screen. There's no blood, but it's still unexpectedly violent.
• Designated Hero:
  • Narlene in "Prickly Pests" is meant to be seen as a hero by the storyline for how she tries to save the camp from the urchin infestation, and SpongeBob and Sandy give her some Character Shilling about being amazing for doing it. However, the episode ignores that it was something she ended up starting, and she sat on the sidelines and watched with outright joy as the urchins spread throughout camp. And when the camp is left completely uninhabitable because of her prank, she moves the kids somewhere else to build a crappy new camp. Not helping is that Sandy is given the Jerkass Ball and gets herself to safety while abandoning SpongeBob and Patrick, seemingly just so Narlene can be given the chance to "save" them.
  • It's hard to side with Narlene in "The Taste of Defeat". The episode's happy ending involves her winning and she's meant to be a "good" counterpart to Plankton, but they come off as equally bad. Both are deceptive about their food: Plankton recycles leftovers and serves them again, but Narlene sticks her feet in the food and puts toenail clippings in it. Plankton also has the advantage of not using roadkill as menus and putting living beings in soup. In the end, he comes off as the lesser of two evils.
• Designated Monkey: Mr. Krabs remains the Butt-Monkey even on his nicer days, which can feel undeserved.
  • In "Boo Light Special", Mr. Krabs is treated as being wrong for hiring the Flying Dutchman and the episode ends with him being attacked by the monsters the Dutchman spawned during his time working. However, he had been overworked keeping the entire camp under control by himself, and him hiring the Dutchman was his breaking point. He even hesitates at first, but upon seeing some kids about to plummet off a zipline, quickly chooses to hire him while he saves them. It's a rare instance of him genuinely being a competent camp master, and it ends with him getting punished for it.
  • "In a Nut's Shell" ends with Mr. Krabs being on the receiving end of an excess amount of pranks, including physical beatings with planks from both kids and adults. All he did was sneak out early so he could avoid the pranks in the first place. Not helping is that Narlene and Nobby, who stole his clothes while he was asleep and were intent on pranking the campers, also get to join in on harassing him.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: "Prickly Pests" ends with the camp being overrun by urchins and left inhospitable from Narlene's prank. Narlene's family, and the kids, build a new camp somewhere else, while Plankton is left behind at the old camp. SpongeBob narrates this as happy music plays, and they have no hard feelings towards Narlene for endangering their lives and being made to do hard labor.
• Fanon Discontinuity: For a variety of reasons, many fans of the original SpongeBob SquarePants refuse to acknowledge this series ever happened.
• Franchise Original Sin: This show has been criticized for contradicting information established in SpongeBob SquarePants (though such criticism eventually tapered off somewhat after it was revealed that the show was set in an alternate timeline). But the franchise has always had very loose continuity, up to and including some bits of information straight-up irreconcilable with each other; the difference is that there had never been such a major retcon to the main characters' backstories before.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "Scaredy Squirrel", Patrick meets Elwood and tells him that "we don't hang out enough!" In the The Patrick Star Show episode "A Space Affair to Remember", taking place years later, Patrick is happy when Elwood shows up to his house party after being invited, showing that they really did end up becoming friends.
• Like You Would Really Do It: "Scaredy Squirrel" has a conflict involving Sandy wandering around the Trawler cabin at night, believing that SpongeBob and Patrick have been murdered by the residents when she can't find them anywhere, and running into various seemingly-gruesome situations that are actually innocent. It's obvious to the audience that two of the main characters won't actually be killed.
• Misblamed: When the spin-off was announced, fans were quick to blame Nickelodeon for deliberately waiting for Hillenburg’s death to produce the spin-off. While his thoughts on the show are unknown, it is possible that Hillenburg was aware of the show being developed, as the development began shortly before he passed away. Kamp Koral developer Vincent Waller originally tweeted his belief that Hillenburg was aware of the show, but he later retracted the statement, saying that the stressful period "kinked up my chronological memories of events into a bit of a slippery jumble for that entire block of time."
• Narm:
  • Craig Mammalton's story in "Eye of the Hotdog". The episode establishes him as having repeatedly upstaged an Obviously Not Fine Larry after he moved in and never having lost in his life. When Craig loses to Patrick in an Eating Contest and gets second place instead of first, he still assumes he won both trophies and makes a big show out of accepting both. When the campers laugh at him, Perch dramatically narrates that the experience "broke" him and shows a shot of him sitting on his cabin, looking at the moon while sad music plays. He then declares himself unfit to live with the other jocks and lives underneath the outhouse. It's such an overreaction to getting second place instead of first, but the narrative plays it to be sad.
  • Regigilled getting fired by Lady Upturn in "Regi-Hilled" is supposed to be a sad moment, but the entire reason it happens is because he made tea that was two degrees too cold, which is so petty and exaggerated that it's hard to take seriously.
• Nausea Fuel: Especially prominent in the fourth batch.
  • In "Game Night", Patrick swallows Sandy whole, and we see her inside his stomach.
  • "Help Not Wanted" dedicates a long scene to just the campers burping and farting.
  • In "Camp Spirit", Patrick flings a sock full of mud directly at Squidward, making it splatter all over his face.
  • "Night of the Living Stench" is full of gross-out humor. One particular moment is one of the campers grabbing Patrick and shoving him into his armpit, which has visible sweat stains.
  • "Kamp Kow" ends with the cow squirting milk everywhere in disgusting detail. SpongeBob proceeds to step in one of the cow's pies, and kisses his shit-covered shoe on-screen.
  • In "Reveille Revolution", Patrick grabs his tongue out of his mouth, rips it in half, and sticks it through his ears, complete with gross sound effects.
  • "Are You Smarter Than a Smart Cabin?" has a brief but unnecessary close-up of the inside of Patrick's bellybutton.
  • "Deep Sea Despot" has a Gross-Up Close-Up of a moldy, old loaf of bread with broccoli (which looks more like moss) growing out of it. Squidward serves it to his campers and many of them struggle to eat it.
  • "Regi-Hilled" has scenes with Narlene and Nobby spitting on Regigilled, characters putting away "clean" dishes that have been licked by animals, and SpongeBob makes tea for Lady Upturn by sticking his tongue in it before he serves it to her her. It ends with a foot-wrestling match between Lady Upturn and Narlene. One of their toenails is even ripped off, on-screen. "Disturbing" doesn't even begin to describe it.
  • In "The Perfect Camper", Jimmy Blobfish sprays a bunch of gross slime out through his nose. Patrick proceeds to put it on pancakes and eats it.
  • In "Eye of the Hotdog", we get the ending of the contestants vomiting up expired hot dogs, on-screen. Craig even forces himself to eat one to win the contest, which we see in detail. He proceeds to immediately spit a bunch into the air. Not helping is that one of the campers who's vomiting says that they didn't even eat any, implying that the hot dogs Craig vomited out went into the other campers' mouths.
  • In "Patrick Takes the Cake" has Patrick taking a cake through the forest. By the end, it's covered in dirt, leaves, and rocks, and has worms squirming in it. Patrick proceeds to throw it at everyone's faces and shoves a piece into Harvey's mouth with his bare hands.
  • "The Taste of Defeat". The episode's climax is Narlene cooking food entirely with her bare feet, shredding toenails into it, and then serving it to unsuspecting kids. The scene is so disgusting that Plankton vomits at it, and we even see a little bit of vomit splashing back.
• Padding:
  • Half of "The Treasure of Kamp Koral" consists of Mr. Krabs running up and down a mountain with little variation.
  • "Helter Shelter" is full of Overly Long Gags, most of them being the characters screaming or crying. It takes half the episode for the main plot to start.
  • "Patrick Takes the Cake" has a straight minute of Patrick being dragged through booby traps.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • A common criticism of the show's animation is that the poor lighting makes the animation look unfinished or rushed, appearing more like a YouTube fan animation. Daytime shots in particular look rather dark.
  • Some of the show's attempts to translate the 2D animation's exaggerated expressions and Gross-Up Close-Up shots border on being creepy, due to the limitations of Computer Animation for television.
  • Fluids are also pretty bad, with water looking more like gel than anything.
  • This was indeed the case when the show's sneak peek dropped, with many complaining about the lack of textures on several of the models, and even worse lighting than in the final product.
  • "Hard Time Out" has a closeup of a very pixelated wooden wall, meaning it clearly wasn't designed for use in closeups.
  • The animation of the waves of cold in "Sun's Out, Fun's Out" overlaid on the screen are very choppy and slower than the actual CG animation.
  • When Krabs' cabin explodes in "Sun's Out, Fun's Out", the characters flying out can be seen T-posing.
  • In "Painting with Squidward", SpongeBob's pants and Sandy's dress are untextured during a scene where Narlene models.
  • In "Scaredy Squirrel", Sandy is seen clipping through her hammock twice.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • "Cabin of Curiosities" starts with SpongeBob and Patrick looking for a badge to earn. Squidward suggests the Friendship Badge, where they have to get four people to sign their book. We then get a few scenes of SpongeBob and Patrick trying to integrate with different cliques around the camp, which could be an episode in its own right, and a good way to establish the supporting cast this early in the show. Instead, the episode focuses on them doing night challenges with the Trawler cabin to earn different badges, with the Friendship Badge only ever coming up again at the very end.
  • "Kitchen Sponge" reveals that Sandy sent messages to her past self to prevent the Krabby Patty recipe from being acquired by Plankton. Sandy having contact with her future self is an awesome idea, but it never comes up after this episode.
  • The first half of "Gimme a News Break" is considered to be better than the second, since it focuses on a variety of skits with the supporting characters, presented in the form of a news broadcast. These scenes are pretty funny, and they easily could have carried an entire episode. However, the second half focuses on Perch believing in Martians due to incredibly convoluted clues, which are explained through an unsatisfying Ass Pull.
• Uncertain Audience: SpongeBob SquarePants is already a kids' series, with its best seasons being enjoyable for both children and adults alike, leaving the question as to what a dumbed-down Spin-Off Babies show would add to the franchise. Fans of SpongeBob didn't like that it was a tie-in for the divisive The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and the generic "everyone went to summer camp together" plot contradicting the iconic character introductions on the main show. The series itself is also loaded with inappropriate and really gross moments that would turn parents away (i.e. an episode about nudist camps and constant disgusting scenes involving feet), and kids would probably just prefer to watch the over 300 episodes of SpongeBob on the same service anyways. The show got canned after two seasons, the second only being half the length of the first.
• Unexpected Character:
  • The series features minor characters such as Bubble Bass, Kevin C. Cucumber, and Nosferatu as kids. Kevin came as a big surprise, since he only had one speaking role throughout the original series (in an early season two episode).
  • Sandy's adult self — appearing in the original show's art style as a messenger from the future — came as a surprise to many, and also served as an indication that her appearance in the show would actually adhere to the continuity of the original series.
  • Lady Upturn (previously named Ms. Mildred) is a recurring character in this show. At the time Kamp Koral premiered, she had only had three speaking roles over seasons 10-early 13 ("Krusty Katering", "Moving Bubble Bass", "A Place for Pets").
  • Cecil Star appearing in "Help Not Wanted". It's the first instance of a character created for The Patrick Star Show crossing over onto Kamp Koral, with many assuming that if Patrick's dad appeared, it would be Herb from the main show. At the end of the episode, Bunny and GrandPat show up, too!
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: In "In a Nut's Shell", Mr. Krabs sneaks away from the camp's pranking day to relax and have some time alone. The episode punishes him and presents him as being a coward or a liar, but it's understandable why he wouldn't want to be subjected to a bunch of destructive, harmful pranks in the first place. He wasn't neglecting the kids or anything; he has the right to choose how to spend his time.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • In "Lake Crashers", Mrs. Puff claims that she was simply participating in the demolition derby to keep the kids safe. However, the audience witnesses her ominously monologuing to herself about being drawn to the "destruction", and she is incredibly aggressive with smashing the other campers' cars. Since Mrs. Puff's been shown to be a Child Hater who Would Hurt a Child, it comes off more like she's covering her own ass than it being her legitimate intentions.
  • In "Regi-Hilled", Lady Upturn is meant to be sympathetic for how she ends up taking Regigille back after mistreating him. However, the entire reason she fired him in the first place was that he made her tea two degrees too cold (and he did make it right at first; it only got cold because she had him throw out the first breakfast he made because she wanted something else). She hires SpongeBob instead, whose Lethally Stupid nature proves hard to handle. It doesn't ever come off that she specifically wants Regigille back, moreso just someone who actually knows how to operate a washing machine and clean floors. And despite Regigille actually enjoying his low-stress lifestyle after being fired, he still goes back to Upturn after she "exerts herself" for him.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: In November 2022, Kamp Koral began airing on Nick Jr. This is despite its high amounts of violence (sometimes crossing over into actively disturbing rather than cartoony), two episodes revolving around attempted murder ("Camper Gary" and "Lake Crashers"), extreme gross-out, and generally kid-unfriendly humor (such as SpongeBob knitting a sweater that says "Hug Addicts" in "My Fair Nobby").

---