@Mr__Thrawn said:
"One of very few (two?) sets to include the flick-Fire missile in red"

There's one of those in the Saturn V. I was shocked and delighted to see it when I opened whatever bag it comes in

Love the spongebob sets, especially the big ones

I have the droid body and the transparent chef’s hats from this set. For now, I think that is enough.

These later Spongebob sets were never as good as the first wave(s?). Still, some Spongebob is better than no Spongebob!

I bet this could float if you put it in water

@BulbaNerd4000 said:
"I bet this could float if you put it in water"

If I ever reassemble this one then I might try that honestly, that might've added to the price if it does float but I personally don't think it would, at least not for long. I thought this set could've been better when I was a kid, getting SpongeBob and Patrick in their Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy outfits would've been better than the weird knockoff superheroes here (I'm saying this as someone who values the green and blue capes). Heck, actual Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy Minifigures would've been a great change of pace, idk how they'd make the build into the invisible boatmobile but that'd be cool, too. I don't remember Plankton's robotic suit being in the show, the birthday cake one from Friend or Foe is about as close as his robots get iirc.

I don't know if it's just me, but the second run of Spongebob sets that this was from felt way worse than the original run. The sets were a lot more simplistic, and then you had stuff like this that had no real ties to the show (that I know of)

Nonetheless, thanks to my grandparents this like one of two LEGO Spongebob sets I actually own. I love the colors and costume designs, it's just... not Spongebob

I'm not into Sponge Bob lore but I can see the cartoon origins of the set in the colors. Looks like a fun set.

Most of the SpongeBob sets were honestly pretty bad. Very oversimplified and unimpressive builds, if it weren't for the SpongeBob brand attached to them, nobody would have remembered those.
I am willing to bet most of the people who bought those back in the day mostly did so just to get the Minifigures.

I've already cover thoughts/feeling about 'the subject matter' in an earlier RSOTD (in the words of the immortal Daffy Duck: "Easy stomach...don't turn over now, eeeasy does it...":)), I will admit one thing: I think it's ironic that TLG got to do a character that's, well, 'blockish' by his very nature...seriously, this would like if the company making 'Stretch Armstrong' sudden go a contract to make 'Mr. Fantastic' for Marvel (well, they could make 'Plastic Man' for DC, problem is: Plas is also a shapeshifter:))

Oh man, I used to go wild over this set!

I remember seeing this set a couple of times in databases when I was looking for specific parts it had, like the azure wedges or the minifig capes. Not one that I found super appealing but it might've been nice to pick up back in the day, which I never bothered because I was broke back then, heh.

The only SpongeBob set I ever considered buying. Solely for that red laser pistol, which is still unique, according to the parts page.
@PurpleDave: Love your Starro spores.

@Peter1999 said:
"Bring the theme back LEGO"

Now Megablocks makes nickelodeon sets :(

I love this one and consider it essential for my DC and Marvel heroes collection.

After seeing several of just2good's LEGO SpongeBob reviews I finally figured out why the SpongeBob minifigure was so uncanny valley:

Because these sets pre-dated (presumably) dual arm molding, the minifigure's arms were always sleeveless yellow, and that alone was enough to make the entire minifigure completely off-putting.

@TransNeonOrangeSpaceman said:
"If only I could actually read the Krabby Patty formula."

oh, that one's easy! Just watch the Krusty Krab Training Video episode to hear about how it's made.

Minifigs are very unique!

@PurpleDave said:
I’ve never actually read the first Starro story, but he shows up quite a bit in DC animated series, and nearly every version I’ve seen has the ability to generate spores that look like miniature versions of itself, and can mind-control people by wrapping around their heads.

On a side note, DC recently published a facsimile edition of the League's first appearance for those interested in an affordable copy.
The face huggers did not appear until Starro's third appearance in 1981's JLoA 189, but they are so iconic I bet they have been in every appearance since.
Nice build by the way.

I remember visiting Hamley's in London and seeing this and the Glove World set for the first time in stores. The spongebob waves barely appeared here in the Netherlands. I know that the 2007 wave was available through shop-at-home at least, so were available DTC. And I recall the 2007 and 2008 waves being in catalogs at the time.

But this wave, and many others didn't. Other waves that were also not available here were the '99 wave of Ninja, Avatar, Aqua Raiders (sans The Shipwreck), a few of the '08 titans from Bionicle, Unikitty!, Mixels series 1-3 (although they rarely popped up in some stores), the Power Puff Girls sets, and the last Ultra Agents wave, to name af few. I'm also pretty sure the last OG Harry Potter set from 2007 also didn't make it here, at least not widely. And now there's monkie kid.
And there were also many, many exclusives that weren't even all that exclusive elsewhere but did not appear here.

Thank goodness Lego is now less inclined to just straight up skip a wave of sets here. To this day I have no idea what they held against the Dutch market at the time. Were we that poor of a market?

@LegoSonicBoy :
Oh, yeah, these were definitely before dual-molded arms. The Target Cube Superboy, S12, or the Simpsons CMFs would have been the first minifigs released with dual-molded arms, and Superboy is the only one of those that’s not a CMF. I’m pretty sure they made the molds happen and it spread from there.

@kdu2814 :
I would definitely be interested in a copy of that issue. Right now I put a printout near Starro when I display him, which includes the cover art from his first appearance, and the cover art from JLA 190 (it shows a ton of superheroes who have been spored). My MOC, BTW, grew a bit during his first few appearances, as I kept deciding he didn’t look bulky enough. The current and final version is 14” in diameter if stretched out flat (a little less tip-to-tip because there’s an odd number of arms, but if you lay him on a 14” circle all five arms can touch the line). I think it was something like 1500pcs? It’s shockingly heavy, and takes five minifig flight sticks to prop him up in that pose. They are visibly bowed under the full weight. And I’ve had people suggest I make the new movie version, which would have to be at least 4’ tall with a steel armature to hold it up.

You’d be wrong about the spores, however. In animation, there have been a few cameo appearances where the traditional spores never come up. He’s appeared twice on Teen Titans Go!, and the closest they’ve come is Robin getting infected and turning into a starfish himself. They did revisit it on Batman Beyond, but S:TAS had an episode where Starro makes a cameo appearance that sorta promised he’d pose a threat at some point, but he was locked up in a zoo, and then got locked up in another zoo. I can’t remember if the Robot Chicken episode used spores, but there have been some instances where samples of his body have been turned into tech, or someone just made original tech that snuck in a reference to him. Comic-wise, yeah, outside of stuff based on animated series, I’d be surprised if they skipped that aspect.

BTW, I displayed Starro four times last year (3x before, an once during the pandemic), and four more times this year. I’m about to pack up for our fifth show this year, which means Brickworld Detroit will be his tenth appearance coming up in a few weeks.