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— Baby Prunes, "Chocolate with Nuts"
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Baby Prunes[2][3][4], also known as the mom[5], is the extremely old and ancient mother of Mary. She first appears in the episode "Chocolate with Nuts."
Description[]
She is ancient compared to just about anyone in Bikini Bottom. She even remembers the time when chocolate was invented. She is shriveled up to the point where she appears to be merely a head and a spine. She has a severe hearing disability and no physical eyeballs left. She is dark brown and she sits in a dark green wheelchair with a bamboo frame and metal wheels with black tires.
Personality[]
She is often bad-tempered and impatient, often irritating her daughter, but she may have not always been like this due to old age. Due to having a hearing disability, she has to have people repeat themselves for her a number of times and with a tone of voice as loud as possible. She despises chocolate, though develops an interest in it after being falsely told by SpongeBob and Patrick that rubbing it on oneself causes the user to live forever. From this instance, it is revealed that she wants to be immortal.
Role in series[]
Baby Prunes has made only four appearances in the series so far. She was at first meant to be a one time character in "Chocolate with Nuts" but she made a very slight appearance in the episode "Ink Lemonade" after being absent for over ten years. She later reappears in "Biddy Sitting" where more than half of the episode mainly focuses on her. She has been portrayed as the mother of Mary in all of her appearances.
Roles[]
SpongeBob SquarePants[]
"Chocolate with Nuts"/"Chocolate with Nuts: Puppet Edition!"/Comic Number 16[]
When SpongeBob and Patrick come to Mary's doorstep, her mother comes forth to see what they are selling. Since she cannot hear, Mary is forced to scream at the top of her lungs that they are selling chocolate bars, after which her mother reminisces on when chocolate was invented and how much she hated it. SpongeBob and Patrick, conforming to their profit gimmick, falsely advertise the chocolate they are selling as skin enhancers that lead their customers into a state of immortality. This changes her opinion on chocolate and she agrees to buy a bar, intent on living forever. At the end of the episode, Mary and her mother double-date Patrick and SpongeBob at Fancy! after they become rich from selling all their chocolate to Incidental 6.
"Ink Lemonade"[]
As the Bikini Bottomites are looking for a place to throw up after realizing that Squidward's ink is used to make black lemonade, Mary can be seen pushing her mother through the crowd of people going into Squidward's house.
"Biddy Sitting"[]
Her biggest role in the series yet. Mary tricks SpongeBob and Patrick into babysitting her mother. At first, they think she is an "ugly baby" who can talk. They named her "Baby Prunes." She kept trying to escape from them numerous times until Patrick accidentally mistakes her for a worm and lets her out. SpongeBob then finds a birthday card in the bathroom for her 137th birthday and realizes that she is really an old lady, so he and Patrick go search for her while she does extreme activities such as snowboarding on lava, skydiving without a parachute, and boxing. When SpongeBob and Patrick finally find her, she beats them up due to them humiliating her earlier. She then tires herself out and SpongeBob and Patrick take her home.
"FUN-Believable"[]
She and her daughter are two people that Rube interviews on the show. When Rube doubts that Baby Prunes was as wild as she claimed in her youth, she proves it by taking him on a chaotic helicopter ride. On the way, she gets into a battle with Old Mrs. Perkins over who is the oldest citizen. Their helicopter battle sends them crashing into Glove World! As the two are being wheeled away by Perch Perkins and Mary, Old Mrs. Perkins dies and instantly disintegrates into a pile of dust, leaving Baby Prunes to admit that Old Mrs. Perkins really was the older one, but also realizes that she's now the oldest.
The Patrick Star Show[]
"Patrick's Got a Zoo Loose"[]
When Space Rube hosts the show, he puts Baby Prunes and her daughter as guests on the show. They bid the audience farewell at the end, then are revealed to be shapeshifting monsters.
Trivia[]
- In "Biddy Sitting," she is revealed to have an old birthday card from her 137th birthday. She is pictured on the card and looks somewhat younger, with a body instead of just a spine. This means she is older than 137, which is older than the oldest human that ever lived. Her exact age is unknown.
- If she was alive to see and remember the invention of chocolate, she would have been born before 1900 BC,[6] making her at least 3,924 years old, as of 2024.
- However, "FUN-Believable" establishes that Old Mrs. Perkins, who is 115, is older than her.
- In most foreign dubs, her voice is changed to sound more like a female compared to the original male and scratchy voice supplied by Tom Kenny.[citation needed]
- However, in the French dub, her voice is still male.
- In the Romanian version of "Biddy Sitting," she is voiced by the same actor who does SpongeBob's voice.
- Seeing as she no longer has arms, it would be impossible for her to handle the wheelchair herself. Despite this, she is shown to be able to move the chair without assistance.