Gary the Snail

Gary the Snail

Gary the Snail, nicknamed Gare-Bear, is a character in the Nickelodeon animated series SpongeBob SquarePants, which first aired on May 1, 1999 (officially premiered on July 17, 1999). In the television series, Gary is SpongeBob's pet snail, although his behavior in several aspects resembles a housecat. It has also been shown that Gary is part of royalty as revealed in "Rule of Dumb". Squidward Tentacles is the arch nemesis of him. A very-frequent running gag in the show is that SpongeBob is unable to feed Gary, such as CLAMS, Have You Seen This Snail?, and I Was A Teenage Gary. Also, Patrick mentioned to him not to forget to feed him, because sometimes he does in "Driven to Tears". Despite his intelligent literate characteristics, he does not seem to enjoy having a bath, or he is trying to avoid it because they already live underwater.

Early Life

Gary is the son of Sluggo Star, and a descendant of King Amoeba. Information regarding Gary's early life is limited to the fact that he lived with SpongeBob while SpongeBob lived in his parents. Proof is in the episode Home Sweet Pineapple, when SpongeBob says to Gary, "Well, looks like we have to move back in with Mom and Pop!" Also, young SpongeBob and young Gary are featured in SpongeBob's scrapbook in the episode Have You Seen This Snail?.

In the episode Rule of Dumb, it was revealed that Gary was the rightful king of Bikini Bottom. It was also revealed in the same episode, that Gary is Patrick's cousin.

General

Since SpongeBob was a boy, he has taken the ownership of Gary. Gary is an intelligent, fully domesticated snail. His intelligence shines through in the fact that he has more intelligent solutions to SpongeBob's dilemmas than SpongeBob himself. Gary tends to disagree with some of SpongeBob's ideas, and usually makes an effort to warn SpongeBob. Sometimes he finds SpongeBob to be a complete annoyance, as does Squidward Tentacles. This is evidenced in the episode Sleepy Time. In the episode, Squidward says, "Don't we get enough of you during the day?" Gary seems to agree with him. Gary ran away from SpongeBob in Have You Seen This Snail? because SpongeBob forgot to feed him. He was then found by an elderly female owner who fed him a lot (she called him Ms. Tuffsy.) and whatever he wanted. It turned out that she had overfed many snails before. Upon seeing fliers that SpongeBob made to look for him, he realized that SpongeBob did love him, and so he went back home. Gary loves his owner Spongebob.

Some of Gary's meows are lower pitched, some are higher pitched; these could possibly indicate that Gary uses different tones of his voice to communicate with SpongeBob, who is able to take more meaning out of these than most Bikini Bottomites. Gary has only been seen speaking English three times. Once in the episode, "Sleepy Time" but that was only a dream, and once in the episode "The Secret Box" but he only made a, "Eer" sound and then said, "No." The third time was in the SpongeBob movie, when Gary had a pair of bucket helmets on his eyes. He chanted "Meow.."Meow..Plankton". Gary has a messy shell in Karate Island. His voice and local vocabulary seems to be a homage to the character Odie from the popular American comic strip Garfield, where Odie has no main complete dialogue, but is able to speak few vocal words.

File:PatrickFamily.gif

Family Tree that shows Gary is in the Royal Family

Appearance

Gary has a blue body and green-yellow slime and eye stalks, big green eyes, red and black eye balls, and a pink shell with purple spots and red swirl.

Trivia/Goofs

• In "Rule of Dumb", it was disclosed that Gary was Bikini Bottom's true king.
• Gary has the ability to both levitate and teleport. Likewise, he is able to play a violin and tie his shoe(s).
• Spongebob readily admits, on several accounts, that Gary pays most of the bills.

Catchphrases

• "Meow."
• "Meow, Plankton."
• "Meow"..."No."