Spongebob Popsicles: evidence of declining quality assurance practices?

In 2007 a Boing Boing reader shared the above photo of a Spongebob Popsicle that bore little likeness to the well-known cartoon character. (She sent in the photo after seeing my photo of a poorly made Tweety Bird frozen novelty bar.)

Today, I came across this new photo of a Spongebob Popsicle. It looks even worse than the 2007 Popsicle! At first, I thought that the manufacturing quality had plumbed a new nadir. However, I now suspect that new Popsicle went through a melt-and-refreeze cycle, causing the massive deformation and discoloration we see.

For those tempted to chime in that the nature of frozen novelty bars makes it impossible to reliably produce them with reasonable fidelity to the original character design, I'd like to once again point to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle bar:

• [joeposts]

  Smushbob Sogpants!

• [Antinous / Moderator]

  You know who else holds a pitchfork in front of his face?  Satan.

• [tofagerl]

  That second ice cream came to me in a dream about ten years ago and caused a major depressive disorder I’m still dealing with. It was delicious, though…

• [zarray]

  spongbab just wants to dieeeeeeee 

• [Dan Ray]

  I was fairly unimpressed with this Dora the Explorer I got a couple summers back.

• [johne2]

  They all come from the same manufacturer.

  And the box of Pink Panthers I just bought are fine, except the red gumball eyes should be yellow.

• [malindrome]

  O tempora o mores!

• [Anne Noise]

  Those TMNT ice cream bars made my summers perfect as a child.  I spent hours watching the show, playing TMNT outside and in the pool, and inhaling little tiny Turtle ice cream heads.  Fuck yes, summer!

• [Ian Wood]

  Well what’s it taste like then.

  • [malindrome]

    Frozen sadness.

• [Alex Riepl]

  Oh so many years ago when I was a summer camp the only ice cream character bars on sale were of Mickey Mouse. But the guy in charge of the camp commisary declared that they would only serve “Mutant Mickeys”. When you purchased one, before handing it over to you to unwrap and eat, he would pount it with a mallet or throw it in a tiny wooden barrel and shake about. Then and only then would we receive our treat. It doesn’t take much more than that to impress a bunch of ten year olds. Fucking awesome. I still remember that.

  Properly formed icecream treat characters are over rated.

• [dethbird]

  Spengbab Squorponts! (http://goo.gl/75UVs — google image search i promise!)

  • [timquinn]

    because sponges really are kind of gross. No offense, Bob.

• [tristan eldritch]

  Man, that second picture is bleak, looks like what would happen if they’d let Francis Bacon design popsicles.

• [TopOc]

  “It’s not turning out exactly right, so don’t get too disappointed”

  http://achewood.com/index.php?date=08122004

• [Mantissa128]

  Actually, I think these are teaching our kids a good lesson about the difference between advertising and reality.

• [dawdler]

  Sorry, this topic just leaves me cold…

• [teapot]

  1) The Spongebob design is far more intricate than the TMNT one

  2) The eyes disgust me. Surely we can all agree that icecream should NEVER be black, unless it’s made from something that’s actually black like black sesame.

  • [zarray]

    that sounds delicious

    • [ImmutableMichael]

      If black sesame icecream is new to you, then today is your lucky day.  Congratulations!  If only I was in your shoes to try it for the first time again….

• [miasm]

  OMG, I want a Dolan ice cream.

• [scott bc]

  No false expectations from my local ice cream man! They just show Spurnge Berb as he is, as he will be when birthed from his wrapping. 

  But I mean, really, they were never good. But I loved the hell out of them as a kid. But i’m older, so it was WWF(Hulk and Macho Man!), and the ninja turtles.

• [cosmicrob]

  My son got one of these last week.. The eyes are gumballs and the ice cream flavor reminded me of Sprite. Not a very good likeness, but appropriately goofy.

• [Joel Evans-Fudem]

  I had my last TMNT Popsicle like that one on my 5th birthday in 1992.  I was distracted from happily munching on it and sadly, left it out on a rock in June in California.  Went back to find it 3-4 hours later… Wadda Ya Know, not melted and still delicious.  After that my mom wouldn’t let me have any more of them :(

• [GoGo Vicmorrow]

  When I was a young lad my parents would buy me these “monster pops” they were popsicles molded like, well monster, but kind of generic universal monsters. I don’t think they were licensed at least. I am not sure what they all were except I know there was a dracula. Then I think a skeleton, a werewolf maybe, and a final one. I have scoured (well kinda scoured) the internet and there is no evidence that these exist. I have found only one other person that was searching as intently as I was and they had listed their email for any clues. My next work will be looking through my old summer photos. Any one else remember these? They were just shaped ice pops, simple flavors cherry, grape, etc.

• [Ge Rry]

  better than this though…
  http://www.eldescodificador.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/bob-esponja-teta2.jpg

  • [IronEdithKidd]

    I really wish I could unsee that.  :-(