Sandra "Sandy" Jennifer Cheeks is one of the main characters in the SpongeBob SquarePants television series. She is a female squirrel and is SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star's friend.
Sandy is notable for her Texas characteristics and knowledges of Karate and science. As revealed in the episode "Patrick SmartPants," and the SpongeBob special "Atlantis SquarePantis," Sandy's full name is Sandra, with the name "Sandy" just being a nickname.
Description
Sandy comes from the state of Texas, known from the episode "Texas", and she exhibits many characteristics of a stereotypical "cowgirl" character by going to every city in Texas. She speaks with a heavy Southern accent, and uses typical Southern slang words and phrases, such as "howdy" and "y'all". She is very fond of her homeland and its culture, as most notably seen in the episode "Texas," in which she grows homesick for it and considers leaving Bikini Bottom to return to Texas. In that same episode, she takes great offense at SpongeBob and Patrick's negative remarks about Texas, and violently attacks them when they continue to insult it.
Sandy is most likely one of the most intelligent and levelheaded characters on the show. She is a multi-talented scientist and inventor, and originally came to Bikini Bottom to study sea creatures and their lifestyles. In "Chimps Ahoy," it reveals that she is employed by a trio of chimpanzees from the surface, named Professor Percy, Dr. Marmalade, and Lord Reginald. As an inventor, Sandy is capable of creating extremely advanced devices with ease. Her inventions include a manned space ship, a teleporter, a submarine that can shrink to microscopic size and go inside a person's body (Squidward Tentacles), and even a Protogenerator 2000 cloning device.
Sandy is also very athletic and physically fit. She and SpongeBob share a favorite pastime of karate, and frequently fight each other for fun. The karate they use appears to be stylized to fit that of "play karate," as they both mainly fight with chops and kicks in a cartoonish manner. There also appears to be other forms of fighting in the series, most notably in "Karate Island," where three other fish demonstrate unique fighting styles, (which looks more like stylized versions of Kung Fu rather than Karate.)
Sandy also enjoys extreme sports and thrill seeking, which SpongeBob joins her in on the occasion, most notably in "Prehibernation Week." Sandy possesses immense strength, and is likely the strongest creature in Bikini Bottom. She is often seen at Goo Lagoon lifting weights with Larry the Lobster, of whom she is a good friend, and other muscular fish. In "MuscleBob BuffPants," Sandy shows SpongeBob her immense biceps and an intense daily exercise routine. In that same episode, she wins the eighth annual Goo Lagoon anchor toss competition, tossing an enormous anchor 510 yards. In various other episodes such as "Karate Island," "Christmas Who?", and "Whelk Attack," Sandy usually tends to briefly, but prominently, display her muscular body.
Appearance
Sandy is most commonly seen wearing her suit for oxygen when she is outside her Treedome. The suit is white, and with a yellow patch with an acorn on it. It also has two red, and a blue ring(s) on each sleeve. The suit comes with a big glass dome (but it does not have an oxygen tank) with a pink flower. She also wears boots with two red dots on the side of each boot. When Sandy appears inside the tree dome, she wears purple clothing, primarily a purple bikini top and a purple and green skirt like bottom. In "Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy," when her fur pelt is off, she wears a purple bra and purple panties.
When she is on her exercise hamster wheel, she can be seen wearing a white hoodie and blue workout sweats.
At night, she wears a nightgown. In "Sandy's Rocket," she wears a light blue nightgown and is shown for a split second until the camera cut to her face. In "Karate Choppers," she wears a lavender nightgown while karate chopping over the phone with SpongeBob. In "Survival of the Idiots," Sandy wears a pink nightgown throughout the episode. In "Overbooked," she wears a purple nightgown, while giving a presentation to her colleagues.
Personality
Sandy is usually kind and caring for SpongeBob, and is known to help him out when he's feeling lost as seen in newer episodes, however in older episodes she is shown to be much more crazy. For example in "Pre-hibernation Week," she is shown to be more crazy than ever when she forces SpongeBob to play rather dangerous games, thus leaving SpongeBob to run away. She then forced all Bikini Bottomites to search nonstop for days on end looking for him, to the point when they all ran and hid from her just like SpongeBob.
Another example is in "Texas," she cried several times throughout the episode because she missed Texas. SpongeBob and Patrick then made fun of Texas. She was offended by SpongeBob and Patrick mocking Texas, and thus she chased both of them down and brutally attacked Patrick.
She has also been shown to have a strong competitive streak and a high opinion of herself. In "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm," she completely ignores SpongeBob's warnings about the Alaskan Bull Worm and tells him that she is "too Texas tough", only to discover the hard way that the Bull Worm is indeed too much for her to handle. In "Pressure," she continuously brags that land creatures are better than sea creatures and nearly drowns herself in an attempt to "prove" it.
In "Survival of the Idiots," Sandy is shown during her hibernation as an obese, monstrous version of herself (prior to going into hibernation, animals must have tremendous amounts of body fat and energy reserves in order to survive the winter). SpongeBob and Patrick enter her snow-filled Treedome and disturb her sleep, and the semi-conscious Sandy viciously attacks them, believing them to be "Dirty Dan" and "Pinhead Larry", two outlaws from her dreams.
Relationships
Spongebob SquarePants
Pearl Krabs
Karen Plankton
Patrick Star
Squidward Tentacles
Eugene H. Krabs
Larry the Lobster
Gary the Snail
Skills
Sandy is smart, athletic and talented and therefore has many skills such as:
- Karate: Of all the characters in the show who practice Karate, Sandy is the best at it; she has green gear.
- Science: Sandy has shown to have a vast knowledge of science: several episodes feature her doing experiments, as the series progressed; she did more and more science.
- Singing: Sandy is a very good singer; the episode "Texas" was the first time she was shown singing.
- Guitar: Sandy has played guitar while singing several times, also, in the episode "Band Geeks," she was the Lead guitarist of the band.
- Lasso: Sandy can throw a lasso very easily such as in "Sandy, SpongeBob, and the Worm," and "The Gift of Gum" also, in video games such as "Battle for Bikini Bottom," she has the ability to throw her lasso to catch or even break things that are far away.
- Gliding: In "Battle for Bikini Bottom," Sandy can use her lasso to glide.
- Math: Sandy is seen giving a math lesson to intelligent Patrick in "Patrick SmartPants."
- Holding Her Breath: Sandy has been seen holding her breath for long periods of time in many episodes, however after a while; she has to find an air supply for herself.
- Inventing: In several episodes such as "Chimps Ahoy" and "What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?", Sandy has created many useful inventions using her inventing skills.
- Driving: In the episode "To Save a Squirrel," Sandy was shown to drive a boat with the style of a jeep.
- Survival Skills: Sandy has shown to have good Survival Skills in "To Save a Squirrel."
- Sand Boarding: In "Prehibernation Week," Sandy was sandboarding on "Sand Mountain," also, in "Mooncation"; Sandy was "Moon-Crater Boarding."
- Jellyfishing: Sandy is fascinated by jellyfish, the Employee of the Month video game and "I Had an Accident" shows her jellyfishing.
Trivia
- Oddly (yet somewhat explainable), she is called "Arenita" in the Latin American Spanish dub of the series. "Arenita" stands for "little sand" in Spanish, making it a fairly accurate translation.
- In the very last shot of "MuscleBob BuffPants," if you look closely, she has paw pads on the underside of her feet, and is the only episode to show her having them. While, in all other episodes, she just has a beige or brown surface on the bottom of her paws.
- In the episode "Scaredy Pants," Sandy dresses as a pet goldfish in a bowl for Halloween (her air helmet being the bowl), which Squidward, ironically, does not understand.
- Sandy was responsible for introducing Christmas to Bikini Bottom. This happened in the episode "Christmas Who?"
- In the episode "Stanley S. SquarePants," an elderly Scottish relative of Sandy is shown.
- In the episode "To Save a Squirrel," Sandy is shown to have a boatmobile with the design of a Jeep.
- Sandy cries in the episodes "Ripped Pants," "Texas," and "What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?"
- A package of GoGurt featuring Sandy claims she works for a company called "Tree Dome Enterprises Limited."
- In Season 1, Sandy has three dots on her suit instead of an acorn. From Season 2 onward, she has her acorn.
- Sandy's voice actress, Carolyn Lawrence, also voices Cindy Vortex on the show The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, who, like Sandy, practices martial arts. However, Cindy practices Tae-Kwon-Do, while Sandy practices karate. She also voiced Ashley Graham in Resident Evil 4.
- Sandy is called "Sandra" for the first time in "Patrick SmartPants."
- In Season 1 episodes, Sandy's tail is not visible when she is wearing her suit in comparison to later seasons.
- Despite being established as a scientist in later episodes, Sandy is oblivious to the basic fact that sea creatures cannot survive without water in her first appearance. Although, it may be because SpongeBob told her that he likes air not knowing that she meant without water. It is also possible that she thought he was a kitchen sponge, due to his appearance and the fact that kitchen sponges do not need water.
- She appeared the most in Season 8, having a total of 17 episode appearances and one short appearance.
- In the live-action puppet sequence in the episode "Pressure," Sandy is represented by a toy puppet and appears to be naked aside from her helmet.
- It is possible that Sandy knows the Krabby Patty Secret Formula prior to the episode "Karate Choppers," but it may be more likely they were making regular sandwiches in the park.
- Sandy is called "Sandy Squirrel" for the first time in "SpongeBob's Last Stand."
- Sandy appears in the Bikini Bottom Adventures DVD cover, but does not appear in the episodes.
- Stephen Hillenburg said Sandy should come from Houston because her suit reminded him of an astronaut.
- Sandy is most likely older than SpongeBob due to her height and her high intelligence.
- Sandy inflated in the episode "Bubble Troubles."
- When Sandy cries she flushes her helmet, so she will not drown.
- In the episode "Squirrel Record," it is revealed that Sandy has 100 woodchuck cousins, at least one of which is named Earl.
- Sandy sings in four different episodes: "Texas," "Chimps Ahoy," "Earworm," and "Rodeo Daze."
- In Karate Choppers, it is revealed that she is able to drink and gulp down hot Volcano Sauce without any reaction to the spice.
- In most of her appearances, she has fur. However, in Someone's in the Kitchen with Sandy, she wears a pelt. The episode might take place after Survival of the Idiots, where she lost her fur to SpongeBob and Patrick.
- She is the only main character not to fall in love in any episode.
- Sandy is right-handed. You can tell in "MuscleBob BuffPants" and "SpongeBob You're Fired" when she is writing down something, she uses her right hand.
- Strangely, in the trailer for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, Sandy looks like she doesn't know where they are when they pop out of a sandcastle. Since she's a squirrel, she should know where they ended up, since it's dry land and squirrels live on dry land.
Credit
- Encyclopedia SpongeBobia
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