Maybe I never grew up (I suspect that most people really don't -- and is that a bad thing?), but I dig Nickelodeon's (DISH Network channels 170 and 171) SpongeBob Squarepants. I have my DVR set to record new episodes. On those nights when I can't sleep, I bounce between CNN (DISH Network channel 200) and recorded SpongeBobs.
There, I said it -- 700 billion-dollar bailouts and Bikini Bottom share space in my head.
And a recent episode of Fox's Fringe gives me the idea that I'm not the only one who juggles thoughts of both crude oil prices and Krabby Patties. Fringe's Walter, a mad scientist who spent 17 years in a mental institution (okay, maybe NOT such a great example, but hang on), remarks in one scene that he can't believe the show is for children. "It's quite profound," he says (or something to that effect).
I don't know about profound, but I do know from funny. And I think that at least one of the writers of that episode of Fringe is making a clever -- and plausibly deniable -- admission of his own. So, there's at least one other adult (chronologically, at least) who probably laughs every time he sees SpongeBob's rancid breath burn off Patrick's eyebrows and who can't resist saying "Floor it?" every time he gets behind the wheel with passengers in the car.
But I think there are more of you out there. And it's okay, really. Growing up's overrated, anyway.
