My top 5 favorite SpongeBob characters - ep3

As far as it goes with the characters like SpongeBob, Patrick, and other side characters.
I find myself gravitating towards characters that share personality traits with me.
Over the years certain characters have gained personality and others have seemingly been boiled down into basic acts that they performed daily.
I watched a video that once described this process as "Ned Flandering"
Because in the show The Simpsons Ned Flanders went from being a complex character that you could see get annoyed with Homer's antics and deal with them in his own way to just being a smiling cardboard cut-out character.
The characters in SpongeBob have undergone a very similar process whereas SpongeBob used to be childish but also mature enough to recognize certain situations and naturally react to them.
he has now gone completely towards the imbecilic man-child.
Patrick was never intelligent but he was a very good friend with a limited capacity for doing almost malicious mean and self-serving acts.
In the later seasons, his stupidity and selfishness have gotten so bad that he's become an almost completely unlikable character.
Squidward, has unfortunately gotten the worst of the treatment.
He was always a self-serving jerk.
but he would have moments of genuine humanity and show how much he can care for others.
Mr. Krabs also got a similar treatment but it actually works out to his benefit.
He went from an almost pseudo-father figure to just being the boss whose main aspirations were to gain money at any cost.
This lends itself to some truly funny dark humor.
So who are my favorite characters?
You are going to have to watch the episode to find out.