Just how much debt is Sheldon Plankton in?

As the owner of a failing business, Plankton seems to have no restraint

when it comes to paying for elaborate schemes, disguises,

and countless other expenses.

So we hired a certified financial advisor to calculate his exact debt,

and lend her expertise to help him out of it.

I assure you Mr. Plankton will be in good hands with me.

I've seen hundreds of cases of extreme debt,

and there's not one I haven't been able to help with yet.

First, we had to determine Plankton's income

and then subtract his various expenses to see just how far in the red he is.

Question one, how much does the Chum Bucket net each year?

Well, the first step is to determine the average price each customer pays,

and then we can estimate the amount of customers Mr. Plankton has annually.

In the season four episode, New Leaf,

Plankton reveals that, up until this point,

he has only ever had one customer, this dead rat.

A dead rat... OK...

In the episode, Plankton's Regular,

Plankton did have a brief stint of success,

when regular customer Nat Peterson frequented the Chum Bucket,

only to find that his computer wife,

was actually paying Nat to eat at the Chum Bucket.

Seeing as Peterson eventually paid the entire sum back,

it can be deduced that they broke even.

While the Chum Bucket has had other bouts of popularity,

they seem to always end with a catastrophe.

Resulting in repair bills or even possible law suits.

Leading us to infer that the Chum Bucket's annual profits are...

Fundamentally non-existent.

Er... OK, so an income of zero?

OK.

I have a few questions.

You keep mentioning episodes.

Is that how you measure your fiscal year?

Question two, what is the Chum Bucket's cost of operations?

With a few short-lived exceptions,

Plankton doesn't have any employees on the payroll,

and keeps the Chum Bucket open from 8am to 6pm, Monday through Saturday,

while remaining closed on Sunday.

OK, great, well...

Since he's not generating any revenue,

it is very wise for Mr. Plankton to implement this hiring freeze.

And also, being closed on Sunday doesn't hurt either.

Now what are his utility costs like?

In general, a small restaurant would pay about two dollars and ninety cents

per square foot for electricity,

and about 85 cent per square foot for natural gas.

So I would just need to know the square footage of the er...

Chum Bucket.

The season one episode, Sleepy Time,

reveals that SpongeBob is four inches tall.

If we use SpongeBob as our ruler,

we learn that the diameter of the base of the restaurant is 12 inches,

giving it a six inch radius.

So six inches?

Six inches?

OK.

Let's just plug that in.

Pi R-Squared.

And we have the area of the Chum Bucket, which is 113... square... inches.

But that's not even a square foot!

That's a mistake, right?

If we assumed Plankton owns the Chum Bucket outright,

then it doesn't cost him much to maintain.

So if Plankton opened the Chum Bucket as soon as he graduated college,

we can assume he has been paying for these utilities for about 35 years.

Next, we have to look at his personal expenses.

Since he lives in the Chum Bucket,

he doesn't have to pay any rent or for additional property.

He also saves money by primarily eating holographic food.

So what is he paying for?

We know he wears a single contact lens, which don't come cheap.

An average box of six lenses costs around 25 dollars.

So if Plankton changes his contact every two weeks,

he would need almost five boxes a year.

He also owns a Labrador retriever.

This is my lab!

Which on average have an annual cost of 2,268 dollars per year,

and judging by this particular dog's size and the healthy condition of his teeth,

we can conclude that he is about five years old.

Bringing the total cost to about 11,340 dollars.

And there is one major expense we are forgetting.

I went to college!

The average debt for a student of a four year college

is around 38, 390 dollars.

And since he has no source of income,

it's safe to say he hasn't been paying off his loans.

So that means his loans have been collecting interest for the past 35 years

which would bring his debt total to

211,759 dollars and 83 cents, and he hasn't paid any of it off?

Finally, we have to calculate the cost

of Plankton's various schemes and inventions.

we separated Plankton's various inventions

into three tiers.

In the C tier, we have any small technological gadgets and weapons,

like the Propeller Pen, Stench Vision Goggles and Death Ray.

These likely cost close to the price of an average, high-end smart phone.

We estimate he makes about five items in this tier per year.

In the B tier, we have inventions like The Analyzer,

The Ghost Extracting Machine

and the Switch-Lives-Just-To-Know-What- It's-Like-O-Mogrifier.

We've determined that each of these

costs Plankton about the price of a high-end gaming computer,

and he only makes about three of these a year.

Finally, we have the A tier.

These are the highly functioning, fully operational robots

that he frequently builds.

Robots like Robot Krabs, Robot SpongeBob and Robot Game Show Host.

Each of these costs roughly around the price of an average luxury car.

We've deduced that Plankton makes about eight of these per year.

Meaning that ever year, Plankton spends roughly

503,684 dollars and 97 cents on inventions.

If we multiply that by 35 years,

and add in the rest of the debt we calculated,

it comes to... 17, 856, 552 dollars and 40 cents!

Mostly on this garbage, I mean, who is this guy?

He knows I'm a financial advisor, right?

Not a magician!

What about this?

This wired, integrated, female electroencephalograph?

Yes, what about that?

Karen is Plankton's most complicated invention,

and also his beloved computer wife.

Karen is capable of advanced human level communication,

leaning based decision making and can even feel emotion.

As such, she is the world's first and only known example

of artificial general intelligence.

Seeing as the United States has spent millions in funds

towards developing similar technologies to no avail,

we can conclude that Karen's software cost millions, or even billions to--

Nope, nope, nope, nope.

I do not have time for this.

Oh no, now this is--

I mean, you people-- this is some kind of joke, right?

Bring him here, bring him here, I wanna meet him!

We can't, ma'am.

What do you mean you can't?

He lives underwater... he's a plankton.

I'm outta here.

This is your office...

Our trust financial advisor agrees that Plankton is in an ocean of debt.

We'll give her some time to process and await her advice.

That's all for today, folks.

Let us know what you want us to figure out

in the next episode of Inside Bikini Bottom.

Goodbye, everyone, I'll remember you all in therapy!