"Gal Pals" is the name for the friendship between the show's four female main characters: Karen Plankton, Sandy Cheeks, Mrs. Puff, and Pearl Krabs. Although they appear in many episodes by themselves, they first form their friend group in "Girls' Night Out" and "A Cabin in the Kelp."
The Gal Pals group was inspired by the real-life friendship between the four female voice actors in the series' main cast: Jill Talley, Carolyn Lawrence, Mary Jo Catlett, and Lori Alan.[1] Having been a part of the show since its debut, they have formed a strong bond over the show's long history.
As revealed in Plankton: The Movie, the Gal Pals have their own secret hideout, which they use as a place to relax and drink coffee together. They also have their own speedboat with a "Gal Pals" decal on it, which Mrs. Puff drives.
Description
Creation
As described in an interview, the Gal Pals group was based on the real-life friendship between the four female voice actors in the main cast: Jill Talley (Karen), Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy), Mary Jo Catlett (Mrs. Puff), and Lori Alan (Pearl).[1]
Jill Talley said that the voice actors have a sister-like relationship, and described their friendship: "We all love each other so much that when we get together, it's like friends at a sleepover. When we are all together, we're so happy to see each other. It's exciting!"[1]
Lori Alan said "Little by little, we've really been able to have more female plotlines. We work really hard, and we could not be more grateful."[1] Jill Talley added, "It's nice too for all the little girls out there to see representation on the show."[1]
Overview
The group is a quartet made up of Karen, Sandy, Mrs. Puff, and Pearl. The Gal Pal group was created by Sandy in order to help Karen and Mrs. Puff relax from their stressful lives. They do this by drinking hot chocolate and coffee together, as well as pranking some of their close friends.
As seen in Plankton: The Movie, the Gal Pals have a secret hideout, which is situated beneath an abandoned sunken ship. The hideout has Sandy's rocket and Mrs. Puff's hot-rod boats on display. It also has a giant coffee dispenser, which rains down a waterfall of coffee whenever the Gal Pals arrive. The Gal Pals use their secret hideout as a place to talk to each other without the rest of Bikini Bottom distracting them.
When they are not riding in their speedboat, the Gal Pals usually get around by climbing onto Karen and having her drive them around on her wheels. Karen's computer screen has a graphic reading "GAL PALS" that she displays whenever the Gal Pals are in action.
Role in series
"Girls' Night Out"
After Sandy spends a week as an amoeba, she calls Karen and Mrs. Puff to a meeting at a corner café that night to tell them about it. However, when they meet up, Karen and Mrs. Puff bemoan about their stressful lives due to Plankton and SpongeBob respectively, so Sandy decides to make their girls' night out fun.
The Gal Pals first stop outside the Chum Bucket, where they plan to prank Plankton by disguising as Mr. Krabs and luring Plankton over to the Krusty Krab with a promise of the Krabby Patty secret formula. Though Karen is unsure at first, she decides to help and the plan goes smoothly, causing Plankton to trigger an alarm in the Krusty Krab and making the real Mr. Krabs show up. Krabs and Plankton fight each other as the Gal Pals laugh at a prank gone right.
Their next stop is SpongeBob's house, where they place a virtual reality helmet on him and pretend to give him a driver's license and put him in a shopping cart to simulate a new boatmobile. However, SpongeBob starts talking about driving, pushing Mrs. Puff to her limit and making her throw the cart around. As Sandy and Karen calm her down, SpongeBob rolls down the street, and the Gal Pals go to rescue him.
The three pursue SpongeBob until he reaches a dead end, where Mrs. Puff uses herself as an airbag to save SpongeBob's life. They reveal the prank to SpongeBob, who loves it and wants to stay by Mrs. Puff's side due to her saving him. The Gal Pals quickly leave, and Sandy says she has the perfect place for the three to relax.
Soon after, the Gal Pals have been shrunk to the size of amoebas, and are happy due to the peace and quiet. However, SpongeBob suddenly shows up followed by Mr. Krabs and Plankton, and the girls bemoan how the boys are acting.
"A Cabin in the Kelp"
The Gal Pals name Pearl as their newest member. To officially induct her into the group, they take her camping at a cabin in Kelp Forest. Pearl gets the feeling that they will try to prank her, so she packs SpongeBob in her backpack and tells him to scare the other Gal Pals when they are telling ghost stories.
Mrs. Puff drives the group to their cabin, and they put all of their luggage in a trailer hitch. The hitch gets loose and falls into an uncharted area of the forest, stranding SpongeBob there. The Gal Pals arrive at their cabin. Sandy fixes up the furniture, Karen recharges herself with a jellyfish, and Mrs. Puff makes a cornucopia of food.
Pearl is worried about SpongeBob and calls him on her phone. She is relieved to hear that he is okay, but he is actually lost in the forest. The Gal Pals start telling ghost stories by a campfire. Karen, Sandy and Mrs. Puff tell Pearl the story of their former friend. They had a fight with her in the same area of the forest, and she stayed there after the fight, never returning to Bikini Bottom.
Pearl is scared, but laughs along with the others when she realizes this was the prank they were planning. She gets scared again when they explain that all of the things they said about Flibberty were true. An old saleslady appears, and the Gal Pals think it is Flibberty after years of living in the forest. They are terrified and run away after the fish enters their cabin.
SpongeBob finally finds his way to the cabin. The fish grabs him and brings him inside. The Gal Pals realize that they need to save him, so they charge back into the cabin together. It turns out that the fish is not Flibberty but a cabin-to-cabin saleslady. The real Flibberty, a dolphin, appears behind them and tries to forgive the Gal Pals for their fight. The Gal Pals are so scared that they run off into the forest before they can hear her.
Role in movies
Plankton: The Movie
The Gal Pals have a prominent role in Plankton: The Movie. First, during the opening song "Welcome to Bikini Bottom," the Gal Pals ride around in their speedboat as SpongeBob introduces them. Later, Karen joins the rest of the Gal Pals for coffee, and Sandy asks if Karen wants to watch a movie with them. However, Karen has to help Plankton with his latest evil plan, so she declines.
Eventually, Plankton's selfish behavior and lack of empathy causes Karen to leave him and upgrade into a high-powered supervillain. She removes her empathy chip, which makes her unable to feel any positive emotions for anyone. Joined by SpongeBob, the Gal Pals save Plankton from Karen's upgraded self, just before she is about to destroy him. Driving in their speedboat, they bring Plankton to their secret hideout, where they put Karen's empathy chip inside Plankton.
With the empathy chip inside him, Plankton has an epiphany. He realizes how much he has mistreated Karen over the years and wants to apologize to her. The Gal Pals and SpongeBob team up with Plankton to help him reach Karen and set things right. They find that Karen's supervillain form has built an entire battle station. Pearl drinks a bottle of hot sauce and shoots fire out of her spout, which acts like a blowtorch and allows her to infiltrate the battle station.
Inside the battle station, the Gal Pals go into "stealth mode" and sneak around. They find the Krusty Krab, which Karen has taken as part of her battle station. Karen and the Hydra Karens see the Gal Pals on their security cameras, and Karen orders the Hydra Karens to exterminate the Gal Pals. The Gal Pals battle with the Hydra Karens.
The Gal Pals do one of their special moves, called "Batter Up," in which Sandy holds Pearl like a baseball bat and launches Mrs. Puff at the Hydra Karens. Pearl and Mrs. Puff fight Super Snarky Karen and Super Smart Karen, while Sandy fights Super Evil Karen. During the Gal Pals' fight with the Hydra Karens, Plankton navigates the battle station and finds his way to the real Karen. The battle ends when Sandy leads Super Evil Karen straight onto an anchor, which falls down and crushes the Hydra Karens, causing them to explode.
Pearl, Sandy, and Mrs. Puff come together, proud to have beaten the Hydra Karens once and for all. They give each other a high-five. Watching them on a security camera, Karen remarks that she is the only one who can beat the other Gal Pals. She uses a trap to throw the Gal Pals out of her battle station. Plankton manages to reach Karen's control stationi, and tries to apologize. At first Karen, still in an unempathetic state without her chip, doesn't believe Plankton, feeling his empathy is not genuine because the chip is his brain. But Plankton reveals the empathy chip is fried from an overload of Plankton's repressed empathy, so when he's talking to her, it's actually genuine. Still Karen is too hurt to believe him, and reveals that she has possession of the holy grail of Plankton's 25 year quest: the Krabby Patty Secret Formula, believing it's all he wanted, giving it to him as parting gift. But instead, Plankton kicks it aside, saying that the real secret formula was her all along. At that moment, Karen's heart melts, as it's the first time she's been told she's appreciated by Plankton in a long time. In an instant, she's restored to her normal self, even without the empathy chip. Her empathy was never truly lost, and the only thing that was needed to reactivate that part of her mind wasn't the chip itself, but receiving empathy in return. Beginning to cry, she realizes Plankton is being genuine, and the two embrace in a long kiss.
Karen reveals that even in her altered state of mind, her original personality held on to hope that Plankton would change, and added a special steering mechanism specifically designed for Plankton in case he changed. The two happily agree to continue Karen's original plan for world domination together, but the plan is foiled by SpongeBob and Patrick, who disable Karen's Mech. Despite this, the two don't mind as they're still happily together again. At the end of the film, Sandy, Mrs. Puff, and Pearl regroup in their speedboat. They also take part in a celebratory parade after Bikini Bottom is back to normal. Karen and Plankton emerge from the Chum Bucket immediately after it touches down, where they are surrounded by angry townsfolk. They try to apologize, but an enraged Mr. Krabs orders everyone to demolish Karen and exterminate Plankton, much to the couple's terror. Even an angry Mrs. Puff and Pearl can be seen in the background, although they're not angry with Karen, but with Plankton as he caused this mess (it's unlikely they would have joined into Krabs' plan to exterminate the two). Sandy can't be seen, most likely with SpongeBob. While it's unconfirmed if Sandy was angry with Plankton, or scared for Karen's safety (as she can't be seen), SpongeBob rushes in front of the two and tries to dissuade the crowd, saying that the whole mess was just a huge tangled love story (and technically it was). The town immediately lights up, with only Krabs being the one that needs any convincing. Plankton, astonished they got off so easy, calls the town morons. Karen agrees, but touched by their friends' forgiveness says, "They're our morons." and embraces Plankton.
It's not shown what happened between Karen and the other Gal Pals after the movie, but it's more than likely that a very regretful Karen apologized to them for nearly having them "destroyed". However, she was easily forgiven, because her friends know in her Hydra form, she was disconnected from reality, and with her empathy chip removed, was in an altered state of mind until Plankton's empathy restored it.
Trivia
- The four Gal Pals voice actors run an Instagram page called The OG Gal Pals, where they post pictures and videos about their SpongeBob characters.[2]
- In 2024, Nickelodeon released an official logo design of the Gal Pals on CafePress, which can be bought on shirts and stickers.[3]
- Their logo is similar to that of the BBC Video logo from the 1980s.
- In the Latin American Spanish dub, the Gal Pals were called "Compañeras" (Partners) in "Girls' Night Out," but in "A Cabin in the Kelp," they're called "Secre-amigas" (Secret Friends), this is most likely a translation error.[citation needed]