Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Unless you've been living in Davy Jones' locker for the past six years, you'll know the answer is SpongeBob SquarePants, the most popular invertebrate on television. And if new nautical nonsense is something you wish after endless reruns from the first three seasons, Nickelodeon is ready to oblige with a wave of 20 premiere "SpongeBob SquarePants" episodes on Fridays (8 p.m.) beginning this week.

And fans, as well as Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob and his pet snail, Gary, couldn't be more excited than if they'd learned the Krabby Patty secret formula. In particular, Kenny says, it's the really big kids who've had enough of the reruns. "Kids were happy watching them for the 3,000th time. It was the parents who've been busting my chops for new episodes," he says.

In case Spongeheads are worried about anything ridiculous like character growth this season, Kenny promises it will be "the same show, the same sponge" -- in other words, the same craziness. First up are "Fear of a Krabby Patty," wherein SpongeBob's exhaustion after working 24-hour shifts for 43 straight days leads to patty phobia, and "Shell of a Man," in which SpongeBob has to pose as his boss, Mr. Krabs, at the latter's reunion with his Navy buddies. His uniform: Krabs' molted shell.

Kenny says fans also can expect SpongeBob to engage in further adventures with his superhero idols, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, and to be transported to the Middle Ages, where he meets his cranky neighbor Squidward's ancestor, the world's worst minstrel.

But anyone romanticizing about a love interest for SpongeBob can just keep dreaming, Kenny says. "Like the creature he anthropomorphizes, he's forever asexual."

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"Fear of a Krabby Patty" debuts Friday and is the first of 20 new "SpongeBob SquarePants" episodes on Nickelodeon.