SpongeBob SquarePants uses painted time cards to jump between scenes, and a few minutes later is one of its most reused transitions. The cards, read in a calm narrator voice, became a shorthand for skipping time in the Nickelodeon cartoon that first aired in 1999. Clips of the cards spread through meme edits and reaction videos because they need no explanation, and creators still use this one to compress waiting, travelling or preparation into a single beat before the payoff arrives.