What SpongeBob and Dora smell like

Companies like Viacom and Warner Bros. are notoriously unpicky about how they license their characters, but using preschool cartoon characters to unload perfume onto children sinks pretty low. What is the smell that appropriately evokes a four-year-old Hispanic girl? Or an undersea sponge for that matter? When I scratched the SpongeBob sample at the drugstore checkout counter, I half expected the briny scent of the ocean and seaweed. Alas, the people who made these weren’t that thoughtful; all of them had a generic synthetic smell that evoked nothing. My floor wipes have a more sophisticated scent than these sorry excuses for children’s merchandise.