TIME SpongeBob SquarePants

THERE’S A MOMENT IN THE 2015 FILM SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water when the villainous Plankton jumps into SpongeBob’s brain, hoping to finally discover the secret formula for Krabby Patties, the copepod’s goal since the earliest days of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob TV series. Though he searches high and low, Plankton is unable to locate the formula anywhere in SpongeBob’s noggin and instead stumbles onto a candy-coated wonderland of grinning, anthropomorphic foods: donuts, ice cream cones, ice pops, lollipops, and then a giant white kitten. “So much sweetness, I think I’m gonna be sick,” Plankton says before fleeing. There could not be a more spot-on scene to capture the relentlessly positive outlook that Sponge-Bob has had since the show about “nautical nonsense” debuted in 1999. With childlike innocence and a boundless…

SpongeBob SquarePants Our hero is a hybrid, based on the yellow tube sea sponge, Aplysina fistularis, and the kitchen sponge, which accounts for his square shape. As a sponge, Bob is naturally squeaky clean and accordingly innocent, optimistic, and nerdy. When show creator Stephen Hillenburg was pitching the series concept to Nickelodeon, he captured his star’s upbeat, good humor this way: “By day, he embraces each moment with enthusiasm. By night, he often lies awake so as not to miss anything either.” Hillenburg noted that Sponge Boy (the character’s original name) has a variety of interests, including rust, friction, and bubbles, to keep him busy; a wide circle of friends; and an abnormal attachment to his job at the “Crusty Crab” (as the restaurant was originally called), where he works…

AS ORIGIN STORIES GO, THE SAGA behind the creation of SpongeBob SquarePants may be one of the unlikeliest in television history. It’s the tale of an academic with virtually no experience in entertainment, a marine biology comic book with goofball illustrations, and a plucky, porous protagonist who lives in a pineapple under the sea. More than a quarter of a century after the show’s debut on Nickelodeon, in 1999, SpongeBob SquarePants—and its title character—remains a giddy and beloved piece of our pop culture that’s as singular as it is delightfully strange. An instant sensation with its pint-size audience, SpongeBob also quickly won over the hearts and minds of the viewers’ Gen X parents. Here was the rare kids’ TV show that was also catnip for wisedup adults. Maybe it was…

ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON IN 2019 AT Nickelodeon’s studios, the original SpongeBob cast was working on the partially live-action special SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout. The author sat down with the gang to discuss the origins, development, and legacy of the sponge. THE BEGINNING TOM KENNY (SPONGEBOB): I’d worked with [creator Stephen Hillenburg] on Rocko’s Modern Life. So this was the easiest job I ever got: There was no audition, there was no callback, there was no “It’s down to you and two other guys.” Though I did hear that there was a push to have Fred Savage [who played Kevin Arnold in The Wonder Years] play SpongeBob. CAROLYN LAWRENCE (SANDY): The audition was in a conference room, which was awkward to me. [They] left the microphone on the table and…

DIRECTOR ROBERT EGGERS’ 2024 gorefest, Nosferatu, about a haunted young woman and the vampire who stalks her, was a reboot of F.W. Murnau’s silent 1922 vampire epic, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, which itself was inspired by a foundational piece of vampire literature, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula. Yet when Eggers spoke at the Los Angeles premiere of his film, he credited not Murnau, not Stoker, and not even famed Dracula actor Bela Lugosi for introducing Gen Z audiences to the original Nosferatu. Instead, the director tipped his hat to a Nickelodeon star: “Thanks, SpongeBob,” Eggers deadpanned. Eggers had good reason to name-check the squeaky-voiced sponge. In a 2002 episode of the show, “The Graveyard Shift,” SpongeBob and Squidward are working through the night at the Krusty Krab when they are…

Getting Around Bikini Bottom In the belief-suspended world of Bikini Bottom, where SpongeBob SquarePants is set, the geography makes about as much sense as, well, a talking sponge. Located on the floor of the Pacific Ocean—under the Bikini Atoll of the Marshall Islands—the thriving underwater city-state shares numerous features with the earth’s continental crust. There are not only mountains, dense forests, caves, and grasslands, but also lakes, reefs, rivers, and beaches. The main characters live in well-appointed homes made from items that have fallen into the sea (fruit, ocean-liner detritus, mufflers); are, like their counterparts on land, fans of fast food and fast boats; and, inexplicably, can start fires, drink water, and engage in a range of behaviors that defy the laws of physics and chemistry. Houses get bigger or…