By Nell Geraets
It was over 25 years ago that we caught the first glimpse of the world’s most famous buck-toothed sponge, the googly-eyed fry-cook who lives in a pineapple under the sea. It was, of course, SpongeBob SquarePants.
Now, over 300 television episodes later, it has become practically impossible to avoid this loveable porous creature, finding him in video games, a Broadway musical, memes, and cinema.
Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie is not a great movie, but it’s the perfect addition to an absurd franchise.Credit: Netflix
While numerous 90s kids’ animations have come and gone, the SpongeBob franchise is still churning out content, the most recent being its fourth film, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie.
This Netflix film expands the underwater world by centring on Texan squirrel scientist Sandy Cheeks, who drags SpongeBob along to save their fishy pals from being cloned by a pug-toting villain (played by a live-action Wanda Sykes) in dry-land Texas.
The film comes over a quarter of a century after the pilot episode, and it technically doesn’t even centre on the sponge himself, yet it remained in Netflix’s Global Top 10 for three weeks running. So, how has this weird spongy dude, along with his motley crew of friends, remained relevant for so long?
It’s largely thanks to Gen Z and younger millennials. Despite SpongeBob technically being a kids’ product, young adults have been drawn to the franchise’s signature absurdism, which has held strong since it first landed on TV in 1999.
For example, in season one, SpongeBob’s curmudgeonly neighbour Squidward travels through time using a mysterious time machine, landing in a white void where logic ceases to exist. Was it trying to teach us anything? No, but it was surreally hilarious.
Elsewhere, a scene in Saving Bikini Bottom sees the town scooped out of the sea by a Texan laboratory. As it ascends from the ocean floor, the residents panic, pouring soft drink into their eyeballs and running head-first into the growing abyss below them.
This kind of bizarre, nihilistic humour is catnip for Gen Z, an audience that helped form “dank meme culture”. It could easily be mistaken for the dumb, dark humour typical of Gen Z-dominated platforms like Reddit.
The franchise’s outlandish comedy resonates so much with young adults that it inspired entire social media pages dedicated to SpongeBob memes, including the “BikiniBottomTwitter” Subreddit, which has over 4.7 million members. Here, ageing SpongeBob stans share hot takes on episodes and copious Mocking SpongeBob memes.
The franchise is also masterfully meta, another irresistible feature among young adults, who love to feel as if they’re “in on the joke”. The creators of Saving Bikini Bottom know SpongeBob and his aquatic pals have saturated pop culture. So, what do they do? They add a scene in which SpongeBob is cloned into innumerable mini Bobs, all of which come shooting out of his numerous holes. It’s subtle self-reflexive humour done right (take note, Deadpool & Wolverine).
Finally, one shouldn’t underestimate the power of nostalgia. Though its humour and storytelling methods suit the chaos-loving, easily distracted young adults of today, it’s also a reminder of their childhood.
Watching Saving Bikini Bottom now may not be the most profound cinema experience, but it recalls a simpler time when Patrick Star wore fishnets and DoodleBob wrecked havoc. SpongeBob helped inform Gen Z’s humour: surrealism with a side of heart. So, as much as Gen Z and young millennials are keeping SpongeBob afloat today, SpongeBob helped make them who they are.
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