By Jonathan Klotz | Published
For nearly 30 years, a cartoon has dominated pop culture in a way that few films could hope to, and no, it hasn’t. The Simpsons. Spongebob debuted in 1999, and as we get closer to the 30th anniversary, the optimistic sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea shows no signs of slowing down. As proof, THE The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water spent more than a week in Netflix’s top 10, and not in the Kid list either, it’s up there with The observers And Horizon: an American saga in the top 10 overall.
A film that defies explanation
The continued success of Spongebob It may come as a surprise, but the children raised on the adventures of the Bikini Bottom crew are now old enough to have children of their own, whom they in turn introduce to the groundbreaking series. And yes, as someone has grown Doug, Ren and StimpyAnd RugratsIt was a painful sentence to type. Even those who didn’t grow up on the show have been exposed to it, like The Simpsons. It’s become a central part of modern internet culture, and it seems like there’s a SpongeBob meme for every occasion.
Most popular memes come from the early seasons of the show, while The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water was released in 2015 and sends SpongeBob and his friends on a journey through time, space and the strangest of all places, dry land, to retrieve the Krabby Patty recipe and save Bikini Bottom. It’s delightfully strange, it features an unbalanced performance from Antonio Banderas as the pirate Burger Beard, and any attempt to summarize parts like “Bikini Bottom turns into Mad Max” and “Sandy tries to sacrifice SpongeBob to appease the sandwich gods” makes you look crazy, that’s why it was a return to the top Spongebob.
Paramount’s most successful franchise
Any long-running series will have its ups and downs, but so will The Simpsons movie helped distract fans from the lackluster seasons that surrounded him, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water did the same. The difference is that SpongeBob continued to produce films, and more would come in later years, while The Simpsons could finally, fortunately, come to an end.
It can be argued that Spongebob has become too much of a children’s show over the last decade, let’s say, and has lost the satirical edge it had before the unfortunate passing of creator Stephen Hillenburg, but what cannot be denied is that it s This is Paramount’s most successful franchise.
Star Trek fans know full well that it’s one of the biggest franchises of all time, but it’s always struggled to be profitable. Spongebob is one of the most valuable franchises in the world. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water grossed over $325 million in theaters, and with a budget of only $72 million, was more profitable than Star Trek: Beyondthus reinforcing its status as the crown jewel of Paramount’s media empire. It’s easy to ignore today, but there’s no denying that the bizarre cartoon that turned a plankton into a recurring villain (of sorts) is one of the most popular shows in the world.
However The Simpsons did it beat in longevity as the longest-running animated series, Spongebob has more spin-offs, more movies, more merchandise, more theme park rides, more video games, and more memes. There are now two generations who may recognize Handsome Squidward but may not know who Hank Scorpio is or why “Boo-urns” is one of the greatest punchlines in comedy history. Golden Age The Simpsons we can’t touch it, but it ended before Spongebob aired its first episode.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is the best feature-length film in the series to date, although it was followed by Sponge on the run, and in December of this year, a fourth film, The search for Squarepants, will I ben theaters. 13 seasons of Spongebob are available for streaming on Paramount+, while The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is also on Netflix.
