Why Does Spongebob Have so Many Connections to Metal Bands?

“The answer may not surprise you, because I don’t know it.”

Quick, what’s your favorite Spongebob song? Is it one from the movie? The TV show? The extended albums? Maybe you like “Ripped Pants,” like my mom, who says that it’s her favorite song from the show. Or perhaps you prefer the song “Sweet Victory,” from what’s arguably the best Spongebob episode, and/or the associated real-world event of the most disappointing moment in Super Bowl history when Maroon 5 teased the Spongebob song but we got Travis Scott instead. Or maybe there’s a different song from the show you enjoy. It’s hard to choose, frankly, because there’s so damn many of them, including a fully-fledged separate musical for some undiscernible reason. So it’s a very musical show, is what I’m saying. But did you know that there’s a statistically significant number of songs and episodes of Spongebob that relate to popular metal and rock groups? Well, not really statistically significant, but there’s a ton of them, and I don’t understand why.

Perhaps the most obvious connection between the classic children’s cartoon, featuring talking sea creatures and existential dread, and the very different world of metal music, is the season 2 episode “Prehibernation Week,” in which the actual episode straight-up just features metal band Pantera, with a title card proclaiming “With Special Musical Guest Pantera” at the very start of the episode. There are a few Spongebob songs and episodes featuring rock stars that I knew about, but this was not one of them. I’ve seen this episode, too, and I have no memory of this. So it boggles my mind that somehow this entirely slipped under my radar that this weird kids show feature the music of Pantera, of all people. I mean, I guess Tiny Tim is a bit more thematically appropriate, but I can’t lie that Pantera makes for a much cooler musical guest. But… I still don’t get it. What audience does this cater to? The kids watching won’t know who the hell Pantera is, most likely. Is it for the adults that have to watch the show, too? Is it for people to find years later, when they’ve grown up after watching the show (like me)? Or did Stephen Hillenburg just like Pantera? Frankly, though, this isn’t even, to me, the most mind-boggling part of this whole thing. The rabbit hole of Spongebob-metal music connections go much deeper.

I suppose it should have been obvious that Spongebob was a pretty metal show if “Sweet Victory” meant anything, since the version that appears in the show is actually just part of a full song, and it’s pretty great. I mean, it isn’t metal, it’s more like a power ballad than anything, but as far as other rock-ish songs go, there’s also the bit that Pink (or P!nk, I guess?) did for the show. Yes, Pink, that singer that keeps coming back into popularity again and again for reasons I don’t quite fathom, though she herself seems pretty cool. But she did a Spongebob song, and it’s… just ok, I guess? I remember it briefly from when I was a kid, and it played in between episodes of Spongebob. It just seems so random, so odd, that Pink would do a song for Spongebob. I mean, is she rock? Is she pop? What is she? Who is she? Why does she keep showing up on my Spotify playlists? Why did she team up with Spongebob?

And speaking of team-ups that also make less sense than both Pink and Pantera, we have a well-kept secret of Spongebob; the classic “Doing the Sponge” song is performed by Blag Dahlia, lead singer of the very punk and very raunchy Chicago band, Dwarves. Which is just so bizarre to me. I mean, this guy sings on an album titled “Blood Guts & Pussy” so the only reasonable explanation for him appearing on a kids show is that someone on the Spongebob Squarepants team really wanted Blag Dahlia to perform. I mean, I would have opted for Oderus Urungus myself, but I guess the Dwarves will have to do.

Although the musicals guests aren’t always obscure, profane, background-only, or all of the above; sometimes the musical guests are actually characters in the show. For example, there was the special extra-length episode “Atlantis Squarepantis,” which was actually a musical episode, that featured none other than king of the goblins himself, David fucking Bowie. How? How? And why? I mean, this was 2007, so I guess David Bowie wasn’t exactly at his peak fame anymore, but the man’s still a legend. I’d make a comparison here about how getting Bowie would be like getting some other musician, but generally David Bowie is the musician I would compare to. It seems absurd to me. And I watched that episode and had no fucking clue. You know why I had no clue, and part of the reason why that episode kind of stinks? For being a musical special, they don’t let David Bowie sing. Maybe that was Bowie’s choice, but for whatever reason, Bowie doesn’t get a song in the episode he guest stars in. And that seems like such a waste.

This is all just the regular show, though, but things get really interesting when you start digging into the extended media. Like the Spongebob movie and its related soundtrack. I, of course, am referring to the 2004 movie, the only good one and the one before Spongebob was bastardized by corporate greed. I do not care for the ones that came later. I mean, the gas station scene makes that movie a classic all on its own, forget anything else. But I think everyone already knows some of the things about that movie that connect it to the larger rock scene; there’s Ween’s “Ocean Man” over the ending credits, which kind of became a meme in its own right, and there’s the legendary “Goofy Goober Rock,” which is very much a spoof of Twisted Sister’s “I Wanna Rock.” But did you know that Goofy Goober Rock, in the movie at least, also samples from the most uncomfortable song to sing at family campout karaoke, David Lee Roth’s “Just a Gigolo“? I don’t think it’s a reference, either, I think it’s a straight-up sample.

But things get even better when you consider the movie’s extended soundtrack. Not only does that feature the songs from the movie itself, it apparently reveals some extra artists involved with the project that, to say the least, shock me to my core. There’s a few understandable ones, Avril Lavigne, Wilco for some reason, whoever the hell EZ Mike is, and a few others, but then there’s the cream of the crop. One of the last songs on the album is a parody of Motörhead’s “You Better Run” called “You Better Swim,” written and performed by Motörhead themselves. Never in my entire life would have I expected the Spongebob Squarepants movie soundtrack to include a song sung by god himself, Lemmy Kilmister. It’s like the Bowie thing; the only weirder person I could think of to compare a parody of their own songs for Spongebob, of all fucking things, would be Iggy Pop. Thank Poseidon that didn’t happen. Actually, this Motörhead thing is what got me started on writing this article, because I knew about the Dwarves and P!nk and stuff, but I just found out about Motörhead like a month ago and I nearly shit my pants. It just shocked me to my core. I thought to myself, “this can’t be real, it’s got to be a Motörhead cover group.” Nope. It’s just Motörhead.

Now here’s the thing, though. I thought that was pretty strange, but I could handle it. I guess it makes sense, the Spongebob movie was a pretty big deal. They could afford some extra talent. But then I started looking into the Spongebob Musical, which I didn’t know anything about besides the fact that it exists. I figured it was some sort of small off-Broadway spinoff that Nickelodeon attempted in their dying days. No. I was wrong. Way wrong. This musical fucking shook me, and I haven’t listened to any of it. Not only was it a full Broadway production that won or was finalist for several awards, it’s got huge, and I mean huge, names behind the writing of the songs. I don’t know if any of the people who wrote the songs also performed them, or if it was just the writing, but this bizarre musical about a children’s cartoon from the early 2000’s has songs written by Jonathan Coulton (of Portal fame), the Plain White T’s, The Flaming Lips, They Might be Giants, Lady Antebellum (excuse me, Lady A), Panic! at the Disco, Cyndi Lauper (actually, I’ve got an article in the works about her, too), Sara Bareilles, John Legend (hey, did those two meet on Spongebob before they were both in JC Superstar?), and here are the big ones, David Bowie (again), Brian Eno, and Steven fucking Tyler. What the fuck? The level of talent and fame associated with the creation of this musical is through the roof, and I don’t understand how the hell it all happened. Why? How did they all get here? I have so many questions. It never ends.

Yeah. So, to recap, Spongebob has its tentacles in the same pies as Pantera, Dwarves, Motörhead, Steven Tyler, David Bowie, P!nk, Ween, Twisted Sister, David Lee Roth of Van Halen, and, like, a ton more. I don’t… I just don’t get it. Spongebob is officially metal as fuck, and there’s no way around that. I guess that these aren’t all exclusively metal bands, and some of them kind of toe the line between metal, rock, and punk, but the number of high-profile metal and metal-related musicals guests that somehow got sucked into the Spongebob vortex is ridiculous. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, and I don’t think I want to know, because I’d rather it remain a mystery. An anomaly that these worlds have crossed so many different times in so many different ways. A beautiful, weird, yellow and porous anomaly. Brutal. Oh, yeah, and don’t forget the fan stuff, too.

Oh, P.S. before I go, isn’t it kind of fun how I posted a review about the crazy shit that happened in 2020 just one day before our country experiencing a fucking insurrection by white nationalists? It was something I predicted, a little bit, but not something I expected or hoped to happen. What timing, though, and what a way to start 2021. Hopefully we can learn from this, too. And hopefully those motherfuckers go to jail for invading federal property. Fuck ’em. I hate nazis.