The SpongeBob SquarePants film (2004) represents one of the most creative and fun adaptations of Homer's Odyssey, demonstrating how modern storytelling can reinterpret ancient epic poetry for new audiences while maintaining core narrative elements. The film parallels Odysseus's journey through SpongeBob's quest to retrieve King Neptune's crown from Shell City, featuring mythological counterparts like King Neptune as Poseidon, the Cyclops as Polyphemus, and the Sirens as the Goofy Goober song. The adaptation cleverly transforms the epic's themes of perseverance, homecoming, and restoration into an accessible, entertaining narrative that preserves the Odyssey's structural elements while introducing iconic new moments like the bag of winds and the rockstar transformation.
SpongeBob is the BEST Odyssey adaptationAdded:
Today's the day. I have been saying for the longest time on this channel that the Spongebob Squarepants film from 2004 is my favorite adaptation of the Odyssey. I even wrote about it in my book, which will be coming out this summer. And actually, fun fact, this is the only part of the book that had no edits. My editor read it the first time and was like, "This is perfect. Just leave it as it is." Because I've thought about this at length. Which means that for today's video, we are going to be summarizing the film and talking you through why I think this is one of the most creative and fun takes on her poetry. So, I am going to be summarizing the whole story and then as we work our way through, I'll sort of stop and I'll see my little comments as we go just because I think that's going to make this a little bit more conversational, a little bit easier rather than sitting here and doing like a video essay just in case you guys haven't seen the film.
You need the entire plot for this to make sense. and I will happily oblige.
But before we can get into that, hello, my name is Erica. I am your host for the channel. And my one request before we dive in is that you pause the video if you are not dressed appropriately. Okay?
I want you guys to be channeling one of the characters from Spongebob. You can have your pick. You can wear pink for Patrick. You can wear blue for Squidward. You can do a whole mish mash of colors if you want to do Gary. It doesn't matter. Okay. I am channeling Spongebob himself today. I even have him on my mug as you guys saw at the start of this. And I do not want you to embarrass me by watching this in like all black. Okay, that's not what we're doing today, guys. We are dressing for the occasion. So, don't worry. We got time. I'll wait. Have a little sip of my coffee. You You go change. Okay, cool.
Okay, let's get into it. The film opens on a group of pirates. Now, I do just want to say we're not going to be focusing on the pirate subplot because it's only really in the beginning somewhere in the middle and that's really what's important and then like at the end we kind of have a little bit of the pirates as well. I just want to acknowledge that they're there. They are not important for the homeriic story line. So technically where our story begins with Spongebob in Bikini Bottom is Spongebob waking up from a dream where he has become the manager of the Krusty Krab and he wakes up in massively good spirits. He goes over to his calendar, rips off one of the pages, and we see that it's March 7th, and this is the day Spongebob tells us that this is the day Mr. Krabs will be picking a new manager for The Krusty Krab 2, which is opening right next door to the original Krusty Krab, which makes no sense whatsoever. And considering Mr. Krabs is like obsessed with money, I don't know why he would do this. But regardless, it is a cartoon. And because Spongebob has been employee of the month for the last like bajillion months. I mean it's over 300 months that he has been employee of the month. He thinks that he is a shoein to be this manager. So he wakes up, he's in a great mood. He goes to take a shower. He then does stop at Squidwards and Squidward's in the shower. And then Spongebob gets in the shower with Squidward and he's like, "Just let you know I'm going to be thanking you in my managerial speech." Squidward is obviously like get out of my house. And then Spongebob makes his way to the Krusty Krab to the unveiling of the Krusty Krab too. and he is so excited that he's singing as he goes down the road and he's like, "I'm ready promotion. I'm ready promotion."
However, not everybody is having a good day. In particular, Plankton is sitting in the chum bucket and he's watching Mr. Krabs get ready. There's like a whole audience in front of the Krusty Krab, too. There's also like a news team.
Plankton is watching this through a little telescope and he is fuming. He truly cannot believe that his arch nemesis, Mr. crabs has had an accelerating career. Meanwhile, the Chum Bucket is dusty. There's nobody in there and he is pissed off. He turns around and starts talking to his computer wife, Karen, explaining his frustrations and he says to Karen that they've done everything. They've tried every single plan that Plankton could have possibly thought of in order to get the Krabby Patty formula. And he says to Karen, "We've done plan A through Y." And Karen's like, "Wait, what?" And he goes, "Yeah, we've done the entire alphabet, A through Y." And Karen, rightfully so, turns around and is like, "What about Z?" As an English person, I do want to say Zed, but we're going to try and be accurate to the film. So, it's plan Z.
And Plankton, shocked by this, very surprised, has forgotten that there is an extra letter in the alphabet. So, he goes to his evil plan drawer and he opens it and he realizes there is a plan Z in the back of the drawer. So, he picks it up and the paper sort of unfolds. And as he's reading it, Plankton's like, "It's brilliant." And we know that this is going to be the plan that Plankton enacts in a bid to get the Krabby Patty secret formula and to therefore be more successful and hopefully put the Krusty Krab out of business. Back at the Krusty Krab 2 unveiling though, Mr. Krabs gets up on stage and he announces the new manager is Squidward.
Yeah, not Spongebob. Spongebob does have a moment where he thinks it's him and he stands up and he goes up to the podium to be like, "Thank you so much." And Mr. Krabs is like, "It's not you." So Spongebob is absolutely defeated by this. I mean, he is so depressed. He literally goes home and he's singing instead of I'm ready promotion, he starts singing I'm ready depression. I'm Oh my god, it's so sad. So Squidward is made the manager and Spongebob is still a nobody fry cook. But that night when the narrative fast forwards, we then see Plankton. He's got this like little backpack on and this little sort of propeller and he is flying across town to the palace, which is King Neptune's palace. He is officially putting plan Z in motion. And when he goes into the sort of general courtroom of the palace, we see the king, King Neptune, is sat next to his daughter in front of a bunch of people. A little fish is brought in and he is put on trial because he was caught touching the king's crown, like his literal physical crown. And Neptune is very no touchy. He's very protective about this crown. When he confronts the fish in front of everybody, the fish is like, "Well, yeah, I did touch the crown because my job is to polish the crown."
And then Neptune is like, "Well, I guess that I can't execute you then, but I can throw you in the dungeon." And everybody's like, "What?" Even Mindy, who's Neptune's daughter, is like, "Don't you think this is a little harsh?" And Neptune is like, "No, send everybody away." So they all leave and Neptune turns to his daughter and he tells Mindy that the crown is very, very important because it's representative of his power. He also explains to Mindy that the crown is very important because the crown it covers his thinning hairline, right? And then he moves the crown off his head and onto a pillow that's like next to him on this like little sort of stand. And Mindy's like, "Your hair isn't thinning. You're just bald." And the king is like, "I'm not bald. What do you mean bold? I do just want to add a side note here that we have this whole plot where like the king is balding and so he has to cover it up.
I just want to let you know there is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with balding. If you're bald, rock the bald. What women tend to not like and I can only talk from a heterosexual women's perspective is we don't like it when men are like clutching to like the two toughs of hair or like just shave it. It's going to look way better when you're bald. If you're bald, like I said, you can rock it. Own it. Be the king that you are. Anywh who, like I said, the crown is now off of King Neptu's head as he's talking to his daughter. And so then he without looking turns around to take the crown and to put it back on his head, but instead he puts a pillow on his head. And so Mindy, his daughter, is like, "Uh, dead. That's a pillow on your head." And when he goes to touch it and he turns around, the crown is gone.
Oh yes, plan Z has involved Plankton stealing King Neptune's crown.
Well, as you can expect, Neptune has an absolute breakdown. But you know who's also having a meltdown? Spongebob.
Spongebob is not doing well after not becoming manager. Spongebob is at this sort of Goofy Goober place, which is very reminiscent of Chuck-E-Cheese.
There's like a live band, there's all the food, and he's sitting at the bar.
There's like a nut bar that he's sitting at because Goofy Goober, sort of like the the mascot, is a peanut. So, he's sitting at the nut bar, and he is Oh my goodness, you guys. he is in pieces.
Patrick shows up to join him and is equally flabbergasted that Spongebob did not get the managerial role. So, while they're sitting at the bar, the pair order a sundae each to eat. And one ice cream sundae turns into another ice cream sundae turns into another ice cream sundae.
These guys are getting drunk on all the dairy. In fact, they are so drunk that they get up on stage to sing at one point and then they just pass out, right? They end up staying at this goofy goober place all night and the cleaner finally comes in and wakes them up at 8 in the morning and these two are looking har. Spongebob has a whole 5:00 shadow thing going on. His eyes are all red. He is hung over to the max. But like I said, it's 8:00 in the morning and when Spongebob hears that, he's like, "Crap, I'm late for work." So, we then slot back to the Krusty Krab where we know now Squidward is manager. So, Mr. Krabs is kind of showing him the ropes and what we see from outside is that there is a carriage pulling up and Krabs realizes, oh my goodness, this is King Neptune. He's got a lot of money.
So, he gets a ladder and puts it up to the board and where it says like Krusty Krab $1, he adds a 10 in front of it.
So, it's like Krusty Krab $11.
Squidward rightfully so, tells him off for this, but not with enough time to spare because King Neptune comes into the establishment and starts asking for Eugene Krabs. So, naturally, Mr. Krabs turns around and identifies himself and King Neptune is like, I know you stole my crown. Unfortunately though, there has been a piece of evidence that was left behind at the scene of the crime, which Neptune presents to Mr. Krabs, and it is just like a piece of paper. I'm trying to see if I have a piece of paper, but it's just like a ripped piece of notebook paper. Like literally, even the sides are still sort of like frayed.
And it just says on it, "I stole your crown signed Eugene Krabs." Apparently, this is the elaborate makings of Plankton's brain. Mr. Krabs, though, is incredibly confused. This morphs into astonishment and then fear. And King Neptune is angry. I mean, he is so mad.
He takes out his trident. It starts like glowing with fire, the whole shebang. As Mr. Krabs starts to plead his case, a conveniently placed phone, which is right next to Mr. Krabs that wasn't there just before, but is now. This telephone next to Krabs starts ringing and it goes straight to voicemail where then we hear the guy on the other end of the phone say, "Hey Eugene, this is the guy who you sold King Neptune's crown to. I just want to say thank you. I ended up selling it to Shell City. I got a really good deal." So yeah, I'm the guy that you sold King Neptune's crown to. Just wanted to say thanks because you sold me King Neptune's crown and I sold it to Shell City and that was really good. Thanks for the great deal, Mr. Krabs, because you stole King Neptune's. It just goes over and over and over again. And obviously we have King Neptune who's getting angrier and angrier and Mr. Krabs is like smashing the crap out of this phone like wrong number. This admission causes King Neptune to have a total freak out, which Plankton is conveniently listening to outside on a pay phone. So, he's just out there like he he as he's listening, knowing that his plan is going perfectly well. Neptune, who is still holding this big trident, has decided that he's going to let the customers in the establishment have one last chance to vouch for Mr. crabs before he incinerates him because he's so angry that he's just like execution now. So he turns around to the room and conveniently that is when Spongebob shows up for work and Spongebob who's looking really worse for wear comes in and HE'S LIKE I'VE GOT A THING OR TWO TO SAY ABOUT MR. KRABS. MR. Krabs does not notice anything weird about Spongebob which is crazy. So he's thrilled. He encourages Spongebob to keep speaking and Spongebob basically starts by being like I always thought that Mr. Krabs was the best boss and he's the best person.
And then I realized I was wrong. In fact, and I quote Spongebob when I say that he calls Mr. Krabs a great big jerk. And so with this as Mr. Krabs's only recommendation from somebody in the room, causes Neptune to literally set his bum on fire as he fires fire, shoots fire, I should have said, out of this trident and it hits Mr. Krabs. It first of all sets his bomb on fire. Then it sets his clothes on fire. Then it sets him on fire. And in order to put this out, Mr. Krabs has to jump into a bucket of water. Bear in mind, this is all happening under the ocean. But this is the Spongebob world, okay? I do not want to hear I don't want to hear anything scientific in the comments below. We're not here for it. You need to expand your imagination.
King Neptune is now gearing up to give Mr. Krabs the kill shot. And this is when Spongebob soers up from his previous ice cream hangover and kind of realizes what's actually going on. So he stands in front of Mr. Krabs and says to Neptune like, "Hey man, I don't think that you actually need to kill Mr. Krabs just because he didn't make me manager."
Which obviously Neptune is like, "I don't care that you're not manager. I need to kill this man because he stole my crown." Spongebob is like, "Don't you think that's a bit harsh?" And Neptune is like, "No, my hair is thinning."
Remember, he's bald. my hair is thinning and the crown covers that. So, this is a very big crime. So, Spongebob then asks King Neptune if he would spare Mr. Krabs if he Spongebob would go to Shell City and retrieve the crown himself. And this just causes King Neptune to laugh. Like literally in Spongebob's face. And the reason is is because Shell City is so far away that nobody has ever gone there and come back successfully, let alone a child. And this is sort of the crux of the problem of the film is that Spongebob is constantly called a child.
Even when he was supposed to be made manager, when he asked Mr. Krabs, "Why wasn't I made manager?" Mr. Krabs said, "Well, because the word man is in manager and you're just a kid." Sad, right? And now we have the second character to call Spongebob a kid where he says a kid couldn't possibly go to Shell City. What a ludicrous suggestion.
Spongebob naturally goes on defense because he's highly triggered by this.
And King Neptune just says, "Well, that's okay. I'll just fry both of you."
And he fires up his magical trident once again. This is the moment where Mindy, King Neptune's daughter, comes in and interrupts and basically tells off her dad because he clearly has some execution kink that he has to work through. and she convinces her dad to allow Spongebob to at least try to go to Shell City, which Neptune is happy to do so long as if Spongebob is not successful, then he Neptune still gets to kill Mr. Krabs. The king turns to Spongebob and tells him that he has 10 days to go to Shell City and to make it back with the crown. And out of nowhere, Patrick pops up and is like, "HE COULD DO IT IN NINE." To which the king responds, "Eight." And Patrick is like, "Seven." And then the king is like, "Okay, great. I'm glad that we're settled on six because before Patrick can say five," we have Mr. Krabs and Spongebob tackle him to the ground because what the hell is he doing? King Neptune says that that counts as an agreement. So they all understand that Spongebob has like a week. He has six days to go and get this crown. And then he turns around and he leaves. Actually, before he turns around, he leaves, he says that Mr. Krabs will stay where he is until the time is up. And so he actually changes the mode on his trident into like freeze mode and he freezes Mr. Krabs in place. So he cannot move and he will stay there until Spongebob returns and then King Neptune leaves the Krusty Krab. Now we're going to have a slight pause here before we continue with the plot because this is really the first moment that we have of Odyssey reception. Reason being is because we have King Neptune. If you don't know, Neptune is the Roman name for Poseidon.
And so we have this kind of idea that we have the king who's in place that does not like our protagonist. Similarly, in the Odyssey, Poseidon is one one of the main antagonists for Odysius on his return to Ithaca. If you guys want any more information about the Odyssey, by the way, I have loads of videos on the channel. I also have a whole summary playlist which is 25 videos where I summarize the entire story as well as various other more fun videos talking about the Odyssey and the storyline and that kind of a thing. But we have this Neptune Poseidon parallel in Spongebob which automatically is very very clever.
Now also we then have Neptune who initially gives Spongebob 10 days to go and come back and to complete this quest. Now of course Odysius isn't sent on a quest. This is a bit more of Jason and the Argonauts, which I will be uploading a video about the parallels between the Jason and the Argonauts myth and the Odyssey, but that will be coming at a later date. However, the idea of the number 10 is clearly reminiscent of the fact that Odysius has 10 years to get home. Again, it's not a finite timeline, but it's still that is the structure of the Odyssey. So, there are clearly things going on here where the creators of this film are trying to remind you of the Odyssey. Okay, they're trying to remind you of this great journey. They're trying to remind you that Spongebob, much like Odysius, will have to make his homecoming, and that is the key. In saying that, Patrick screws that up for Spongebob. But you can't move on from the film without acknowledging that that was initially there, that that story structure is baked in, and it was at least suggested to our characters. So, back to our story line, we have Mindy, the king's daughter, who stays in the Krusty Krab whilst her dad goes out to sit in the carriage and wait for her. And Mindy just stands there and she chitchats to Spongebob and Patrick to tell them how dangerous the journey to Shell City will be. Right? And this is where we get more nods to the Odyssey because she goes through the fact there are going to be monsters along the way, that it's going to be incredibly difficult, treacherous seas, and even a cyclops awaits them.
So, this is slightly different to the Odyssey because Odysius does not get a forewarning of everything. I was going to say all of his journey, but not everything on his journey is highlighted to him before he meets that. So, for example, when he meets the Cyclops Polyphemis, he doesn't know that that's going to happen. But we do have a number of stops on his journey that are told to us by Cersei, right? So, this is kind of similar. I'm not saying that Mindy is playing a Cersei role because she absolutely is not playing the Cersei role. But her warning Spongebob and Patrick about what's to come, which are things that happen on Odysius's journey, is again reminding us of the Odyssey whilst being fun and creative in doing so. But our two protagonists, Spongebob and Patrick, do not react like Odysius does when he hears some of his journey.
Because when Odysius hears it from Cersei, he just kind of goes, "Okay, we've got the sirens. We've got Skill and Kipus, blah blah blah. We now know what we're doing. I'm going to get back in the boat and we're going to go.
Whereas Spongebob and Patrick, well, Spongebob mainly is horrified. He is literally shaking when Mindy is telling them all of this information. Now, unfortunately for Spongebob, Patrick isn't really listening to this because he fancies the pants off of Mindy. So, as she's talking, he's just all like goooo eyes for her and he's like, "She's really pretty." And Mindy says Spongebob's name and she's like, "Oh, well, I know everybody's name because I'm gonna be the queen one day and so I should know this." And Patrick is like, "Do you know my name?" And she's like, "Yeah, your name is Patrick Star." And he just like melts.
Which I guess is appropriate because she is voiced by Scarlett Johansson. And I feel like most people would just melt if Scarlett Johansson knew their name. But anywh who, neither here nor there. Mindy then gifts Spongebob and Patrick a bag of wins. She tells them how to use it, which is that only when they want to come home are they to open the bag of winds. And then she leaves and she goes back into the carriage that she came from. And her and Neptune ride away. So again, let's pause on the bag of winds because this comes straight from the Odyssey. Odysius is also given a bag of winds by the king of the winds whose name is Aololis. If you guys listen to Epic the Musical, well, he is made a she in Epic the Musical. No problems there because this character still acts the same way, which is to gift our Odysius character this bag of wins with the instructions of only open the bag when you can see Ithaca in the distance.
Okay, so Adysius gets this exact same gift, which is a little bit of foreshadowing here. If you guys know the Odyssey and you're watching the Spongebob film, we know what's going to happen there. Once Mindy leaves, we then get a little montage of Patrick and Spongebob. They did try to invite Squidward on their sort of like frontier to go to Shell City and Squidward is like, "I literally want nothing to do with you." So, Spongebob and Patrick have this little montage where they go into the basement of the Krusty Krab and they just start getting ready, right?
They're like gearing up to head out and the main thing that we see them do is that they get access to this car which is called the Patty Wagon. Okay, it is in the shape of a Krabby Patty.
Spongebob gives us a little tour of the Patty Wagon. So, we see that there's like a sesame seed bun in the front or in the back. One side of the car, there is a fry cook thing. No, he's a fry cook. There's a fryer. There's a deep fryer. And so, that's in the car itself.
It's something that Mr. Krabs use for promotional purposes, right? And so, when they sit, when the pair sit in the car, Spongebob sits behind the wheel.
And rightfully so, Patrick is like, "But wait, you can't drive." And Spongebob gives us the iconic line, "You don't need a license to drive a sandwich."
So, he puts the key, which is a spatula, in the ignition, and off they go. Once Spongebob and Patrick are on the road, we then cut back to the inside of the Krusty Krab where we hear a ding-ding from the doorway. And obviously, it is Plankton. Wild crab is stuck in ice.
Plankton literally goes into the back, steals the Krusty Krab formula and then just dips out. Okay, you know what? You got to hand it to him. Plan Z is working exactly how this little Plankton wanted it to. You got to give credit. You have to give credit where credit is due. Even if it's evil credit. Plankton scuttles off back to the Chum Bucket. And then we cut back to the patty wagon where inside the patty wagon we have Spongebob and Patrick as they're going along la and they end up on the county line. Okay, so they live in Bikini Bottom and they're about to just kind of go into like the the open ocean and they have this little sign that says county line and there's a gas station still on the side of Bikini Bottom and there are these two like country pumpkin guys that are sitting there and Spongebob and Patrick are like load her up guys talking about putting gas in the patty wagon to which the two country pumpkins are like with what?
Ketchup or mustard? And then they slap their knees and they start laughing and they're like rolling on the ground. They think they are so funny. And Patrick is like, "Hey, are they laughing at us?"
And Spongebob is like, "No, they're laughing next to us." So to kind of keep the situation under control, Spongebob tells them that they're heading to Shell City, so they need some gas in the car.
And that's when the two country bumpkins are like, "Oh, we have to remove our hats for the dead." Because they can't believe, and they say this, that they can't believe that two kids are going to go to Shell City, right? So, we know there is a treacherous way ahead of Spongebob and Patrick. This is a very, very hard, very hard journey to make.
And even the two guys at the gas station do not believe that they can do it. So, Spongebob, again, remember, he's triggered by being called a child. He tells them that they're going to Shell City not because they're children, but because they're men, which only makes the two guys laugh harder. And one of them tells them that he doesn't think that they will even last 10 seconds over the county line, which causes both Spongebob and Patrick TO BE LIKE, "OH, YEAH." SO, they literally drive like an inch over the county line and immediately run into a thug and he's got like, you know, a hat over his face, you can't see him, and he's got like these scary braces with like studs on them and like a vest on. He's like, he tells Spongebob and Patrick to hop out of the car. Then he gets in the car and he drives away. And the camera sort of pans out so that you can see the two guys who are at the gas station. And Spongebob and Patrick are like, "How long was that?" And one of them replies, "12 seconds." Which means that Spongebob and Patrick celebrate because they lasted more than 10 seconds. And so THEY'RE LIKE, "IN YOUR FACE." But now they are vehicleless. Okay. So even though they do have a moment of celebrating, they then just have to turn around and start walking. Yeah. Yeah.
That's that's the great grand plan.
They're just going to walk to Shell City. So, that's where we leave our wonderful dynamic duo and we snap back to the Chum Bucket because now there is major news. Like literally, there is a news anchor at the Chum Bucket because Plankton miraculously is selling Krabby Patties.
What? Oh, yeah. Everybody in town is at the Chum Bucket. This newscaster interviews Plankton and asks how he found the recipe for the Krabby Patties.
And Plankton does some like BS where he basically is like, "When Mr. Krabs was put in ice, he gave me the Krabby Patty formula because this was his last wish that we continue selling Krabby Patties in his absence." Blah blah blah blah blah. Liar. He literally is fake crying and everything and then snaps out of it right at the end and says straight down the camera, "By the way, if you come to the Chum Bucket, you get a free Chum Bucket helmet with every order." The leech. So after this interview, Plankton heads back into the kitchen, if you can even call it that. It has like a conveyor belt instead of any kitchen equipment or appliances. But anyh who, he heads back there and his computer wife Karen notifies him that Spongebob and Patrick are currently out to go and get the crown, like King Neptune's crown from Shell City. So, she says that even though this was like a great plan and all, they might hit a hurdle along the way where if Spongebob and Patrick are successful, people might investigate this and they might find Plankton's little hand creepy little handprints all over it. And Plankton listening to this, not worried. He is way ahead of the game. And as it turns out, camera cuts, we see that Plankton has hired a hitman called Dennis, who's on a motorbike that is heading straight for Spongebob and Patrick. Again, you have to give credit where credit is due. Plan Z has really thought of everything. So, we probably meet Dennis when he steps off of his motorbike at the county line, right? So he encounters the two workers that Spongebob and Patrick had previously encountered. And when he comes out or comes out, he comes off even of his motorbike, he sees a sesame seed on the ground and he knows that this is from the patty wagon. And so as he sort of picks it up, we have the two workers who start making fun of Dennis as well, which I don't know why they would do that. He looks scary. Okay, this guy has like a bandana around his mouth, sunglasses, he's got like chunky boots on. like not somebody that you should be laughing at. But these two workers, they do it anyways. And as they're cackling in their seats against the wall of this gas station, Dennis, without saying anything to them, walks over and rips their mouths off, like clean off, okay?
Not like, you know, zip like off of the face, okay? Gets back on his motorbike and drives over the county line. So that is the man who is after our favorite dynamic duo. And if we remember, Spongebob and Patrick are just walking.
Okay, so they are walking down the road.
They are losing spirit ever so slightly.
They are still singing, but it's not like super excited or anything. It's just like singing so that they keep going. And eventually they look up and they see this big sign that says Shell City 5 days away. And then there's something covering the corner and then a bit of wind comes and takes away this thing from the corner and it says buy car. And so they are really just like losing it. Okay, they are struggling.
They don't know how they're going to do it. But miraculously, because this is a cartoon, miraculously, just beyond the sign, there is the patty wagon. The car is parked outside of a bar called the Thug Tug. So, as Spongebob and Patrick approach, they first of all look in the car, and obviously the key is not in the ignition. And so when they notice that the bar is called the thug tug, it's like a sort of sunken ship that's like half in the seabed and half not in the seabed, they go over to the window to see who's inside, to see what kind of crowd is inside the thug tug, which is beyond the county line of Bikini Bottom.
And it's not looking good. It is a total biker bar. Not even just a biker bar.
It's like a fight bar. Like literally, there are brawls that are happening.
There's a guy who's sitting at one of the tables eating a bowl of nails. Okay, this is not a place for cute little Spongebob and cute little Patrick. But as they're looking inside, they see a guy who's playing pool. He's got the spatula, the key for the patty wagon in his pocket. So Spongebob and Patrick stand outside for a second and they're like, "What are we going to do? We have to go in there and get the spatula, otherwise we can't drive away." And so they end up deciding that Patrick is going to cause a distraction and Spongebob is going to be the one to sneak over and to steal the key. So, okay, they go inside. Patrick sort of walks in and Spongebob like crawls inside and like goes to the side. And super confidently, Patrick demands attention. So, all of the bikers turn around to look at him.
Because it's Patrick, he doesn't have a followup. He just stands there. And whilst everyone is staring at him, he freezes and then he goes, "I need the bathroom." Sir, "Sir, you had one job."
Spongebob, meanwhile, is actually doing his side of the bargain, which is that he's on his hands and knees near the guy who has the spatula in his pocket and literally is reaching for the spatula when the guy looks down because Patrick has done a rubbish job in distracting everybody. And when this guy looks down, Spongebob, he thinks very quickly, okay, he starts looking around and then he squints and he goes, "Oh, oh, I lost my contact. H, there it is." Finds like nothing on the ground, but it's like, "There it is. I should go wash this off in the bathroom." And then runs to the bathroom to go and confront Patrick to be like, "What the hell was that?"
Patrick just claims that he had to pee anyways, so that was the best that he could do. And when he turns around, Spongebob is about to have another go at him, but goes to wash his hands because obviously he touched the ground in this creepy biker bar. And when he pushes on the soap dispenser, the top of the soap dispenser is broken. So a couple of bubbles come out. And Spongebob is like, "Wait, Patrick, have you seen this?" And the pair of them keep pressing the soap dispenser, and more and more bubbles keep coming out. So they have a bubble party in the bathroom of the Thug Tug.
They are going feral for the bubbles.
But unfortunately for them, one of the bubbles makes its way out into the bar and the thugs are not happy about it.
Turns out they have a policy at this bar which I did write down so that I wouldn't forget it and I could quote it for you guys. Uh because the policy states that any bubble-blowing baby will be beaten senseless by the able-bodied patrons of the bar.
very specific, but okay. A rule, after all, is a rule. So, what the thugs do is they line up everybody who is in the bar and they decide to test them to see who the baby is among them. So, the leader who does this, right, the leader thug biker guy, he tells the DJ to play a song so that they can basically find who the baby is if the baby sings along because only a baby would sing along to this specific song. And what song do they choose?
The Goofy Goober song. A Goofy Goober song that we know Spongebob and Patrick love. Spongebob and Patrick in real time panic. If anybody is gonna crack, it's going to be them. The leader thug starts making his way down the line of other bar patrons and he has an eye patch and to get a better look at all of them, he lifts up the eye patch because he's not actually blind in that eye and he has it. And it's not like, you know, you use an eye patch when you don't have a an eye. He's he he can see perfectly. He just does it for dramatic effect, I assume. So, he lifts up his eye patch and he starts eyeballing everybody with both of his eyes as he goes down the line and nobody is cracking. So, he turns around to the DJ and he tells the DJ to turn up the tunes, which causes Spongebob and Patrick to be in physical pain. The temptation to sing is so great that the pair of them are shaking.
Spongebob is sobbing and Patrick physically starts melting. It is tough.
It is a tough ride for both of them. But just as they are about to sing, somebody else down the line starts singing. Very, very quickly, they let out like two bars or something and it's just enough for the main thug to be deterred and to walk down there, leaving Spongebob and Patrick free. problem avoided. All of the other bikers, as per the rule that they have, the policy that they have in the bar, start beating up the other people, and Spongebob and Patrick can make it away safely. Now, guys, back to my literary analysis or my film analysis of Spongebob.
If that is not the best the best adaptation of The Sirens that I have ever seen or that you have ever seen, I genuinely do not know what is better. I don't I think that was the most what so for those of you who don't know Onodysus' journey in the Odyssey he does encounter these mythological beings called the sirens. Now the sirens in ancient Greek mythology they are birds actually. So they have the heads of women and they have the body of birds.
They kind of look a bit like chickens or pigeons and they stay on an island. So when Odysius and his men go past, they are given beeswax by Cersei, who's a, you know, goddess in her own right, but she has housed them for a year on the island. And so she kind of likes them.
So she gives them the beeswax so they can plug their ears. And therefore, when the sirens start to sing their luring song, nobody will jump off the boat and become lunch for the weird bird ladies of the sea, right? Which is the worry.
So when all of the men plugged their ears with beeswax, Odysius is the only one that decides he wants to hear the siren song. So he instructs his men to tie him to the master of the ship and tells them that no matter how much he screams or begs or cries, but they are not to let him go. And so Adysius listens to the sirens as they sing and they try to get him to jump off the boat. And he does scream and he does cry and he is in physical pain from this song. But the men do what they're supposed to do and they get past safely.
Now, the reason why I think that the Spongebob Squarepants film has the best reception of the sirens is because the idea in the ancient text is that the sirens are not alluring physically.
Okay? The idea that most people have of the sirens where they are these like, you know, sexy mermaid type creatures and actually in modern times they end up shapeshifting into what the person who is sort of sailing past them or going past them is tempted by the most. In ancient times, it's just their voice, right? These are just auditory.
Auditory. Yeah. Yeah, you can say that they are just these monsters that have that audio element to them. It is their song that will lure you, not the fact that they look like weird birds that has nothing to do with it. But what they are singing is so beautiful that nobody can resist. And the idea that in the Sponge Squarepants film, we completely get rid of the idea that there is any type of physical temptation, but it is just this song. And that if they do give into the temptation of the song, they will be physically harmed. Hello by the bikers in this case, but in the Odyssey, well, Odysius would literally die. Whereas obviously, you can't put you can't put that into the kids film when it comes to our two main characters. This is perfect. I absolutely I absolutely love this. I will scream from the rooftops about how this is fantastic siren's reception. And to this day, to this day, this film came out when I was eight years old, and to this day, I have yet to see a siren rendition that is as accurate and as creative and as fun as the Spongebob Squarepants film. Perfect.
Anyways, Spongebob and Patrick did successfully get the key to the patty wagon, and so they do hop in the their little burger bun situation, and they drive off. And it's after that that we cut back to Bikini Bottom. For this section of the narrative, we actually cut to Squidward specifically, who he has this weird like low bike that he rides around on. So like he's sitting one of those like banana bike type things. That's essentially how he gets around town. He doesn't have a regular bike anymore. He's got this little low seated one. And he's driving around Bikini Bottom and realizes that everybody's wearing really weird hats.
And so he asks somebody who's in their car like, "Hey, where did you get this bizarre bucket that's on your head?" And the woman says, "Oh, well, at the Chum Bucket, they're selling Krabby Patties.
And every time you buy a Krabby Patty, you get one of these Chum Bucket helmets." And this is where alarm bells start going off for Squidward. Squidward is like, "Chumb Bucket Helmets, Krabby Patties." Oh no. So Squidward marches his little booty down to the chum bucket and confronts Plankton. And he tells him that he knows like Squidward knows that everything that has happened has been because of Plankton. So he's like, "I know that you stole the crown. I know that you've done X Y and Z. I know that you stole this secret formula, and I'm going to go and tell King Neptune about it." And Plankton is like not worried whatsoever. In fact, he just kind of looks at Squidward and he's like, "Oh yeah." And then he activates something. The technology is not explained to us, but he activates basically all of the helmets. And all of the helmets that are sitting on people's heads, which bear in mind, the majority of Bikini Bottom now have one of these helmets on. These all get activated to the point where they sort of like they just consume people's heads. Okay? So, they sort of grow in size a little bit because they were sitting on people's heads. Now, they just go boop. And when they are over people's heads, they have this little light at the top of it which activates like zombie mode. Literally, everybody wearing a helmet starts saying, "Oh, hell Plankton. All hail plankton." So now everybody in Bikini Bottom is one of Plankton's minions. And that scene ends with all of them, like literally people are coming from outside to be inside the Chum Bucket. And they are all cornering Squidward as he is screaming in terror. And then it blacks out. traumatizing honestly. Back at the patty wagon and Spongebob and Patrick are still driving down the road, but then the road starts getting really bumpy and we start seeing all of these bones and skulls in the background of the shot, but Spongebob and Patrick are very much not aware of this. Even at one point, they are purely just riding over bones. Seems like neither of them have noticed that the road is different than it was before. Eventually though, as they're sort of going through this almost graveyard of people, or fish, I should probably say to be more accurate, they end up coming across an ice cream stand, which Spongebob is like, "Well, if it's free ice cream, we should go in and we should get some." So, he hops out of the car, and when Spongebob is approaching the free ice cream stand, Patrick looks down at the ground and notices that there's a skull. And like half an alarm bell goes off because he looks at the skull and he's like, "This is not good." but then yells at Spongebob to get him a chocolate ice cream at the free ice cream stand, presumably so they can get out of there quicker.
But I don't know. They didn't tell us that in the film. And Spongebob has not yet noticed that he is surrounded by bones. So there is an old lady in the ice cream stand, the free ice cream stand, and he just starts ordering from her. And she's like, "Yeah, of course, no problem." And so she puts the ice cream in a bowl and then hands the bowl over to Spongebob. And Spongebob is like, "Thanks." And when he reaches out to take the bowl, he realizes that the bowl is really sticky. Like his hands are stuck to it, her hands are stuck to it, and he's like, "What is happening?"
And as it turns out, guys, the lady in the ice cream stand is the tongue, the literal tongue of a monster. This turns into a mess where we have the actual big monster pop up and starts chasing the patty wagon because Spongebob does jump into the patty wagon and they start driving away and there's this whole chase off. It is an absolute mess.
And then we cut back to Dennis. Dennis has stumbled upon the thug tug and when he gets off his motorbike, he spots a footstep on the ground. So he goes over to touch the weird substance that's in this footprint and he brings his hand to his nose to smell it and realizes it's soap. So he kind of rubs it between his hands and forms like a little soap thing in the middle there and he blows a bubble. But obviously as we know there is a policy at the thug tug. So when he blows the bubble the lead thug is still there and he comes out and he's like, "Hey man, we have a policy here." And Dennis just beats everybody up. That's the scene. But anyways, when we cut back to Spongebob and Patrick, they are still driving away from the madness that is chasing them, right? This giant monster.
And they are driving so fast that they come to the edge of a cliff. And so both of them just have to jump out of the patty wagon and let it go over the edge because then that way the monster will chase the patty wagon, which is exactly what happens. So Spongebob and Patrick are safe. they are on safe land and they get rid of the monster because the monster jumps over and then goes into this like gorge hole thing that's in front of them. Now, I do just want to have a moment for the monster because the monster itself is not from the Odyssey, but the idea that you randomly encounter monsters is again, as I said at the start of this, a very Odysian feature and in particular this idea of like a giant monster. We do have Odysius who does encounter the giant Lstreonians. Not that this monster is reminiscent of the Lordians whatsoever, but I also liked the idea that this monster, okay, let me rephrase that. I didn't like the idea that this monster was female because it's an old woman.
Like the tongue is an old woman, but I liked it with respects to the parallels to the Odyssey because a lot a lot of the monsters in the Odyssey are female creatures. Now, obviously, what you can do with the ancient Greek text is analyze that and a lot of scholars have been going into what that means when it comes to how people of the time viewed femininity and powerful femininity and all of that kind of stuff. We are not here to talk about that in an episode about Spongebob. But the idea that we have this female element to the monster, I think was a nice subtle nod to the text. But to cut back to the film, the monster does go over the edge, but we do see that the monster is also eaten by another giant monster out of the gorge, right? So out of the gorge comes and it eats it and then it goes down into the hole and Spongebob and Patrick are sitting on the side and they're both kind of staring off into the distance like what the [ __ ] just happened. And this is the moment that Spongebob and Patrick realize they're just kids. But maybe everybody was right and they can't make the journey to Shell City. And right when they're like on the side and they're ready to pack up shop, they're ready to go home. They're ready to admit defeat, Mindy, King Neptune's daughter, shows up to invigorate them with some new spirit because she's like, "You cannot give up now. In your absence, Bikini Bottom is no longer Bikini Bottom." She takes out this magical shell that basically shows Spongebob and Patrick that Plankton has turned into a dictator and he has commissioned rebuilding the entirety of the city. So we see that he has like all of these statues of himself made. They're all on like various different points of buildings or just like freestanding.
Everybody is like, "Oh, hell Plankton.
Oh, hell Plankton." as they're building like temples to him. And in fact, he's even renamed Bikini Bottom as Planktopolis.
He has gone fully insane. Plan Z was not just that he wanted to make more money than Mr. Krabs. It wasn't that he wanted to put the Krusty Krab out of business.
No, it was total world domination.
Apparently, miraculously though, in all of this, the Krusty Krab and the Krusty Krab 2, cuz remember that's how this whole thing started is that there are now two of them side by side. Both of them, they're like museums. They are perfectly standing. They still have all of the color on them. The rest of Bikini Bottom is not colorful anymore. It's very like dark and dingy and it's all being made in like just concrete sort of well, I mean like concrete looking slabs. Obviously, they're underwater.
But the Krusty Krab and Krusty Krab 2 still fine, still standing. Naturally, what you should be thinking is, well, why hasn't King Neptune done anything?
He is in charge technically of the sea.
And Mindy does tell us why. because she says that since the crown has been stolen, her dad, King Neptune, is too distracted by his boldness that he hasn't been able to to think of anything else. So, we then get a shot. We then get like a little scene of King Neptune's like assistant that has like hair in a can and he's like trying to cover up the bald spot, but he accidentally like sprays it in the wrong place. It's a whole fiasco. So, we know that Spongebob and Patrick are really our only hope because the king is useless because he's bold. I don't know. What a stupid plot. Anyways, so yeah, Sponge and Patrick are literally our only hope.
And with that very encouraging message, we then see where Dennis is. And Dennis is now very close behind because he's riding over all of those bones that I mentioned earlier where the monster used to be, but now there's no monster.
There's no real big issue for him. He's just sort of going over on his motorbike all of these bones. And then he leans down at one point and picks up a skull and then he smashes it in his hand to show how tough he is. So basically the point of that is that he is right behind them. And even though Mindy, when we snap back to Spongebob, Patrick and Mindy, even though she's been trying to encourage Spongebob and Patrick, they are not really hearing her. And the reason is because they are so defeated at this point. They just think that they need to go home. They're too they're too young. They're too much of a kid for this. And so Mindy decides that she is going to turn them into men if that's what's going to cause them to keep going. She lies and she says that she has these like magical mermaid powers that she can use. Have I mentioned that Mindy's a mermaid? Well, she's a mermaid. So she lies that she has magical mermaid powers. And so she tells Spongebob and Patrick to close their eyes and she'll turn them into men. And so they close their eyes and Spongebob is like, "Is it working? Am I man yet?"
and she basically picks off like seaweed from nearby and she breaks it into two and she puts it on their faces so it looks like they have mustaches. And so then when she's like, "Oh, the spell worked." And they open their eyes, they're both like, "We have facial hair.
We're now men." Mindy leaves and with this newfound confidence, we have Spongebob and Patrick that realize the road that they're standing on. Cuz remember I said that there's a gorge in the middle. It continues on the other side. But now they have all they have everything that they need apparently.
They have a mustache. This is all you need to have confidence in you can't even say bikini bottom on the sea floor.
If you're a boy, you just need a mustache and they're like we can just go through it. It's very much we're going on a bear hunt kind of vibes. So the two of them decide they're just going to go down into the gorge and they're going to keep walking and then they're going to walk up to the other side of the road.
So they make a descent into the darkness into these deep pits of the ocean and they sing the whole time, right? So they sing the song that's like, "No woman, we have facial hair. Another woman I change my underwear." Like all of this like silly. It's actually a really funny line because Patrick is previously wearing goofy goober underwear. Anyways, not the point. They sing a song as they go through this really dark part of the ocean where they have all of these like dead dead fish bodies around them. They have all of these scary fish, all these scary monsters that end up following them because they like the song and they realize that, oh well, because these two guys are men, we can't bother them anymore. And they make it totally safely through this very dark part of the ocean until they make it up to broad daylight again. And unfortunately, Spongebob does ruin it by turning to Patrick and being like, "Oh my god, we made it out alive.
We made it past all of the scary fish."
And these fish are like right behind them. and Spongebob has called them scary but also gross and like says all these mean things about them and all the fish are standing behind them like oh okay and so they go back into it's actually really sad they go back into this into the dark part of the ocean and Spongebob is like no wait I didn't mean you and then everybody else the poor fish but now that they're on the other side it is important for me to note that that clearly that gorge moment where it's like all really dark imagery all of these fish that they meet along the way who aren't scary who don't actually pose any danger to the the main two characters. Very reminiscent of the underworld episode in the Odyssey. And the reason why I say that is because similarly in book 11 of the Odyssey when Odysius goes to the underworld, he too is not meeting, you know, terrifying people that are going to hurt him or anything like that. He's just chatting to the other heroes that are down there, right? Like that's that's the point of that, right? He talks to Agamemnon. He talks to Achilles. He sees big Ajax. But clearly having that sort of like underworld element to it that then again doesn't really pose much of a danger, but they do make it out of I think is clearly inspired by the Odyssey. I think it's it's obvious that the people who wrote this read the Odyssey and were like, "We can have our own little weird underwater version of the Odyssey underworld. Why not throw that in there, too?" But to continue the story back with Spongebob and Patrick, they see a sign that says that Shell City is really, really close. Literally, it reads Shell City dead ahead, which causes our pair to celebrate. They are thrilled. Spongebob concludes that it'll probably take them one more verse of the song that they're singing to get there.
And literally, they start singing.
They're about to take a step. And well, bam, Dennis comes out of nowhere. Now, even though we as the audience know that Dennis is chasing them, Spongebob and Patrick do not know that. So, they are very confused as to who this guy is and they also think that because they made it out of the thug tug alive and now that they have this like fake facial hair, they're super tough, right? So, they're standing in front of Dennis and they're like, "Can we help you?" To which Dennis replies, "I've been hired to exterminate you." Intense much.
Hilariously though, Spongebob and Patrick and just kind of laugh at him.
And Spongebob is like, "It's a good thing you caught me on a good day. I'm a really tough man." And you know what, Junior, just step aside. Just let us go.
We can forget that this ever happened.
And bear in mind, Spongebob is like up to his waist or his knees. Like he the height difference alone is enough for Spongebob to if he if he was slightly thinking rationally at this moment, he would have run okay as a short person myself out of there. Spongebob even points out that they're really tough because they have facial hair. And so Dennis, he just kind of leans forward and he picks the the seaweed off of their faces. Not as aggressively as he ripped off the mouths of the guys at the gas station back on the county line, but still he leans forward and he picks it off their face and he's like, "Oh, I just thought you had like salad on your face. I didn't realize that you thought I didn't realize that you thought this was a mustache." And then he removes his bandana and says, "This is a mustache."
And then he just like forces facial hair to grow and it just like which we don't focus on enough because the camera then just cuts straight back to Spongebob and Patrick who are heartbroken like what do you mean they don't have mustaches and before they can reply Dennis says that he is sent to exterminate them by Plankton so that they Sponge never figure out that Plankton is the one who is behind the stealing of the crown.
He's like the worst hitman ever. Can you imagine hiring a hitman only for them to just out you for no reason? Like completely unprompted. Dennis needs to needs to get his [ __ ] together. So because Dennis is sent to exterminate them, he has these boots that then produce these like spikes on the bottom of them. So then he grows an extra like three inches. And Spongebob and Patrick are terrified because they're going to be stepped on because that is the order that Plankton gave to Dennis, which is a call back to the beginning of the film when Spongebob is going to the to the going to say to the Krabby Patty when he was going to the Krusty Krab and he's doing that I'm ready promotion. He stepped on Plankton. This is something that does happen quite a bit in Spongebob anyways in the TV show. So Dennis is now sent to step on Patrick and Spongebob. as they're like literally quaking in front of him, an even bigger boot comes and steps on Dennis. Now, this could have caused obviously a huge celebration, but right before Spongebob and Patrick actually decide to start going like, "Woohoo! Look at us." They look up and they realize it's the Cyclops.
Now, the Cyclops, for you guys who don't know, is actually just like one of those old deep sea diver suits. So, it has the like one hole in front of the face, and it's like this huge, I mean, like ridiculously large suit so that people can walk on the bottom of the ocean. So, that is what they look up to. And as you can expect, the Cyclops leans down, picks up Spongebob and Patrick, and walks away into the deep ocean with them. When our favorite dynamic duo wake up, they find themselves in a very strange room. They are like laying on synthetic rocks and Spongebob goes to investigate further and hits glass. And that's when they realize, oh crap, they are in trouble. The Cyclops himself walks into frame and Spongebob watches as we see exactly what he likes to do, which is that he likes to take sea critters, he likes to dry them out and create like little knickknacks with them. So, what he's actually doing in the shot is that he's creating this little Alexander Clam bell knickknack.
It is supposed to be kind of funny, but you have to think of it from Spongebob and Patrick's perspective where they're looking at this going, "Oh my god, all of the fish are dead in this room and they're being used for this random giant's entertainment." And once that is complete, the Cyclops walks over to Spongebob and Patrick, takes them out of the fish tank that they're in and puts them underneath a heat lamp, right? So, moves them over to a table and puts them under a heat lamp. And this is when Spongebob and Patrick start to dry out.
The two of them are chatting as they're getting more and more tired. And Spongebob is saying, you know, we never even made it to Shell City. We never even got there. I can't believe we're gonna we're going to dry out here. We're going to die here and we never got to see what was on the other side because we got taken by this giant cyclops. But Patrick then points to a sign across the room where it actually says Shell City, Marine Gifts and Sunrise. So, actually, they did make it to Shell City. And Shell City is just a gift shop. And in this shot when they're looking at the sign and Spongebob was like, "Oh my god, we did make it here. We're not going to make it out, but we did make it here. It then pans and we see that the crown, King Neptune's crown is in the gift shop being sold for $7.
Seenor, you are under the sea. You are the king of the seas and you have a crown that is only worth $7. You couldn't find you couldn't find a nice pearl down there. You're telling me you couldn't find any any nice material that wasn't like a treasure trove? $7.
might as well just leave it. That's what I got. Watching this as an adult, I'm looking at that going, "For seven bucks, you leave it." You go home without it and you tell the king, "Make a new one.
This is embarrassing." Not that this makes any difference, though, because Spongebob and Patrick are drying out and they're actually saying their goodbyes.
And one of our final shots is that they are on this table under the heat lamp and they're crying because they can't believe that they never get to make it home, but they're also quite proud they managed to make it to Shell City. and their tears come into a little they like convulge together and they come to a little heart and then they dry out on the table and and that's the end of the film. I'm kidding. That's not the end of the film. Wouldn't that be horrible if that was the end of the film? No, no, no. They do dry out and we do get a shot of the pirates that I mentioned at the start and they're just like sobbing in the cinema. But that little sort of heart tier that I just mentioned actually gets like a life of its own even while Spongebob and Patrick are completely dry on the table. And the tear ends up going to the side of the table and going down the cord that connects the lamp to the wall. And it causes this like mini sort of not explosion, that's a really bad word, but it sort of fizzes, right? Because it's it's water and electricity. And obviously that's not a good that's not a good pairing. And so because it fizzes in the wall and it blows again, not like a big explosion, but it blows in the wall that then the smoke from that goes up to the fire alarm to like the the smoke alarm and it causes it to go off, which means that there are sprinklers that go off in the room and ta Spongebob and Patrick by sheer will, by sheer spirit, by sheer luck, end up popping back into existence. with their newfound life. The pair run over to the Crown and they go to pick it up. Even though it's cheap again, just leave it there. But they go over to the Crown to go and pick it up. And Spongebob is like, "Wow, this is a lot lighter than I thought it was going to be."
Only to look up to see the Cyclops.
However, if you thought that all hope was lost, oh, you are so wrong. Because the sprinklers have gone off, whilst the Cyclops is picking up the crown, the room starts to shake and all three of them are kind of like, "What is going on?" and they realize that all of the dried out fish are now popping into existence. Okay, so they're all coming back to life. And when they all come back to life, they all turn on the cyclops. Even these fish that pop up and they're a mariachi band, they start playing. They're like, they start doing that whilst everybody, all of the other fish are ganging up against the big guy, the Cyclops. They all wrestle him to the ground. And whilst they're distracting the Cyclops on the ground, we then have Spongebob and Patrick that can make their escape to the beach with King Neptune's crown. Now, of course, we must pause again because obviously there is a Cyclops that is obviously indicative of the Polyphimmas episode. And specifically with this, we have Polyphimas who very much has trapped them, right? The Cyclops in this case has very much trapped them inside of Shell City. And further than that, the Cyclops, the diver has actually killed quote unquote because obviously they're just dried out and and it's a kids film and it's a kids film, guys. But for the purpose of this video, the diver has killed all of the other fish in the room. It's the same as what Odysius then faces when he and his men in book nine go to the Cyclops Island and they end up in the cave of the Cyclops, which then they are trapped in and the Cyclops is eating them. So, he also is killing Odysius's men. And Spongebob and Patrick also, whilst they're in there, there is this kinship to the other fish. And when they're first in this little fish tank that they find themselves in, they look out and they're like, "Oh, there's other fish folk. We should talk to them." And unfortunately, obviously, because they're dry, they can't actually speak to them. So there is this kind of like these are Spongebob's people, but he is unable to speak to them and he he's basically lost them without ever knowing them, which again is slightly different from the Odyssey obviously, but the call backs to the Odyssey are so obvious in this. and the idea that there needs to be a distraction for the Cyclops in order for our dynamic duo to get away.
Similar to Odysius, where they have to come up with the idea that even though the men in the Odyssey, they blind the Cyclops. Again, obviously you can't have that, you can't have that in a kids film, but they blind the Cyclops and they then need to hide underneath sheep.
So there are lots of sheep in the cave with Odysius and they hide under the sheep so that when the sheep go out to graze, Polyphimma sits by the door because he can't see now. And he counts them with his hand. And so when they go out and the men are hiding underneath them, his hand does not touch any men as they they make their escape. And then the men ride the sheep all the way down to all the way down to the beach. And then they hop on the boats and they're like, "We got to go. We got to go now."
And that's very similar to what happens at the end where we have all of the fish. Obviously, again, slightly different, but all of the fish do create this distraction, hold the Cyclops down so that that way Spongebob and Patrick can get out. They are not let out by the Cyclops. They need to outsmart the Cyclops at his own game, which is perfection. Now, speaking of the Odyssey, back to Spongebob and Patrick.
When they are on the beach, they then know that Mindy has given them this bag of wins and now is the time to use it because Mindy told them, you are only to use this bag of winds when you want to come back to Bikini Bottom, which is now. So, Spongebob first of all takes out the instructions for the bag of winds and it says basically, you know, you've got to point it in the direction of home, you've got to hold on to it, blah blah blah. Goes through all of this and Patrick is doing as he's being told, right? So, he's like, okay, so, you know, do this, point it in this direction, blah blah. Patrick then releases the bag of wins without holding on to it. And so therefore, it is her useless. They therefore have no bag of wins to rely on. Literally, it just goes all around the screen. Spongebob is so defeated when he realizes this because now they're kind of like, "Well, now what?" And before we know how they got out of this alive, we need to mention that this is pretty much exactly what happens in the Odyssey as well. Odysius, as I mentioned, is given a bag of winds by Aololis. And when the bag of winds is on the boat, it is opened too soon. And because it's opened too soon, the boat does not return to Ithaca, but instead they go back to Aololis's island. And in the Odyssey, they actually try to ask for another bag of winds, and Aololis is pissed. This goes down really badly in the Odyssey. And so they just get back on their boats and they leave. And similarly, Spongebob and Patrick, they also misfire this bag of wins, but they can't ask for another one. There is no secondary bag available. This is slightly different in Epic the Musical.
I think you guys, cuz I was a bit lost with this. I think you guys told me that there were two bags of wins or three.
I'm not really sure. By the way, there's more than one bag of wins in Epic the Musical. Spongebob keeps it very, very similar to the Odyssey in so far as there was this thing. You could have used it, but you misused it and now you're stuck. Now you have to figure out another way to get home. With Spongebob though, we left him and Patrick on the beach when they're like, "Now what?" And in this film, boom, we have a solution.
Which is that David Hasselhoff shows up out of nowhere. He does a whole like Baywatch run into the screen and he's like, "Well, I can help you get back to Bikini Bottom. Can you, David? Can you?"
So David basically starts swimming with Spongebob and Patrick on his back and the crown, right? Obviously the crown is with them. And as we see them go off into the water in the general direction of Bikini Bottom, we then cut back to Planktopolis. Plankton still a dictator.
Crusty Krabs plural still standing.
Plankton enters the Krusty Krab and he removes a page from the calendar to reveal that it is March 14th, which is the sixth and final day that Spongebob and Patrick can make it back. So, we cue the evil laughter because Plankton is like, "He he, I have won. Plan Z has been successful." And as this teeny tiny plankton is billowing out this like huge laugh that is taken on the waves, we then have King Neptune pull up right outside to obviously go in there and to be like, "Mr. Krabs, you have lost. I will execute you." He he. So things are not looking good. And in fact, the tension is very high in this scene. Also considering the color grading of it is not positive. The only color is inside of the Krusty Krab because even when King Neptune pulls up, he doesn't have a crown anymore. So, he also doesn't have any color. He just has like a paper bag.
He's a paper bag on his head, which apparently is better than being bold.
This is crazy. I think that's what the general message of this film should be.
That King Neptune is being a horrible king because he's too self-absorbed in his boldness. Bold is fine. Bold looks good. Own that. Anyways, right when King Neptune is about to get out of the carriage and enter the Krusty Krab, we cut back to Hasselhoff. Hasselhoff is now in speedboat mode. Okay, he's not actually swimming. He's just like a plank. And then we have Spongebob and Patrick and the crown on his back and like the waves are sort of going all around him. It's like he's going very very fast. To be fair to David Hasselhoff, this was a very good alternative to the bag of winds. But when Spongebob and Patrick are on David Hasselhoff's back, they turn around and they notice that something is weird behind them, only to realize it's [ __ ] Dennis who has used the boot of the Cyclops that he was crushed by. If we recall, he's used that as a vehicle in order a transportation vehicle in order to find them and hunt them down. and he shows up on David Hasselhoff's foot and like goes on top of his body and you're just watching this like oh my oh my god nothing stops this back he was crushed and yet he is fine but before we can see this play out we cut back to Planktopolis the editing here brilliant true cinema at its finest in Planktopolis Mr. crabs still frozen being put in front of a bullseye.
Plankton sitting on a recliner chair.
He's got a little Neptune flag hanging out of it. He's got popcorn next to him and a radio along with binoculars so that he can have the best seat in the house because we know that Neptune has this execution kink that he really has to work through. Mindy walks in. She is also in I was going to say in the cart in the chariot with him. She comes out and she comes into the Krusty Krab and starts stalling. The method with which she stalls is simply to kind of come in there and to be like, "I don't think you should do this." And her dad is like, "I think that you're stalling." And she's like, "I'm stalling." And her dad is like, "That's exactly what you're doing.
You're stalling." To which Mindy replies, "I'm stalling." And while that frustrating conversation is happening, we cut back to the Hassahhoff, Dennis, Spongebob, Patrick, and the Crown. There is a truly epic fight scene where Spongebob and Patrick have to like jump between David Hasselhoff's legs so that they can fight on either side. Dennis is really gaining a lot of ground with both of them and right right when it looks like he's about to step on them. The Hasselhoff, David himself, goes underneath a boat. Okay, I'm not really I'm going to level with you guys. I don't know a lot about sailing and boating and all that kind of stuff. I am a city girl at heart. They are on the ocean and there is a boat that has like the middle of it is open but they have like these two things that come down and there's a guy sitting on top. I know it's a boat of sorts but I don't know what kind it is. If I could find a free image online I'll include it in the video. They go through this kind of a boat and for some reason David Hasshoff can't go around. He's in speedboat mode remember? Right. So presumably he's going too fast to just sort of segue around and he decides he's just going to go under and as he goes under this boat Dennis is standing at the back p. He is hit by the top of the boat and he topples into the ocean. Dennis has officially been beat. Back at the execution though in Planktopolis, Mindy is still stalling. Stalling stalling.
And Neptune gets so frustrated with her that he orders her to go and sit back in the carriage. And as soon as she leaves the Krusty Krab, he uses his trident to have this like magical I don't know what this trident can and can't do, but it has this like magical power to put locks on doors. And so Mindy can't go back in, unfortunately. Luckily for her though, the Hasselhoff has officially arrived over Bikini Bottom and tells Spongebob and Patrick that he's now arrived at the destination. Now obviously Spongebob and Patrick are like, "Oh my god, for us to float down to Bikini Bottom, it's going to take us way too long." So, we're still not going to have done this in the correct amount of time. Like, we're not going to be able to save Mr. Krabs. And David Hassahhoff is like, "Who said anything about floating?" In some way, somehow, David Hassahhof stands up. They are in the middle of the ocean, but alas, he stands up and he has his pecs like go to the side. So, they make like a space in the middle. And then he puts Spongebob, Patrick, and the crown in between his pecs, which then slowly slowly get closer and closer together.
And they basically shoot Spongebob, Patrick, and the crown out of his man cleavage really, really fast down into the water so that they just go foom all the way down to Bikini Bottom.
Obviously, David Hasselhoff has nothing to do with the Odyssey. But isn't it iconic? Just as King Neptune is about to incinerate Mr. Krabs on the bullseye, we have Spongebob and Patrick who come flying down through the roof of the Krusty Krab. The metal of the crown deflects the fire shot that is coming out of Neptune's trident. And so that goes straight through the roof. So Crabs is obviously safe. Everybody is thrilled. Everybody's excited. Even Mindy comes in because the door is not locked anymore. Didn't see when that happened. But anyways, this is a cartoon film. And even though we do have Mr. Krabs celebrating though he's still in ice. We have Mindy who's thrilled. We have Spongeb, oh my goodness, I cannot believe that we're successful.
We do still have Plankton in the room.
And when everybody calms down, we hear this like slow clap coming from Plankton. It very much reminds me of I don't know if anybody watched that episode of Catfish from like a bajillion years ago where somebody went to go and meet I think her name was Jessica and it turned out to be that like totally crazy guy who when he showed up was like slow clapping. He was like, "Well done, man."
It was weird, but it very much gives that vibe of when when Plankton is doing his little slow clap to kind of get everybody's attention in the room like, "Haha, I am still the ring leader of this whole plot." In the ceiling of the Krusty Krab, there is now a double door situation. And when Plankton is slow clapping, he activates those doors to open, which releases a very large chum bucket helmet that goes over King Neptune, and that gets activated. So now King Neptune is one of his minions. And Plankton has this moment where he looks at everybody in the room and he's like, "You lost." And Spongebob is like, "Because you cheated." To which Plankton replies, "No, it's because you're a child." And this causes Spongebob to take the microphone from behind the cashier stand at the Krusty Krab and starts speaking into it because Plankton has summoned all of his minions to the Krusty Krab, right? So they're all sort of like outside and inside along with King Neptune. And Spongebob is like, "Hell yeah, I'm a kid. I did." Goes through the entire journey to tell us all of the crazy things that he did.
He's like, "They tell kids that they can't do this stuff all the time, but I did it and I made it back alive." A disco ball is then lit up. We then have a spotlight descend on Spongebob. We have like dry ice like a smoke machine gets activated and Plankton is off in the corner being like, "What's happening? What's going on?" And Spongebob is like, "I am a kid. I'm a goofball. I'm a goofy goober." and he transforms into this like rock legend that sings a remix of the Goofy Goober song that we heard at the start of the film, but it has like electric guitars and big drums and he's like, "I'm a Goofy Goober." And then we cut to see Patrick who's put on his fishnet tights and he's got these knee high presumably like leather boots that are high heeled and he's like strutting around. I mean, Patrick does the splits and everything.
It's a moment. Plankton then orders his minions to seize a now rockstar Spongebob. And as they are approaching Spongebob, he rises above the crowd and he transforms into like a wizard rock legend. And he has all of this like peanut imagery on him because he's he's a goofy goober, right? This is important. And so he has like peanuts on his cape and he has these teeny tiny little like underwear on. It's like black almost like leathery black underwear. He's got a hat on and his guitar is literally in the shape of a peanut and it has GG on the sort of end of it where you would have all the the tuning things, the tuning instruments on the end of it. It says GG goofy goober.
And he's also got these like white knee high also high heeled boots. And as Spongebob rises above the crowd, he is playing this epic guitar solo that essentially powers up the guitar so that that way he can shoot laser beams off the end of the guitar and shoots these beams at the Chum Bucket helmets that are stuck on everyone's heads, including Gary's. By the way, Gary has two, one for each eye. And so Spongebob basically is doing this I'm a goofy goober. Yeah.
moment where he's then playing the guitar and then he's shooting all of the chum bucket. This is like the weird, if you don't know what I'm talking about, this is the most out of context, bizarre speech to have ever been made. But he then manages to save everybody from being Plankton's minions. And Plankton is sitting in the corner and he's like, "Oh no, my creation can't handle this level of rock and roll." So he tries to dip out of the room, but because now everybody is free from his tyrannical rule, there is a crowd that is coming in to watch a wizard Spongebob as he's doing this like impromptu concert. Once Spongebob completes this concert, finishes out the song, we then have the police show up and they have this like teeny tiny, it's like a teeny tiny jail where it's just like jail for the smallest like it says something silly on the back of it like you know this is for these smallest members of society and Plankton is like it was an accident and Bikini Bottom is restored to its previous glory. Okay, it doesn't look like Planktopolis outside. It has been a very quick turnaround thanks to the wizardy powers that Spongebob is spewing with his guitar. And so therefore, we are now back in Bikini Bottom and Plankton has been handled. Mr. Krabs is unfrozen and he tells Spongebob that of course he made a mistake. And if Spongebob wants to be the manager he absolutely should be. In fact, Mr. Krabs actually asks Squidward to come forward so he can take the manager pin that he is now wearing that Squidward is now wearing and he wants to hand it over to Spongebob. And Sponge has this moment where he's like, you know, through this whole journey. And Squidward then cuts in and he's like, "Let me guess. You're going to say that you realize that what you actually wanted was in you all along and it has nothing to do with the manager role." And Spongebob is like, "ARE YOU KIDDING? I was just going to tell you that your fly is down. I'm the manager." Woo. And that is the end of the Spongebob movie. Now, I just wanted to finish that off because the end of the film is very much the end of the Odyssey. And in fact, I would say that this is probably in my personal opinion, obviously I am biased. I grew up with Spongebob. I love Spongebob. But I truly think that this is the best take on the end of the Odyssey because what really isn't put forward in a lot of retellings of the Odyssey is the idea that Odysius must restore his palace to its previous glory. Right? There's a lot of like he must defeat the bad guys rather than understanding there is this restoration of Odysius as this ancient character.
He's not been on Ithaca. He's not been on his kingdom for now 20 years. So, he has to reinstate himself in the position of king, right? He's also got to make Ithaca what it what it was and what it still is, even though we have had sort of mayhem that has ensued thanks to the suitors that have descended on the island in his absence to win his wife's hand in marriage. Now, we don't have all of that in the Spongebob film, but we do have at the core the idea that when Spongebob and Patrick, they've been away, they come back and Bikini Bottom is not Bikini Bottom anymore. It is literally a different place. And the only way that they can actually return home after being away for, okay, yes, for them it's 6 days, could have been 10 days, but a very, very long journey, a very arduous journey, a very difficult journey. The only way that they can fully return home is if they manage to restore Bikini Bottom and to get it out of what it is now called as Planktopolis. And that is magical. Like the way that it's done in the film in that Spongebob does have to defeat everyone. There was also that element that there is still a group that he has to defeat, but he does it with the idea of, okay, Plankton is the head of this and instead of killing everyone, we're just going to get rid of his mode of control. It is so cleverly done and the fact that even at the end of the film, it's not sort of like Spongebob is king, Spongebob is manager, right? He still is going to sit in a position of power that in this case he previously wanted whereas in the Odyssey it is one that Odysius previously had. It is in my opinion the funnest take of the Odyssey.
I think that it is a story that is so silly and all of the details in there are so perfect and so brilliant. And I could have done even more details.
Obviously, there are lots of like little fine details, but I wanted to keep it nice and broad and just tell you guys that the storyline of the Sponge Squarepants film is a great, really, really great take on the Odyssey and I think is one that is absolutely constantly pushed under the radar because it is a cartoon or because it's for kids instead of really being able to look at it and say this is what adaptation is for. It's not for direct retellings all the time. Obviously, those are great, but it is for people to take the story and to tell a similar one in a way that their intended audience can digest with a lot of intention, a lot of love, and iconic moments. Like all of these parts of the Sponge Squarepants film, you know, I'm a '9s baby and so many of my friends can still quote these moments that I was talking about, in particular the Goofy Goober song. Like, everybody knows it and it's because it's iconic. Similar to the Odyssey, there were all of these iconic moments that people still talk about. In the Odyssey's case, it will be the Cyclops and sirens and all that kind of stuff. We still see those in Spongebob.
We see those iconic moments in their new ways, but then Spongebob creates more iconic moments that then build on the story. And that is something that I just think is so underrated and so well done.
Then truly truly I think we should all be watching the Sponge Squepants film more. I think we should all be talking about the Sponge Squarepants film more.
And I think we should all be repping this cartoon, even as adults, way more than we currently do in society. So, thank you guys so much for tuning in today's episode. It was a little bit more fun, a little bit more silly on this end of the channel, but I hope that you guys had as much fun as I did. So, I'll be seeing you in the future with more videos here on the channel all about ancient Greece and Rome. See you guys then.
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