SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by former marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. It is broadcasted on the American cable network Nickelodeon. Since its debut on May 1, 1999, the series has aired over 300 half-hour episodes and is currently in its fifteenth season, which premiered on July 24, 2024. The series follows the adventures of the title character and his various friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom.
The series' first feature film, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, was released in theaters in the United States on November 19, 2004. The series' first television movie, "Atlantis SquarePantis," premiered on November 12, 2007, as part of season 5, after a 12-hour television marathon. The series' second television movie, "Truth or Square," premiered on November 6, 2009, as part of season 6, to celebrate the show's 10-year anniversary. A second feature film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, was released in theaters in the United States on February 6, 2015. The series' third television movie, "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout," premiered on July 12, 2019 as part of season 12, to celebrate the show's 20-year anniversary. The series' third feature film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, was released digitally on Paramount+ in the United States on March 4, 2021. The series' fourth television movie, "Kreepaway Kamp," premiered on October 10, 2024 as part of season 14, to celebrate the show's 25-year anniversary. A fourth feature film, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, is currently slated to premiere in the United States on December 19, 2025.
The first eight seasons are available on DVD for Regions 1, 2, and 4 as of October 2017. Seasons 9-13 are available on DVD for Region 1 as of December 5, 2023. The series is officially available for streaming on Paramount+.
SpongeBob SquarePants has received two spin-offs: Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years, which premiered on Paramount+ on March 4, 2021; and The Patrick Star Show, which premiered on Nickelodeon on July 9, 2021. The franchise also received a spin-off film titled Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, which was released on Netflix on August 2, 2024. A second spin-off film, Plankton: The Movie, was released on Netflix on March 7, 2025, and an additional spin-off film is currently slated to release in the future, which is a currently untitled Patrick Star spin-off film.
Hillenburg initially began to work on creating the show shortly after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life in 1996. To voice the character of SpongeBob, Hillenburg approached Tom Kenny, who had worked with him on Rocko's Modern Life as a voice actor. SpongeBob was originally to be named "SpongeBoy," but the name was already in use for a pencil product. Upon finding it out, Hillenburg decided to use the name "SpongeBob." He chose "SquarePants" as a family name, as it referred to the character's square shape and it had a "nice ring to it."
The series is a long-running franchise that has generated many games, shorts, and other related media. A few pieces of media related to SpongeBob have become lost to the general public. This is a list of media from the series that is either lost in being unavailable online or partially lost in that some portions are available, with others missing.
Merchandise[]
Ain't Life a Beach[]
The first piece of SpongeBob merchandise ever made was a press kit released in spring 1999, titled Ain't Life a Beach. It is notable for featuring very early descriptions of the characters, as well as various adult-oriented taglines that were never used for the show. The only information about the kit comes from an existing photo of it. The full contents are not available online, and it is not for sale anywhere.
Games[]
Cancelled Nickelodeon Kart pitch[]
A Nickelodeon racing game was pitched at one point by Data Design Interactive around May 2003. Assets from this pitch such as characters' models and a concept art of a track were found on one of Data Design's hard drives in September 2020. The game was later reworked into Myth Makers: Super Kart GP.[1]
Nicktoons Snap Shot[]
Nicktoons Snap Shot is an unreleased Nicktoons crossover video game developed by Warthog Games' Zed Two studio from January 1, 2003 until "fairly close to completion, after John and Ste had been made redundant and the studio closed down." It was slated to be published by THQ during Q3 or Q4 2004 for the PlayStation 2 and either Xbox or GameCube.
The game shares similarities with Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy, suggesting that it may have been a planned console version.
Title screen.
Nicktoons: Nick All Stars[]
Nicktoons: Nick All Stars was an uncompleted game based on many Nickelodeon shows. It was going to be a Nicktoons crossover video game and was slated for release during Q3 or Q4 2004 for the Game Boy Advance, but was never completed since then. Not much is known about this game other than its slated release date, title, platforms and publisher with it being THQ. The only source that acknowledged its existence is an old private Nickelodeon store called "Communickation" that once housed backgrounds, episodes, news and clips for various Nickelodeon shows. This site is no longer used for this, as a lot of these assets are now housed on "Nick Central."
Nick Extreme Sports[]
Cover of the game.
Nick Extreme Sports (codenamed NickSports) is a cancelled sports game that was planned to be released on the HyperScan alongside an Avatar: The Last Airbender video game. They were both being planned for release in late 2007, but were scrapped due to the HyperScan's failure.
Concept art, along with a render of an unfinished Danny Phantom model, were found on the Flickr account of one of the developers who worked on the game.[2]
SpongeBob SquarePants and the Nicktoons: Gravjet Racing[]
In 2009, a crossover racing game with Nickelodeon characters titled SpongeBob SquarePants and the Nicktoons: Gravjet Racing was planned for Microsoft Windows (PC) and Xbox 360.[3] Various screenshots and pieces of artwork have been released online. In these images, it is seen that SpongeBob would have driven a super-powered boatmobile. There was going to be a "planet" based on Bikini Bottom as well, which would have served as one of the many themed racetracks.
Main artwork.
Happiness Squared[]
An early trailer for the game SpongeBob's Truth or Square reveals it was originally titled Happiness Squared and featured many unreleased aspects that are not available to the public. These include tikis and the character models from Battle for Bikini Bottom and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie video game most likely used as placeholders.[4][5]
Nickelodeon Game Builder[]
Nickelodeon's website featured various level builder games from 2009 until the mid-2010s. One of them was themed around SpongeBob, with customizable player characters, enemies, and terrain. Although it was released to the public for several years, a working version of the game has been unavailable since it was removed from Nick.com. All archived versions are broken and incomplete.
Gameplay footage.
SpongeBob Town[]
logo for the game.
SpongeBob Town was an online multiplayer game developed by BlueArk Global and published by Gigamedia Limited in association with Nickelodeon. The game developed throughout 2011 and 2012, and had one open technical test between October 25th-27th, 2012, with the release set for sometime in 2013. Despite the game being very far into development, the game was abruptly cancelled for unknown reasons and is now considered lost.
Cancelled SpongeBob/Nickelodeon games pitches[]
Maestro Interactive Games once pitched both a SpongeBob and Nickelodeon video game at one point. Only two pieces of concept art for these pitches were discovered, one of them seems to have been for a SpongeBob platformer game while the other one was for a Nickelodeon racing game.[6] The Nickelodeon racing game concept art was created on May 22, 2018 according to the metadata, suggesting that this pitch may have been reworked into Nickelodeon Kart Racers.
Broadcasts[]
Audio from "SpongeBob (Re-Hydrated)"[]
While the full short is available online, sourced from animator Goopy Rossi's demo reel, its original music audio is lost.[7] All existing copies online either have no sound or have been replaced with generic music. However, Randy Gossman found that the short was originally had a different audio track with sound effects.
SpongeBob Re-Hydrated 2003 short (NO SOUND)
SpongeBob's Nicktoon Summer Splash[]
Many segments of this short series are available online, but some have not been recovered. The shorts ran from 2000 to 2001 on Nickelodeon as the continuity for various Nicktoon marathons. It is unknown how many shorts were made in total, so it is near impossible to tell how many are missing.
Squidward clip (left bubble). Used on a Nickelodeon Germany bumper from 2005.
Legends of Bikini Bottom wraparounds[]
All six episodes in the Legends of Bikini Bottom miniseries featured wraparounds with Patchy the Pirate and Potty the Parrot when they first aired on TV in 2011. They involved Patchy finding the The Legends of Bikini Bottom book and him reading the legends in the book as bedtime stories for Potty. Most of the content from these scenes were cut for the digital releases, streaming services, DVD releases, and rerun versions, though Patchy's opening book is retained at the beginning of all releases. Only a few of these segments are available online, sourced from Nickelodeon Africa's uploads of the episodes.[8]
Nick Studio 10 interruptions[]
Reruns of SpongeBob episodes were interrupted halfway by 30 second videos produced by Nick Studio 10 themselves. This was short-lived from late March 2013 to early June 2013 due to negative reception from viewers.
Many of the interruptions are rare to find online. Some can be found on reruns of The Fairly OddParents and Monsters vs. Aliens, but many of the videos produced by the studio have yet to be surfaced.
U-Pick Live[]
Patchy appeared as a regular character in many episodes of this Nickelodeon show. Some full episodes are available, but many are nowhere online.
Jimmy Neutron Promotional Interruptions[]
In a promotion leading up to the release of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, the title character of said movie appeared in the lower-right-hand corner during reruns of some of their shows. This also includes SpongeBob SquarePants, which indeed has some lost footage.
References[]
- ^ https://tcrf.net/Proto:Myth_Makers:_Super_Kart_GP
- ^ https://www.flickr.com/photos/seandinwiddie/
- ^ https://www.esrb.org/ratings/Synopsis.aspx?Certificate=27279&Title=SPONGEBOB+AND+THE+NICKTOONS+GRAVJET+RACING
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5EtoPyw3rg
- ^ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpeA5JEqUzo
- ^ http://www.signaturestudiocreative.com/game-art/
- ^ https://vimeo.com/63021293
- ^ http://www.nickelodeonafrica.com/shows/spongebob/videos/spongebob-legends-of-bikini-bottom-patchy-segment1-n13293-01/talsg6