"The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage!" is a SpongeBob SquarePants episode, produced as a stand-alone special for season 12. In this episode, SpongeBob must stop an active undersea volcano from destroying Bikini Bottom.
It is a televised version of the Broadway musical, and is part of the series' Best Year Ever event. Join SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, and the Bikini Bottom gang for the best musical adventure ever!
An active undersea volcano called Mount Humongous is about to erupt and destroy SpongeBob's hometown of Bikini Bottom. He teams up with his friends Patrick and Sandy to stop the eruption and save the town. Meanwhile, Plankton and Karen plan to hypnotize the townsfolk into liking chum by bringing them into a rigged escape pod. The townspeople, unknowingly, support this idea and decide to hold a last-minute music concert to raise money. Pearl tries to sing with her favorite band, the Electric Skates, while Squidward tries to achieve his lifelong dream of music stardom as the manager of the concert.
Production
The episode is listed on The Futon Critic as part of the show's season 12 order.[1]
This special premiered nine years after Season 6 Volume 2 was released.
This is the only SpongeBob SquarePants special to air on the Nick Jr. channel. Various other SpongeBob media has aired on Nick Jr., such as crossover shorts and commercials.
"Movie Etiquette" is shown before this special, with new dialogue dubbed in, replacing the Patchy the Pirate prologue from the stage show.
"My leg!" is heard when the Electric Skates show Squidward their list. The list is so long it unravels and crashes into the orchestra pit, causing chaos among the musicians, one of whom spouts this classic sound bite.
Lilli Cooper and Stephanie Hsu do not appear as Sandy and Karen, respectively, since they were busy with other projects. Cooper was appearing in Tootsie on Broadway and Hsu was filming her recurring role on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.
Gaelen Gilliland also does not reprise her role as the Mayor, because she was performing in the national tour of Mean Girls.
Interestingly, Kelvin Moon Loh (Perch Perkins) was also, at the time, a featured actor in Beetlejuice, but was still able to reprise his role.
To fit the television time slot, some lyrics and dialogue were cut from the show. The entirety of the second "Bikini Bottom Day" reprise that opened act two was also cut.
Due to the smaller space of the theatre, Michael Dobson, the percussionist who also served as the live foley artist, was moved onto the stage rather than the right of the stage, and even gets a speaking line, and joins the cast on "Best Day Ever".
Also due to the smaller space, the Rube Goldberg devices that represented the boulders were completely removed.
Due to this airing on television with ad breaks, the line "Enjoy your last intermission ever" is replaced by a dramatic cliffhanger narration.
After the initial airing, the special was further trimmed down to about two hours instead of two and a half, cutting "No Control", "Daddy Knows Best", "Poor Pirates", "Bikini Bottom Boogie" and "(I Guess I) Miss You", as well as removing some dialogue, and the entire opening of act 2 where SpongeBob talks to Gary and surveys the doomsday atmosphere of Bikini Bottom.
A sing-along version of this special premiered on January 4, 2020.
On days before the special aired on TV, there was a transition Nick made that was used to end an episode or part of a program. The transition shows a Bikini Bottom cloud falling onto the screen, and many more showing the city. SpongeBob and Patrick ride on hooks and wave at us. A flower transitions to one of the many promos for said musical.
These were used by Nick, Nicktoons, and TeenNick.
YouTubers Nicky/Nick/Nickelodeon Today and Plushblue EP captured the transition and the "most absorbent musical" promo for their YouTube channels.
The former caught the transition in HD widescreen during what the channel says is an airing of "Battle For Dream Island," but BFDI, being an internet series, doesn't air on Nick. If one looks closely, as the transition begins, the ending scene of "Plankton's Old Chum" can be shown, as the latter caught the transition in SD (standard definition) full screen during a true airing of that episode.
There was also a split-screen promo interruption for the musical. They came in both HD and SD versions on the three channels mentioned above.