It shouldn't have worked. A live stage musical of SpongeBob SquarePants sounds like a terrible idea. How do you even make that work in any live-action format? Wouldn't it just be a cheap cash-in for tourist bucks, yet another way for Nickelodeon to milk dry one of its only shows anyone still watches? You would not expect it to be even OK, let alone an artistic masterpiece that's stealthily one of the most inspiring artistic responses to the woes of the Trump era.
Yet that's exactly what it is.
The SpongeBob Musical is up there with The LEGO Movie in the ranks of corporate art that's so much larger and better than it needs to be that it's scary. If you had the chance to see it in its Chicago and Broadway runs or on its current national tour, you know why. Everyone else will (finally!) have the chance to find out Saturday December 7 at 7pm when Nickelodeon broadcasts a live taping of the show.
What makes The SpongeBob Musical so delightful? For one thing, director Tina Landau nailed the aesthetics of adapting a cartoon to the stage better than anyone since Julie Taymour's Lion King. Wisely, instead of trying to make the actors look like their characters' species, the costumes are appealing gijinka-style designs that successfully evoke the characters. The Tony-winning set design brings the odd world of Bikini Bottom to life, including a feature that the late SpongeBob creator Stephen Hillenberg said was most important: the flower-shaped clouds. Even the sound effects are straight out of the cartoon, all performed live by a foley artist just offstage.
The songs are an eclectic mix of styles, each written by a different artist. This strategy results in some inconsistency, which is the main thing holding the show back from being an all-time classic musical, but the high points are very high. Jonathan Coulton's "Bikini Bottom Day" is a perfect high-energy opening number. SpongeBob and Patrick's friendship is captured in Plain White T's' "BFF" and John Legend's "(I Guess) I Miss You."
T.I.'s "When the Going Gets Tough" makes a surprisingly impressive rap number for Plankton. Yolanda Adams' "Super Sea Star Savior" is a gospel number delivering one of the show's funniest and weirdest plot twists (Patrick becomes a cult leader!). The ultimate highlight, however, is They Might Be Giants' "I'm Not a Loser," where the ever-depressed Squidward gets the chance to show off his four-legged tap-dancing skills.
It's all very funny, with plenty of callbacks to classic SpongeBob episodes ("Is mayonnaise an instrument?"). It's also sharply satirical, and surprisingly emotional. Led up in a mob by a power-hungry mayor, the denizens of Bikini Bottom deny the science of "tidal warming" in the face of a volcano erruption threatening extinction. Sandy's attempts to use science to save the day are met with particular distrust from the mob because she's a foreigner (Sandy and Mr. Krabs' obviously-adopted daughter Pearl are the only two black women in the cast, if you need to make the subtext any more obvious).
SpongeBob, it turns out, has a lot to teach us all about the value of optimism and kindness even when the world has taken horrible turns. In a similar manner to Paddington or Mr. Rogers, he demonstrates how being nice and actively fighting against the world's problems need not be irreconcilable. "Best Day Ever," a silly song from the first SpongeBob movie and a later episode of the TV series, turns into a surprisingly powerful anthem of defiance in the face of a world that we know is filled with death and hatred.
If you can see the show on its current tour, it's well worth it to experience the production live and uncut (the Nickelodeon broadcast will be trimming 15 minutes of minor dialogue to make room for commercials). Even if you see it on tour, however, you might still want to watch the SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage special to get to see most of the original Broadway cast. Most of all, you need to see Ethan Slater's SpongeBob; no one has ever been more "ready" to embody the classic character's sheer infectious energy. You also get the extra bonus treat of Tom Kenny himself reprising his role of Patchy the Pirate from the TV series in this special!
The SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage airs Saturday, Dec. 7, at 7 p.m. ET/PT on Nickelodeon.