“Band Geeks” is one of the most popular episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants in the show’s very long history, and on Super Bowl Sunday it finally comes to life. CBS announced Thursday that SpongeBob and the rest of the Bikini Bottom band will open Nickolodeon’s first-ever Super Bowl broadcast with a performance of “Sweet Victory.” But the iconic song may not look the way you remember it.
Instead of the episode’s original animation, first released in 2001, the sequence is reanimated in CGI. In the short preview video from CBS: Posted on X (formerly Twitter), that’s what Spongebob gave a strange, eerie look.
Despite the somewhat unsettling new design, the song will undoubtedly still reign supreme, and it’s pretty funny that it will actually kick off a real Super Bowl broadcast. This is Nick’s first time showing the Super Bowl. The focus is on a kid-friendly broadcast, with a version of the game hosted by several of the channel’s most famous characters.
While this is the first time SpongeBob and the gang have appeared around the game, it’s not the first time the Super Bowl has referenced the fan-favorite episode. Back in 2019, Thaddäus introduced the halftime show in a short intro clip. Fans have hoped for years that the song would get a real Super Bowl spotlight, but that wasn’t the case Spongebob Fans began organizing the death of creator Stephen Hillenburg in 2018. This year, a The Change.org petition has garnered over 1.2 million signatureswhich eventually led to Squidward appearing at the Super Bowl a few months later.
The Super Bowl will be played on Sunday, February 11, starting at 6:30 p.m. ET.
