a century ago Nosferatu‘s hideous villain Count Orlok became iconic when he walked through a door with raging eyes and menacing claws to drain his victim’s blood. But just 20 years ago, the same character was revealed as a little brat scaring SpongeBob SquarePants and Squidward by turning the Krusty Krab’s lights on and off.
It is great Spongebob Joke, but the non sequitur removing the vampire from its original film and any semblance of context also illustrates this Nosferatus Role as a pop culture reference. Spongebob helped keep the 1922 film alive (or undead) in public. as Spongebob Writer and storyboard director Jay Lender tells Polygon that this random visual gag in the season 2 episode “Graveyard Shift” was probably most of his viewers’ first encounter with the silent classic.
“Graveyard Shift”, which regularly places in the top 5 rankings from Spongebob‘S best episodes, first aired September 6, 2002. In the 11-minute episode, SpongeBob and Squidward work the night shift at the Krusty Krab, to the former’s delight and the latter’s dismay. Squidward entertains himself by scaring SpongeBob with a spooky story about a “hash-slinging slasher,” but then the mysterious omens he has dreamed up about the killer actually start happening, startling them both. Fortunately, all signs of his impending arrival turn out to have a mundane explanation — except for the flickering lights. In the final seconds of the episode, it is revealed that the titular vampire is dating Nosferatu – illustrated with a slightly modified and grossly animated still from FW Murnau’s 1922 live-action horror classic, has the lights off for fun. “Nos-fer-a-tu!” SpongeBob and Squidward say affectionately, as if they hang out with him all the time. “Nosferatu” smiles. The episode ends. No further explanation.
Count Orlok wasn’t originally supposed to be the culprit. Lender says that in an earlier draft of the episode, after SpongeBob excitedly lists work tasks he can now do at night (turning patties, dabbing the bathroom, and burning his hand), there was supposed to be a fourth joke in which he delivered the Mail to Floorboard Harry – a previously unseen, unmentioned creature that appears to live only beneath the Krusty Krab. Then, at the end of the episode, Floorboard Harry would flip the light switch. (Lender shared a few Post-It Note sketches of Floorboard Harry with Polygon.) But the “night” joke already satisfied the comedy rule of three, so the fourth part with Floorboard Harry was shortened. That meant its appearance wouldn’t end up being a recall, just a completely random image. It wasn’t quite good enough. Luckily, another, better idea came to Lender’s mind.
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Images: Courtesy of Jay Lender
Lender says he was a big fan of the magazine as a kid Famous Monsters from Filmland. That was before there were hundreds of TV channels, before the internet, and long before there were huge libraries of horror movies to stream. Kids like Lender didn’t really get a lot of opportunities to see old horror movies, but the magazine, which had a fun, tongue-in-cheek tone, was able to introduce them to articles and pictures of those movies.
“Things appeared in that magazine that I couldn’t find, but I could be aware of them,” says Lender. “Well, I could see that [old genre films like] This island earth existed, but I couldn’t really see them unless they appeared on TV.
“They would show a still image Nosferatu. And he was always standing so still in the doorway,” Lender recalls. “So my first experience with Orlok and with this image is this disconnected non-sequitur. When the moment came when I needed to come up with a replacement for Horror non sequitur, that image was already in that slot in my brain. That’s interesting because Spongebobfor 20 years, everyone else’s first experience with orlok was also a weird, disjointed, disjointed horror picture.
It’s all about this Nosferatu. It’s an innovative, powerful film, but over the course of the last century it’s become as much a pop culture artifact as it is a work of art itself. Folks who haven’t seen it Nosferatu
But even if the film has an 80-year lead Spongebobit’s entirely possible that more people saw Count Orlok in this episode of Spongebob than have seen Nosferatu. That’s the way things work. Nosferatu is a seminal film full of stunning visuals, but the power of those visuals (and the decades during which the film was difficult, if not impossible, to watch) has ensured that the basic visual idea of ”Nosferatu” has become more culturally dominant than that the film’s full context is today.
“If it weren’t for the incredible reach of Spongebob As a platform, no one under the age of 30 would ever want to see this movie,” says Lender. He explains that until recently he hadn’t felt comfortable admitting his part in the referencing Nosferatu in Spongebobbut 20 years later, he can’t deny that the gag has had an impact.
“I know this show has a wider reach than any silent movie,” says Lender. If that sounds arrogant, he emphasizes, what a sensation SpongeBob SquarePants was when it premiered. About 15 million viewers watched weekly, a number hard to imagine in today’s media landscape as the fragmented audience consumes an overabundance of niche options. “Nothing at all [today] may have the cultural impact that SpongeBob had when it first came out,” says Lender.
He also thinks the size of that audience means he probably peaked with that one brief clue. “I have to accept that this is my legacy. It’s almost impossible to think of anything I could do that would be more remarkable later on,” says Lender. “I could go and kill the President right away, and the headline would be, ‘Nosferatu Gag Man and Presidential Assassin Jay Lender Died.'”
Now that streaming and YouTube have made it easy to watch so many movies — especially those that are in the public domain, like Nosferatu – it’s no surprise that it’s seen and appreciated more as a film. On the occasion of its 100th anniversary Nosferatu is arguably more appreciated in its original context than ever before. Technology and a renewed interest in old films, perhaps inspired in part by people wanting to track down the references they grew up with, have made Count Orlok more than just a memorable, memorable image.
Amusingly, however, Orlok is no longer a non-sequitur-in SpongeBob SquarePants. The vampire had a few additional appearances in later episodes and in the prequel series Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Younger Years, Kidferatu is a camp advisor. The accidental ending to “Graveyard Shift” is retrospectively a continuity joke that Lender thinks is neat, though he feels the eventual return to the gag “cuts the legs out of the original” just a bit.
And for those who are wondering: Spongebob‘s switch-moving vampire is called “Nosferatu” and not Count Orlok because Lender thought the movie title was more recognizable and more importantly that it sounded better in the singsong tone we hear it in at the end of the episode. Probably the right call for the joke and for Nosferatu‘s ongoing PR, but it has its downsides.
“I have to deal with the trolls that come up to me and say, ‘Indeed, The name is Orloc.’” says Lender, laughing. “Like, ok. I know. I knew that 20 years before you were born. But thanks for the thought.”
“Graveyard Shift” and much more SpongeBob SquarePants The library streams on Peacock and Amazon Prime Video. Nosferatu streams free (with advertising) on Tubiand for subscribers Shudder, hooplaand canopy. It is widely available for rental on digital platforms such as Amazon and vudu.
