There were two surprising stars of this year’s Super Bowl coverage in Las Vegas, and we’re not talking about Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift. SpongeBob SquarePants and his longtime best friend Patrick Starr did color commentary for Nickelodeon for the biggest night in football, and it was so entertaining that people are ready for them to do this every single year.
CBS Sports and Nickelodeon shared a “slime-covered simulcast” of Super Bowl LVIII, where the Kansas City Chiefs defended their championship title against the San Francisco 49ers. The broadcast, appropriately titled, Super Bowl LVIII Live from Bikini Bottom, saw SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Starr (voiced by Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke as ever) offering up play-by-plays alongside human real-life sports CBS Sports commentators Noah Eagle and Nate Burleson. While Eagle and Burleson might arguably be the two hosts with the most knowledge of football on account if that is their job, it was obviously SpongeBob and Patrick who were the stars of the show. I mean, they even got underway a rallying cry from the famous portrait of a pirate asking, “Are you ready, kids?” to which they all replied, “Aye, aye Captain!”
The magic of seeing SpongeBob and Patrick reacting in real time to watching football cannot be understated. They were, as so many of us watching football tend to be, confused and excited in equal measures. “Who’s got it?” SpongeBob asked after a fumble, while Patrick sagely intoned, “You have to firmly grasp it” with real authority.
The simulcast was done so well that some people thought it was only happening on their personal televisions.
Football/Taylor Swift fans appreciated the helpful descriptors from Nickelodeon, like when a photo of Travis Kelce was onscreen and he was described as “Taylor Swift’s boyfriend/good at football.”
Then there were the sideline reports from SpongeBob’s pal and noted chipmunk of substance Sandy Cheeks, who was nothing if not completely biased in her opinions in a way that fans found super satisfying. She compared the head referee to Mr. Krabs except without that obsession with money.
Even Dora the Explorer got in on the action to explain the rules like “holding.” Her ruling? “Say it with us! ‘Players, no holding!’”
SpongeBob even got a bit political, noting that people need unions so they don’t have to work long hours, and now people think he and Patrick need to consider a career in political commentary for the upcoming election.
Nickelodeon even had their own celebrities like “LePrawn James and Fin Diesel” watching in the stands.
It’s the combination of brutal honesty and guileless sweetness that really clinched this broadcast for many, like SpongeBob’s wholesome reaction to the Kansas City Chiefs’ winning with a touchdown alongside the acerbic message, “3 hours later, finally scored a touchdown.”
All in all, the Nickelodeon broadcast was a real highlight of the night. Because let’s face it, the Super Bowl can get boring if you’re not actually that in to football. Why not add a little SpongeBob and Patrick energy to keep things moving?
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