The Theatre - Under The Sea
The New Yorker|December 18 - 25,2017

The “SpongeBob SquarePants” musical is actually good.

Michael Schulman
The Theatre - Under The Sea

In heavy times, we can all use a little nonsense. (The good kind.) Who better to offer respite from the angry orange man who lives in the White House than a happy-go-lucky sponge who lives in a pineapple on the ocean floor? Launched in 1999 by Stephen Hillenburg, a former marine biologist whose interest in aquatic life was uniquely unbridled, the Nickelodeon cartoon “SpongeBob SquarePants” introduced the world to a community known as Bikini Bottom, populated by scheming plankton, entrepreneurial crabs, and (least explicably) a karate-trained Texan squirrel in an astronaut suit. Needless to say, it became a multibillion- dollar franchise.

This story is from the December 18 - 25,2017 edition of The New Yorker.

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This story is from the December 18 - 25,2017 edition of The New Yorker.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.