Like other SpongeBob movies that have come before, Search for SquarePants centers on SpongeBob and Patrick as they unwittingly find themselves on an adventure filled with danger—most of which they remain blissfully oblivious to. “Blissfully oblivious” will likewise describe many young viewers who tune into this movie, which contains a number of profane innuendos that adults will catch—such as a couple of near-crudities. Animated rears are displayed for comedic effect, and a magical curse plays the inciting incident of the film.
If you were to ask who lives in a pineapple under the sea, you’d be met with a chorus of excited children shouting in unison: SpongeBob SquarePants!
But ask who’s been cursed to roam Bikini Bottom’s waters as a ghostly pirate for the last 500 years, and you’ll find fewer people calling his name.
Yes, few truly know how the Flying Dutchman transformed from human pirate to green ghost. Not many know the ancient curse that rests upon him—the one from which he’s spent so long trying to break free.
The stipulations of the curse are simple: The Flying Dutchman can only be freed with the help of a magical innocent soul—someone who might be naïve enough to hop aboard a haunted, floating ship, sail down into the Underworld and overcome its trials to free the Dutchman.
Someone who’d be ignorant to the fact that breaking curses often comes with a price.
Perhaps someone like SpongeBob?
The porous individual has some troubles of his own. He’d hoped that growing tall enough would finally make people think of him as a “big guy.” But his boss, Mr. Krabs, tells him that being a big guy isn’t about height; it’s about being the kind of guy who slays monsters, goes on adventures and has enough moxie to fill a room. (Mr. Krabs would know these kinds of things: He’s got his own swashbuckler certificate to prove it.)
Ah, if only there were some ghostly pirate crew who might show up out of nowhere to recruit the sponge so that he could earn a little moxie himself.
Because if there were such a crew, they might find him naïve enough to do anything—so long as they could convince him it was necessary to becoming a big guy.
Even something like dooming himself with an ancient curse.
Mr. Krabs (along with Gary the Snail and reluctant employee Squidward) goes to save SpongeBob. He feels responsible for SpongeBob’s predicament, since he had made such a big deal about earning his swashbuckler certificate through heroic deeds in the Underworld—tales which motivated SpongeBob to pursue similar feats himself. Mr. Krabs puts his life on the line to try to protect SpongeBob as a result.
Eventually, Mr. Krabs comes clean: He had embellished his stories. While he did journey with a pirate crew, he was merely the fry cook—and he had been too scared to join in on the adventures. But Mr. Krabs helps SpongeBob realize that the porous guy is quite brave—after all, Mr. Krabs fled the first time he entered the Underworld, while SpongeBob has done quite well for himself.
Still, Mr. Krabs tells SpongeBob that, just as being a “big guy” isn’t merely about height, it’s also not just about being brave. Instead, he tells SpongeBob that SpongeBob is already a big guy for being smart, loving and fun to be around.
When SpongeBob realizes he’s neglected his best friend, Patrick, during their adventure, he apologizes for his actions; Patrick forgives him instantly.
The central conflict of the movie revolves around the Flying Dutchman, the SpongeBob SquarePants series’ long-time floating, green, ghostly pirate. We’re told a bit of his backstory: The pirate fell under an “ancient, wicked curse,” and he’s been stuck in that spectral form ever since. There’s a way to break the curse—by tricking someone into trading places with him—but that person must be an “innocent soul” willing to prove himself through certain trials.
The location to swap this curse and undergo those trials? A little place called the Underworld. It looks mostly like an underground ocean filled with strange creatures, but a narrator tells us it contains ghostly pirates and haunted hurricanes, too. Someone else describes the place as a “realm of dark magic,” and it requires passing through a magical portal to get inside.
The Flying Dutchman gets summoned when someone plays a hornpipe, and he shows up atop his ghostly ship with his spiritual crew. This hornpipe must then be played at an “altar” to end the curse. We’re also told that, if someone is unfortunate enough to take the Flying Dutchman’s place as the subject of the curse, they can revert back—so long as they break the hornpipe before the sun sets.
We see bones reassemble themselves into living skeletons. There’s an inherent magic to the challenge set before SpongeBob, who must complete certain trials in order to prove himself worthy to break the Dutchman’s curse.
At one point, SpongeBob gets knocked unconscious, and he dreams of a buff Mr. Krabs, who guides him on how to overcome the trials set before him.
Some characters (particularly Patrick) show off their rear ends. Even when clothed, the animation occasionally accentuates a variety of characters’ rears, intended for comedic effect. When SpongeBob believes that destiny is calling him to adventure, his rear end becomes blocky in excitement; Patrick, looking to verify that claim, examines his own saggy rear.
We see SpongeBob walking around in his underwear, and we see Patrick running around with only an eyepatch covering his crotch. Later, SpongeBob pulls a giant pair of underwear out of his pants to capture a charging enemy.
As a rope monster and a giant lobster from the Underworld fight over a potential meal, they suddenly stop their struggle and decide to passionately kiss each other instead.
When someone stutters over the word “but,” Mr. Krabs retorts, “Butts are for toilets.” As Mr. Krabs and Squidward venture through a high school locker room, tossed underwear slaps onto Squidward’s face. A fish uses a towel to whip Gary on his exposed rear.
Three monsters of the Underworld are sirens, meant to appear as pretty female fish; their song attracts someone before he is able to realize the danger.
We see live-action human men and women in swimsuits, enjoying a day at the beach.
In one instance, SpongeBob and Patrick both fall atop purple, squishy bushes. When the bushes stick to their stomachs, it appears as if the pair’s entrails are hanging from their torsos, but they’re actually completely unharmed. The two take it to mean that they must have succeeded in fortifying their intestines—one of the requirements for obtaining a swashbuckler certificate.
We see a variety of ghostly fish, some of whom display injuries that likely caused their deaths to begin with: One fish, for instance, lost his head, and we see his bony spine. The ghosts are somewhat corporeal, and as such, we see an arrow knock a ghost’s eye from his socket. These injuries don’t seem to faze the apparitions whatsoever. Likewise, when characters fight living skeletons, they chop through the creatures and cause the fish to simply fall apart. We additionally see the skeletal remains of a few less fortunate fish adventurers.
Some characters get eaten by a three-headed seagull. (They reappear later on, apparently unharmed, after the bird lays them in an egg.) SpongeBob steps on a small plankton called Plankton. We see Mr. Krabs slice through monsters with a sword. Cannons and lightning destroy pieces of a roller coaster, sending riders flying off into the distance. Showering fish whip people with their towels.
Patrick suffers a pirate’s hook to the rear. A ghost extends her eye out of her head so that it turns into a fleshly telescope.
As Mr. Krabs looks mournfully at SpongeBob’s fry cook badge, the picture of SpongeBob on it reminds him, “Better hurry up, or instead of a big guy, I’ll be a dead guy!”
There are a couple of instances in which crude words are substituted for much cleaner ones, such as when someone says he’s “in deep shrimp,” or the phrase “son of a perch.” Otherwise, the worst we hear is “heck” and “dummy.”
Other innocent phrases are used to evoke cruder meanings, like “ah, tartar sauce” and “fishsticks.” At one point, SpongeBob says that he’s there to “kick butt and blow bubbles; looks like I’m all out of butt.”
None.
On three occasions, when a character is scared, a brick falls out of their back pocket, which they describe as “dropping their lucky brick”—a euphemism for defecating out of terror. (And when we hear a thump offscreen, and SpongeBob asks Patrick if he dropped his lucky brick, Patrick responds that he does not have one.) SpongeBob asks if someone was “poopy peepy in my pants kinda scared.”
There is a large amount of general toilet humor.
The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants brings families on a zany adventure full of ghosts, danger and some sweet messages in the midst of the franchise’s chaotic and over-the-top antics. So, why not talk about all three?
First, the ghosts: The plot revolves around the Flying Dutchman’s dastardly attempt to deceive SpongeBob into breaking his ghostly curse—a goal that would spell doom for the world’s best-known Porifera. The movie’s adventure takes Mr. SquarePants down into the Underworld, a place that, while not containing the spiritual implications we might associate with its name, is nevertheless said to contain dark magic and haunted hurricanes.
Perhaps that dark magic is the reason for the living skeletons that swing their weapons at our aquatic protagonist. It may indeed be the cause of many other dangers SpongeBob faces along the way.
In a similar way, viewers will encounter a few content dangers of their own, like the thinly veiled euphemisms, the animated rears and the unceasing toilet humor. None of it seems out of SpongeBob SquarePants’ typical humor catalogue (much of what I’ve written here could be copied and pasted right into our review for the original The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie), but it’s worth noting regardless.
And just like those SquarePants movies that have come before, there’s something of a moral to take away from this one, too. In this case, it’s that being a “big guy” means more than just growing a little taller or even putting on a brave face—rather, it’s about how we act and how we treat others.
Of course, few parents would ever want their kids to act like SpongeBob, whose personality is something akin to a toddler who’s just downed 20 pounds of sugar. But, sure, we get the overarching point.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
