“Band Geeks” is one of the most beloved episodes of Spongebob Squarepants in the show’s very long history, and finally comes to life on Super Bowl Sunday. CBS announced Thursday that SpongeBob and the rest of the Bikini Bottom band will kick off 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 original animation from the episode, which was first released in 2001, the sequence is reanimated in CGI. In the short preview video from CBS: posted on X (formerly Twitter), this gives the SpongeBob gave a strange, uncanny valley look.
Despite the somewhat unnerving redesign, the song will undoubtedly still rule, and it’s kind of nice that it’s actually going to kick off an actual Super Bowl broadcast. This will be Nick’s first time showing the Super Bowl, focusing on a kid-friendly broadcast, with a version of the game hosted by some of the network’s most famous characters.
While this is the first time SpongeBob and the gang have made an appearance at the game, it isn’t the first time the Super Bowl has referenced the fan-favorite episode. In 2019, Squidward introduced the halftime show in a short introductory clip. Fans had been hoping for years that the song would get a real Super Bowl spot, but that only recently happened SpongeBob the death of creator Stephen Hillenburg in 2018 that fans began to organize. That year, one The Change.org petition collected more than 1.2 million signatureswhich ultimately led to Squidward’s appearance in the Super Bowl a few months later.
The Super Bowl will be played on Sunday, February 11, starting at 6:30 PM ET.