Musical Mondays: SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants is a children's television show with a fair amount of clever humor appealing to adults (or kids from 1 to 92 as the Christmas Song tells us is the appropriate age limit for children.) It also is perhaps the source of about 30% of the memes I see on social media every day—actually fairly interesting write up of why that might be here. It's a show about a fast food employee sponge that lives in a pineapple, hangs out with his starfish best friend, has a squirrel who lives in an air filled dome under the water as another friend, and lives next to a clarinet playing squid. It came to Broadway. Seriously.
I think out of all of the shows I have seen recently, there is not a show that has been more polarizing than SpongeBob. It tied for the most Tony nominations in this season with 12. I have heard it described as "a f***ing hot mess." One friend said it deserves praise for really trying for something. Another friend said it deserves scorn for trying for something and missing so badly.
My first worry before seeing this show was that it would be a theme park show on steroids. It would be an overly commercial show with a gigantic annoying sponge. Fortunately, it wasn't that. Ethan Slater, the lead, isn't dressed as a giant sponge, but he is an oddly jacked SpongeBob. Similarly, none of the characters are dressed as giant animals. What they all are is incredibly brightly colored. Mix in bright lights and neon everywhere as well as a pretty frantic set, and you are presented with an incredibly manic experience. At moments it was a lot of fun and I was on board, but I will admit that when it was over I was incredibly tired. I am unsure if this is solely because of the show or because of the little kid in front of me who had, at best, minimal parental guidance and a real tendency to sit any way in a chair except a way that would not be horribly distracting.
SpongeBob should be commended for the absolute breadth of music in the show. The following artists appear as composers on the SpongeBob Tony nomination for Best Original Score: Steven Tyler & Joe Perry, The Flaming Lips, Lady Antebellum, Cyndi Lauper & Rob Hyman, John Legend, Panic! at the Disco, Plain White T's, They Might be Giants, T.I., and more. The score is a real hodgepodge of musical influences, and there are times it feels a little uneven, but not nearly as much as you'd think. There are some really fun songs on the album. Listen to I'm Not a Loser or Simple Sponge. Both songs are funny in their own way and also oddly uplifting.
I don't know how long SpongeBob will stay on Broadway, regardless of Tony success, but it is certainly a show I will remember for a long time. If you don't have a time to go out to see it, give the cast album a listen. For its faults, it definitely tries for something. That isn't something that won over everyone, but I don't hate that I felt the show was ambitious. Taking chances shouldn't be a crime.