The Most Popular Cartoon of All Time Dominates Netflix’s Top 10

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 1 second ago

For nearly 30 years, one cartoon has dominated pop culture in a way few properties could ever hope to, and no, it hasn’t The Simpsons. Spongebob Squarepants first published in 1999, and as we approach its 30th anniversary, the optimistic sponge that lives in a pineapple under the sea shows no signs of slowing down. As evidence, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water spent over a week in the Netflix top 10, and it’s not the Kid’s list either, it’s up there with The Watchers a Horizon: An American Saga in the top 10 overall.

A Film That Defies Explanation

There is continued success Spongebob Squarepants it may come as a surprise, but children raised on the adventures of the Bikini Bottom crew are now old enough to have children of their own, who they in turn introduce to the groundbreaking series. And yes, as someone brought it up Doug, Ren and Stimpya Rugratsthat was a painful sentence to type. Even those who didn’t grow up on the series have been exposed to it, like The Simpsons. It has become a central part of modern internet culture, and there seems to be a Spongebob meme for every occasion.

Most of the popular memes come from the early seasons of the show, while The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water was released in 2015 and sends Spongebob and friends on a journey through time, space, and the strangest of all locations, dry land, to recover the Krabby Patty recipe and save Bikini Bottom. It’s delightfully strange, featuring a seamless performance by Antonio Banderas as the pirate Burger Beard, and any attempt to summarize parts like “Bikini Bottom turns into Mad Max” and “Sandy tries to sacrifice Spongebob to appease the Sandwich Gods” makes you sound crazy, and that’s why he was returning to the top Spongebob Squarepants.

Paramount’s Most Successful Franchise

Any series that runs for a long time will fizzle out, but just like that The Simpsons Movie helping to distract fans from the lackluster seasons around him, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water he did the same. The difference is that Spongebob Squarepants continues to churn out movies, with more coming in the next few years, while The Simpsons it may finally, mercifully, be ending.

It can be argued that Spongebob Squarepants has become too much of a children’s show in the last decade, say, and has lost the satirical edge it had before the unfortunate death of creator Stephen Hillenburg, but what cannot be denied is that this is Paramount’s most successful franchise.

Star Trek fans are well aware that it is one of the greatest franchises of all time, but it has always struggled to be profitable, so it makes sense that the merchandising machine that is Spongebob Squarepants is one of the most valuable franchises in the world. The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water made over $325 million in theaters, and on a budget of just $72 million, it was more profitable than Star Trek: Beyondfurther confirming his status as the crown a gem of the Paramount media empire. It’s easy to dismiss today, but there’s no denying that the weird cartoon that turned plankton into a recurring villain (sort of) was one of the world’s most popular shows.

Although The Simpsons has it beaten in longevity as the longest-running animated series, Spongebob Squarepants more spin-offs, more movies, more merchandise, more theme park rides, more video games, and more memes. There are two generations now that can recognize Handsome Squidward but they may not know who Hank Scorpio is or why “Boo-urns” is one of the best punchlines in comedy history. Golden Age Simpsons it can’t be touched, but that stopped before Spongebob broadcast its first episode.

The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water is the best of the show’s feature films to date, although it was followed by Sponge on the Run, and in December this year, a fourth film, Looking for Squarepants, i willn theatres. 13 seasons of Spongebob Squarepants available to stream on Paramount +, while The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water also on Netflix.