The Pilot of Spongebob Squarepants

(Yes, this is The Original Pilot of Spongebob Squarepants, I had to reword it because I couldn’t add it under its original name.)

Sometime in 1998, Nickelodeon announced a brand new animated series they would start airing next year. They announced the show on their website on the main page under announcements section. The announcement didn’t mention the name of the show at all, which they usually say the name of new shows. Me, being 13 and using my brand new Windows 98 computer at the time seeing the announcement, didn’t care about the brand new series. I didn’t think much of this new show Nickelodeon was going to air.

Sometime in March 1999, I found out the new animated show was going to be titled Spongebob Squarepants, which was a very interesting name. I did some research about the show and found out it was going to premiere after the 1999 Kids’ Choice Awards on May 1st. Since I recently turned 14, I didn’t want to watch this show. All I knew about this show was the main character was Spongebob Squarepants and he lived in the sea in a pineapple house.

On April 16, 1999, 8:00 pm CT, I was watching Family Guy on Fox. The television I used watch on was a 1998 model Sony Trinitron. I had a vcr hooked up to the TV set and had it recording. After a couple of commercials the screen became static. I hit the tv multiple times to see if it would work, nothing happened it stayed static for what seemed like forever. I tried to call the network to see what had happened, they never picked up. At exactly 8:03 pm, according to eyewitnesses from reports and my clock, the static stopped and showed a Nickelodeon pilot card reading

“Spongebob Squarepants

March 23, 1998

20:05

DO NOT AIR!

PROPERTY OF NICKELODEON STUDIOS”

A pirate appeared right after the card. He confidently said to the audience “Are ya ready kids?” Then random kids reply “Aye, aye captain” They captain replies “I can’t hear you”, the kids repeat what they said earlier and drops to a pineapple house in a sea. “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” The kids reply with “Spongebob Squarepants!”. After  that line, I realized this was the new show Nickelodeon announced a year prior. What was the show doing on Fox? The theme ends with Spongebob using his nose as a flute.

A title appears reading “Work” and credits follow soon after. The episode starts with Spongebob sitting in his bed thinking about something. He gets on his hat with has an anchor and some kind of suit on. He walks out of his house and walks by a tiki looking house and a brown rock. The brown rock opens up with a pink starfish stuck to the wall. “Good morning, Spongebob.”

“Yeah, good morning, Patrick.”

So the starfish’s name was Patrick. Spongebob walks in a loop with his shoulders hanging low and his legs were bending back and forward. His face looked depressed as he drudged on to his workplace. He stops at a building called the Krusty Krab. He looks up at the sign, smirks, and sarcastically says “Yeah, what a great fucking place to be in.” He opens the front doors and is greeted by a crab with a blue shirt and purple pants.

“Aye aye, Mr. Krabs.”

Spongebob walks to his kitchen which is located behind a boat with a squid in it. I later found out his name was Squidward. The episode cuts to the the cashier with a costumer who resembled the character Fred. He was ordering something off of the menu from above the boat. After he finished his order, Squidward whispers under his breath “This is the one.” Mr. Krabs bursted out of his office and grabbed the costumer by the arm.

The costumer was thrown into the kitchen where Spongebob was cooking some Krabby Patties. Spongebob looks at the costumer, who is in fear, and grins from cheek to cheek revealing his decayed teeth. Spongebob grabbed out a gun, somewhat resembling a pistol and pointed it at the costumers head.

“Please, I don’t want any trouble.”

“You know how long I’ve been waiting to kill someone for the sake of a patty? 2 LONG FUCKING YEARS PAL. Mr. Krabs has always done the murdering, I’ve always wanted to kill someone for the god damn patties. I don’t want to murder anybody, but I have to for the sake of this god forsaken restaurant and it’s food. The patties, they are made with a special ingredient that people just like you hold that any other creature doesn’t have. We have to murder you people just to make our damn patties, and you seem like our latest victim.”

A wall of the kitchen was shown and a gunshot was heard. Red blood sprayed all over the kitchen wall. A sudden screeching noise blasted out of my tv. Static started to take over the screen as the screeching noise continued. I tried to turn down my volume but nothing was happening, the screeching noise was still the same. Colors started to flash on the screen as the screeching noise continued. Hell was happening before my eyes. I begged for it to stop, it didn’t stop. It was never ending until everything was quiet. The screen was black, I didn’t know what was going to happen next. The episode suddenly resumed.

Spongebob was shown dragging the body to the freezer. The corpse is shown with his eyes cut out and chest ripped open. The body was frozen and the head was chopped off. Blood didn’t drip from the head, the freezer was bare clean. Spongebob entered Mr. Krabs’ office where he is shown playing with money. Mr. Krabs quickly grabs the head and puts it in a safe, similar to the one he stored money in. He tells Spongebob to leave the office and go back to work. Spongebob enters the freezer and put the rest of the dead corpse in a bag. Written on it is “Patties”. The episode ends with Spongebob cooking patties on the grill before cutting to a test pattern.

Fox apologized by showing a black screen with white text reading “What was shown on television tonight was never meant to be aired. We are not sure how it made it to air in the first place. We are currently investigating into the matter.” Regular programming started up again. I looked at my clock, 8:33 pm. I realized my vcr was still recording and stopped the vcr. I took out the tape and hid it in an old shoe box I had. I tried calling Fox once again but to no avail. The next day, I found a website reporting an apparent hijacking that had happened on Fox the previous night. The hijacker put a supposed “pilot reel” of Spongebob Squarepants on Fox. I’m still confused about the hijacking to this day. Nearly 20 years later, I still have the tape, I’m not sure what to do with it. The police never found out who hijacked Fox on that weird day.