Out of all the nostalgic cartoons we loved to watch growing up, none seem to have more of a lasting impact like “SpongeBob SquarePants.” In fact, one “SpongeBob” song that we all need to look back on is “Sweet Victory.” I bet some people would have to think twice about what song I’m talking about – only the most underrated and epic song that mankind has ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
For context, keep in mind that almost everyone who watched the “SpongeBob” series had their favorite episodes and original songs. Remember the catchy songs from episodes that we all adored, like “Ripped Pants” and “Campfire Song Song?” “Sweet Victory” is the greatest song of “SpongeBob SquarePants.”
The song is featured in “Band Geeks,” which is arguably the greatest “SpongeBob” – nay, the greatest television episode – of all time. This is not only true because it features this classic song, but also because it has classic one-liners everyone knows like, “Is mayonnaise an instrument?”
For such a classic episode, it doesn’t even focus on the series’ titular character. Instead, the episode focuses on a plotline where Squidward, SpongeBob’s perpetually grumpy neighbor, gets a call from his infinitely more successful high school arch rival Squilliam Fancyson. He asks Squidward to play at the Bubble Bowl: a Super Bowl-like event. Squidward, who desperately wants recognition, doesn’t even have a band, but assembles a marching band featuring all our favorite characters from Bikini Bottom in order to prove himself.
Squidward initially gives up, thinking that he has failed after awful practice sessions with the band, including one where a fight breaks out between band members and another where flag twirlers accidentally twirl their flags so much that they fly into a blimp and are promptly killed in an explosion. SpongeBob then rallies everyone in trying harder to help their good old pal Squidward out. The end result? Television history.
Squidward goes to the Bubble Bowl and is horrified to see that his band actually showed up after telling Fancyson that they died in a marching accident. When it was their time to play, Squidward was expecting the worst, but once they started, Squidward makes the most surprised, what-in-the-world-is-going-on face, before realizing that his band finally came out to play.
The song, a power ballad written by David Glen Eisley, is the most epic and heart-pumping song you will ever hear in your life. It includes lines like, “The winner takes all / it’s the thrill of one more kill,” with ‘80s-throwback power chords and a keyboard playing in the background. I guarantee that you will cry the first time you listen to this song in the episode, either from laughing so hard at its absurdity or just because of the overwhelming awesomeness.
Perhaps in one of the most poignant moments ever on television, the episode ends with a freeze frame of Squidward, an otherwise constant butt of humiliating punch lines, jumping in the air with joy, amid loud cheers from the audience. If you know the show well like I do, you can easily say this is Squidward’s greatest moment: one where he finally breaks through and succeeds in his dream, still inspiring both children and adults to this day that maybe we, too, can achieve sweet victory.
Ben Buczec is a campus correspondent for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at benjamin.buczec@uconn.edu.
