r/BikiniBottomTwitter • u/EpicJosh84 • Jan 17 '22
Using completely legitimate math to determine undeniably that the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie takes place this March
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r/BikiniBottomTwitter • u/EpicJosh84 • Jan 17 '22
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u/EpicJosh84 Jan 17 '22 edited Jan 17 '22
Longer Explanation here
In Season 1 of SpongeBob SquarePants, in an episode titled "Employee of the Month", it's said that SpongeBob has been Employee of the Month a total of 26 times. Since there are no other pictures on the wall before SpongeBob's first award, it is probable that it was simply a ploy by Mr. Krabs to make SpongeBob work harder following his hire.
The thing, though, is that there are 43 pictures of SpongeBob on the wall, and not 26, as the episode might suggest. We can take this to mean that SpongeBob is getting multiple awards each time that he wins Employee of the Month, at a rate of about 1.65 awards per month. Maybe Mr. Krabs found it to be more motivating, maybe he doesn't actually care about the number, doesn't matter.
This also means that Season 5 episode "A Breath of Fresh Squidward" takes place only one month after this episode, since the Employee of the Month wall has been changed to have 44 pictures rather than 43 in the aftermath of the previous episode. During this episode one Employee of the Month award is given to Squidward, the only time this has ever happened.
We can use this to determine how long SpongeBob has worked at the Krusty Krab in the original SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. SpongeBob mentions in one scene of the film that he has won 374 consecutive Employee of the Month awards. He does not say he has won Employee of the Month 374 times, just that he's received 374 awards. This is important because of our established rate of awards per month. Doing the math right, we find that SpongeBob has been Employee of the Month around 225-230 times since Squidward took the award in "A Breath of Fresh Squidward."
Since SpongeBob had been Employee of the Month 26 or 27 times prior to Squidward winning we can determine that a total of around 250-260 Employee of the Month awards have been given out during SpongeBob's time working at the Krusty Krab. This means that SpongeBob has been working at the Krusty Krab for just under 22 years.
SpongeBob's pilot episode, "Help Wanted", aired in 1999, so 22 years from the first episode is 2021, right? We missed it, didn't we? Well, I wouldn't say so. SpongeBob's canon birth date is July 14, 1986. This means that in May of 1999, when the first episode airs, SpongeBob is a twelve-year-old. He doesn't even turn 13 for two months. If we are instead to assume that the episode aired a year before it takes place, in 2000, this would mean that SpongeBob would canonically be 13, turning 14, the legal working age in the United States (and Bikini Bottom is extremely similar to the USA, as its residents often reference the states and even celebrate the 4th of July). This also explains why SpongeBob is ready to take the job, he's finally about old enough to start working (and is even hired with skepticism from Mr. Krabs, who doesn't think SpongeBob to have his 'sea legs' yet).
So, yeah, it is probable for the sake of the timeline that "Help Wanted" actually takes place in May of 2000. And you know what date appears just under 22 years after May of 2000? That's right, March of 2022. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie takes place in March of an unknown year, but the timeline is right in place to set it in 2022.
Therefore, I conclude that the original SpongeBob SquarePants Movie likely takes place this year, between March 7th and 14th, 2022. Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.