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Fans of SpongeBob SquarePants know that when the show goes to stop-action animation, they’re in for a special, holiday-themed episode. This year, a new stop-action holiday special is accompanied by a couple of fun new songs and a guest cast that fits in well.
SPONGEBOB & SANDY’S COUNTRY CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: We see the French Narrator (Tom Kenny) on a tiny island, strumming a guitar. He’s going to introduce us to a very special SpongeBob SquarePants holiday story.
The Gist: SpongeBob (Kenny) is helping his squirrel buddy Sandy Cheeks (Carolyn Lawrence) with her latest experiment, which is a formula to create an instant Christmas tree. While trying out her latest version of the serum, though, she’s surprised by her family: Pa Cheeks (Craig Robinson), Ma Cheeks (Grey DeLise), her brother Randy (Johnny Knoxville). Granny Cheeks (DeLise) and her brother’s kids Rosie and Rowdy (both DeLise). “This here is a good old Texas Bushwack visit,” Pa tells SpongeBob.
The Cheeks family love singing together, and when SpongeBob works his “favorite shift of the year” at the Krusty Krab, Christmas Eve, the squirrels follow him. They volunteer to sing Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), mainly because Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) is doing such a depressingly bad job of it.
Sandy perfects her formula in time to show all of Bikini Bottom, who gather outside the dome-covered tree where she lives. After a show from the Cheeks family, she shows a droplet of the formula generates a fully-decorated tree. But Rowdy and Rosie, ever the scamps, pour even more in, making a gigantic tree. It’s so big that Santa Claus (Lewis Black), looking forward to his last stop at Bikini Bottom before his “364-day vacation,” accidentally rams his sleigh into the tree and is knocked silly.
Oh no! Does that mean Bikini Bottom won’t get their presents this year? Not if SpongeBob and the Cheeks family have anything to do with it. Still, things in town get pretty bleak before the Cheeks and SpongeBob team up to pick up the slack for a still-woozy Santa.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? SpongeBob & Sandy’s Country Christmas uses the same stop-action animation style that It’s A SpongeBob Christmas! first used in 2012. A number of special episodes have used the style since then.
Our Take: For some reason, we seem to enjoy SpongeBob SquarePants more in stop-action than we do in its regular hand-drawn style. It feels less frenetic and somehow cozier. That’s the feeling we got from SpongeBob & Sandy’s Country Christmas.
There are a couple of fun songs from the Cheeks and company, and the guest voices — Robinson, Knoxville and Black — all blended in nicely. We always get a chuckle when we hear Lewis Black’s voice, and having him play the snottily-gleeful side of his angry guy persona as Santa seemed to fit the anarchic tone of SpongeBob.
The only thing we missed was the presence of SpongeBob’s best buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke). He pops up from time to time in the episode, but he’s not at all a part of this story. We would have loved to see his sweet, somewhat dopey view of all of what was going on, but we guess someone had to be sacrificed in order to get Sandy and her family front and center.
What Age Group Is This For?: SpongeBob is rated TVY-7; seven and up seems to be the right age range.
Parting Shot: The French Narrator finishes the story and says, “You all come back now, you hear?’
Sleeper Star: Kenny plays Slappy Lazlo, who is an unabashed tribute to Peter Lorre. No one in the show’s target audience will get it, but his maudlin character is funny enough on its own to make that not matter all that much.
Most Pilot-y Line: When Santa realizes he’s about to run into the giant tree, he sighs and says, “Oh, Krampus…”
Our Call: STREAM IT. As far as SpongeBob Squarepants episodes go, SpongeBob & Sandy’s Country Christmas is actually one of the less frenetic ones we’ve ever seen. But it’s a fun way to ring in the holiday, and the stop-action animation is terrific.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
