Prepare to never again look upon the silly smile of SpongeBob SquarePants and see the childlike innocence he is perceived to embody. The seedier side of animation’s favorite perpetually Pollyanna-ish sea sponge comes by way of some Bad Lip Reading-esque editing with Breaking Bad. Give it a look before checking on the secret cash stash taped in your air vent.
With “Breaking Sponge,” put together by a YouTube user going by the handle runningflannel, you'll be left wondering just what kind of “cooking” goes on in the secret recesses of the Krusty Krab. While the clip comes across as a random segment from some nonsensically artsy, avant-garde student film that’s secretly about the Industrial Revolution, the skillful matching of dialogue from some of Breaking Bad's integral moments with SpongeBob SquarePants works surprisingly well. You’ll think that Bikini Bottom has been transformed into the bleak, arid assortment of ill-influence that is the show’s depiction of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Plus, who’d have ever thought that Squidward Tentacles would make such an appropriate stand-in for the tweaked lunatic, Tuco Salamanca?
Especially fitting is the scene between SpongeBob and his sea-suit-sporting squirrel friend, Sandy Cheeks as SpongeBob (“Speisenberg?”) gives Sandy the Skyler treatment with the “I am the one who knocks” speech, as the worked-up Walter famously let his pride bubble over after being seen as weak by his wife, pretty much revealing that he’s the central operator in a humongous meth operation and that he’s willing to kill anyone to protect that status. It’s a groundbreaking moment in the show where Skyler goes from pitying Walt to pretty much being scared shitless of him. Surprisingly SpongeBob does the key scene justice in the delivery.
Seeing as Breaking Bad was one of the most popular dramas in recent years, there is certainly no shortage of other parody videos that cull themes from the ether of popular culture and are waiting to get mashed up with Walter White’s monumental demonstration in meth-moving. Certainly, with Disney’s Frozen still unbelievably ubiquitous and perpetually on the minds of little children everywhere, the collision of these themes was inevitable. Since we’re on the topic of the late Breaking Bad, we figured it was as good a time as any to hearken back to last fall’s magnificent Webby Award-winning parody from Animeme of Frozen’s “Do You Want To Build A Snowman?”
Nearly two years removed from the body-bag-stacking Breaking Bad finale, there is no doubt whatsoever the show is still missed. The recent spinoff/prequel series Better Call Saul thankfully manages to hold its own, depicting the surprisingly intriguing early picaresque exploits of the sleazy solicitor who would eventually call himself Saul Goodman. However, fans will likely have to wait until early 2016 for Season 2 to come around to satiate their yearning for another bleak bounce in the ABQ, sans SpongeBob.
