By Staff Writer Tighe Ratcliffe.
As everyone probably knows, the New England Patriots have won the 53rd Super Bowl, and at this point, Tom Brady has enough Super Bowl rings to make an Infinity Gauntlet.
The game ended with the Pats leading by 10, and the final score was 13-3. This should be a cause for celebration, but for some reason everyone feels cheated.
It was rumored that Maroon 5, who headlined the halftime show, was going to be performing the beloved “Sweet Victory” from the SpongeBob SquarePants episode “Band Geeks.” If you don’t remember possibly the best episode of the series, here’s a little refresher.
Squidward’s high school rival Squilliam calls our favorite mopey cephalopod on the phone and tells him that he was supposed to play the Bubble Bowl with his marching band but had to cancel. He then gets Squidward to blurt out that he has his own marching band, and chaos ensues as Squidward is forced to gather a “professional” marching band in four days so he isn’t embarrassed by his rival.
Basically everyone from Bikini Bottom joins the band, the question “is mayonnaise an instrument?” is asked, and all seems hopeless as no one is able to get their parts correct.
Squidward gives up, but our favorite undersea sponge manages to rally everyone the night before to make Squidward’s dreams come true. The next day they gather and to Squidward and Squilliam’s surprise, perform the best halftime performance in all of history.
Flash-back to Super Bowl 53, and the brief glorious few seconds at roughly the three minute mark of Maroon 5’s performance, Squidward and his band appeared for all to see, the start of “Sweet Victory” began playing, and then… disappointment.
A green meteor fell upon the stadium in an exciting graphic, and we wondered what it could possibly contain. A fully costumed dance group? The original singer that performed the song, David Glen Eisley? No, just Travis Scott surrounded by cheap pyrotechnics.
People were expecting the full performance of the song by Maroon 5, but only got this brief nod towards the show before Travis Scott and Big Boi performed along side them.
The clip was added to the performance to honor the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, Stephen Hillenburg, who passed away in November 2018 at the age of 57.
Now granted, it was amazing that this was even done during the Super Bowl, but it was also slightly disappointing for people who tuned in to solely see “Sweet Victory” be performed. Pretty soon, the internet began exploding with SpongeBob memes reflecting people’s disappointment.
A personal friend of mine, Katelyn Ann Souza said it perfectly when she created this meme (pictured): “You promised me “Sweet Victory” but all I saw was cheapy the cheapskate,” which as of right now, has almost 30 thousand shares, and growing on Facebook.
But we shouldn’t be upset with Maroon 5 and the other performers, as they ended up donating $500K to Big Brothers Big Sisters of America before the show, which is what they would have made from their performance. Isn’t that a sweeter victory than hearing the song “Sweet Victory?” I’m confident our favorite sponge in square pants would agree.