25 Years Ago Today, SpongeBob Debuted Its Very First Christmas Special That Introduced a Legendary Character

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25 years ago today, on December 7, 2000, SpongeBob SquarePants debuted its first Christmas special, “Christmas Who?” that marked a lot of firsts for the then very young animated series. It was the very first Christmas based episode, the first double length episode, the first episode to change up the theme song, and most importantly, it was also the first time that fans were introduced to the president of SpongeBob’s fan club, Patchy the Pirate.

SpongeBob Introduced Patchy the Pirate 25 Years Ago Today

“Christmas Who?” came during the second season of SpongeBob SquarePants, and really was commemorative of how far the animated series had come in such a short time. This Christmas special was hyped up a great deal beforehand for being an extended episode of the usual series, and ended up being an even bigger deal because it introduced fans to Patchy the Pirate. Tom Kenny (who voices SpongeBob) took to the screen during the special and introduced Patchy as the President of the SpongeBob fan club as he couldn’t wait to see what SpongeBob and the other critters would be up to in the special.

He was accompanied by a puppet parrot named Potty the Parrot, who would often have some cold remarks about Patchy during the interstitials in between the actual SpongeBob episode (and evolved further in future appearances). Patchy was then such a fun addition to the overall SpongeBob SquarePants universe that we would continue to see him pop up through the series from then on. But it certainly is wild in retrospect to realize that Patchy came in during a Christmas special rather than some other major event. Patchy was there to help celebrate the holidays, and made this Christmas special even more memorable to fans in the decades since.

SpongeBob Knocked Christmas Out of the Park

“Christmas Who?” was also a legendary celebration of the Christmas holiday overall. The episode sees Sandy explain the holiday to SpongeBob and Patrick, and it’s not long before the duo gets the rest of the town excited about the holiday and the potential appearance of Santa Claus. It had the memorable song, “The Very First Christmas” that made for a perfect song to replay every year, and looking back all of these combined together made for a perfect hit for the holiday.

It’s such a notable special that although SpongeBob SquarePants has released many other Christmas episodes in the years since, this is the one that fans often go back to as their top favorite. It’s not hard to see why when you see how many firsts this special had for the franchise on a whole, and classic SpongeBob SquarePants hits just as hard after all this time.

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