Will Maroon 5’s Super Bowl halftime show be ‘Sweet Victory’ for SpongeBob fans?

Who’s excited about Maroon 5’s Super Bowl halftime show? Raise your hands.

We see those SpongeBob SquarePants fans.

Nearly 1.2 million of them, as of Tuesday, had signed a Change.org petition asking Adam Levine and the band to play “Sweet Victory” to honor Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of the Nickelodeon series who died in November.

The song is iconic in SpongeBob circles, the rock anthem sung by SpongeBob and and his buddies at the Bubble Bowl in an early episode called “Band Geeks.”

“As a tribute to his legacy, his contributions to a generation of children, and to truly showcase the greatness of this song, we call for Sweet Victory to be performed at the Halftime Show,” the petition says.

SpongeBob fans have been gobbling up clues that suggest this could come to pass on Sunday in Atlanta when the New England Patriots play the LA Rams.

For one thing, Maroon 5 shared a teaser of their show on social media, “and about 32 seconds into the video, SpongeBob flashes across the screen,” notes HotNewHipHop music website.

“While it is no confirmation, there’s certainly reason for fans to get their hopes up. It arrives one month after the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the venue where this year’s Super Bowl will be staged, tweeted out a GIF of the SpongeBob Squarepants ‘Band Geeks’ episode in which ‘Sweet Victory’ appears.”

Rodger Bumpass, who gives voice to SpongeBob’s neighbor, Squidward, has also teased a SpongeBob Super Bowl presence.

Stereogum music website quoted this Facebook post from Bumpass: “To all Spongebob fans!!! Tune into the Super Bowl because Squidward gets to introduce the halftime entertainment.”

Trend-spotter Arianna Rees at The Deseret News can see it happening.

“Maroon 5 will be taking the stage alongside Big Boi and Travis Scott, which also seems fitting as the album cover for Scott’s ‘Astroworld’ went viral last year for looking like, coincidentally, Bikini Bottom,” she writes.

If you watched Nickelodeon in the early 2000s, writes Stereogum, “you’re familiar with SpongeBob’s iconic ‘Band Geeks’ episode, the one where Patrick asks if mayonnaise is an instrument and SpongeBob leads Bikini Bottom in a rousing performance of an epic rock ballad called ‘Sweet Victory.’”

According to the SpongeBob page on Fandom.com, “Sweet Victory” was one of the rare times on the show that SpongeBob - the song’s lead singer - wasn’t voiced by Tom Kenny.

Singer/songwriter David Glen Eisley sang “Sweet Victory,” originally released in 1986, according to Fandom, which was one of several songs considered for use in that episode.

The episode aired during the show’s second season, the Rapid City Journal explained to a reader in 2015. Eisley “co-wrote the song with Bob Kulick, the brother of Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick,” the Journal wrote.

APM Music, which “provided music suggestions for the very first episode of SpongeBob SquarePants,” supplied the song, the company writes on its website.

“We are truly thrilled that ‘Sweet Victory,’ a production music song, has crossed over into the mainstream of America’s consciousness, and has become an iconic, ‘Can-Do,’ rock anthem, thanks to the remarkable creativity of the late Stephen Hillenburg and composers David Glen Eisley and Bob Kulick,” APM Music president Adam Taylor, says on the website.

In the episode, Patrick Star sat in on electric drums, Sheldon J. Plankton manned the keyboard, Sandy Cheeks rocked out on electric guitar and Mrs. Puff played rhythm and bass guitar, according to Fandom.

“It’s a hugely inspirational song that I listen to when working out and boosting confidence,” Jonathan Hersey of Waccabuc, New York, wrote on the Change.org petition.

“But besides that I want it played at the Super Bowl to honor the man who gave us one of the greatest and most quotable cartoons of all time. His legacy should be honored for all the laughs and smiles his precious creation gave us both as children and as adults.”

“Sweet Victory” done SpongeBob’s way begins with a triumphant multi-trumpet fanfare, which could be fans’ first clue on Sunday that victory is, indeed, theirs.

This story was originally published January 29, 2019 at 10:47 AM.