Just in time for the holidays, “SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” is a special Christmas episode presenting SpongeBob and friends of Bikini Bottom for the first time in stop-motion animation. A family fun episode that your children will love watching during the holidays! Also, the 2013 release of “Holiday Gifts from Nickelodeon – SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” comes with one coloring book, four crayons, one poster and one sticker sheet.
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DVD TITLE: Holiday Gifts from Nickelodeon – SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!
DURATION: 22 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Full Screen, Dolby Digital – English Stereo
COMPANY: Paramount Home Entertainment/Nickelodeon
RATED: NOT RATED
RELEASE DATE: October 15, 2013
Created by Stephen Hillenburg
Directed by Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh
Writers: Derek Iversen, Tom Kenny, Mr. Lawrence, Dani Michaeli, Andy Paley, Richard Pursel, Paul Tibbitt
Supervising Director: Alan Smart
Featuring the voices of:
Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants
Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick Star
Rodger Bumpass as Squidward Tentacles
Clancy Brown as Mr. eugene H. Krabs
Mr. Lawrence as Plankton
Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy Cheeks
John Goodman as Santa
It’s SpongeBob, Patrick, Plankton, and Bikini Bottom – as never seen before – in this soon to be classic!
At Christmastime in Bikini Bottom, everyone’s excited. Well, everyone except Plankton who, year after year, gets the same gift from Santa: a lump of coal. But he vows this will be the year he finally gets his Christmas wish: the Krabby Patty formula!
We have seen Christmas episodes on “SpongeBob SquarePants” before, but this time around, the crew wanted to create a special Christmas “SpongeBob SquarePants” and this time through stop-motion inspired by Christmas specials of the past.
In “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!”, the DVD features a Christmas episode as everyone in Bikini Bottom is excited for Christmas and Santa to come and visit the area. But Plankton who has been receiving nothing but coal, comes up with a plan to taint fruit cake with jerktonium and making everyone bad so their Christmas is ruined.
But when Plankton tries the tainted fruit cake on SpongeBob, it doesn’t work. So, Plankton figures his invention is not working and thus gives the Jerktonium maker to SpongeBob, who decides to give everyone in Bikini Bottom some of Plankton’s delicious fruit cake.
But when everyone starts acting like a jerk after eating the tainted fruitcake, what happens when Santa comes to Bikini Bottom? Will they get presents or a lump of coal?
What is SpongeBob SquarePants?
For over a decade, “SpongeBob SquarePants” has become such a tremendous hit for Nickelodeon and an animated series that many children have grown up with. A popular franchise which includes video games, the character featured on a variety of food products, toys, health-related items and more. Needless to say, “SpongeBob SquarePants”, although not a series shown on broadcast television, has managed to become a character that is part of American pop culture and still shows no signs of waning, especially with a new group of young viewers every year.
Created by Stephen Hillenburg in 1999, “SpongeBob SquarePants” is an animated series about a group of characters that live in the underwater city known as “Bikini Bottom”.
The main character of “SpongeBob SquarePants” are:
- SpongeBob SquarePants – A energetic and naive sea sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea with his pet snail Gary and works as a cook for The Krusty Krab. He enjoys hanging out with his best friend Patrick.
- Patrick Star – A pink starfish and the best friend of SpongeBob. Known for his ignorance and stupidity but still a good friend to SpongeBob.
- Squidward Tentacles – An egotistical cephalopod (squid or octopus) who works as a cashier at the Krusty Krab and although he doesn’t care for SpongeBob, he tolerates him.
- Sandy Cheeks – A squirrel who is a science genius and lives in an underwater dome who hails from Texas.
- Mr. Krabs – The money-loving boss of The Krusty Krab restaurant and boss of SpongeBob and Squidward.
- Plankton – The nemesis of Mr. Krabs who runs the rival restaurant, The Chum Bucket.
VIDEO & AUDIO:
“SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” is featured in full screen and audio is featured in Dolby Digital English Stereo. This is the first “SpongeBob SquarePants” episode featured in stop-motion, so this is the first episode not animated and the characters are presented via in foam or fabric. Picture quality is good for DVD and the stop motion, especially the movement of the characters was excellent, especially planning the mouth movements to the dialogue. Lighting and overall look of Bikini Bottom was also well-done!
Dialogue is in 5.1 Dolby Digital stereo, front channel driven, dialogue and music is clear and understandable.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” comes with the following special features:
- Behind-the-Scenes Feature – (7:16) The making of “It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!”. Creating a stop-motion classic Christmas feel.
- Animatic – (24:25) Watch the complete episode with the animatic sketches.
- Yule Log – If you want to watch an animated yule-log during the holidays!
- MP3 Compatible Songs – Comes with the MP3’s for “Santa’s Eyes” and “Hot Fruitcake” (note: You must put the DVD into a DVD-Rom drive to access the two MP3 files).
EXTRAS:
“Holiday Gifts from Nickelodeon – SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” comes with one coloring book, four crayons, one poster and one sticker sheet.
Just in time for the holidays, “SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” is an entertaining Christmas episode and for the first time, presenting SpongeBob and friends, especially the underwater world of Bikini Bottom in stop-motion.
The DVD features one episode, so it’s a bit short at 22-minutes, but you do get a few special features included with this DVD release. For this 2013 release of “Holiday Gifts from Nickelodeon – SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!” also comes with one coloring book, four crayons, one poster and one sticker sheet.
My home is “SpongeBob SquarePants” mania for my nine-year-old. For the past five years, he has been a big fan of the animated series and has wanted everything that the character is featured on, may it be yogurt to toothpaste, he is a SpongeBob maniac and both us were pretty excited to see this Christmas episode and see how the characters look via stop-motion.
The crew did a wonderful job in creating the world of Bikini Bottom but also creating the characters for stop-motion. The movements resembled the series and while created in stop-motion, the series felt natural and of course maintained the hilarious and crazy aspect of the the animated series via stop-motion.
And with the theme being Christmas-related, I have no doubt that children and the entire family will enjoy “SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!”. For kids, they will enjoy the crazy transformation of the characters as they eat the tainted fruit cake, while parents who grew up watching the classic stop-motion animated Christmas specials as a child, will be thrilled to see this tradition continue with this special Christmas episode of “SpongeBob SquarePants”.
While the DVD is short, I did wish there were extra episodes included especially past “SpongeBob SquarePants” Christmas episodes (note: extra episodes are featured on the Blu-ray release of this title). But with the release of “”Holiday Gifts from Nickelodeon – SpongeBob SquarePants: It’s a SpongeBob Christmas!”, it does come with one coloring book, four crayons, one poster and one sticker sheet.”
If you are a parent and your children love “SpongeBob SquarePants”, this DVD will no doubt keep them entertained during the holidays! Recommended!