Film Theory: Is Spongebob a Mutant? Solving Bikini Bottom's Most Popular Theory!

[Music] oh right i'm ready what just happened hello i like money [Applause] [Music] hello internet welcome to film theory the show that's all about soaking up knowledge like a sponge over the years we've done our fair share of spongebob theories from concluding that spongebob was actually adopted to trying to solve the krabby patty secret formula but to this day there's been one very popular theory that we've never touched and that is the nuclear mutation theory basically the theory that all the sapient sea creatures that we see on the spongebob squarepants show are the result of nuclear testing now that might initially seem like a logical leap like why would anyone jump to such an extreme conclusion about the backstory of these characters but when you stop and actually look at the evidence there's a lot here that adds up with the biggest point being that spongebob's home is called bikini bottom named after the infamous bikini atoll which as you may know is a group of islands in the south pacific located more than 3 000 miles or 5 000 kilometers off the coast of australia basically in the middle of nowhere this remote location prompted the us government in the 1940s to say hey this seems like a great place to test our nuclear weapons and boy howdy did they do a lot of testing on those islands according to official reports the united states detonated 23 nuclear devices during the time including one in 1954 that was 1 100 times larger than the hiroshima atomic bomb in a lesser known part of the story there were actually about 150 people living on those islands that they had to relocate during the period of testing and then they sent back to live on the island seriously in the 1960s there was actually an attempt to resettle the bikini atoll islands something that ended in the 1970s when they realized that um living on a former nuclear test site ain't great for your longevity it's honestly a horrific story and also real scary how little scientists back then knew about the full ramifications of the nuclear weapons they were testing and that child friendly story is where bikini bottom got its name no theory there friends just pure fact it is directly mentioned on the viacom international website program informacion for the show and since it's common knowledge at this point that radiation causes mutations hey maybe these humanoid sea creatures are the direct result of said testing at the atoll so that's the theory friends i've certainly heard worse heck i've certainly made worse in fact the theory was so good that it got mainstream attention back in 2017 when the huffington post interviewed spongebob's voice actor tom kenny they asked him point blank what do you think about the popular theory that spongebob is the result of nuclear testing and rather than trying to dance around the question he confronted it outright quote well bikini bottom is kind of named after bikini atoll you know where they did nuclear testing decades ago but i don't think spongebob and his friends are mutations i think bikini bottom is like its own world when the camera drops below the water and you go to bikini bottom it's almost like it's another planet you know there's never topical references in the show there's never an oprah joke or who wants to be a millionaire joke or anything topical or pop cultural in spongebob and i think that helps keep it really timeless and everlasting end quote uh what never a pop culture reference tom have you seen the show that made you famous you've got references to mary poppins too bad you forgot your umbrella a clockwork orange otherwise known as number 655321 that iconic scene from rebel without a cause and sure those are just cultural references but then again what about this how will we ever get back to bikini bottom now i can take you there who are you i'm david hasselhoff david hasselhoff riffing on his 80s tv series baywatch yeah and regardless you have a squirrel that's explicitly from texas it's texas spongebob even sings the ever so humble there's no place like home song in an episode i'm not trying to be mean to tom kenny or anything i'm just trying to establish that this is a world that very clearly interacts with the real life surface world thereby meaning the bikini atoll theory has legs to stand on horrific disgusting mutant legs anyway that's his opinion but again he's just the voice actor could it be possible that stephen hillenburg the show's creator intended for this to be the case he was after all a creator who was formerly a marine biologist and cared about things like humanity polluting the ocean so why not start a series about the pollution of nuclear fallout and that sponge boys and sponge girls is what we're exploring today we're looking into both the science and lore of spongebob to definitively prove or disprove this massive fan theory and let me tell you this the final result is not only surprising it's actually the first time something like this has happened on film theory no joke a theorist first so put on your best theorist pants friends because i'm ready i'm ready i'm ready for a theory review leave your theories in the comments below i'll pick my favorites in the next episode of morty first sure it's named after the place but is bikini bottom's location in the show plausibly near bikini atoll in the pacific ocean yes it has been proven time and again that bikini bottom is indeed in the pacific ocean in the season 3 episode pranks a lot we see sandy launch herself out of the ocean and back to texas and she comes from the east and in the spongebob squarepants movie as our titular yellow rectangle sings goofy goober rock the camera zooms out of the ocean specifically at the location where bikini atoll is irl it's not the most accurate of globes but if this is australia and that's north america here's where bikini atoll is irl and here's where they zoomed out of in the movie yep it is definitely real close even the sea life that we see in bikini bottom lines up here we see all sorts of animals large and small filter through the town but large permanent residents like pearl the sperm whale yep bikini atoll is absolutely within her range of habitat blue whales like frank the whale yep in range puffer fish like mrs puff yep and on and on the list continues so just from the initial check here yes bikini atoll lines up both geographically and marine biologically with the places and characters that we're seeing throughout bikini bottom so let's now look at the science of radiation most media tend to treat nuclear radiation like magical fairy dust that just gives special powers to anything it touches why is the hulk green and super strong radioactive blast where did peter parker get his spidey sense radioactive spider how did professor x become a telepath a radioactive bomb at least if you're reading the x-men comics from the 1960s yeah they've kind of washed over that part of marvel comics history but in the early days professor x was the result of his parents working on the first atomic bomb anyway even spongebob the show leans into this trope with the character atomic flounder who's apparently so radioactive that he can just cause people to spurt extra mutant arms by touching them with his nuclear touch careful medical boy he's got nuclear touch now of course that's part of an in-world tv show that spongebob and patrick are watching on a vhs tape and not really canonical to the true setting of bikini bottom but it does demonstrate that the concept of nuclear mutation does exist within this fictional world which then begs the question just how realistic is the trope this isn't just a digression it's a question of science if steven hillenburg wanted to ground his show in some element of science just how close to real science is this concept well it's certainly far off but also not as inaccurate as you might expect i think we all understand that nuclear radiation is bad and dangerous right like i don't think any of us are eagerly running away to roll around in the dirt of chernobyl hoping that we become the next jubilee a former nuclear testing site is generally not the kind of place that people or marine wildlife are going to want to live nor the kind of place where they're going to be able to thrive and build a fully functioning marine society well sure it is true that nuclear radiation results in mutations the vast majority of them are bad and not just like a little bad they're bad in a cause your organs to stop working properly kind of way so does that mean that nuclear radiation is a non-starter and trying to induce beneficial mutation like we see in spongebob no because while most mutations are actual death sentences it doesn't mean that all of them are see for instance the atomic gardening movement of the 1950s which aimed to intentionally induce mutations in living plants by blasting them with radiation now before you get too excited about this being a way to help your petunias grow it's important to remember that most plants didn't fare too well in these experiments in gamma gardens as they were called gardeners would arrange a 5-acre circular plot with a radiation source in the middle the plants nearest to the center usually died and most others featured what researchers at the time described as tumors or other abnormalities but there were incredibly rare situations where the mutations were actually beneficial in nature and you see that right there's the point the breeders who are trying to develop new types of plants didn't need all or heck even most of the plants to survive the process their goal was to just take the most genetically fit or genetically interesting from each generation and use those seeds to create more of them it was essentially a way of accelerating the process of selective breeding instead of waiting for interesting mutations to occur naturally you artificially induce them using radiation and according to dr pierre lagotta of the international atomic energy agency radiation breeding has produced thousands of useful mutants including varieties of rice wheat pears peas cotton bananas and peanuts and going back to bikini atoll for a minute sea life seems to be returning there according to a recent article the place is slowly coming back to life with quote coral the size of cars as well as schools of fish and crabs that eat radioactive coconuts all of this is to say that while the spongebob nuclear testing theory might seem absurd on its face or something that would only work in science fiction it is actually based in some level of scientific fact it is certainly possible from a scientific angle that this theory could work except there is one big problem that ultimately debunks this theory and that's time because while the bikini bottom nuclear testing theory does indeed square with some real world evidence what it doesn't hold up against is the tv evidence the actual lore of the show the entire basis of the nuclear testing theory is that the intelligence of bikini bottoms residents and their ability to create a human-like society is the result of mutations that happened in the 40s and 50s when the island was being bombarded with nuclear devices the big problem there is that bikini bottom has a history far older than that in the episode dunces and dragons we flash back to the 12th century and see that bikini bottom back then bikini bottom shire was home to a basic society of sapient sea creature don't hold thy breath we'll be lucky if we get fed again by the 12th century bikini bottomshire had the ability to verbally communicate a basic system of government basic architecture in other words all of signs of animal intelligence that we see from them in the present day centuries before us humans ever started messing around with nuclear technology at the end of the episode spongebob tries to brush it all off as some dream huh patrick but patrick quickly subverts that worn out trope by pointing out that one of the citizens of bikini bottom shire the king's jester squidly has time traveled back to the present along with them besides that spongebob's reactions throughout the episode and the existence of the medieval moment stadium in the present day confirmed that the civilization of present-day bikini bottom has a history dating back to the medieval era 12th century don't you see patrick we really are in medieval times and the history of unnaturally intelligent sea life in bikini bottom goes back even further than that all the way to the prehistoric era surely we all remember the primitive sponge and primitive star memes that originated from season one what are you simpletons doing and while these two might not seem like the shining example of advanced animal intelligence just take a look at them they're wearing loincloths which mean that they're sophisticated enough to create clothing and while they haven't developed a spoken language squidward is able to train them to use basic tools we see the same thing in the episode spongebob bc where prehistoric society has advanced enough that we see basic language starting to develop [Music] i could list more examples here but i think you get the point usually in these videos the lore leads us to a ridiculous theory that eventually gets debunked by science but this time it's actually the exact opposite the lore is the thing doing the debunking there's no denying that bikini bottom is inspired by and named after bikini atoll and as we explore today the marine life matches up the real world geography matches up we know nuclear testing happened there heck we even know that in super rare cases nuclear fallout can result in beneficial mutation from that perspective the citizens of bikini bottom could absolutely have been made into the advanced society they are today as the result of human experimentation but the theory just doesn't hold up when you actually examine the lore of the series bikini bottom was advanced centuries before humans discovered the destructive force of radiation an unexpected outcome to be sure but it looks like the nuclear testing theory just doesn't hold water or as you might say it's just a theory a film theory and if you're looking for something that does hold water or soda or milk look no further than these reusable dishwasher safe cups that we're selling over on food theory that's right you goofy goobers food theory right now has merch which means that i now have another bullet point on my modeling resume in all seriousness though if you're a fan of spongebob i recommend you check out our latest food theory episode where we tested the double krabby patty with the works in real life let's just say it performed incredibly well as incredibly as this food theory apron looks on yours truly follow the link below to watch that episode and check out food theory merch because food theory's got it all t-shirts reusable cups aprons pizza plushies that's right now you can have your very own slice just like i had back in my theater days so don't be a kelp for brains make your theory dreams become a reality today and cut [Music] [Music] you

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 3,480,432

Keywords: spongebob, spongebob squarepants, spongebob theory, spongebob squarepants theory, bikini bottom, bikini bottom theory, nuclear testing, spongebob nuclear, bikini bottom nuclear, bikini bottom nuke, spongebob nuke, spongebob nuke theory, patrick star, mr krabbs, krabby patty, spongebob theme song, spongebob full episodes, film theorists, film theory, matpat, film theory spongebob, spongebob episodes, spongebob nick, spongebob evolution theory, spongebob evolution

Id: 57udq_EmydE

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Most sea creatures have a short lifespan, so medieval bikini bottom could be more recent if you think about it like that.

[u/Whi_doe]

Fucking Matpat