Smeckledorf: Spongebob lingo for “to bamboozle” or “to mislead”. It’s not a real word, but it can describe a real issue.

As of writing this, 1.2 million+ people signed a petition on Change.org to have the song ‘Sweet Victory’ played at the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show.

This was to honor Spongebob Squarepants show creator Stephen Hillenburg, who died last November from ALS.

In the now infamous Spongebob episode “Band Geeks”, Squidward leads Bikini Bottom’s finest (and least prepared) marching band to perform at the “Bubble Bowl”.

And they rock it, closing out the episode with an expectation-defying performance of “Sweet Victory”. It’s a classic moment that fans wanted honored for a good reason.

So like anything the NFL does nowadays, they botched it.

They had Rodger Bumpass, who voices Squidward, introduce Travis Scott and show the trumpets playing from the episode. It was less than 15 seconds, and they didn’t even play the song!

The whole point of the petition wasn’t to get a cartoon on the screen. It was for that glorious tune to be given a proper halftime treatment.

At that point, why even tease Spongebob if you’re not going to go through with it?

Most of the casual audience probably didn’t know about the petition because of the age gap. According to Magna Global, the average NFL viewer is at least 50. So why confuse the uninformed and then not even follow through for those aware?

The NFL is like the Chum Bucket–overmanaged, out of touch and too focused on “fancy technology”. I’m going to get a Krabby Patty.