Krabby Patty News

SpongeBob cartoon drafts Dallas in 12-city Krabby Patty Kollab

The Krabby Patty Collab is coming to Dallas.

Photo courtesy of Paramount

In cartoon food news, Dallas will be one of 12 cities serving up "Krabby Patty" sandwiches in a nationwide celebration of Nickelodeon cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants.

The beloved cartoon, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, stars an adorable yellow sponge named SpongeBob SquarePants, who lives in the city of Bikini Bottom on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and works as a fry cook at an underwater fast-food restaurant called the Krusty Krab. The Krabby Patty is their signature dish.

The national promotion is called The Krabby Patty Kollab, launched by Viacom/Paramount, which owns SpongeBob SquarePants; they've already created a website.

The official launch date is October 8.

The promotion will feature the participation of numerous restaurants across the U.S. and Canada. Each will create their unique rendition of the famed Krabby Patty sandwich, which they'll serve for a limited time during October.

The promotion will also include a fast-food chain, which has been revealed to be Wendy's; their involvement was leaked via an in-house memo sent to Wendy's franchisees on August 16.

According to the memo, Wendy’s Krabby Patty entry will be a cheeseburger with fresh produce and a secret Krabby Patty sauce. Wendy's will also issue an accompanying limited-edition pineapple-flavored Frosty — their frozen dairy dessert — made from vanilla ice cream and pineapple mango purée. (SpongeBob famously lives in a pineapple home.)

Some Wendy's locations have already begun quietly serving the combo ahead of the October 8 launch.

But in addition to Wendy's, a multitude of independent restaurants across the U.S. have been invited to join the program by submitting their creative Krabby spinoff.

The promotion will take place in a dozen cities including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle; plus three cities outside the U.S.: London, Mexico City, and Toronto.

Restaurants and support personnel who've been hired to oversee the program in individual markets have all signed nondisclosure agreements, but the roll-out was confirmed by at least one source involved with the promotion who asked not to be identified.

Participants were requested not to use seafood as their entry; in the show, the Krabby Patty is a meatless hamburger, featuring a mystery patty served on seaweed buns.

Paramount did not respond to a request for more information.

The program is part of a SpongeBob revival set for this fall, which began in August with a Netflix film called Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie; it was No. 1 for two weeks.

On Thursday, October 10, Nickelodeon will premiere a new SpongeBob SquarePants two-part special: Called Kreepaway Kamp, it's a story about the entire cast — SpongeBob, Patrick, Sandy, Mr. Krabs, Pearl, Bubble Bass, Kevin C. Cucumber, Larry the Lobster, Mrs. Puff — attending a reunion at Kamp Koral. The episode will also stream on Paramount+.

There's a new film in the works called The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, directed by series veteran Derek Drymon starring the show's regular voice cast plus Mark Hamill, scheduled for release for the Christmas movie season in December 2025. And a new video game, "SpongeBob Squarepants: The Patrick Star Game," coming to Nintendo Switch on October 4.

Previously, there were three SpongeBob films: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie in 2004, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water in 2015, and The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run in 2020.

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Movie Review

Michelle Pfeiffer is an unappreciated mom in Oh. What. Fun.

Photo courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios

Michelle Pfeiffer in Oh. What. Fun.

Of all the formulaic movie genres, Christmas/holiday movies are among the most predictable. No matter what the problem is that arises between family members, friends, or potential romantic partners, the stories in holiday movies are designed to give viewers a feel-good ending even if the majority of the movie makes you feel pretty bad.

That’s certainly the case in Oh. What. Fun., in which Michelle Pfeiffer plays Claire, an underappreciated mom living in Houston with her inattentive husband, Nick (Denis Leary). As the film begins, her three children are arriving back home for Christmas: The high-strung Channing (Felicity Jones) is married to the milquetoast Doug (Jason Schwartzman); the aloof Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz) brings home yet another new girlfriend; and the perpetual child Sammy (Dominic Sessa) has just broken up with his girlfriend.

Each of the family members seems to be oblivious to everything Claire does for them, especially when it comes to what she really wants: For them to nominate her to win a trip to see a talk show in L.A. hosted by Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria). When she accidentally gets left behind on a planned outing to see a show, Claire reaches her breaking point and — in a kind of Home Alone in reverse — she decides to drive across the country to get to the show herself.

Written and directed by Michael Showalter (The Idea of You), and co-written by Chandler Baker (who wrote the short story on which the film is based), the movie never establishes any kind of enjoyable rhythm. Each of the characters, including competitive neighbor Jeanne (Joan Chen), is assigned a character trait that becomes their entire personality, with none of them allowed to evolve into something deeper.

The filmmakers lean hard into the idea that Claire is a person who always puts her family first and receives very little in return, but the evidence presented in the story is sketchy at best. Every situation shown in the film is so superficial that tension barely exists, and the (over)reactions by Claire give her family members few opportunities to make up for their failings.

The most interesting part of the movie comes when Claire actually makes it to the Zazzy Sims show. Even though what happens there is just as unbelievable as anything else presented in the story, Showalter and Baker concoct a scene that allows Claire and others to fully express the central theme of the film, and for a few minutes the movie actually lives up to its title.

Pfeiffer, given her first leading role since 2020’s French Exit, is a somewhat manic presence, and her thick Texas accent and unnecessary voiceover don’t do her any favors. It seems weird to have such a strong supporting cast with almost nothing of substance to do, but almost all of them are wasted, including Danielle Brooks in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo. The lone exception is Longoria, who is a blast in the few scenes she gets.

Oh. What. Fun. is far from the first movie to try and fail at becoming a new holiday classic, but the pedigree of Showalter and the cast make this dismal viewing experience extra disappointing. Ironically, overworked and underappreciated moms deserve a much better story than the one this movie delivers.

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Oh. What. Fun. is now streaming on Prime Video.

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