Paramount+’s Official Star Trek & SpongeBob Crossover Is Incredibly Weird

SpongeBob SquarePants just rematerialized on the starship USS Enterprise for one of the strangest streaming ads ever made. Paramount+ certainly has a wide array of offerings, and it needs to attract viewers to Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Kamp Koral: Spongebob’s Under Years, but pushing these two together makes for an odd 60-second commercial for everyone. It comes as fans anticipate the imminent premiere of Strange New Worlds Season 3, which is due out sometime this year, though no release date has been set yet. However, the SpongeBob animation used here doesn’t seem to quite match Kamp Koral or any other title in the franchise so far.

The “Patrick Starship Enterprise” ad takes place on starship shaped like Patrick himself, complete with a thruster positioned right on his butt. This ship is crewed by the characters from Strange New Worlds — Captain Pike, Uhura, Spock — with the addition of Sandy Cheeks and Mr. Krabs. Toward the end, SpongeBob joins them as well via the Transporter, and perhaps the weirdest line of the whole thing is when Spock greets him as “SpongeRobert.”

Thankfully, Uhura wakes up to discover it was all a dream, so we don’t have to worry about her flipping patties on the command deck when Season 3 finally arrives. It’s a decent illustration of the breadth of content available on Paramount+, and in some households, it probably makes a strong case for a streaming service the whole family can use. At the same time, the commentary and social media posts clearly show audiences weirded out by the whole thing.

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It can be hard to keep track of which franchises and titles are available on which streamers these days, especially as the studios seem to be moving away from keeping their biggest titles close to home at all times, returning to the old model where titles are licensed to other platforms like Netflix for short stints. However, this ad capitalizes on Paramount+’s deep catalog, with hundreds of episodes of Star Trek as well as movies, and the same for SpongeBob in all his forms. Through its parent company, the streamer is also home to content from CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, and Showtime, among others.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 3 is due out sometime in mid-2025, but a release date has not been set yet. Previous episodes are streaming now on Paramount+, along with SpongeBob SquarePants and its spinoffs.