After watching Plankton: The Movie on Netflix, I got in the mood to revisit the first feature-length spin-off of the late Stephen Hillenburg’s beloved animated TV show, The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie. I could have watched the 2004 Nickelodeon film with my Max subscription, but I still had the DVD I first got when I was about 11. I also indulged in watching some of the special features, which reminded me of a behind-the-scenes detail that I had completely forgotten about, probably because I had blocked it out of my mind.
You see, one of my favorite moments from The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie is when the titular sponge (one of Tom Kenny’s most famous voice roles) and Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) find themselves on dry land and are brought back to Bikini Bottom by none other than David Hasselhoff, who I was already a fan of in my youth from his role in the hit ‘80s sci-fi TV show, Knight Rider. It is a gloriously ridiculous sequence that still makes me laugh to this day, but after learning a particularly strange fact about it from the film’s making-of featurette, I may never be able to view it the same way again.
The Absorbing Tale of The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie shows behind-the-scenes footage of David Hasselhoff being dragged across a small body of water on a motorized device for the sequence in which SpongeBob and Patrick use his body as a speedboat. However, Mark Osborne, who was in charge of directing the film’s live-action scenes, explains that, for certain moments, the crew used a frighteningly realistic replica of the former Baywatch cast member that was more than double his size.
The scenes that required the life-like sculpture (such as SpongeBob and Patrick’s final showdown with Alec Baldwin’s hitman, Dennis) only take place on Hasselhoff’s back, but they did not stop there and reconstructed him from head to toe, leaving no detail ignored. There is even a moment in the featurette that shows the actor posing next to his 13-foot double, and I have no doubt it will forever be tattooed on my memory. Believe it or not, the story only gets weirder from there…
David Hasselhoff Took The Double-Sized Replica Home With Him
Seven years after the release of The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie – which we reviewed favorably – Hasselhoff was being interviewed by GQ when the interviewer asked him about a large sculpture resembling the actor that he keeps at his house. Lo and behold, it was the very same replica of him that was built for his cameo in the movie. He explained how he became its owner, despite some initial uneasiness in its presence, in the following quote:
It freaked me out because it was so lifelike, with teeth, when you touch it feels like real skin. It’s soft, like your skin. So anyway, when I was done with the movie, I said, ‘That’s ridiculously awesome. What are you gonna do with it?’ They said, ‘Uh, I dunno. Nothing? You want it?’ I said, ‘Uh, yeah. Okay.’ So I went back to my room and drew up a contract in 10 seconds, and I kept it. I’ve got it in my projection room. I don’t know what to do with it. It’s just sitting there, and it freaks the hell out of people. Eventually, I’ll probably make a table out of it and put it in a restaurant somewhere.
According to a 2014 exclusive by The Hollywood Reporter, Hasselhoff eventually put up the replica for auction, only to change his mind just days before the event. However, in 2021, The Hoff announced on social media (including X when it still called Twitter) that “Big Dave” was going back on the block. I cannot find word on how much it was sold for or who owns it today, but I sure hope they are satisfied with the purchase.
David Hasselhoff is known for making several other memorable movie appearances, including his cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 from 2017. However, I still think his run-in with SpongeBob wins over all of them. Just knowing that the sequence resulted in the creation of a monstrously large (and just plain monstrous) duplicate of the actor, despite its disturbing nature, actually makes it even more special to me.