SpongeBob Squarepants - Rumours & Discussion

[Lyichir]

13 hours ago, Murdoch17 said:

New Patrick is an abomination, and I'll bet Classic Patrick heads are gonna skyrocket in price soon!

If nothing else I hope the print on the new Patrick is more durable—I remember the print on the original fig's head being WAY too easily rubbed off.

[BrickBob Studpants]

cmf6169 has hinted at providing us with a sketch drawing of the set once he reaches 1.3k followers on IG, and he’s getting close

[BrickBob Studpants]

As promised, the sketch was provided! Looks awesome!  DoodleBob appears to be included too!!

ME HOY MINOY

Edited July 5 by BrickBob Studpants

[Lyichir]

1 hour ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

As promised, the sketch was provided! Looks awesome!  DoodleBob appears to be included too!!

ME HOY MINOY

The sketch looks like they've done a great job with the pineapple—the old ones always left something to be desired whereas this seems to have much more of that iconic pineapple texture! I like the new Patrick that leaked as well—the original Lego version was okay but his proportions weren't quite right with his face so high up on his torso, the new color is also much better, and like many early minifigs with shorts/swimwear, the dual-molded legs are a big improvement.

Despite how rudimentary it was the 2006 one was a childhood favorite of mine so this set seems like it'll be very tempting. Hopefully if this set is successful they might do other sets to this higher standard—a bigger, more detailed Krusty Krab and Chum Bucket could make a great set as well.

[BrickBob Studpants]

The old sets were great for what they were, but this is the modern revamp the theme deserves  Way more accurate buildings, dual-moulded arms and legs, and way more details throughout, like Gary seemingly having printed eyes finally!

This also clearly pays homage to the 2006 set, which is great to see. The side builds are a great touch too, hopefully we don’t lose them in the final version!

Can’t wait to see the finalised pics and especially all the interior details! If the inclusion of DoodleBob is any indication, we can expect a lot of references. Bold and Brash is an absolute necessity

The only thing I still dislike is the lack of additional characters like Sandy or Mrs Puff, but this won’t be the only set hopefully!

38 minutes ago, Lyichir said:

Hopefully if this set is successful they might do other sets to this higher standard—a bigger, more detailed Krusty Krab and Chum Bucket could make a great set as well.

A Krusty Krab set next year is a must. You could debate which they should’ve done first, Conch Street or the KK, but it’s undeniable that both of them need to be done  

Edited July 5 by BrickBob Studpants

[Kit Figsto]

I'm excited to see how the set looks once we get a full reveal.  

That said, the new Patrick, to me, looks...bad.  I get why people are excited for it, but the shaping of the mold just feels off, and going from the rounded sandwich board piece to the flat legs just looks really odd to me (in a way that I've never felt about Chewbacca or the OG Spongebob figure or any other sandwich board style figures).  That said, the color and legs are perfect, and I feel like the old head in this color + dual molded legs would've been ideal to me.

[Izzynufc-2]

1 hour ago, BrickBob Studpants said:

The old sets were great for what they were, but this is the modern revamp the theme deserves  Way more accurate buildings, dual-moulded arms and legs, and way more details throughout, like Gary seemingly having printed eyes finally!

This also clearly pays homage to the 2006 set, which is great to see. The side builds are a great touch too, hopefully we don’t lose them in the final version!

Can’t wait to see the finalised pics and especially all the interior details! If the inclusion of DoodleBob is any indication, we can expect a lot of references. Bold and Brash is an absolute necessity

The only thing I still dislike is the lack of additional characters like Sandy or Mrs Puff, but this won’t be the only set hopefully!

A Krusty Krab set next year is a must. You could debate which they should’ve done first, Conch Street or the KK, but it’s undeniable that both of them need to be done  

I do hope they do a Krusty Krab set next year, it’ll fly off like hot cakes!

Hopefully this is the start of a reboot for the SpongeBob theme.

Would love to see a detailed Chum Bucket and Boating School too!

[Ardelon]

I can only assume that the absence of Mr Krabs (and other top-tier characters) means that a Krusty Krab set is given. Of course, TLG has surprised us with omissions before...

No strong opinion on old vs. new Patrick.

[Kit Figsto]

7 hours ago, Izzynufc-2 said:

I do hope they do a Krusty Krab set next year, it’ll fly off like hot cakes!

Hopefully this is the start of a reboot for the SpongeBob theme.

Would love to see a detailed Chum Bucket and Boating School too!

Unfortunately, I feel like this is going to be an 18+ Icons only kind of thing.  I have no insider info for that, but other than Pokémon, every other licensed black box set in recent memory hasn't spawned a playtheme unless it already existed (Star Wars, HP, Marvel, et cetera).  I do think it's likely that the Krusty Krab comes out later, but my guess is that they know Spongebob's biggest fanbase are people who grew up in the late 90s/2000s and are now in their 20s-30s.  I know that Spongebob is still on, but I don't see it having the same cultural relevance with 7-12 year olds that it did 20 years ago (I see way more merch aimed at that age group for Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox, than for Spongebob), and I think LEGO's going to milk that for all that it's worth.

I wouldn't be TOO surprised if we got a CMF series eventually, and they could definitely get 12 characters out of that between variants and some of the supporting/background characters.

[BrickBob Studpants]

Pictures of the set leaked, and it‘s glorious  

Some highlights:

• SpongeBob has Minion arms and dual-moulded printed legs!
• Squidward gets a new headpiece!
• Gary‘s eyes are still unprinted, but at least the colour scheme is correct now
• BOLD AND BRASH YESSSSS
• Love all the interiors, but especially the one of Squidward‘s house. The bathtub is such a cool surprise! And is that the silhouette of the toilet he thinks is SpongeBob with two hats?!
• The side builds look really cool too!
• Even Patrick‘s house gets an interior!
• The BrickHeadz set is cursed though

Edit: Holy smoke, they reference one of my favourite episodes with chip, penny, and used napkin being included!! Took me a second there  

Edited Sunday at 10:30 PM by BrickBob Studpants

[Tariq j]

Yeah that’s a fantastic set, leaps and bounds better than the previous ones. I really like some of the side builds they’ve included, especially the boat car and the Bikini Bottom sign. This makes me really excited to see what they’d do with something like the Krusty Krab.

[Kaijumeister]

Close enough to a 10/10 set IMO. I might just buy it and I’m not even a mega SpongeBob fan.

[Clone OPatra]

I'm a pretty big complainer but that looks excellent. The builds look excellent and I'm curious to see the new SpongeBob upper half piece in more detail.

Still not sold on the new Patrick piece, but overall, well done.

[Kit Figsto]

The buildings look great, and I think that the side builds are phenomenal as well (the boat, the Bikini Bottom sign, and Jellyfish Fields are fun inclusions).  The various references to episodes are great and I'm sure once people get it in-hand, more Easter eggs will continue to pop up.  The only thing I really don't love about Spongebob's house specifically is that it feels a little bit cramped on the inside.  His house in the show always felt pretty spacious, and it just feels like it's a little small on the inside, though the front façade looks really nice.

I really don't like the Patrick figure - the proportions just look too weird to me, especially going from the 3-D torso to the flat legs, it just looks really odd.  The old one seemed fine.

I also am...not thrilled at the price.  I'm perpetually stuck in 2019-LEGO pricing mode, so some of this is just my own biases at work, but it feels...small for $220.  Like, Eldorado Fortress was the same price (I know that's unlicensed) but that set just felt like you get a lot more "stuff" for your money.  Piece-wise, things feel okay, but the actual pineapple doesn't look that much bigger than the 2009 version that I own - of course, much more detailed, but the actual physical SIZE of it.  That was a $40 set, $63 with inflation now, I dunno, I just feel like this set looks more like a $180-ish model to me than $220.

[BrickBob Studpants]

These are the specific episodes being referenced based on the pictures we have:

• Artist Unknown (Bold and Brash)
• Squid‘s Day Off (shadow of „SpongeBob“ behind the shower curtain)
• I had an Accident (Chip, Penny, & Used Napkin)
• Frankendoodle (DoodleBob)
• Bubblestand (bubblestand)

Three more elements could be references, but these are debatable:

• Something Smells (Squidward‘s deck chair on the roof, but maybe that also happens in other episodes. It‘s the only one that comes to mind )
• I‘m with Stupid (the sand furniture in Patrick‘s house. He builds a lot more than he usually owns in that episode)
• The Fry Cook Games (Patrick‘s ice cream cone. The colour scheme is inverted, but it could still referencing his stunt.)

I love it when you can tell that the designers are fans of the source material too  All of the episodes referenced are absolute bangers!

Can‘t wait to see what they‘ll do with the Krusty Krab whenever that gets made!!

[Darth_Bane13]

The set looks fantastic, but honestly I kind of preferred when the builds were a bit simpler/smaller and therefore cheaper. I love SpongeBob but don't have a ton of space and $220 is a fair bit for a Lego set (for me at least). Almost every licensed theme that gets brought back these days is paywalled behind a $200+ price point. If they do the Krusty Krab I hope it's more in the $100-$150 price range.

[BrickBob Studpants]

1 hour ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

If they do the Krusty Krab I hope it's more in the $100-$150 price range.

While I agree that there should be more smaller sets, I will consider any Krusty Krab that isn‘t on par with the awesome Ideas submissions a failure  That easily puts it in $300 territory.

[Clone OPatra]

9 hours ago, Darth_Bane13 said:

The set looks fantastic, but honestly I kind of preferred when the builds were a bit simpler/smaller and therefore cheaper. I love SpongeBob but don't have a ton of space and $220 is a fair bit for a Lego set (for me at least). 

Personally, all of the old versions of the Pineapple house were ok but pretty weak. I have the last one - 3818 - which is a fun set and all, but really it's quite basic. The good thing is that that set exists and can still be bought used on BL at around $120 USD (plus shipping) if that's your cup of tea.

While I'm usually in the camp of not liking how they do things at such expensive price points, I see it differently here since they've done this theme before, so those old sets exist and aren't super in demand (for now) on the secondary market. For the new one, they're taking it to another level of design and detail.

It annoys me more when they do a brand new license, but it's all locked into very pricey sets.

[Darth_Bane13]

33 minutes ago, Clone OPatra said:

Personally, all of the old versions of the Pineapple house were ok but pretty weak. I have the last one - 3818 - which is a fun set and all, but really it's quite basic. The good thing is that that set exists and can still be bought used on BL at around $120 USD (plus shipping) if that's your cup of tea.

While I'm usually in the camp of not liking how they do things at such expensive price points, I see it differently here since they've done this theme before, so those old sets exist and aren't super in demand (for now) on the secondary market. For the new one, they're taking it to another level of design and detail.

It annoys me more when they do a brand new license, but it's all locked into very pricey sets.

I definitely agree the old sets were basic, but I think they had some charm. For 3818, $120 seems a bit steep for a used one, considering it retailed for $50. At that point I'd rather bite the bullet and get the new one, perhaps on sale.

The secondary market for SpongeBob isn't 06 Batman levels but they're still a bit steep for my liking, at least the better sets are. 

[BrickBob Studpants]

Looks like the official reveal will be today, as I predicted

[BrickBob Studpants]

The sets can be preordered on s@h now!  Love the promo video they released

[Robert8]

@BrickBob Studpants your time has come!

[BrickBob Studpants]

17 minutes ago, Robert8 said:

@BrickBob Studpants your time has come!

LONG HAVE I WAITED  The era of the sponge has started!!

I‘m very pleased with my new sigfigs

 

[Lyichir]

Just realized that since the new Spongebob fig seems to use Minion arms (attached with a Technic pin), you could probably swap them out for bigfig arms to imitate the Anchor Arms episode. 

[SoupOrFishOil]

Oh, this is lovely. I had the old set from 2006(?) and even back then it wasn't really what I wanted it to be. The major selling point for me was all of the orange parts because that was still a very rare color back then, but beyond that Patrick's house was bad except for the TV brick (accessories like that were very also very rare back then!) and I remember gutting Squidward's house to try and remove the lame play features to give it more of an interior and while I thought the use of the big skull piece was cool that was when I discovered how limiting it can be to work with large pieces; I don't think I managed to get much in there except for a chair and a music stand.

Everything in this new set is sculpted immaculately. Squidward's house in particular looks just like what I remember from the show, and while SpongeBob's is a little off it's got that charm that comes from Lego bricks. There's lots of neat stuff here and everything really benefits from Lego's broader color palette. It really reminds me of the old seasons of the show which were a bit more muted than a lot of cartoons today but still had very eye-catching color choices. Maybe the new seasons aren't that far off though; I haven't watched a new episode of SpongeBob since before the second movie came out.

Colors and builds aside the new figures are a little...eh, I don't know. I am pretty nostalgic for the old ones. Squidward looks great, I just wish there were a little more printing to indicate he has four legs (which are normally locked in pairs anyway) rather than two. Patrick and Spongebob might grow on me but it might take some getting used to. Patrick's sandwich plate is a little weird and I don't know how I feel about SpongeBob's minion arms. I'm surprised that Gary still has no eyes, but at least he's finally in more appropriate colors. They're definitely hiding one side of his shell though; hopefully it's not undecorated.

Not sure if I'll get this--it's lovely but it is a display set and the market (plus my shelves) are oversaturated with those right now. SpongeBob is also still ongoing and I presume has a wide enough audience so it's a little sad that there's nothing for the kids right now except that weird BrickHead. But maybe there's more on the way for next year. I might be more interested in a Krusty Krab of this quality than I am in these houses but I don't know for sure yet.

 

edit: I think I see a pinhole on top of Squidward's head. Implying a potential Krusty Krab set in the future? I don't know how they'd make it so that a hat could fit both a pin hole and SpongeBob's stud though... unless maybe SpongeBob's stud is hollow so that the hat could have the diameter of a normal stud-tube and thereby connect to SpongeBob via tube but Squidward via pinhole, but that would mean that the pin would have to be longer than a stud and that could potentially make it fragile so idk. Best to let Lego's engineers figure that out. 

Edited Tuesday at 05:32 PM by SoupOrFishOil