Plot Synopsis for "SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants 🧽🎬"

 

(This is the cover art for the PlayStation 2 version of SpongeBob SquarePants: Lights, Camera, Pants 🧽🎬.)

 

The plot of Lights, Camera, Pants 🧽🎬 is that this producer guy, named Gill Hammerstein, who’s a hammerhead shark if you couldn’t tell by the name, and sounds an awful lot like Sid from Ice Age 🧊. Like real talk for a moment, the guy who voices Hammerstein sounds like he’s trying to do his best John Leguizamo impression. And I checked, it’s not John Leguizamo voicing the character. If it was, they would’ve put it in the advertising and the back of the case on the PS2, GameCube, and XBox releases that John Leguizamo was in it. Just like Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc did.

Anyway, the plot of the game is that Gill Hammerstein, this producer or talent agent (whatever he’s supposed to be), is trying to make a special episode of the TV show, The New Adventures of Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy, and he’s trying to cast the role of the new villain for the special, the Sneaky Hermit. So, he starts going around Bikini Bottom auditioning different people (or sea creatures since they’re all sea creatures and not humans), and of course, he mainly just auditions SpongeBob 🧽 and his friends. So, the entire game, all of the various mini games you play, are the auditioning process to find who should play the Sneaky Hermit.

Depending on which character you chose to play as, you’ll get various cutscenes throughout the game with your character playing the Sneaky Hermit and few other parts in the Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy special, and then once the game’s all over, you’ll get to watch all the cutscenes all together in a single movie with the character you played as playing the role of the Sneaky Hermit and some of the smaller bit parts. You can do a thing where you have one character play the Sneaky Hermit, and then another character play a different part, and then another character play a different part than that one.

Because this is a multiplayer game, it’s designed to be played by a group of people, and whoever wins the mini game gets the part that mini game is supposed to be an audition for. Or you can use the same character for the entire game, and then you basically have them play all of the parts that are not already cast. So, like you’ll get to see SpongeBob 🧽 play multiple parts in the Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy special, or you’ll get to see Patrick play multiple parts in that special episode, or Sandy 🐿️, or Squidward 🐙, or Mr. Krabs 🦀, or Plankton, all of whom are playable characters in the game.

This is what will usually happen if you’re playing the game by yourself as a single player experience, and you’re just competing in these mini games against the computer, the AI using a single character. Oh, and Bubble Bass makes a cameo, making this one of his few appearances outside of the show, and one of his few appearance overall since appearing in Season 1. This was 2005, so he wouldn’t make a full comeback until 7 years later with Season 9, where he became a recurring character and has been a recurring character ever since.

I really like the story of this game. It’s a really unique premise for a SpongeBob 🧽 game, and a unique premise for a party game. It’s sort of like the movie, Bowfinger, that comedy movie that Steve Martin was in with Eddie Murphy back in 1999. It’s about a failed film producer who decides to make a movie around this actor, this movie star, without the actor knowing that he’s in a movie. All so that the producer can live out his dream of becoming a super star film director, and just generally be taken seriously as a filmmaker by the industry. 

He’s in it for his own legacy, and also because he’s going through a mid-life crisis. In the clips that I’ve seen of the movie, Bowfinger’s whole thing is that he feels like because he’s in his 40s or 50s—I believe he’s in his 50s in the movie (the character, not the actor, Steve Martin)—and he’s run out of time to make it big as a director and a producer. I kind of wish that he had added the caveat that only if you’re established, like unless you’re an already established director who’s a household name, then your career is over when you hit 50, or your career has no chance of taking off when you hit 50.

Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese are both directors in their 70s and 80s (I think they both might be in their 80s, but I could be wrong), and yet they’re still making movies, and Scorsese at least has no intention of stopping any time soon. But, they were only able to do that because they were already established names, and were already powerful men within the industry. But then again, no body really knew that Spielberg and Scorsese would both still be making movies into their 80s when this movie came out, no body could have predicted that.  

But, in the character, Bowfinger’s case, he isn’t an established name. He isn’t all that powerful, and he hasn’t made any work that’s been a hit with critics or audiences or made a lot of money 💵, which matters more in the industry than critical reception. And he thinks this film project that he’s working on called Chubby Rain 🌧️ will be his ticket to fame and fortune 🤩🤑, and will be the movie that finally jumpstarts his career, makes him a sought-after filmmaking powerhouse within Hollywood. He just plans on filming the movie without the lead actor knowing that he’s starring in that movie and is being filmed. 

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Steve Martin plays the titular Bowfinger, and Bowfinger is the producer guy that’s trying to create a movie without the main star knowing that he’s in a movie. Eddie Murphy plays two characters, Kit Ramsey, the hapless, eccentric, paranoid action star who gets roped into Bowfinger’s scheme to film a movie with him in it without his knowledge, and Jiff, a naïve, unassuming, and amiable nerdy guy, who Bowfinger also ropes in into his scheme to create a movie without the main star knowing that he’s in a movie, by having him be a Ramsey body double for scenes that they can’t film the real Ramsey without his knowledge or consent.

The movie was directed by Frank Oz, the director of Little Shop of Horrors, and the voice of Yoda in the Star Wars movies. Just the movies, any other Star Wars media, he doesn’t voice the character. He also did a cameo role in Knives Out 🗡️  as the unfortunate counsel to Harlen who inadvertently breaks the bad news to his family that he didn’t give them anything, and that he gave it all to his nurse, Marta Cabrera when he reads out his will, and then later gets told by one of his sons that he’s “useless.”  But anyway, he directed Bowfinger, and the script for the movie was written by Steve Martin himself. Kind of surprised that he didn’t just direct it himself. It could’ve been his directorial debut, if he hadn’t already directed a movie by then.

It wasn’t that big of a hit when it came out, despite the critical and audience acclaim it had received upon its theatrical release, probably because it was 1999 and there were a lot of big movies that year (it’s also the same year SpongeBob 🧽 premiered coincidentally), and this one just got lost in the shuffle. But, it has since gone on to develop a cult following, and a lot of people today name it as one of their favorite comedy movies, one of their favorite Steve Martin movies, and one of their favorite Eddie Murphy movies.

I haven’t seen it, but it seems like a movie worth checking out, especially for someone like me who’s really interested in filmmaking because from what I’ve heard and seen, the movie is a loving tribute to the art of filmmaking, as well as being a scathing satire of Hollywood and the weird fringe celebrity culture. Especially with the inclusion of a Scientology-esque cult in the film called MindHead led by a guy named Terry Stricter (played by Terrence Stamp), and which Eddie Murphy’s Kit Ramsey character is a member of.

The game is also sort of like the Season 4 episode of SpongeBob 🧽, “Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy VI: The Motion Picture,” where SpongeBob 🧽 decides to make his own Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy movie after being disappointed with the official Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy movie that’s actually getting made. Mostly because they didn’t use the actual Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, and replaced them with younger actors. And the whole episode is about SpongeBob 🧽 and his friends, and even one of his enemies, Plankton working together on this movie, and mistakes and mischief happening along the way.

But, eventually, they all pull through, and manage to finish the movie, and it actually manages to please everyone, even the hardcore Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy fans, the very same fans who had dismissed SpongeBob 🧽 and his attempted boycott of the official Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy movie and his attempt to make his own movie. That episode came out in 2005, the same year that this game came out, so maybe they took inspiration from this episode to create the plot for the game or vis versa.