SpongeBob SquarePants "Shanghaied/You Wish" (found alternate "Patchy the Pirate" segments of Nickelodeon animated series special; 2001)

The logo used in promos for You Wish/Shanghaied for its original airing.

Status: Lost

SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series that premiered on May 1st, 1999 on Nickelodeon. Created by Stephen Hillenburg, the series stars the its titular character, SpongeBob Squarepants, a child-like sponge going on adventures and living in the fictional city of Bikini Bottom. The series was a massive success, with 13 seasons and over 8 billion dollars of revenue.

History

On March 9, 2001, the Season 2 episode Shanghaied premiered. The episode is about an anchor crashing into SpongeBob and Squidward's house. SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward climb up the anchor and end up on the Flying Dutchman's ship. The Flying Dutchman makes the three his crew and they go around Bikini Bottom trying to scare people. Finally, The Flying Dutchman gets mad at them, and desides to eat them. When SpongeBob finds out, he tries to steal The Flying Dutchman's dining sock. In exchange for the sock, The Flying Dutchman gives them three wishes. After wasting the first two wishes, they are left with one wish, and SpongeBob gets the wish. SpongeBob wishes that The Flying Dutchman was a vegetarian, but the three of them get turned into fruits as The Flying Dutchman tries to eat them.

The episode was originally promoted as You Wish, where people could vote for SpongeBob (wishes that The Flying Dutchman is a vegatarian.), Patrick (wishes for gum, the trio gets eaten), or Squidward's (wishes that he never met his neighbors, the trio also gets eaten) ending to play out in the episode.^[1]

The episode episode was hosted by Patchy the Pirate, who has hosted many special events in the SpongeBob SquarePants universe. As mentioned, SpongeBob's ending won the contest, and it would play out for the rest of the episode's re-runs. The other endings for Patrick and Squidward, as well as the uncut version including all of the voting segments with Patchy the Pirate can luckily be found on the The First 100 Episodes DVD box set. However, the wraparound Patchy segments for Patrick and Squidward's ending cannot be found in full.^[2]

Availability

The original endings, as well as the uncut version of Shanghaied with all voting material intact, were very obscure until 2009, when The First 100 Episodes DVD box set released, which had both of these intact. However, the DVD surprisingly did not include the Patchy segments that would have been used if Patrick or Squidward won the contest, making them unreleased and lost.

On September 18, 2016, YouTube user DarkLucario3000 uploaded both Patrick and Squidward's Patchy segments in Spanish (the Patrick segment was taken down due to copyright issues, however it would be reuploaded on July 29, 2019). While the segments are available to watch, the original English audio is still lost.