Film Theory: The Secret Ingredient of SpongeBob's Krabby Patty! (SpongeBob SquarePants)

I'm Geraldo Rivera and you are about to witness a live television event. A huge concrete vault has been discovered. Well, tonight, for the first time, that vault will be open, live! (Squidward): HOLY SHRIMP! (MatPat): Hello, Internet! Welcome to Film Theory, the show that discovers marine critics with all the determination and success of Plankton. (whispering): Oh wow, that's not really a good thing, is it? SpongeBob SquarePants as a franchise has been so ubiquitous since its debut in 1999 that I think most of us assumed it would never go away. Which is part of the reason why the loss of Stephen Hillenburg, its creator, at age 57 to ALS was so tragic.

It's not the slightest exaggeration to say that he gave us some of the most iconic characters, most quotable lines, and memorable moments in recent history. He is, without a doubt, one of the most influential people in children's programming and current Internet culture. It is probably for all these reasons that one of the most requested Film Theory topics last year was SpongeBob SquarePants; specifically the question all of us burger lovers, biscuit lovers, and fluffy burger lovers want to know: What is the

secret

formula to the Krabby Patty? It's a question that has lingered for so long that it seems like it should be sacrilege to try to answer it.

But... if there is something that

film

theory

defends, it is not treating anything as sacred. So today, SpongeBob SquarePants is on the menu, and I consider it my honor to see if we can discover the

secret

formula that tickles the taste buds of our imaginations, or if this secret will remain trapped in Bikini Bottom forever. The biggest problem with trying to figure out Krabby Patty's secret formula is that every time she appears on the show, we run into some suspicious problems. These problems make it difficult to determine what the secret formula really is. We know for a fact that the secret formula for a Krabby Patty refers to the burger itself, and not what's actually in the burger, because we already know the full list of what happens with these things... ...or, No? us?

The Krusty Krab is surprisingly quick and flexible with this information from season 1, episode 6, the episode "Pickles", SpongeBob reveals all the

ingredient

s to a Krabby Patty with the works: (SpongeBob): I can't put a hamburger on a bun with lettuce, cheese, onion, tomato, ketchup, mustard, pickles and top the bun in that order! (MatPat): From the chef's own mouth. But then the story changes, because two seasons later we hear a different recipe from the Krusty Krab commercial shown in "As Seen on TV," season 3, episode 7. (Mr. Krabs): We start with a fresh burger , roasted and juicy. (Mr. Krabs): Add some crunchy sea vegetables and cheese, topped with secret sauce and some dinner rolls. (Mr.

Krabs): Voilà, a Krabby Patty! (MatPat): It's quite different. This one is missing mustard, tomatoes and onions, which are not underwater vegetables. I'll give you cucumbers because I guess they might be sea cucumbers. And this one has secret sauce, which SpongeBob didn't mention at all, even though he described a Krabby Patty "with the works," literally everything in it. (TV Host): Can you make me one with everything? (MatPat): Oh, and uh, by the way. At no point is it said in the show that you need a pinch of Poseidon dust, as some recent rumors circulating on the Internet say; that was a mistake on the fan wiki and actually has no basis in the show itself.

That is why you have to be careful when trusting non-primary sources. However, I will say that "Poseidon dust" is slang for cocaine. And if cocaine were really the secret

ingredient

in these burgers, it would result in the addictive power and taste of love that the Krabby Patty often possesses. So maybe it wasn't that far off, but like I said, there's no real evidence of it in the show. Because, if there was evidence of it on the show, you know he'd be all over it like Squidward in a vault full of Krabby Patties. Telling you that your favorite cartoon characters are addicted to cocaine is my favorite pastime.

So what's really going on here? Well, for the answer maybe we can turn to the actual recipe. Fortunately, in "Krabby Road" season 6, episode 1, Plankton tricks SpongeBob into joining his gang, giving him the opportunity to steal Krabby Patty's secret formula, and for the first time, to my knowledge, only time, In fact, visit it right before Plankton gets caught. And what we see is... (scratched log) ...gibberish? What is the deal? This is the official Krabby Patty secret formula kept at the restaurant, so why is it just a bunch of hot air? Well, there are two different possibilities: Possibility 1: It is the real formula, but it is written using some type of encryption.

And if Plankton had the right decryption key, he could translate that confusing gibberish into something real. Possibility 2: This ingredient list is not real. Mr. Krabs lies about the recipe. And if you try to break this formula, this starts to look more and more likely. One of the most common ways to crack a simple cipher is with frequency analysis, the idea is that if you have a long enough text string, you can match certain letters in the cipher to certain letters based on their frequency. For example, a letter that appears many times in the cipher is more likely to be a vowel like "e" or "a" or a consonant like "s" or "t." But when we ran SpongeBob's Krabby Patty formula through a frequency analysis tool, we found these results: The most common letters are "h" and "g," followed by "s," "f," and "d." .

The frequency analysis tool does not suggest any possible solutions to encryption. g-d-s-g-e-h-s-g is pretty hard to assign to anything when it has so many repeating letters, let alone a word that would actually appear on a list of ingredients. Plugging that into a cryptogram solver, the only words that could be translated into these letters are "backlash," "gangling," "tastier," and "otherwise." None of these are Krabby Patty ingredients; you can't have 4 cups of "otherwise." "Tastier" sounds promising, but if you try to use that number to figure out the rest of the recipe, you'll get even more gibberish and none of the other words work.

But the letters and their frequency could still provide another clue. You see, they are all letters from the middle of the keyboard and the two most common letters are "h" and "g" specifically, which are located in the absolute center of the keyboard. Which would fit perfectly with this letter arrangement, as if someone like Mr. Krabs simply wanted SpongeBob to think this was the secret recipe, so he simply pressed the keyboard to produce these non-words, and this is where Mr. Crab The real secret formula begins to come out. It's all a ruse. There is no secret formula.

That's why the Krabby Patty's ingredient list seems so variable throughout the series, both with and without the special sauce, why the official burger recipe is a bunch of keyboard mash. It's here that we learn a very important lesson about SpongeBob SquarePants and about our own world: it's not about the food, it's about the business. Mr. Krabs is many things, and one thing he is not is an expert chef. But what he is is an expert businessman. The secret to the Krusty Krab's success is not its amazing recipe, but its amazing marketing skills. He creates mystery around the Patty of him as a unique burger.

But let's face it, this is a burger... Krabby Patty... whatever, it's not unique. The secret formula is nothing more than a great marketing strategy. Doesn't that seem likely? Just look at real world examples. Technically, there's nothing in a McDonald's burger that you can't replicate at home or at another restaurant. Comparing the Big Mac to the Big King, these things are essentially the same. Most of McDonalds value lies in the brand that people trust. Producing 100,000 burgers a day in more than 30,000 locations around the world, making it possible to go to almost any city in the world, see those Golden Arches and say, "Yes, I know what kind of experience I'm going to have there." "I don't know if I'll like anything else around here, so I might as well buy the trusty old Big Mac 'rather than take my chances at that mom and pop hoagie stand." The McDonalds brand is reliability, the Krusty Krab brand is uniqueness.

It's the reason McDonald's spends $2 billion a year on advertising. You could make the best food in the world, but if no one knows about it, you'll go out of business pretty quickly. But if you're a smart businessman like Mr. Krabs, or a $137 billion company like McDonalds, raising awareness about your brand is much more important than serving burgers that objectively taste the best. Krabby Patty is the ultimate guerrilla marketing tactic: you start a buzz about your own franchise that makes it seem vague and mysterious (SpongeBob): I love it! Something vague and mysterious (MatPat): and then instead of spending money on marketing, you let word of mouth do the work for you and you get the people talk about your product without having to spend a dime. (all customers speak in agreement) (Customer): Well, that sounds very interesting! (MatPat): Don't you think Mr.

Krabs' tactic worked? SpongeBob SquarePants debuted in the 1990s and people still talk about the Krabby Patty secret formula, trying to discover the elusive knowledge in a fictional show - knowledge that doesn't really exist! For a real-world example, consider the no-name juice brand. A lemonade brand that refuses to give itself a brand name and is instead known for its mysterious flavor. The real secret behind this fruit drink is that it also contains some vegetable juice, which makes it as unique as the V8, so it basically has nothing to do with it. That said, the mystery surrounding that brand has generated massive, underground word of mouth.

Heck, even McDonalds' secret sauce is just mayonnaise, pickles, mustard, and some spices. But the fact that they call it "secret" makes it seem more exclusive and therefore more in demand than it really is. So, both in real life and in the 2000s cartoons, it's not about having the secret Krabby Patty formula, it's just about having something you call a secret formula. And as a bonus in SpongeBob SquarePants, he distracts Mr. Krabs' main competitor by sending Plankton on a wild goose chase for a formula he can never find. However, the only thing ruining Mr. Krabs' plans are his employees.

He therefore hires someone like Squidward, who doesn't really care about the secret, and SpongeBob. SpongeBob is extremely honest, a real sponge, and he doesn't like things like fraud and deception. So if SpongeBob knew that the Krabby Patty didn't have a secret formula, he might let it slip or feel guilty for implicitly lying to everyone every time he served a burger. And then Mr. Krabs' solution? He taps his claws on the keyboard for a minute and gives SpongeBob a fake formula. Make him believe it's real and don't worry if he ends up stealing it from you. It sounds extravagant, or just a cop-out, to say that there is no real formula and that there is nothing secret about the Krabby Patty that makes it magically delicious.

I mean, we all remember how Squidward completely lost his mind the first time he sunk his teeth into a Krabby Patty in one bite. (Squidward): I love crabburgers! (MatPat): Surely, there must be something at play here, and there is. It's just marketing, once again. According to Aaron Garvey, assistant professor of marketing at the Gatton School of Business and Economics in the United Kingdom, the way people feel about a product is strongly tied to psychology and their brand association with that product. In his research, he found, quote, "You could take the exact same product that you were thinking about bringing to market," and you could get it in front of consumers, "and you could change the price at which you were going to launch it." in "and you could change the brand." "And they would have dramatically different impressions of that product. "And they would tell you incredibly different things about the product. "That they thought it was made of different materials, that they thought it weighed more, or that it weighed less." So if Mr.

Krabs says that Krabby Patty's secret formula is what makes it so delicious, he's not actually lying. If he's created a brand association, created what is essentially a legendary burger, people will experience it differently. If what people believe about a product's weight or materials depends on what brand they think it is, that effect will be just as strong, if not stronger, when it comes to entirely subjective qualities, like how good a product tastes. hamburger. The Krabby Patty's secret formula might have started out as a lie, but now the real secret ingredient is an ingredient that everyone thinks is there, but doesn't really exist.

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