I cannot express how much I love The SpongeBob Musical. I saw it live on tour a few months ago and I'm so glad they decided to do an official recording with a decent chuck of the original cast (AND Tom Kenny who's never been apart of a performance but they got him to be Patchy here!)
The set looks incredible, every musical number is so much fun (my favorites include "Bikini Bottom Day," "(Just a) Simple Sponge," "Tomorrow Is," and "I'm Not a Loser"), the costumes are great, and the cast fantastically embodies the essence of their characters.
Now I've seen a lot of people complain about various things, so I'm going to address the main 2 that I've seen because some people just don't understand it for some unknown reason.
1. People have complained that the cast doesn't sound exactly like the characters in the show. Honestly WHAT were you expecting? They're not the voice actors. This isn't a surprise. YOU try sounding exactly like SpongeBob as well as doing his laugh without touching your Adams apple like Tom Kenny has to do for the show. And also, as far as singing goes, I'm very glad they don't sound exactly like the characters because I think we can all agree that when the characters sing in the show, they're nowhere NEAR being Broadway level talented haha. That would get annoying and grading very fast with all the notes they have to hit in a lot of these songs. Plus you can still tell who each performer is portraying, soooo...
& 2. I've seen people complain about the costumes, and this baffles me to no end. Again, you can still tell who everyone is. They're not supposed to look exactly like the characters. They just have to embody the essence of them, which again, they do a great job of. The show (although still great aside of the costumes) literally would have never made it onto Broadway if it had a guy wearing a square box. That's just a fact (look up The Sponge Who Could Fly Musical on youtube if my word isn't convincing enough for you). Plus everyone wearing full body suits wouldn't leave much room for flexibility (or showing emotion) which is something that everyone in this show needs for the sake of choreography, among many other things, of course. Plus I think the costumes are great and I admire just how creative they were with them. Try using your "i-ma-gin-a-tion" ;)
So yeah, that's all I have to say. I absolutely adore this musical, and I recommend it to all SpongeBob fans as well as everyone who doesn't hate fun and joy. The recording is great, but if you ever get the chance to see it live, definitely go!
