Spongebob Squarepants made only the briefest cameo at a terrible Super Bowl halftime show

There aren’t many ways to make Maroon 5 interesting. America’s entrant into the Dentist’s Office Waiting Room Rock Band Olympics* was deemed unthreatening enough to serve as the headliner for the world’s mid-Super Bowl bathroom break. This will give the world the opportunity to flip over to the Puppy Bowl and prevent the rage-zombie spawning brain reactions that would come from seeing Tom Brady and Adam Levine’s smug stupid faces within minutes of each other.

Thankfully, there was some hope Spongebob Squarepants can save from the least-anticipated Super Bowl halftime show of all time. He couldn’t — but at least the famous Nicktoon got to at least make an appearance at the big game.

A Change.org petition compelling the NFL and Maroon 5 to honor Stephen Hillenburg — the creator of the longtime Nickelodeon staple who passed away in November — by incorporating Spongebob’s ‘Sweet Victory’ into the show had nearly 1.2 million signatures at press time. For Levine to include it would be a major coup for both Squarepants fans and the folks at Change.org, hosts of the world’s least effective petitions.

For reference, this is what we’re talking about:

Somehow, yes.

In fact, there are plenty of signs pointing to it.

Maroon 5 dropped Spongebob in the middle of a hype video they tweeted for their Super Bowl performance:

Mercedes-Benz Stadium, host to the Super Bowl, dropped Spongebob into a Tweet as well, directly referencing “Sweet Victory” in the process:

And Rodger Bumpass, the voice of Squidward — the character who’s tasked with playing beleaguered composer to the Bikini Bottom Super Band — reportedly told fans on his private Facebook account he’ll be introducing the halftime entertainment.

That’s enough to make “Sweet Victory” a -220 favorite to be played on Sunday.

That’s better odds than literally EVERY OTHER MAROON 5 song.

Yes.

One is Big Boi’s presence, which puts the odds of Levine ruining Bombs Over Baghdad or Roses and then getting absolutely dragged on Twitter at ~20%. Another is a potential surprise appearance from Ludacris, who has promised excitement at the 50-yard line of similar Atlanta stadiums in the past.

But yeah, if Andre 3000 or Ludacris don’t show up, at least we’ll still have ... Adam Levine singing a Spongebob song.

Cool.

Kinda! After a brief Maroon 5 medley, we had Squidward introduce the beginning of Sweet Victory, but not the actual song itself. Then Travis Scott came out.

Spongebob fans weren’t happy.

*Maroon 5 beat out an entirely forgettable field that included Train, American Authors, and OneRepublic for the honor. Canada is represented by Nickelback. Great Britain has Coldplay. Australia has Jet. It’s gonna be a great field. Everyone is sponsored by Pepsi.