Spongebob Nostalgia Critic Episode Bubble Bass Reviews — Bubble Bass dressed as Nostalgia Critic reviewing a hamburger on a TV screen

Spongebob Nostalgia Critic Episode Bubble Bass Reviews

2023viral videoclassic

Published August 14, 2026

Spongebob Nostalgia Critic Episode Bubble Bass Reviews is a July 2023 viral moment centered on a Patrick Star Show episode where the character Bubble Bass parodies YouTuber Nostalgia Critic. Twitter users discovered the reference and turned it into a flood of reaction posts, with Nostalgia Critic himself responding the next day.

spongebob nickelodeon memes youtube culture memes fandom discourse memes otaku culture memes

Overview

Spongebob Nostalgia Critic Episode Bubble Bass Reviews refers to a segment of The Patrick Star Show in which the recurring SpongeBob villain Bubble Bass is drawn and voiced as an obvious stand-in for YouTuber Nostalgia Critic, complete with the critic's trademark outfit and mannerisms1. The bit turned into a viral moment on Twitter in July 2023 after fans realized a mainstream Nickelodeon show had just aired a full parody of a Channel Awesome personality2.

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The episode also leans into a running gag that Bubble Bass is into catgirls and anime, which sparked a second wave of jokes about Otaku culture being canon in the SpongeBob universe3. Between the Nostalgia Critic riff and the catgirl reveal, the segment gave Twitter two distinct meme angles to run with over a single weekend1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Nickelodeon (source) / Twitter (viral spread)
Creator
The Patrick Star Show writers
Date
2023

The source is season one, episode 26a of The Patrick Star Show, titled "Bubble Bass Reviews," which aired on American television on July 24, 20234. In the segment, Bubble Bass takes on the role of a bitter online critic reviewing Patrick's show, with his costume and delivery closely mirroring Doug Walker's Nostalgia Critic character1.

Around 5:41 p.m. EST that same day, Twitter user @NoConCritics posted what is credited as the first public reaction, writing "NO WAY NOSTALGIA CRITIC REFERENCE IN SPONGEBOB?!" The tweet pulled in roughly 23,200 likes within a day and effectively lit the fuse for the wider discovery2.

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How It Spread

Later on July 24, 2023, Twitter user @spongearchive_ posted a clip of the segment with the caption "this is the greatest episode ever made," which picked up about 7,800 likes in 24 hours and helped push the actual footage in front of people who had not seen the episode air5. That evening, @Crimson_Mayhem_ shared a screencap with the line "Never in a million years would I see SpongeBob make an entire fucking episode on making fun of The Nostalgia Critic," hitting around 35,700 likes in a day6.

A parallel thread of jokes formed around the catgirl reveal. A post to r/NonPoliticalTwitter by user cookie_tree4, quoting a tweet from @itsnicktendo, argued that "the biggest takeaway for me is that anime catgirls are now canon in SpongeBob," pulling roughly 1,800 upvotes within a day7. Reaction edits kept spilling into TikTok through late July 20231.

On July 25, 2023, Channel Awesome posted a video on Twitter of Nostalgia Critic himself reacting to "Bubble Bass Reviews," captioned "How could SpongeBob do this?!!?!!?!?" The clip gained roughly 66,800 likes in a day and effectively closed the loop between the parody and its target8.

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How to Use This Meme

Posts about the episode typically pair a screencap or short clip of Bubble Bass in his critic getup with a shocked or in-disbelief caption, often riffing on the idea that a Nickelodeon show acknowledged Nostalgia Critic at all6. The catgirl beat is commonly used as a separate reaction image, with captions treating anime catgirls as "canon" in the SpongeBob universe7.

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