SpongeBob SquarePants is Nickelodeon's favorite show, over 20 years running. Here are several instance of marathons aired on the channel. General adoration goes here.
- From the late 2000's up until late 2015, as a result of scheduling, Spongebob Squarepants was often played in what could qualify as marathons. Nickelodeon also frequently showed marathons of it for the debut of new episodes.
- Similarly, this is how sister channel Nicktoons Network airs the show during the late night hours with a mini marathon on weekday mornings.
- One of the earliest and most infamous big marathons for the show was the Best Day Ever marathon, which aired 100 episodes straight (even forgoing Nick at Nite) as voted by the viewers, leading up to the "Best Day Ever" episode and the television premiere of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
- There was a three-day long marathon of nothing but SpongeBob in 2009 to promote the 10-year anniversary known as The Ultimate SpongeBob SpongeBash. Much like the Best Day Ever marathon, it even took over for Nick at Nite for the duration, and it lead into the premiere of the Truth or Square special. Later during that week, even Nick At Nite aired a special about the production of the show and it's cultural impact.
- An all-day marathon aired on New Year's Eve 2009.
- On 7/18/10, an unannounced twelve hour marathon of SpongeBob aired on the channel, before an airing of Adventures in Babysitting. Became Hilarious in Hindsight when a remake of that movie was announced for Disney Channel, a rival network, in 2016.
- On 7/29/10, of the 11 hours of Nickelodeon not including Nick at Nite and Nick Jr, nine hours were filled with SpongeBob and iCarly alone without any of their current Nicktoons showing and only two other shows aired.
- The UK Nickelodeon had a 502 hour marathon of SpongeBob in Summer 2011 (that's two hours short of three solid weeks) for the Clash of the Bottom competition, where kids had to vote for their favorite main character. To top that off, it was the UK's second-longest TV show marathon of all time, only being beaten by Boomerang UK's Scooby Summer.
- On July 21, 2012 Nick aired a SpongeBob marathon to promote the "Super-Spongey Square Games", an hour-long block of new episodes devoted to sports. They also aired the 1-hour special "Truth or Square" and the movie.
- Whenever a new episode is going to be aired (and a 15-minute one at that), Nickelodeon will hype it up with a big marathon and tons of promos that air on Nickelodeon, other Viacom networks, and networks that aren't owned by Viacom! note This died down around the time The Loud House premiered, however.
- Hollywood news website Deadline reported that in January 2012, SpongeBob filled up about a quarter of Nickelodeon's schedule. As of October 2013, the Sponge now accounts for roughly 45% of the network's airtime!
- Nick had a SpongeBob "Win-a-thon" on June 8th, 2014, to promote the network premiere of Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.
- A nearly all-day marathon of SpongeBob occured on Saint Patrick's Day 2018, followed by a new episode of Henry Danger and an encore of The Loud House episode "Pipe Dreams".
- On April 28, 2018, they showed a marathon of Mermaidman and Barnacle Boy-themed episodes to compete with the opening weekend of Avengers: Infinity War, a highly-anticipated movie about superheroes. It makes some sense, as the channel did notably show a couple of exclusive sneak peaks of the film during their programming. And also the fact that said film referenced the show (and also raised several questions about the existence of two actors who've appeared in both properties, as well as one of the people who did special effects for the Framing Device segments of Party Pooper Pants also working on Infinity War). They did the same thing for Avengers: Endgame a year later from April 28th to 29th, but this time, it was all day long and only stopped for a new Rainbow Butterfly Unicorn Kitty, as well as reruns of Ryan's Mystery Playdate and The Loud House, which ended with the Nickelodeon premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
- On July 7, 2018, Nickelodeon had an mid-morning to mid-afternoon marathon (only stopping for a new episode of Power Rangers Ninja Steel) to compete with the premiere of Summer Camp Island on Cartoon Network.
- On December 2nd, 2018, after Stephen Hillenberg died, a marathon of SpongeBob SquarePants was aired all day. An encore of this marathon played on the morning of December 8th, 2018 only stopping for a new episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
- Similarly, they also did a marathon in 2012 of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episodes of SpongeBob in memory of Ernest Borgnine.
- On the Japanese Nickelodeon channel, the first six days of 2019 were comprised of nothing but SpongeBob to celebrate New Year's. It's rather justified, as said holiday is very important in Japan.
- A marathon was held on January 20, 2019 to entertain children stuck inside their houses due to a snowstorm that hit most of the East Coast. Ironically, "The Ballad of Filthy Muck", the episode that premiered that day, ended up being the first episode in SpongeBob history to premiere under 1 million viewers (ending a nearly 20-year long streak) as a result of declining cable ratings and most households losing power during the aforementioned snowstorm.
- From July 7th to July 11th, Nicktoons Network had a 4-day marathon to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the show with every episode ever airing in order and to promote the SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout special. It was planned to be extended to the 12th, but stopped on the 11th at 6:00 AM EST. The main network themselves only aired the marathon on the 12th (the day of the actual special) from 10AM to 8PM so that PAW Patrol, Ryan's Mystery Playdate, note Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?, and the All That reboot could air as usual.
- On September 8, 2019, a nearly all-day marathon aired (only stopping for a rerun of Middle School Moguls and 3 1/2 hours of The Loud House) to compete with the FX premiere of The Emoji Movie.
- An all-day marathon aired on November 5, 2019 to celebrate Election Day, when most American elementary schoolers have off from school.
- A two-day marathon was held from November 29, 2019 to November 30, 2019 to promote the premieres of the series Top Elf as well as new episodes of 44 Cats, The Substitute and All That and to compete with the annual airing of Frosty the Snowman on CBS and the TBS premiere of The LEGO Ninjago Movie.
- An all-day marathon was held on Nickelodeon on January 4, 2020 to premiere the "Patchy's Beach Party" special and to compete with the first non-holiday airings of the Teen Titans Go! episodes "Halloween" and "Thanksgiving" since 2017.
- The day of the 54th Super Bowl had an almost all-day SpongeBob marathon, only stopping for their early-morning shows. In addition, "The Secret Box/Band Geeks" played twice that day.
- An all-afternoon marathon was held on February 29, 2020 to premiere a new episode of The Crystal Maze and compete with The Owl House episode "Lost In Language".
- An all-afternoon marathon was held on April 6, 2020 to hype up the premiere of Ollie's Pack.
- Another all-day marathon, which only stopped for Nick Jr. and a new episode of It's Pony, was held on June 5, 2020 to promote The Stars Of SpongeBob Present Fan Favorites and to honor the passing of Bob Kulick, who wrote the stock music track "Sweet Victory" that was featured in "Band Geeks", one of the episodes aired during this marathon.
- The network played nothing but SpongeBob for the Fourth of July weekend in 2020.
- On July 27, 2020, there was a nearly all-day SpongeBob marathon to lead into The Loud House episode "How Double Dare You!".
- For the week of August 17, 2020, the network ran SpongeBob almost all afternoon (only stopping for The Loud House and its' spinoff The Casagrandes on the weekdays) from Monday-Saturday in memory of Stephen, as that Friday would have been his 59th birthday.
- An all-day marathon ran on January 10th, 2021 to hype up an NFL game which had a preview for the Spin-Off series Kamp Koral.
- An all-day marathon ran on March 13th, 2021 to hype up the 2021 Kids' Choice Awards and to compete with the Teen Titans Go! episode "Villains in a Van Getting Gelato".
- An almost all-day marathon (only stopping for The Barbarian and the Troll, Power Rangers Dino Fury, Henry Danger and Danger Force) ran on May 16, 2021 to hype up the MTV Movie and TV Awards, which Nick was simulcasting.
- On July 4th and July 5th of 2021, Nickelodeon held almost all-day SpongeBob marathons to celebrate the Fourth of July and to promote The Patrick Star Show.
- In July of 2021, MTV2 ran blocks of reruns of this show to promote The Patrick Star Show as well.
- Save for airings of movies, Middlemost Post and the Nick Jr. block, the entire week of August 8th, 2022 was an all-day marathon of this show.
- During the week of March 25th of 2024, Nicktoons held an almost week-long SpongeBob marathon just in time for spring break. No other show (besides The Loud House and its live-action spin-off The Really Loud House, which had their reruns sprinkled on Monday-Thursday afternoons) has aired throughout that week, not even its two spin-offs. See for yourself
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