SpongeBob SquarePants introduced viewers to Bikini Bottom's own ghost, the Flying Dutchman – but what's his story and why does he terrorize the city?

SpongeBob SquarePants has introduced a variety of characters living in Bikini Bottom, including some ghosts, the most famous one being the Flying Dutchman – but what’s his story? Created by Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob SquarePants debuted on Nickelodeon in 1999 and has been unstoppable ever since, becoming one of the longest-running American animated series. In addition to that, SpongeBob SquarePants is the most successful Nicktoon (even more than fan-favorites Rugrats and Hey Arnold!) and has expanded to other media as well, most notably film with three movies so far.

SpongeBob SquarePants follows the daily adventures of the title character – a sea sponge who looks more like a kitchen sponge – and his closest friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. Even though SpongeBob is always cheerful and optimistic, he has earned a couple of enemies along the way, who often end up being outsmarted by the famous sponge. Among those is the Flying Dutchman (voiced by Brian Doyle-Murray), a recurring character who has become a fan-favorite thanks to his eccentricity and the problems he gets involved in either with or because of SpongeBob, but what’s his story and why does he terrorize Bikini Bottom?

The Flying Dutchman is a ghost with a green glow around him, yellow eyes, a long beard, an old pirate hat, coat, his hair in two little pigtails, a ghostly tail, and who carries around a handbag with the label “Souls”. He first appeared in SpongeBob SquarePants in the episode “Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost”, where SpongeBob finds a comic book with his story at Squidward’s house and quickly reads part of it to Patrick. According to the book, the Flying Dutchman’s body was used as a mannequin in a clothes store named Kid World, which angered him and drove him to haunt the bottom of the ocean forever. What exactly happened to him, however, remains a mystery, but the inspiration behind the character might offer some clues.

The Flying Dutchman’s name comes from the legend of the ghost ship of the same name, doomed to sail the oceans forever. It’s possible, then, that the Flying Dutchman’s ship was wrecked by a heavy storm which also took his life, and the citizens of Bikini Bottom decided to use his body as a mannequin when he hit the bottom of the ocean. A possible inspiration behind the character is the legendary English pirate Edward Teach a.k.a. Blackbeard, who was killed in action by stabbing and gunshots, which could have also happened to the Flying Dutchman. In the show, the origins of the Flying Dutchman have been deliberately left a mystery and some episodes have even contradicted the mannequin part of the legend – SpongeBob read that he was never put to rest, and the Flying Dutchman is seen in another episode going through his clothes and shows the outfit he was buried with (which, is worth noting, has some holes in it, either due to the passage of time or hinting at how he died).

With the Flying Dutchman appearing multiple times in the series and other media from SpongeBob SquarePants, it’s possible the writers will properly explore his backstory at some point, but until then, what happened to the Flying Dutchman before he became a ghost that terrorizes Bikini Bottom will remain a mystery, and viewers can take whatever version they want: the one related to the Flying Dutchman ship, the Blackbeard one, or come up with their own.

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