Mark Hamill Teases His New Villain in This 26-Year-Old Franchise, and It Sounds Like a Replacement for His Second Most Iconic Character -

It’s virtually impossible to dislike Mark Hamill. His iconic Luke Skywalker drove the original Star Wars trilogy; his stand-off against Adam Driver‘s Kylo Ren in Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi is easily the best thing in the movie, arguably even the sequel trilogy as a whole. And his voiceover work as the Joker? Perfect, the right amount of unhinged and sanity, as tied to his character as Kevin Conroy was to his animated foe, Batman, beginning with Batman: The Animated Series in 1992. But now Hamill is ready to join a third long-running franchise, going into dark, deep villainy in a role he assures will have “every child in America hating his guts.” Why? By going up against everyone’s favorite Krusty Krab fry cook, SpongeBob SquarePants, as the Flying Dutchman in The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants.

Who Is the Flying Dutchman in ‘Spongebob SquarePants’?

Now, those who don’t follow the happenings in Bikini Bottom may not know who the Flying Dutchman is, other than it’s the name of Davy Jones’ (Bill Nighy) ship. But then, why would a ship be in Bikini Bottom, underwater? For that matter, how can SpongeBob have a campfire underwater? Let’s just say if you’re looking for intellectual fare, move along. Nothing to see here. While the ship part is true, it also happens to lend its name to one of the sea’s most fearsome entities. The Flying Dutchman (Brian Doyle-Murray) is a powerful ghost who haunts the ocean, popping in from time to time to scare the denizens of Bikini Bottom, including our hero SpongeBob (Tom Kenny).

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The Flying Dutchman is a cruel and sadistic pirate spirit who once threatened to send Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) to Davy Jones’ Locker, a rusty locker that belonged to The Monkees‘ Davy Jones at one time, filled with stinky socks. So cruel and sadistic in a kid-friendly way. He haunts the ocean after raging that his body was being used as a mannequin in a children’s clothing store, at least according to a comic book account SpongeBob reads in “Squidward the Unfriendly Ghost.” He has a green glow around him, as does his ghostly ship. His eyes are yellow with black irises, his beard is scraggy, his hair is in little pigtails, and his nose droops. The Flying Dutchman is attired in a coat and a gnawed-on pirate hat, and he has a wispy tail instead of feet. But he still harbors an obsessive fascination with socks.

The Flying Dutchman is also known to steal souls, which he stores in a handbag marked “Souls,” which is what he looks to do in his first full appearance in the Season 1 episode “Scaredy Pants.” In the episode, he attempts to steal the souls of everyone in the Krusty Krab simply because he found SpongeBob’s Flying Dutchman costume to be an insult (in fairness, it’s a bedsheet). Interestingly, his penchant for scaring is at odds with his being a coward, sticking to scaring the weak, and his strong sense of justice.

Hamill Is Ready To Scare as the Flying Dutchman in ‘The Spongebob Movie: Search for Squarepants’

The choice to cast Hamill as the antagonist for the movie is an interesting one, with Brian Doyle-Murray still around, last voicing the character in 2023. There doesn’t appear to be any definitive reason why, but the consensus is that while Doyle-Murray isn’t voicing the Flying Dutchman, if anyone else is going to do it, it might as well be Hamill. The reveal was made at this year’s CinemaCon during Nickelodeon’s Hall H panel, with Hamill saying:

“I actually did an episode of SpongeBob in the fifth season, and I did such a great job they asked me back 18 years later…And if I do my job correctly, every child in America will hate my guts.”

The episode Hamill references saw him playing another antagonist, the Moth, arch-nemesis of Mermaid Man (Ernest Borgnine), so it’s not the first time he’s been on Bikini Bottom’s Most Wanted list. It serves as yet another example of Hamill’s voiceover talents, which he’s honed to perfection over the years. He knows how to be scary without being, you know, scary, and that’s a gift. It’s one he’s shown time and again with his iconic Joker, matching his voice to the purpose of the project (his Batman: The Animated Series version is much more tame than in Batman: The Killing Joke). It’s unlikely that every child in America will hate Hamill’s guts, in all honesty, but it’s entirely possible that Doyle-Murray does.

SpongeBob SquarePants

Release Date: May 1, 1999
Network: Nickelodeon
Showrunner: Vincent Waller, Marc Ceccarelli
Directors: Vincent Waller, Dave Cunningham, Stephen Hillenburg, Paul Tibbitt
Writers: Tim Hill, Stephen Hillenburg, Derek Drymon, Nick Jennings