About

Tomfoolery refers to a piece of production music from the Nickelodeon cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants, where it is used in the show for comedic effect whenever a character is doing something silly or in a ridiculous situation. It is also used as inappropriate background music in remixes of online YouTube videos to either further emphasize the awkwardness, hilarity or silliness of the situation in the video, or to create humor from the contrast between the serious subject matter and the inappropriately goofy-sounding music. Videos based off this trend usually have the title "I put Spongebob music over X".

Origin

The composition originated as background music that plays when a character, usually SpongeBob, Patrick, or Squidward, does something silly. The instruments include the piano, the flute, the trumpet and the euphonium (shown below, left). On April 20, 2017, YouTube user Doodley uploaded a video called "i put spongebob music over that useless $400 juicer," which has over 501,936 views as of May 9, 2017. The video was a remix of the infamous "Juicero: Making Juice is Easy" video whilst "Tomfoolery" played in the background, lampooning the Juicero Juicer Controversy by further emphasizing how nonsensical and absurd the concept of the juicer was (shown below, right).

Spread

More than two weeks after the initial "Tomfoolery" video, dozens of similar videos appeared on YouTube with titles sharing the original's title of I put spongebob music over X (the name of the video the background music is being played)." By May 9th, a playlist entitled "I put spongebob music over…"^[10] created by Princess Luna documented at least 20 instances of the "Tomfoolery" background music being used in other videos.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References