Unimatic watches today unveils a new limited edition watch created in honor of SpongeBob SquarePants on the 20th anniversary of the popular cartoon series with the Unimatic X SpongeBob SqaurePast U1-SS. Emmy Award-winning SpongeBob SquarePants has been one of the most successful cartoon series over the last 20 years, featured on Nickelodeon and originally created by Stephen Hillenburg. Today SpongeBob SquarePants fans who are also watch lovers get one of the first opportunities to have a collector-worthy SpongeBob watch as part of this limited edition of just 50 piece set.
Just under a year ago, SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg passed away. I recall watching SpongeBob SquarePants originally when I was in high school and have continued to follow the program ever since. Even though SpongeBob SquarePants is technically a children’s cartoon, its mature writing, clever themes, and memorable characters have wide appeal even for adults. As a big fan of SpongeBob SquarePants, I am happy to see this entertainment property enter the world of collectible/luxury timepieces.
Italy-based Unimatic took an interesting route when designing the U1-SS by incorporating an “all-black” SpongeBob SquarePants motif on the dial of its core timepiece design. The 40mm case is produced from steel with a tough black DLC coating over it. The watch is water resistant 300 meters (which is probably good enough to have it function perfectly down in Bikini Bottom), and has a sapphire crystal over the dial.
Inside the watch is a Japanese Seiko Instruments caliber NH35A automatic mechanical movement which operates at 3HZ with about two days of power reserve. On the rear of the case is additional SpongeBob SquarePants imagery engraved into the caseback. The black on black theme of the watch is matched with a “SpongeBob SquarePants yellow” nylon strap, which has a good look. Unimatic will also offer a standard black strap with the kit. People know I am very much into black & yellow watches, so the design clearly appeals to me (though given my SpongeBob SquarePants fandom, I am pretty biased).
Unimatic is only producing 50 pieces of this limited-edition Unimatic X SpongeBob SquarePants U1-SS set. If successful, I have a feeling Viacom (the owner of Nickelodeon) will want to consider how it can do more of these. Price for the Unimatic X SpongeBob SquarePants U1-SS watch is 650 Euros. Learn more at the Unimatic website here.
