Nov 27, 2004 By Jennifer Harr 2 min read

He’s absorbent, yellow, porous and missing in action. But SpongeBob SquarePants wasn’t swiped from his pineapple home in Bikini Bottom. A 9-foot blow-up likeness of the Nickelodeon character currently starring in his own animated feature film was stolen from the roof of the Burger King at the Laurel Mall in Dunbar.

Andrea Jones, one of the managers at the restaurant, said the giant yellow SpongeBob was taken sometime between 12:30 and 5 a.m. Saturday.

“We have no idea where it went and how they go to it,” she said, laughing, Saturday night.

Unfortunately, that theft is one of several fits of “nautical nonsense” connected to SpongeBob across the country, according to the Associated Press.

In Michigan, Minnesota and Utah, oversized likenesses of the long-nosed employee of The Krusty Krab were taken from Burger Kings. The fast food chain is promoting the cartoon character’s movie with SpongeBob toys in its kid’s meals.

And in Wisconsin, a six-foot SpongeBob promoting the opening of the movie was stolen.

With the theft in Minnesota, the Associated Press reported that a ransom note meted out demands for SpongeBob’s safe return, including krabby patties. That SpongeBob blow-up was ultimately returned.

Jones said no such ransom note was left for employees at the Dunbar Burger King.

So Jones said employees did what anyone would, faced with such a heinous crime – they called the state police, who reacted like most everyone following the rash of spongenappings would – they laughed.