Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl launched back in 2021, and it seemed that the devs were given a fair bit of freedom with the project. Before MultiVersus made it work on a much larger scale, NASB was a bold little Smash-like platform fighter, bringing together a bunch of Nickelodeon icons to beat the hell out of each other. However, while the studio greenlit the game, it definitely didn't let the devs get away with everything.
In fact, early on in development, Nickelodeon vetoed one of SpongeBob's moves altogether, refusing to let the underwater sponge stab his buddies with scissors. Worried that it would be seen as encouraging kids to run around with scissors, the move was removed, with the character model being the only thing that remains.
"The scissors were from a scrapped attack, specifically the Dash Strong," says NASB character designer, Thaddeus Crews. "It was one of only a handful of instances where an idea for a move was vetoed."
Crews continues, understanding why the decision was made. "Not wanting to promote running with scissors is probably a brand-thing so I can see the logic."
On top of sharing this tidbit with the public, Crews also have us a peek at what this would have looked like - and it's beautiful. Have you ever seen SpongeBob look so menacing before? There's something about the smile that makes it worse. Like he knows he's being an awful influence on his younger fans right now.
In any case, it seems that Nickelodeon was happy with the rest of his attacks, and didn't intervene much after that. And as great as it would have been to see SpongeBob run into the battlefield with a weapon, it's probably for the best that he didn't undo years of work parents and teachers have put into convincing kids not to run with scissors. Although really, you probably shouldn't be replicating anything you see in NASB in the first place.