was storyboarding "Band Geeks", they thought of "a big number" at the end, where everyone would rally together for Squidward. Greenblatt said, "The story outline called for making it a really great marching band sequence, and it usually helps to have the music ahead of time to board to, so we started searching around." The writers were able to find music, as Nickelodeon has a library of royalty-free music. The writers listened to various marching band tunes. However, Greenblatt said, "The more we heard, it didn't seem terribly funny that the finale was just them playing marching band music well." However, David Glen Eisley's song "Sweet Victory" stood out from the other tracks in the library. Greenblatt said, "It was different than what we were looking for, but it was so amazing that we knew we had to use it. So we boarded the sequence to the music, and it felt like such a better ending than any song we could have written on our own." The writers gave it a freeze-frame shot for the ending. Greenblatt's favorite part was director Springer's drawings of Patrick on the electric drums and SpongeBob saying, "It's the thrill of one more kill" (an excerpt from "Sweet Victory"). The live action Bubble Bowl crowd is a combination of footage from a United States Football League game featuring the Memphis Showboats and the Tampa Bay Bandits on June 16, 1984, and footage shot specifically for the episode. Release "Band Geeks" originally aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on September 7, 2001, with a TV-Y parental rating. It was released on the DVD compilation titled SpongeBob SquarePants: Halloween on August 27, 2002, and on SpongeBob SquarePants: Home Sweet Pineapple that was released on January 4, 2005. The episode was also included in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete 2nd Season DVD released on October 19, 2004. On September 22, 2009, "Band Geeks" was released on the SpongeBob SquarePants: The First 100 Episodes DVD, alongside all episodes of seasons one through five. Reception "Band Geeks" received widespread acclaim from both fans and critics. Upon release, the episode was awarded and honored at the 2002 Golden Reel Awards for Best Sound Editing in Television – Animation category. Tom Kenny, SpongeBob's voice actor, considers "Band Geeks" one of his favorite episodes. In a 2009 review, Michael Cavna of The Washington Post ranked the episode at 5 in his "The Top