SpongeBob SquarePants, Season 8

[The origin special plays.]

Narrator:
The story of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy all started here.

Tim (Barnacle Boy):
Come on, Ernie! The movie's about to start... Where's the popcorn?

Ernie (Mermaid Man):
It's in the microwave, Tim.

Narrator:
At that very moment in the apartment directly above, a rogue scientist doing tests on radioactive ants knocks over a jar of his infected specimens, 1 of which, without any hesitation, crawls down 1 floor and miraculously lands undetected. It viciously bites our soon-to-be superhero. He screams in pain...!

Ernie (Mermaid Man):
Ahh!

Narrator:
...Stumbling backwards!

Tim (Barnacle Boy):
What on earth?

Narrator:
In a split-second, both men find themselves in a freefall that sends them squarely through the roof of a vats of acid factory, and into a vat of acid that is tipped over by an errant alien spaceship, carrying the 2 blindly on a wave of acid during a solar eclipse on a leap year, precariously careening onto a bomb-testing site, where a cataclysmic explosion exposes our heroes in waiting to highly toxic radium gases; Then, as fate would have it, magical storm clouds move in, zapping both men with a neon-plaid lightning bolt and raining radioactive ooze, which, through centrifugal and electromagnetic turbulence, causes a powerful earthquake deep in the jungle 2,000 miles away, consequently unearthing a magical crystal with wings that flies to Ernie and Tim's exact location, and powered by super gamma energy currents, pilots them to open skies until, not paying attention, the crystal clips the top of a billboard, flinging the 2 back to their apartment miraculously unharmed, when...

Ernie (Mermaid Man):
Hey, the popcorn's ready!

Johnny:
...They proceed with movie night, and eat slightly overcooked popcorn.

Tim (Barnacle Boy):
Mmmm... I think you overcooked this a little.

Johnny:
Suddenly, an amazing reaction to the overcooked popcorn hits them with a jolt of cosmic super energy, metamorphosing Ernie into an incredibly strong, seastar-wearing superhero and Tim into a slightly less strong, but also super sailor-looking guy.

Tim [Barnacle Boy]:
I have the sudden and incredibly urge to breathe water instead of air.

Ernie [Mermaid Man]:
As do I.

Narrator:
And that is how they became the superheroes we have come to know as... Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy - Defenders of the Deep!