Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year of the Gregorian calendar that started on a Thursday. It aired only 7 episodes and had a theatrical film on November 19, 2004. After this, no new episodes would air until May 2005. This is the second leap year in a row to have a 5-month hiatus between April and October. This happened for the first time in 2000. This is also the second smallest amount of episodes in a year. The smallest is 2003.
Timeline
- January 19 - Plankton's Army and Missing Identity premiered.
- March 5 - Ugh (SpongeBob B.C.) premiered.
- April 3 - Krabby Land and The Camping Episode premiered. It entered a hiatus after that.
- May 1: The SpongeBob SquarePants Series became 5 years old.
- September 20 - Nicktoons Freeze Frame Frenzy was released.
- October 11 - SpongeBob Meets the Strangler and Pranks a Lot premiered, ending Season 3 and the Hillenburg era.
- October 27 - The console and PC versions of The SpongeBob Movie Game were released in North America.
- November 19 - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is released in theatres in the United States and Canada.
- December 3 - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is released in theatres in Mexico.
- December 10 - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is released in theatres in Chile.
- December 17 - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is released in theatres in Brazil.
- December 23 - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is released in theatres in Germany and Switzerland.
- December 25 - The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is released in theatres in Venezuela.