The anniversary date of the iconic yellow sponge is fast-approaching and Nickelodeon is gearing up a marathon of screen time to commemorate a decade of SpongeBob SquarePants on July 17.

To start, Nick will introduce the Ultimate SpongeBob SpongeBash Weekend, a 50-hour programming event kicking it all off on July 17, to be hosted by Patchy the Pirate. The next day will see a run of the top 10 list episodes, as selected by fans on Nick.com, finishing with The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie at 8 p.m., and on July 19, there’ll be another top 10 countdown, but this time, of celebrities’ favorite episodes, airing at 10 a.m. and topped off with 10 new eps starting at 7 p.m.

Also in the anniversary lead-up, sister channel VH1 will debut Square Roots: The Story of SpongeBob SquarePants, an original TV documentary on Tuesday, July 14 at 9 p.m. (ET/PT).

In the meantime, a new SpongeBob online experience awaits fans on http://spongebob.nick.com/bash, including new games. The man behind the voice of SpongeBob, Tom Kenny, has also released a playlist of his top 25 eps, available exclusively on iTunes beginning July 13 (US$29.99). And the sponge can be found on popular social networking sites, such as on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/spongebob) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/happysquared).

And fans can also move to the sounds of Bikini Bottom as Nick and Sony Music Entertainment release SpongeBob’s Greatest Hits on July 14, both in stores and on iTunes. The full-length album will feature 17 original tracks, including new songs performed by Pink and Cee-Lo Green of Gnarls Barkley.

For those who want to take home more episodes of SpongeBob, Nick will also be releasing a number of DVDs, starting with SpongeBob SquarePants: To SquarePants or Not To SquarePants on July 21. It’ll be followed by a special compilation of SpongeBob SquarePants’ First 100 Episodes at retail on September 22, packed with exclusive special features.