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Spoilers for The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants follow.

Remember David Hasselhoff in the first SpongeBob movie? Of course you do - I only bring it up to say that unexpected cameos should be, well, expected when it comes to Bikini Bottom. If you don't believe me, just ask the very first live-action Flying Dutchman - Mr. Mark Hamill. The iconic Joker actor is not only voicing the ghostly antagonist in The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, he appears in some impressive prosthetics as a live version of the character. And apparently, that screentime was a pretty huge secret...

One he kept longer than the secret of his return as Luke Skywalker.

No, I'm being serious, and so is he. About a month after the latest cinematic SpongeBob SquarePants movie hit theaters, Hamill posted an Instagram image of him getting made-up to appear as longtime SpongeBob villain the Flying Dutchman. 

"For 18 months," reads the post, "I had to keep the secret that I didn’t just voice The Flying Dutchman in the SpongeBob movie, but I also played him in live-action sequences. The hours it took flew by thanks to superb makeup artists Gage Munster & Marcel Banks who were both so kind AND hilarious."

18 months, huh? That sure is a long time to keep a secret - but no one would believe he kept it for longer than his triumphant return as Star Wars' main character in Episode VII: The Force Awakens. Right?

Walk with me back to February 2013, just a few months after Disney had officially acquired the Star Wars license. Speaking with Entertainment Online, Hamill was asked directly if he would be returning to the franchise as Luke Skywalker, and the actor played coy. 

"They're talking to us," said Hamill at the time, "George [Lucas] wanted to know whether we'd be interested. He did say that if we didn't want to do it, they wouldn't cast another actor in our parts – they would write us out [...] I can tell you right away that we haven't signed any contracts."

Now, I won't presume to know exactly when Hamill finally did sign that contract, but I do know it had to have been in between the publication of the above article and StarWars.com's official announcement of the Episode VII cast list, which dropped in April of 2014. So let's do some simple math. From February 2013 to February 2014 is 12 months, and April is 2 months after February, meaning that, at most, Hamill would've been keeping the secret of his appearance at the end of Force Awakens for... 14 months.

Now look, I'm not going to make the argument here that this means SpongeBob has officially become bigger than the Star Wars franchise - God knows I don't need the heat from ether fandom. But this kind of thing really does make you wonder, doesn't it? At the very least, we have to wonder what kind of power the SpongeBob legal time can give their NDAs, and just how the hell Lucasfilm's own lawyers have yet to acquire it.

The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants is in theaters now. 

Get to know, understand, and love the Star Wars franchise more with our Star Wars watch order, guide to all the upcoming Star Wars movies & TV shows, and all the Star Wars movies and Star Wars TV shows ranked.