Nickelodeon has gone all out this year celebrating the 25th anniversary of its marquee character SpongeBob SquarePants. If nothing else, this year has proven SpongeBob is just as relevant and remains in the zeitgeist as ever. Last month we had the pleasure of getting to sit down and interview the cast and crew of SpongeBob SquarePants including voice actors Tom Kenny (SpongeBob), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick), Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy), Rodger Bumpass (Squidward), and Mr. Lawrence (Plankton) as well as executive producers Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Taimur Dar: There was this great documentary about Jim Henson that came out a few months ago. One of the things that stood out to me was how his characters and creations like Sesame Street or the Muppets were able to continue after his death. Much like Henson, it’s been great how you’ve been able to keep the momentum of SpongeBob SquarePants going even after Stephen Hillenburg’s passing in 2018. How has it been picking up the torch during the last few years?
Marc Ceccarelli: He set up and put together such a great show in the beginning. Continuing it forward is a joy. We have this great model.
Vincent Waller: All of the set pieces you need and characters [are there]. I don’t think he was trying for the seven deadly sins, but we’ve been told that he did.
[Laughter]
Rodger Bumpass: [Squidward’s voice] I have a bone to pick with that!
Mr. Lawrence: It’s the Gilligan’s Island connection. And it was. We did talk about Gilligan’s Island in the beginning.
Stephen Hillenburg concept art from 1996. All images courtesy of Nickelodeon.Vincent Waller: What Marc said, he left us such a great place that it’s really hard to get wrong. There are certain edicts when he was there that he would say and you would never forget them. We can’t veer that way because we were told not to.
Carolyn Lawrence: I also think it’s amazing that we not only have original people, you guys, from the early days like writers and artists. But we also have people who were fans when they were young. There’s an intense desire to keep the franchise pure.
Vincent Waller: Three quarters of our team grew up watching SpongeBob.
Marc Ceccarelli: And they draw SpongeBob way better than I do!
[Laughter]
Tom Kenny: Three quarters of the team grew up watching SpongeBob. One quarter of the team has grown old while working on SpongeBob. Taking your analogy into account, unlike Jim Henson’s thing which was literally a “here today and gone tomorrow,” Steve’s condition was progressive, so it wasn’t a case of here today gone tomorrow. It was a decline that was tragic, but he was still able to work on and be involved with show and let his plans be known.
Vincent Waller: He had stepped back and we were just sending boards and scripts for approval. But after the second movie, he remembered how much fun it was to work on the show. That’s when he started back in the studio. It was great having him in the room
Tom Kenny: He just needed a little break from it because it’s this thing that you drew on a napkin once takes over your life 24/7. And you’re like, “I need to live life. I’ve got a wife and kid.” He was feeling that keenly. He never wanted to be a mogul. But then you’re ready to go back to school and see your friends. Steve always had a hand in things but to differentiating degrees by his own choice at the beginning and at the end.
Taimur Dar: I think it’s fitting that this year being the 25th anniversary of SpongeBob SquarePants, there’s been this renewed love for the franchise that started out at the beginning of 2024 with the Super Bowl LVIII Live telecast. I don’t know the hard metrics, but between SpongeBob SquarePants and Taylor Swift, I think football has received a surge in popularity. What was the experience being part of that Super Bowl event?
Mr. Lawrence: That was crazy. It was one of the craziest things we’ve done I have to say.
Carolyn Lawrence: It was stressful and fun and fantastic.
Mr. Lawrence: And Martha Stewart that’s all I’m saying.
Carolyn Lawrence: Seeing Martha Stewart, it took every once of my being not to jump on her little golf cart.
Tom Kenny: Martha, what was it like in the big house?
Bill Fagerbakke: Doing the characters live for four straight hours taxed my brain in a shocking way. Just to be live and adlibbing essentially [and] playing off these two professional announcers who were both thrilled to be involved in the Super Bowl. And here they are stuck working with a couple of goofballs.
Tom Kenny: They were also thrilled to be working with SpongeBob and Patrick too because one of them is a young guy in his 20s and the other guy has got kids. So they were into both aspects of the mission. There’s no real reason for something like the Super Bowl and SpongeBob to coexist. Same with Broadway musicals and SpongeBob. Sometimes you ask, “Does this make sense for this to be happening? Is this just pop culture eating itself?” When it is done in a way that makes sense and you pull it off successfully, it’s kind of exhilarating. I’m the king of self-doubt. When it works it releases these endorphins like skydiving.
Mr. Lawrence: We’re able to be funny too and keep the tradition of the funny going. And we need to be comfortable to bring the funny. That was a comfortable situation even though it was stressful. It was like being a surgeon. Half of it was us waiting to go on and make sure we don’t miss our cues. I was across the room when one of my cues came in. I was in the corner looking for a chip and suddenly, “You’re on Doug!”
Tom Kenny: I never worry about the characters. The characters will always carry the day no matter what situation they’re in because that’s the hard work Steve did and these guys do. And people are predisposed to like them. That’s a nice way to come into something with the good vibes already baked in form a potential audience. That’s a magical situation that I think is pretty rare. That’s a security blanket for me.
Bill Fagerbakke: What I discovered as a lifetime football fan, there’s a certain redundancy in the world of sports broadcasting.
Tom Kenny It’s like blues. There are only three chords.
Bill Fagerbakke: The Manning brothers broadcast has really shaken the foundation of sports broadcasting. We are a party to that in a neat way and I think people appreciated a different presentation of the product.
Mr. Lawrence: For my point of view, I felt safe because Bill and Rodger were there and they both know sports. I don’t.
Tom Kenny: Bill has been watching football since he was ten. The Super Bowl game was the first football game I’ve ever watched. It was only because I was wired into a mocap suit and couldn’t leave.
Rodger Bumpass: Nobody ever watched the NFL until we did the Super Bowl.
[Laughter]
Tom Kenny: It definitely widened that out to a new audience which was the intention all along. Get families with kids to watch the Super Bowl together. That mission was totally accomplished. SpongeBob shouldn’t know anything about football. My ignorance was a super power.
Bill Fagerbakke: It’s great when your job is being dumb.
Tom Kenny: That’s my approach to life anyway.
Mr. Lawrence: I remember asking Bill a few football terms because I was writing jokes and I don’t know anything about football. Other writers in our group know about football. I do not.
Taimur Dar: That’s a perfect segue into my next question. I remember hearing Conan O’Brien describe his comedy as the intersection of smart and stupid. That’s SpongeBob SquarePants in the nutshell. Is that indeed the approach for the franchise?
Tom Kenny That was always the intent. Brilliantly stupid are the words I use. It’s not stupid by accident and it’s not brilliant by accident. The people making it know what they’re doing.
Mr. Lawrence: Like Monty Python. We were all fans of that. It was so smart in one way then completely goes the other direction to do something so stupid.
Marc Ceccarelli: It’s always fun to find a new angle into a dumb joke.
Taimur Dar: The character of Bubble Bass, voiced by the talented Dee Bradley Baker, appeared in the early days of SpongeBob SquarePants then seemed to disappear. Over the last few years however, he’s definitely returned to greater prominence in the SpongeBob SquarePants franchise.
Mr. Lawrence: And his mom! Yeah, we rediscovered him. There were a couple of characters in the last few years where we said, “How come we don’t use this guy?” He was a goldmine.
Vincent Waller: After we paired him with Patrick in that one episode it was like, “Oh yeah!”
Taimur Dar: It’s funny you mention pairing Bubble Bass and Patrick. When The Patrick Show first debuted, I think viewers were a initially little taken aback. But people seemed to really love the episode “Bubble Bass Reviews” where you parody Nostalgia Critic and internet reviewers.
Mr. Lawrence: Half of that was reacting to things that our fans had said online.
[Laughter]
Rodger Bumpass: Bubble Bass matches up with a lot of the other characters. He’s a good plug in for everybody.
Tom Kenny Squidward is kind of a positive guy next to Bubble Bass.
Marc Ceccarelli: It was really fun doing that episode recently where we put Squidward and Bubble Bass together.
Rodger Bumpass: Their animosity worked well together and [they] had great chemistry.
Mr. Lawrence: That’s another one where you find new chemistries on the show sometimes that you didn’t know were there.
Bill Fagerbakke: I’m still waiting for Mrs. Puff and Patrick!
Taimur Dar: Sandy Cheeks got her own movie with Saving Bikini Bottom. I remember during the San Diego Comic-Con panel, Carolyn mentioned she was flying to Texas to attend the premiere. So I have to ask how was it seeing the movie on the big screen?
Carolyn Lawrence: It was amazing and really fun. It was held on a rooftop above a hotel and families were invited to come. It was cool to watch it with the kids and parents. It was a pretty spectacular moment in time. I don’t know that I’ll ever have a moment quite that exciting in that way ever again. The people in Fort Worth were amazing. Everybody was so welcoming. It was fun because my kids were there with me. We went and saw the Longhorns. It was great.
Rodger Bumpass: The football team or the actual animals?
[Laughter]
Carolyn Lawrence: Both!
Taimur Dar: It seems like yesterday we just celebrating the SpongeBob SquarePants 20th anniversary. I have no doubt it won’t be long until we discuss the 30th anniversary.
Vincent Waller: It will be here in literally five minutes judging by how [fast] everything else has gone. The 10th anniversary seems like it was a week ago.
Bill Fagerbakke: [Patrick voice] Time’s funny!
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