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Comic-Con 2015: "Spongebob" Stars Cement Their BFF Status!
Written by Sarah Osman. Published: July 21 2015
Amidst my adventures at Comic-Con, I had the pleasure of chatting with two of the cast members behind one of my all-time favorite Nicktoons, “Spongebob SquarePants”. The longest-running Nicktoon of all time, “Spongebob” first premiered in 1999 and has since aired over 200 episodes, several television specials, two full-length films, and even a few amusement park rides. The two main characters and BFFs, Spongebob and Patrick, are known for their endearing love for one another as well as great one-liners. (My favorite Patrick line of all time may be in answer to Spongebob’s question of why he is mad: “I can’t see my forehead.”)
Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke are the men who bring Spongebob and Patrick to life (respectively). We discussed the latest “Spongebob” episode to air, who they think Spongebob and Patrick would cosplay as, and their most endearing fan interactions!
YH: Could you tell us a bit about the new episode of
“Spongebob” that just premiered on July 16, “Lost in Bikini
Bottom”?
TK: It’s actually called "Lust in Bikini Bottom". We’ve
decided to take “Spongebob” in a more adult direction.
[laughs] It’s about Spongebob trying to find his way home
after he takes a shortcut. He gets off-track and ends up lost! He
runs into some unsavory sea life forms.
BF: That’s one of the things I really liked about the episode,
is that it’s a real simple idea. You just get to see what happens
with Spongebob as he gets lost.
TK: Yeah, this has happened to me a few times when I was a
little kid, because my head was always in the clouds. You would be
with your parents somewhere and you would be looking around, and
next thing you know -- [gasps] -- I’m lost! This happened
whether it was the mall or the state fair. That feeling of panic of
[in Spongebob voice] “Oh no, I’m lost!”, that is what that
episode taps into, that feeling of panic. You could be a half block
away from your house, but if you don’t know that you are, you might
as well be in Alaska. You know, how normal people feel if they are
sent to Comic-Con.
YH: Were the voices of Spongebob and Patrick based on
anyone you know?
BF: My approach to Patrick was really just born out of hearing
Spongebob, because Tom was already doing Spongebob. When I
auditioned, they played a recording of Tom doing Spongebob (who was
called Spongeboy at the time), and they explained that Patrick is
his counterpart. I just tried to fulfill that.
TK: Spongebob was a combination of influences that Steve Hillenburg had invoked when he was
explaining the character to me. He mentioned munchkins, he
mentioned Pee-wee Herman, he might have mentioned
Woody Woodpecker -- just a bunch of different animated characters.
It was just taking all of those various ingredients and making the
right cookie. We were talking about this yesterday at dinner, that
a lot of people who want to get into voice-over think that
voice-over is the art of doing funny voices, and if you can do a
bunch of funny voices, then you are a made man in voice-over. But
really, it’s acting. Not to be pretentious, but like an on-camera
actor, you want to give the illusion that it’s not acting; you want
them to think that this thing on the screen is real.
BF: A lot of it comes from understanding the material. You
want to understand what is the best way to inhabit this
material.
TK: We also receive really good material, so we don’t feel
like we are painting a turd gold, as my father would say.
BF: [in Patrick voice] Haha, he said turd.
TK: [laughing, in Spongebob voice] Well this is my
turd interview of the day! But really, it’s just about inhabiting
the characters, as Bill said, and making them breathe, whether it’s
a superhero show or a funny show.
YH: If Spongebob and Patrick were to come to
Comic-Con, who do you think they would cosplay as?
TK: [Spongebob voice] There’s only one answer for me:
Mermaid Man!
BF: I think Patrick would come as The Flash. I like the irony
there.YH: Over the years, have you had any interesting
interactions with fans?
TK: The fans are really interesting people to talk to. They’re
really nice and they’re really open about telling us what
"Spongebob" has meant to them and their family's lives. It runs the
gambit from where 20-somethings come up to me and say, “My friends
and I only talk to each other in Spongebob memes.” Somebody said
today that she met her best friend through "Spongebob". She was new
at a school, and this one kid cracked a "Spongebob" reference and
she got it, and they are still best friends. "Spongebob" brought
them together. You meet everything from people who still speak in
"Spongebob" speak in their adult lives to visiting sick kids in
hospitals. We’ve had Make-a-Wish kids come to the studio. We’ve
also met knucklehead frat boys who think Spongebob and Patrick are
funny.BF: Today we met a young adult who learned English through
watching "Spongebob".
TK: That’s not the first time I’ve heard that. I’ve met quite
a few immigrants who moved here and just watched "Spongebob", and
they learned English through osmosis.
BF: About two or three years ago, we did a panel, and
sometimes people wait outside of the panel to say hi. This girl who
was about 15-16 came up with her mother, and she said that I saved
her life. Her mother was crying. She told me that she had suffered
horrible depression and that she had attempted suicide, and she
said that Patrick would make her laugh. It was the one thing that
knew would make her feel good.
TK: What’s interesting is that it’s not an isolated story.
I’ve started doing other Comic-Cons this past year besides San
Diego, but people come up and will ask for autographs, and they
will leave you these notes. And these notes... it’s not like these
people want you to call you or anything, they just tell you where
they were, how "Spongebob" helped them, and they thank you. It’s
heavy. It’s the power of comedy.
BF: We feel privileged to do this. When we go visit kids in
the hospital, they want you in there to visit.
TK: Our visits can make them smile and feel better for a
couple of minutes, which is an unexpected privilege. It’s really
remarkable. You aren’t thinking about that when you are auditioning
for the job; you are just thinking about what this animated
character would sound like, and then 20 years later, it’s this
whole other phenomenon. It’s still new and fresh all the
time.
YH: “Spongebob” has been on the air for quite some
time. Are you still caught off guard when you read the
scripts?
BF: I’m still blown away that people write out scripts after
this many years. It’s hard. It’s a challenge.
TK: If you’re a new writer who is coming on a show that’s been
around for 12 seasons, you have to find some new angles. It’s
always fun to do the recordings and find some new wrinkle they’ve
found out. They’re good at it. It’s infinite variations on a theme.
If you know four chords on a guitar, you can play a zillion songs.
That’s kind of what this is -- we have four chords, and you can mix
and match them in many ways.
BF: There’s certainly more freedom than live -action, where
maybe you have two chords.
TK: With live-action, you may just have two locations, like
the kitchen and the fake outdoors. With animation, if you can draw
it, it can happen. "Spongebob" is pretty limitless because of that.
Some episodes are just Spongebob, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs hanging
around The Krusty Krab like a workplace comedy, and then some of
them are these big epic quests like the Spongebob: Out of
Water movie.
BF: [to me] Do you ever teach The Time
Machine?
YH: Yes, I do.
BF: If you remember the morlocks, that’s who I consider TV
writers to be like. They’re toiling away in the bowels of the
Earth. They never get to see the sun, they’re just cranking away,
trying to keep the show afloat.
- Sarah Osman, YH Staff