NYCC: SpongeBob SquarePants Cast Reveals Their Favorite Merch, Sheds Light on Show’s Success

A hundred percent … no, no. We just didn’t know. First we didn’t know if it’d be picked up. You don’t know what’s going to happen.  You feel so lucky when you’re doing anything related to this business if you get to do something that you enjoy. You’re so lucky to do it, and you appreciate that … No sane person assumes it will be recognized as being good. So many things have to happen.

Even on the show, on the writing and the boarding end, we didn’t really know. We kept thinking, this is probably it (the first season), so we even talked about maybe for the last episode, something drastic should happen in Bikini Bottom, have something apocalyptic happen. But then we said no, no, the network’s probably going to push back on that, anyway. So, we kept it open. You’re always thinking it’ll be over soon.

Yeah, I would say that the characters in that first short resonated with us and everybody that we showed it to, even before it aired. You know, when you would show it to the people in your family, “Hey, there’s this new thing I’m working on, it’s gonna start airing,” and they would go “Wow, this has really got something!” People responded to it. So, I wasn’t really surprised when people responded to the characters and this thing that Steve [Hillenburg, creator of the show] made, but obviously the fact that that affection has continued for such a protracted length of time — that’s the anomalous thing that just doesn’t happen in show business … Like the emotional connection I saw that from the beginning, like “Wow, that’s cool. People really like this!” But the longevity is the mind-blowing part.

To go 25 years and engulf the world … Literally, I do drawings (of the characters) all the time. In Shanghai, I handed a kid a drawing and thought, he’s not gonna know what this is. And he went running off screaming something-Bao, something-Bao, which I found out in China they call it “Sponge Baby” and “bao” is baby. I don’t remember what the word “sponge” is in China, but then 20 kids came running out of the room and I sat there drawing SpongeBobs for the next hour for kids that I didn’t think would even know SpongeBob.

I always thought it was similar to The Beatles, being a right thing for a right time. No other cartoons were these kind of throwbacks to The Looney Tunes, of limited shorts instead of a half-hour (episode). And with the silliness and using animation the way I think cartoon animation should be done, like getting hit with a frying pan and turning into the shape of the frying pan. We did that. It was almost a throwback, but it was also a new generation of that type of cartoon. It was just right for the right time.

To paraphrase Rodger, he’s saying that we’re bigger than The Beatles. I know that kind of thinking got John Lennon in trouble back in the day, but we’re bigger than The Beatles.

He (Kenny) knows me so well. *Everyone laughs*

I know, I know! I get this all the time. We all do comic cons. Young people, young adults, come up to us and say: “Thank you for our childhood.” We are multi-generational, as much as three (generations) sometimes! And that’s one of the things that keeps us going is that people have such nostalgia and affection for this little show that chaperoned them through very important parts of their lives. And now they can look back on it. Just as we looked back on Looney Tunes and such and Ren and Stimpy.

And are now watching it with their kids.

Yeah, and turning a new generation on to it.

I have a thought! I also think it’s the simplicity of the humor, right? Because it’s universal and it’s ageless.

And it’s ageless because on our end, on the writing end, we’re still bringing our lives to the writing. We still do everything. In keeping it fresh is really just not going stale. It’s new life stories.

Yeah, [Mr. Lawrence] just wrote a script about Plankton joining AARP. *Everyone laughs*

 I can’t tell you how many parents have thanked me to make stuff that they can sit next to their kid and watch without wanting to jump out of a window.

 In terms of how the characters have evolved, one thing I think people like about cartoon characters and really comedic characters, you don’t want them to change. The fact that they haven’t evolved at all is the strength. You know what I mean? You don’t want Charlie Brown to be any different than he ever was or SpongeBob or Squidward. They are who they are. And I think comedy gives you that freedom. The archetypes are what people like. So why mess with it? Nobody’s demanding it. Occasionally there might be corporate demands of like, “Hey, how about the Tasmanian Devil wears rapper clothes” or whatever. But it’s like, that’s the great thing about comedy: nobody’s going, “I’m watching the Three Stooges and I really want Curly to evolve.” Nobody’s looking for a big character arc like it’s The Bear or something, like, wow, what’s going to happen to SpongeBob in the next season? What’s his character arc going to be? SpongeBob is SpongeBob. Yogi Bear is always Yogi Bear. Donald Duck is always going to get mad at stuff. And I think that goes into the comfort food aspect that people have is that it doesn’t change.

At the end of every episode, it’s a reset. The only difference is that, I mean, because life experiences, you do end up seeing lots more layers.

 A lot of us started out as sort of one-note characters. And then as the show went on, we had to explore different scenarios in our episodes, and we had to spread our wings to expand our acting presentation of these characters. We still have the core character, but now, Squidward is now more Rodger Bumpass’s acting because I’ve been called upon to do so many different types of scenes now. So we all expanded our characters. So there was an evolution, actually.

*In the voice of Sandy Cheeks*  Twenty-five years and nobody knew Sandy could fly. So, you know, things happen. We’re learning!

SpongeBob may become multifaceted, but Tom Kenny is still the one-note human being that he’s been.

The toilet training kit is my favorite piece. And yes, I’ve almost mastered it, so I take public restrooms now. 

We’re all very proud of you, Rodger.

Rodger has, like, up to probably 85%  of being able to hit it, right?

He’s a big boy!

Someone I knew went on a trip in the South Pacific and brought back a gift that they found in some weird little beach shop, which was reminiscent of the first movie because it was an actual sea star dried out with two googly eyes on it and painted shorts and stuck to one point. It was a cutout yellow sponge with two googly eyes stuck to it and it’s still… It’s on my Christmas tree every year. 

Well, the first one that really weirded me out was the nipple piercing rings that appeared pretty fairly early on. I was like, ‘wow, that’s crazy.’ And then the next one was like a bowling ball where it was like a SpongeBob bowling ball and it just struck me how weird SpongeBob looks round. SpongeBob as a ball doesn’t totally work at all, but one thing, you know, Steve Hillenburg and us, too, we always got an extra charge out of the knockoffs. The bootleg merch, you know, that’s the first thing on the side of the road. I don’t know if you ever saw these. This was in Barcelona a number of years ago, and I wish I had bought more of them. They would do these little statues of various pop culture and topical figures from the news in history, defecating, dropping their drawers and defecating, and the poo was always like Spider-Man: he had like, webs in it. And then there was a SpongeBob one, you know, yellow. I don’t have that much SpongeBob stuff in my house, but that has a place of honor in my office. I look at defecating SpongeBob every day. 

If you ever want to get rid of it … I’m the guy.

My favorite stuff is the stuff I’ve gotten and I keep on display is fan handmade stuff. So I’ve had hand-stuffed dolls that were hand-stitched of Plankton. And I have a particularly great one that Jill Talley found in New York. The guy was selling on the street, which was a knit cap Plankton with the big eye *points to the middle of his forehead* and the antenna; it’s really funny.

Every year we have a white elephant gift exchange and the gifts that are always the most coveted are the ones that crew members make themselves, like little hand-felted characters or paintings of the characters. Everybody wants that stuff. There’s always like a three-trade limit, and so those ones get stolen over and over again. 

 All my wife says is: “All I hear coming from your room is laughter.” It’s like, I know, and they pay me to do this! But it’s just been a marvelous trip.

Yeah, I mean, I never thought that I would have a job where my superpower is daydreaming, to be able to just think of crazy, weird stuff. And then give it to the pipeline and then watch it go through the pipeline, and at each stage we see it like grow and get better until the final episodes come out. And … it’s a joy. 

Life is long. And it doesn’t have to happen  immediately. I actually didn’t come onto the show until I was, like, in my late ’30s. So, you know, if you just stick at it, stick with the thing that you want to do; it’ll probably eventually happen. I notice a lot of young people want to just jump forward and be landed in the spot. 

And that’s not always how it happens. The one rule I’d say is: Be kind to everybody you meet — because you never know. Marc came on via [Mr. Lawrence] for them to work together on outside projects. And then he realized this dude’s funny. We almost hired Mark on Ren and Stimpy, but we got fired before we could. 

We were talking a lot today about a lot of things, and it dawned on me, for those kids out there and young people who are in school, especially maybe public schools, where it doesn’t quite work for them, or things don’t make sense to them — that doesn’t mean that your life is not going to work. Especially creative people who learn differently; there’s a place for you in the arts. So don’t let whatever situation you’re in bring you down, because we’re all the perfect example. My high school counselor told me I would never have any success if I didn’t get vocal lessons, because my voice, no one would take me seriously. So don’t listen to those people who are telling you you can’t do it. 

Everybody’s so different. You have to follow your dream. I mean, that sounds like a cliché, but you really do. It’s not going to ruin your life if you don’t, but you’ll always think, what if? What if I had done that? What could have happened?

Also, taking that courage could lead you to whatever you’re going to eventually do, even if it wasn’t what you thought you were going to be doing.

The only failure is not trying.

Well, you’ve got to play the long game. A lot of us were kind of late starters, late bloomers, but I would say that all of us probably very early on had an idea that we wanted to do something creative for a living, we just didn’t quite know what it would be or how to achieve it. So, obviously having a passion and being interested in something early on is great, but like Vince was saying, sometimes the path is so elliptical that it takes a lot of years and you can feel like you’re not doing good at it. You can feel like you’re failing. “Maybe I just suck. Maybe, am I just delusional and I’m not good at this and people are too nice to tell me that I’m not good at it?” Like, you start thinking like that because you don’t have any track record to give you solace. So, until you start building up that portfolio or IMDb, whatever you want to call it, you sort of just have to play the long game and just trust yourself and seek out like-minded people to collaborate with and help you out. And be aware when you meet them.  Yeah, like be nice to everybody. Like Vince said, that person you can’t stand and is a big jerk is very likely to become a network executive that will hold your fate in their hands.

 I got my first job in animation because the guy who was running the show, the real Ghostbusters, Will Mineo, knew my name and work from comic books and he really wanted to work in comic books and that’s the only reason that he even recognized my name and gave me a first break.

That’s how following your passion is; you have to give yourself a chance. And there’s no high tribunal sitting out there going: “We pick you.” You just have to give yourself a chance and move forward as best you can.

It’s an instrument of delight.

*gestures to Bill* In this man’s hands it is!

We actually made Patrick come on stage with a jar of mayonnaise. We followed up on that gag. 

 To Marc, it’s an instrument of evil.

Do not put mayonnaise on anything for this man, unless you want to see him do a backflip away from the table. 

I would say that any condiment used correctly can be a musical instrument.

Depends on your armpits. *Everyone laughs*