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The optimistic sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea has made a huge impact on the lives of everyone who brought him to animated life in SpongeBob SquarePants 25 years ago. But perhaps nobody’s career has been more defined and affected by the show’s huge success than Tom Kenny, the brilliant man who has voiced SpongeBob on the show, the movies and all its many incarnations. Kenny, who has won two Daytime Emmy Awards and two Annies — and also voices various other characters on the show (including Gary the Snail, the live-action Patchy the Pirate and SpongeBob’s dad, Harold) — says he feels a mix of puzzlement and gratitude when he thinks about the longevity and rewards of his amazing job.
“We could not have foreseen this when we first started doing the show,” the always-charming and hilarious Kenny tell us during a recent Zoom interview. “It’s wonderful to see that SpongeBob is still resonating with people who first experienced it in their formative years,” he says. “Now they’re in their 30s, and they tell us that show taught them a lot in terms of dealing with the world. We weren’t thinking about that when we’re doing a stupid knockabout comedy and just having fun. But the show has kind of deeper purpose and meaning, too.”
Tom Kenny: I met Stephen years before SpongeBob on Rocko’s Modern Life: He was the creative director on that show, and I was the voice of the steer who hung out with Rocko the wallaby. Steve and I just instantly liked each other and bonded. He’d come and see me do stand-up comedy. When he came up with the idea for SpongeBob, he thought of me first and he cast me without even an audition, which is quite unusual. Then, he went on to cast the rest of main characters. Somehow, he convinced the network to go with me. They were perhaps advocating to cast a famous star as the lead, but he just shut that down, and they went with me.
Steve and I were close, and we’d hang out socially. We’d catch music together, and he was such a well-rounded guy. I didn’t surf or paint like he did, but the Venn diagram of our interests intersected in enough areas. One of the interesting things about those early days of the show, every time we would record with the cast, Steve would come over to our side of the glass and sit with the actors. He was always in the trenches with us. When he passed away from ALS, it was a real tragedy and came totally out of left field. We miss him every day and try to think about him and still think of doing the characters the way he would approve. He was a very wonderful, intuitive, gentle person and a very strong creator who knew what he wanted and would advocate for that to the powers that be when necessary. I learned so much from him, and it was Steve who made me the voice director of the show. I told him I’ve never done that before, but he said you can handle it. He was always pushing himself and everybody around him. I’m so grateful that I knew him and so disappointed that he had to leave this realm so early.
What are some of your favorite memories of the past 25 years?
There are a lot of memories, but really it’s all about just being these characters. That has remained the same, whether we were doing the show using cel animation or using digital or CG animation or voicing the characters using motion-capture technology, like we did at the Super Bowl and we’ll do again at the Kids’ Choice Awards this year. The characters are still the same. That’s the beauty of animation: Familiarity does not breed contempt. I’m friends with Bob Odenkirk, and he says when you look at Better Call Saul, it’s all about the character arc and how he got to be where he is. For SpongeBob, we don’t want these characters to be anything other than what they are and [have] always been. We don’t need to add Cajun spice or lemon-flavored SpongeBob and Patrick. We don’t have reboots or re-imaginings. We’re not chasing trends, and there are people who find that comforting.
What we couldn’t have foreseen in 1999 was that a six-year-old who was watching the show would grow up, get married and have kids, and now they’re watching the show with their kids and significant others. I feel so lucky that SpongeBob has taken me to all these places, and I stumbled into this perfect job for me that fits my personality and weirdness.
Favorites Episodes: My favorite episodes of the show tend to be the early ones, because I used to watch the show with my kids, who are now 21 and 26. It always feels a bit weird to watch yourself because you don’t want to be this Johnny Egomaniac! But with the kids, they’d be watching TV and I’d walk into the room and watch the episodes. When I did live-action work before, I hated to watch myself afterward because I would want to do some reverse engineering and do things differently perhaps.
Some of the episodes that ended up being my favorites: I love the “Band Geeks” episode (Season 2, Episode 15B) because that’s one of the only times Squidward gets a happy ending. Another one is “Sailor Mouth” (Season 2, Episode 18A), where SpongeBob and Patrick learn a naughty word and go around using it and freaking out the adults in their lives. Then, the “Sweet Victory” song got us to the Super Bowl twice. I also love the “Chocolate With Nuts” episode where SpongeBob and Patrick are door-to-door chocolate salesmen. My favorite episodes haven’t changed since the beginning, but l think that the writers, the animators and the cast are all doing really good work on current episodes. I don’t have grandkids yet — Bill [Fagerbakke], who voices Patrick, just had his first grandkid, so I’m guessing that kid will probably be watching SpongeBob in four years!
On the Show’s Legacy: It’s so wonderful to have new kids discovering the show every day and merging onto this great SpongeBob freeway! When I go to comic cons, sometimes I meet four generations of people who are fans of the show. I hear from people that tell me that SpongeBob helped form their sense of humor. Then, they made friends who laughed at the same kind of stuff they did, or they met their significant other because they both liked the show.
As a character, SpongeBob has always been about just being who you are and not giving a fig about what the outside world thinks about you. I think that’s a very helpful message for people to glean from the show at any stage of their lives, which is, “Who cares? You be you and let your freak flag fly!” I’m proud of that legacy, because we need more positive thoughts like that in our world. We all know with social media, it’s so much harder to cope with mean-spiritedness around us. And we thought things were tough in 1999! Little did we know that the race to the bottom would be so precipitous. So, I’m just happy to provide that space for people to just laugh at stupid, silly, goofy stuff and share it with others. Thank goodness that Steve created this show and put his fingerprints on something that is still around and inspires us years after he left us.
SpongeBob SquarePants celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and has been renewed for a 15th season. You can hear Tom Kenny as the eponymous porous hero in the series on Nickelodeon and streaming on Paramount+ and additional platforms, as well as in the upcoming feature film Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, premiering on Netflix on August 2. You can also relive tons of iconic moments from the show on the official YouTube channel.
