How the Most Beloved SpongeBob SquarePants Characters Were Created

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The world of SpongeBob SquarePants—a pop culture behemoth that’s still going strong even after 25 years—isn’t just notable for its titular star or his best buddy, Patrick. It’s not just Sandy Cheeks and Mr. Eugene Krabs; a whole host of vibrant supporting characters liven up Bikini Bottom. If you looked back, you’d never believe just how popular these characters would remain to this day, even though some have only appeared for an episode or two or just had a recurring bit in the margins. Anything from DoodleBob—a cartoon drawing of SpongeBob that gains sentience and likes to shout “Me Hoy Minoy!” repeatedly—to a drill sergeant who throws school kids through a door for speaking unprompted, has had a lasting legacy. There’s even a character who’s celebrated for simply shouting, “MY LEG!”

“Fred, the ‘My Leg’ guy, started as a quick little joke in the background audio of the show,” says Mr. Lawrence, who is also the voice of Plankton and the head writer for SpongeBob. 

“It is crazy because it’s something that people ask me to yell all the time wherever I am, especially at the Comic-Con stuff and other personal appearance stuff we do. They just want me to scream it. That’s all they need, and they’ll be all, ‘Yep, that’s enough, dude. I got it.’”

SpongeBob SquarePants thrives as not just a vehicle for the Spongy lad but for an entire universe of indelible characters and moments. 

“It’s sort of like being in a Broadway play where you get to play a character for 25 years, and you’re always playing that guy, and they keep writing new things for this play,” Lawrence says. “It’s sort of like a play that never ends.” 

Fascinatingly, the play’s popularity isn’t just about the main cast. While SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, and Sandy are big draws, the show has also created niche avenues for the bit players to shine.

The voice cast of the show—many of whom have been with it since the very early days—may have some ideas on why that is. Dee Bradley Baker, who provides the vocals for several background characters, including Bubble Bass and Squilliam Fancyson, points out that animation gives you an “unlimited latitude with how to take the story and how to portray it.”

“With SpongeBob, the writing is very important, but a lot of that writing is visual writing… It’s a visual composition of what’s playing and ideas and references that make a joke that don’t necessarily have a verbal aspect to them whatsoever,” Baker explains. “It’s purely visceral; it’s purely emotional; it’s not confined to the physical world.”

The zaniness of cartoons has been chronicled many times, but there’s still often a cornucopia of interesting ideas lying beneath the surface. You can’t make the same condescending mistake—whether intentionally or not—that has often been made about animated shows and movies.

“It plays to the cheap seats, and it’s unique because of that,” says Baker. “At first glance, it may seem simplistic or blunt or silly, but if you look at it, it’s very sophisticated and plays to a lot of different age levels and is also very free and very brave,” says Baker.

SpongeBob has plenty of variety to be found within its many escapades over the years, with everything from Squidward’s brief soiree with a town of folks that live exactly like him to the gang learning about life insurance. It drags you in with some story of SpongeBob and Patrick going out jellyfishing and then, all of a sudden, becomes a commentary on friendship and what makes people happy. 

All of this culminates in fully-fledged characters who are about as recognizable as any others in entertainment. Why? Because they are relatable. 

“I feel like SpongeBob is kind of this microcosm; we all know the characters in real life,” says Jill Talley, the voice of Karen, Plankton’s computer personal assistant and friend. “I don’t know one person who watches the show that doesn’t do that thing where you go, ‘Oh my god, so-and-so is such a Squidward’ or ‘You’re so Mr. Krabs.’ There are people in all of our lives who mirror those characters.”

With so many characters—the main ensemble, the supporting, celebrity guest appearances (for example, a fish fellow named “Don Grouper” played by Jon Hamm), and the tiniest splashes like “Hoopla!”—the series has the ability to capture every type of person. And few do it better and more expansively than the incredibly bizarre, wholesome, and flat-out hilarious coterie of sea-dwellers from Bikini Bottom. The sheer number of characters created shocks the cast, too—like Lori Alan, the voice of Mr. Krabs’ affable daughter Pearl, when the show had the late Betty White for the episode, “Mall Girl Pearl.”

“What an honor. I wasn’t even in the same room with her, but just to know that I had two degrees of separation… is a pinch me again moment,” says Alan. “Pearl got an episode at the mall working at the Old Lady’s store, and then what’s so sweet is that Betty White’s character (Beatrice) sort of shoos her off into the real world.” 

That level of world-building, where everyone has that one character they like or even one particular scene they always remember for some reason, doesn’t come easy. You need the talent, yes, but you also need the talent to have freedom. “You don’t have corporate people or people who are trying to make something that’s a replication of something that’s a replication of something else,” Baker says. “And now, even more so with the dawning of AI is that, with SpongeBob, you have human beings who are telling very human stories, and they’ve allowed the creative wackjobs to be running the boat.”

You can’t nail down the success of SpongeBob to just any one thing, but if there is an element that the cast has in common, it’s chemistry. They each light up like a Christmas tree when asked about their castmates. You can sense the genuine support they’ve had for each other over such a long stretch of time. They share all the memes, have gone to all the reunions, and they have created a genuine family outside of the soundbooth. Much of which originates from, and can be attributed to, the late Stephen Hillenburg, the man who created SpongeBob.

“I mean, the secret sauce is Steve; he was the guy, the only guy in the kitchen, and made the secret sauce before he showed it to anybody,” SpongeBob actor Tom Kenny says.

But even more than the literal makings of the show, Hillenburg helped foster a lovingly creative and accepting environment—one that wasn’t like the other jobs out there. Mary Jo Catlett, who voices Mrs. Puff, says she’s had work before where some sort of prima donna would take her best lines for their character instead. Such a thing doesn’t happen with SpongeBob, and Kenny helps to carry on the legacy by encouraging a collaborative, all-encompassing community on the show.

“I was getting on a plane, and I was behind this little girl and asked her for something, then said thank you,” says Catlett. “And her eyes went really wide, and she said, ‘Are you Mrs. Puff?’ It was great. It’s wonderful to be recognized, and when people say, ‘I knew when I heard that voice. I knew. I knew I had heard that voice before…’ It makes me feel very good.”

From all walks of life, SpongeBob seems to be universal. You’ll find many fine people, both young and old, continue to make references to a specific gag or moment. But while fans have a strong relationship with the show, the main cast experiences it in their own way, too: a space to commune with one another. “We check on each other. We’ve been through a lot,” says Alan, who gets noticeably excited after being asked about the cast while gleefully showing off her Patrick Star lamp as an aside. “We’ve been through kids growing up and parents passing and other big career accomplishments.” 

Their knowledge and history together don’t just make the show better but specifically make doing the show better, too. “Sometimes, if you feel like you’re not bringing it or you’re messing up a line, you can get nervous, but you’re in front of friends, and you know you are. So that’s a big help,” says Talley. Creating and maintaining the world of SpongeBob SquarePants—or any other artistic endeavor, especially of this scale—is never easy. But for the many hard-working people behind it, from the cast to Nickelodeon and beyond, it never got better than when they could work together.

“I think that we are more about trying to make people laugh, and hopefully that came through,” says Mr. Lawrence. 

After 25 years and counting, some might say it did. It absolutely did.