Cultural phenomena aren’t often yellow and seldom absorbent, and almost never live in a pineapple under the sea. In those and many other ways, SpongeBob SquarePants is exceptional.
Since the Nickelodeon animated series bearing his name launched 25 years ago, the cheerful icon has developed a reach as porous as he is. SpongeBob memes are everywhere online. His face adorns countless items of apparel and collectibles. Holland even has a signature SpongeBob tulip. Yet his popularity should come as no surprise: As one of the most widely distributed shows in the history of Paramount Intl., the show is seen in more than 180 markets and has been translated into over 30 languages, soaking up an excess of 100 million viewers — each quarter.
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As a franchise, SpongeBob has expanded to include multiple spinoff series, such as “Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years” and “The Patrick Star Show.” Following the theatrical films “The SpongeBob Square-Pants Movie,” “Sponge Out of Water” and “Sponge on the Run,” this summer Netflix will premiere the character’s fourth feature-length adventure, “Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie.” And it won’t be the last: Nickelodeon announced plans to release “Search for SquarePants” theatrically in 2025.
“There are endless possibilities with SpongeBob,” says Brian Robbins, co-CEO of Paramount Global, and president and CEO of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon. “The franchise continues to grow and expand our business by unveiling new series content, creating brand-new experiences, consumer products and more for kids and families.”
Originally the brainchild of the late Stephen Hillenburg, who majored in marine science and minored in art in college, SpongeBob got his shot at the big time when his creator was encouraged to pitch a show to Nickelodeon after completing work as a director on “Rocko’s Modern Life.” When Hillenburg’s show was greenlit, he brought with him stand-up comedian Tom Kenny, who had worked on “Rocko.” He’d not only provide the voice of the title character but also his pet sea snail, Gary, who meows like a cat. Along the way, Kenny was joined by Bill Fagerbakke, who voices SpongeBob’s best friend Patrick Star; Rodger Bumpass as his sarcastic neighbor Squidward; Clancy Brown as Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob and Squidward’s employer; Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel who relocated from Texas to an air-filled dome in Bikini Bottom; and Mr. Lawrence as Plankton, a struggling restauranteur.
Being cast as SpongeBob “was a huge game changer,” says Kenny, fresh from a convention appearance for the show in Jackson, Miss. “I had done stand-up, writing on shows and some on-camera acting. When the series started, it took me from being this journeyman to having a really popular, well-loved signature character that has become the cornerstone of everything else I do.”
Over his 25-year tenure in the role, Kenny has won two Emmys for outstanding performer in an animated program. His trophies join the heap of awards the show has received for outstanding children’s animated series, individual achievement in animation, storyboard, outstanding achievement in sound editing and outstanding special class animated program.
While Kenny and many of his costars have supplied the voices of their characters since the beginning of the series, dozens of A-listers have made guest appearances — or even turned up in human form — to support “SpongeBob” across its more than 300 episodes. Kristin Wiig voiced the character Madame Hagfish in 2011; in 2020, Keanu Reeves played the character Sage, a talking bush, in “The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run”; and in addition to lending his 1995 song “No Control” to the “The SpongeBob Musical,” David Bowie joined the show’s ensemble to play Lord Royal Highness in the 2007 episode “Atlantis SquarePantis.”
Despite the star wattage of many guest performers, SpongeBob’s stewards studiously try to avoid being on trend or pursuing ideas that might date the show. “Everything since the dawn of Bikini Bottom is made of a bunch of old junk that just fell to the bottom of the ocean,” says co-showrunner and executive producer Marc Ceccarelli. “Because of this, Bikini Bottom was supposed to be isolated, so we try to avoid surface world pop culture references because nobody down there would know, say, the popular musician of each successive generation.”
“We’ve been making the show for 25 years — and that’s several generations of kids,” he observes. “But past episodes are still just as funny, because they’re not weighted down by a bunch of secret knowledge that each generation has.”
In fact, core to SpongeBob’s appeal is the kind of kooky, slapstick-oriented humor you’d find in a fourth-grade class but has been successfully translated across multiple generations and demographics. “The Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, all of those guys started on vaudeville and then transferred that to film,” says Ceccarelli’s co-showrunner and co-executive producer Vincent Waller. “So, we study all those guys and try to soak up what they’re doing, how they sell an emotion to the audience, and then that gets translated into animation.”
“SpongeBob, the way they built him, he just wants to be everybody’s friend,” Waller says. “And then he has all these other characters around him who are just chock full of foibles.”
Ceccarelli indicates that one of the keys to the show’s success as a storytelling platform is its philosophical focus on the mechanics of classic comedy, and of course animation. “Old cartoons we watch did a lot more referential humor,” he observes. “When I was watching old Bugs Bunny cartoons and they would start talking about ration cards, I didn’t understand that as a kid. The majority of the humor in those cartoons comes from physical humor and the characters themselves. We’ve focused on those things.”
Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Animation president Ramsey Naito suggests that SpongeBob’s exuberant, childlike worldview is what resonates most with the series’ legion of superfans. “Anytime you bring up SpongeBob with anyone, the reaction is an incredible smile,” says Naito. “It’s that love, that connection, that joy, that people want to be part of.”
“At the heart of the franchise is a great character that the audience loves and people want to see more of,” she adds. “The combination of this creativity with this soulful character is one of the reasons why SpongeBob remains so loved.”
After 15 seasons, multiple spinoffs and more than half a billion dollars of box office revenue, there are likely myriad reasons to explain why SpongeBob has not only endured but become a cultural institution. Citing the many people who approach him at events to say how SpongeBob’s voice has become a kind of aural comfort food to them, Kenny suggests it’s the consistency — and simplicity — of the character that has drawn audiences in for now a quarter of a century. “The characters never change, and that’s key,” he says. “You have to keep the characters who they are because that’s what brings people back to the show.”
“No one is looking for SpongeBob to have a kind of character arc that you’d see in ‘Better Call Saul.’”
