Modified On November 16, 2004
Spongebob Squarepants freaks, click here for an article in advance of the release of the feature-length Spongebob movie:
Tom Kenny, who supplies SpongeBob’s high, nasal voice, was a standup comic who worked with Hillenburg on the 1993 animal cartoon series “Rocko’s Modern World.” When SpongeBob started in 1999, Hillenburg remembered an obscure character Kenny did years earlier, and envisioned it as the voice of his weird sea hero.
“It was in one episode in a crowd scene,” Kenny recalled. “In the voice-over world we call the sound ‘walla,’ just a crowd of people mumbling and grumbling. Steve remembered I had done this squeaky, helium-voiced elf guy. Just a total throwaway voice.”
Here’s a nice twist to the story: Kenny had to go back and rewatch the episode to see exactly what it was that Hillenburg found so engaging. The moral of the story is that you never know what will lead to fame and/or fortune.
Kenny is riding the wave of publicity surrounding the release. We even caught him and Clancey Brown (voice of Mr. Crabs) on the nationally-syndicated Tony Snow Show on the radio on Friday. During the interview Kenny said that, while he found the initial call to audition for Spongebob intriguing, he never suspected that it would lead to the cultural phenomenon that it is today. (For the record, SHECKYmagazine editor Brian Mckim guessed correctly that Patric the Starfish is voiced by former Coach co-star Bill Faggerbakke, who played the third lead, Boomer.