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On the SpongeBob Squarepants DVD "Nautical Nonsense/Spongebuddies,"
there is a special feature called "Backstage Pants." When you turn it
on and resume watching, a little SpongeBob icon appears in the lower
right corner of your screen (30 times, as a matter of fact) at random
intervals, at which time you may press Enter, and switch to a short
clip featuring a cast or crew member talking about the show.
I thought it would be fun to make literal transcriptions of all the
clips and present them to those interested readers who have neither the
time nor the inclination to sit with rapt attention through each
episode with remote in hand. Each numbered entry includes the featured
cast/crew member's name(s) and the time the icon appears.
It should be noted that, when appearing together, Steve Hillenburg is
wearing an eyepatch, beard, and captain's cap, and Derek Drymon has a
pirate's hat on.
Opening Credits
1. [0:03] Steve Hillenburg
This is a guy known as Painty the Pirate. Those are my lips, but I don't sing the song; that's Pat Pinney.
2. [0:38] Derek Drymon
Steve's
idea was to try to make the most annoying song you can, to—so when
Saturday morning, when kids turn the TV on and parents are are trying
to sleep, you have this pirate screaming in the other room for the kids
to jump on the floor.
Ripped Pants
3. [8:06] Tom Kenny
I
think one of my favorite episodes is uh, "Ripped Pants", the one where
SpongeBob rips his pants by mistake and gets a laugh out of it, and
then overplays his hand by doing it one too many times, and people get
bored with it, and he realizes that jokes have a lifespan. And I think
that's something that happened to me a lot as a kid, where you would
accidentally hit on something that was really funny and you would just
do it over and over and over again, and when people stopped laughing,
it was kind of like a slap in the face, it kinda hurt, and then you had
to go out and find something else stupid to uh, get attention and
laughs from your fellow classmates.
4. [9:09] Tom Kenny
People often ask if SpongeBob wears the exact same pair of underwear in
each and every episode and I would have to say... mostly yes. Uhh, you
know, he buys three a year—they come in a little cellophane-wrapped
three-pack with the little cardboard card in the back, and uh, that's
it! That's it for the year. First of every year he goes out and buys
his three pairs of underwear for that year, and... that's it! He
doesn't buy any new ones. In this world, you are either a boxer man or
a tighty-whiteys man.
SB-129
5. [1:38] Rodger Bumpass and Tom Kenny
RB: (Holding a Squidward figurine)
I don't hate SpongeBob ah, at all. You know, he—he complains, he
grouses, but deep down he has a respect and a like for uh, for
SpongeBob. Every so often he'll hurt SpongeBob's feelings and he goes,
oh my goodness! I-I-I-I gotta go make uh, you know, amends to him, you
know, so he—he's got a good heart; he just covers it with his, uh,
curmudgeon shell.
TK: (In character, offstage) I knew it!
RB: (In character, pointing thumb across stage, sputtering) SpongeBob.
TK: You do care!
RB: No, I don't! I do not! That was just uh, a cover—I don't. (Silently): I do.
6. [8:51] Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke
TK and BF are performing the scene where the prehistoric SpongeBob and
Patrick bellow and growl in response to Sqidward's clarinet playing.
Texas
7. [6:39] Carolyn Lawrence and Bill Fagerbakke
CL: She's spunky. I think she rocks. She does everything. It's great to see, you know, a girl who's got it all goin' on.
BF: She's a squirrel to be reckoned with.
CL: She really is.
Graveyard Shift
8. [4:50] Steve Hillenburg
This
is what a natural dried up, uh, sponge looks like. So you can see it's
a
lot different than SpongeBob, uhh, but as far as sponges go, they are
really
bizarre and interesting. They, umm—one of the things that I had heard
about while teaching was that they've done experiments where they put a
sponge—a living sponge—in-in a blender and they blend it up, uhh,
into a soup, and if you leave it overnight it will reform back into
itself. Uhh,
so they're very strange animals and uhh, in fact—they are animals, by
the
way—some people think they're plants, but they're not, uhh, and so just
the idea of uh, the main character being about such a bizarre animal,
uh, I thought it was funny.
9. [10:52] Jay Lender
Once
upon a time when SpongeBob was running around the restaurant trying out
all
of the different things he could do at night, we had a different gag,
where he
runs over to the floor—he rips up a section of the floorboard and says,
"I'm delivering the mail to Floorboard Harry!..."- and there's a little
guy
under the floorboard, who reaches up and grabs the mail and pulls it
in—'Thanks!'—at night!" And then he slams the board down and
originally this was going to be the end of the show—umm, we used
Nosferatu in the end, but once upon a time Floorboard Harry was going
to be the guy who was flicking the lightswitch, but we found out uh,
that Nosferatu was funny.
10. [11:12] Jay Lender
Who—who
is Nosferatu? Actually, Nosferatu is not even his name—I
think it's Count Orlok, and he was in a very old movie—an early version
of
"Dracula," which was made a very long time ago and everyone who's ever
seen the
pictures from this movie remembers them; they're really, really scary.
Then we figured we could use that but we can't call him "Count Orlok"
because no one knows that's what his name is; they only know the name
of the movie, which is "Nosferatu." Hence Nosferatu.
Something Smells
11. [0.15] Tom Kenny
It's
interesting—SpongeBob's bed is made up of three mattresses—uh-
piled up one on top of the other, and people often ask if this is
because he has
a bad back, or a back problem. The answer of course is he has no
back—he's an invertebrate; he's completely spineless. So I think it's
just uh, just a personal choice that SpongeBob makes.
12. [1:14] Tom Kenny
The
great thing about having a snail for a pet: very low maintenance. Uhh,
they
don't require much. They uh, they don't chase cars or run outside in
the street
when you have the door open, because they can't. They just—they just
don't have the ability. Uhh, you leave a bowl of food on the floor and
your snail is good for two or three years.
13. [1:46] Bill Fagerbakke and Carolyn Lawrence
BF: If you ever come across a little festering pond with
different algaes and things breaking down and fermenting- that would be
the base...
CL: Uh-huh.
BF: and then you'd have these little pockets of hideous odors exploding
that would uh, just be uh—I think probably organic in nature but, but something to be avoided at, at all costs.
CL:Mm-hmm.
14. [3:09] Tom Kenny
I would have to say that the closest thing that I've smelled to it is, uhh, when
I was living in an apartment, uh, in San Francisco a few years ago and uh, we
had some very strange neighbors and occasionally you would just get hit
with—with this—smell. And uh, nobody ever did find out who they were or what they were doing. (Sotto voce): Maybe it was the hash-slinging slasher! (Screams).
15. [3:57] Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke
TK and BF perform the following scene fragment:
TK: (Cackles four times) Good one, Patrick.
BF: Well, maybe it's just because you're ugly.
TK: Ugly!? You gotta be kiddin' me!
BF: Better try the reflection test.
TK: Hiiiiiiii... Oh no! I can't be! I can't be ugly! I can't be ugly. I can't be ugly.
16. [7:54] Mr. Lawrence
You couldn't describe accurately... the stench... How disgusting.
I don't th—I mean—ahh, we'd have to talk later, so I can describe it to you. It's that bad.
17. [10:34] Steve Hillenburg and Derek Drymon
DD: That smell was bad enought to rot away the walls, you know, so it's pretty corrosive. (Laughs) Even that wouldn't stop the smell. (Points to SH, who is wearing his eyepatch on his nose)
SH: Yeah, it was a pretty bad... smell. Y'know, undersea things uhh...
DD: Smell travels faster.
SH:
...have an acute—a lot of animals undersea are—have a very acute sense
of smell, so I imagine it was especially bad for those guys.
Jellyfishing
18. [2:47] Tom Kenny
SpongeBob
definitely thinks that Squidward is—is his friend. SpongeBob
thinks that next to Patrick, Squidward is his best friend. SpongeBob is
so...
positive and so up all the time that he has no idea, it would never
even enter
into his mind, that anyone could dislike anyone else, let alone that
Squidward
could dislike him—SpongeBob—y'know. SpongeBob—SpongeBob is unconscious
of the fact that he drives Squidward insane, 'cause nothing drives
SpongeBob insane.
19. [3:11] Rodger Bumpass
His laugh is-is-is—kind of a signature thing, his nose always kinda just uh, accordians a little bit and he goes (laughing like Squidward): I just crack myself up!
20. [7:14] Tom Kenny
When
SpongeBob catches the uh, jellyfish, he—and this is something that
you should never try with an actual jellyfish in an actual beach
setting—he milks them of their jelly which he then spreads on bread and
eats. Uh, this is all fact, and uh, based in truth. And science.
21. [7:24] Steve Hillenburg
SH is looking at and playing with paper jellyfish mobiles.
I was thinking that SpongeBob needed a sport even though he's kind of a dork...
and a nerd. He uh, probably needed some kind of activity that he really liked
and I thought about—I guess uhh, how when I was a kid I liked collecting
bugs, which isn't really much of a sport I suppose, but I thought umm, well what
if he collected—uh, uh, jellyfish—kind of like bees—umm,
they're—they sting, they uhh, they can inflict quite a welt you know, and
they also—in the show they produce jelly so they're a lot like bees, in that bees produce honey.
Dying for Pie
22. [3:24] Steve Hillenburg and Derek Drymon
DD: Anything Mr. Krabs can do to get people to work harder is "new age management," I guess, to him. And touchy-feely.
SH: I—yeah, I think—I think the joke in that case was
that umm, you know, he was having them give gifts, and be brotherly, and
you know Mr. Krabs is probably... uh, uninterested in that unless again,
he can make—make money; make—make the employees work harder for less.
23. [11:06] Steve Hillenburg
We don't take atomic explosions [indistinct] literally, uhh we don't take them
lightly, but uhh, they are so severe that they—I think—I guess
they're involved in satire here, that—the... Bikini Bottom is named after
uh, or supposed to be associated with Bikini Atoll in the uh, South Pacific
where, you know, they did extensive atomic testing, so ahh, I'm not sure, but I
think there is a... it—is—there is a relationship there.
Wormy
24. [0:35] Carolyn Lawrence and Bill Fagerbakke
CL:
Well, she's a scientist, and she's ahh, big on adventure so I think she
just went down there to take a look around and, you know, find out all
about the world that she didn't know.
BF: Kinda—kind of a biosphere... experiment? Yeah.
CL: Kinda. Yeah, yeah definitely she's a, you know, a rare woman... Squirrel!
F.U.N.
25. [0.56] Tom Kenny
What is in the Krabby Patty recipe. We get hundreds and thousands of cards and
letters from would-be fast food entrepreneurs that would love to find out that
secret. We, the actors, do know, 'cause in the course of our character
research we do have to—have to actually make Krabby Patties, but when we
took the job uh, Nickelodeon made us sign reams and reams of—of
disclaimers and paperwork saying that if we ever revealed any of the herbs and
spices, or any of the elements of the Krabby Patty formula... phssssht!
(makes chopping motion) There—they will be holding open auditions for your character the following Monday.
26. [2:39] Steve Hillenburg and Derek Drymon
Caption reads: What's in the Krabby Patty?
SH: Well, we can't tell you, otherwise it wouldn't be a secret, right?
DD: Exactly—well guarded.
SH: Yes, even we don't know. I think.
27. [4:15] Mr. Lawrence
Plankton's computer is actually his uhh, computer wife, Karen.
28. [5:29] Sherm Cohen
So, I'm not only the storyboard supervisor, but I wrote the uhh, song
that we
used in the "F.U.N." show. When ahh, we were writing the show—my friend
Aaron and I—Steve gave us the idea to—to do a song, but he didn't give
us very much guidance; he just told us to do something that had the
word "fun" in it. So we started pickin' around with words, and he said
for example, that OK, "F" is for "friends" and "U" is for "you and me"
and that pretty much gave me the start, so we grabbed Steve's ukelele
and uh, just started picking out notes, and a little while later it
came out to be like this.
Plays ukelele and sings:
F is friends who do stuff together
U is for you and me
N is for anything and anytime at all
Down here in the deep blue sea.
F is for frolic through all the flowers
U is for ukelele
N is for nose-picking, sharing gum and sand-licking
Here with my best bud-ee.
Of course it didn't sound like that at the beginning, but after a few hours we wound it into a nice little song.
29. [10:00] Carolyn Lawrence and Bill Fagerbakke
Caption reads: What's in the Krabby Patty?
CL: I don't know, I've been sworn to secrecy. I—I can't go
there. I—I would just—I just wouldn't feel right about it.
BF: Well, all I know is that a lot of little seahorses have been disappearing lately.
CL: Yeah.
BF: That's all I can say about it.
CL: Yeah.
Club SpongeBob
30. [1:21] Steve Hillenburg and Derek Drymon
SH: See, Squidward belongs to some of those music societies, right?
DD: Yeah, he probab—
SH: The clarinet—the undersea clarinet society.
DD: And uh, interpretive dance... club.
SH: Umm, and yeah he's into interpretive dance, and any kind of, you know...
DD: Health food.
SH: ...snobbery, incorporated... uh, he would be into it.
DD: (laughs) A fancy—he has a—he has a...
SH:
Umm, fancy living, he rea—he uh, sub—subscribes to "Fancy Living
Digest"... so anything that SpongeBob's not into, Squidward's probably
into.