Voice actors
Further information: List of SpongeBob SquarePants cast members and List of SpongeBob SquarePants guest stars
SpongeBob SquarePants employs the voice acting talents of Tom Kenny (top) and Clancy Brown (bottom), among others.
The recurring characters of Karen, Mrs. Puff, Pearl and the Flying Dutchman are voiced by Kenny's wife Jill Talley,[46] Mary Jo Catlett,[47] Lori Alan[48] and Brian Doyle-Murray,[49] respectively.[50] Mr. Krabs' mother, Mama Krabs, who debuted in the episode "Sailor Mouth," was voiced by writer Paul Tibbitt.[51][52][53] However, voice actress Sirena Irwin overtook Tibbitt's role as the character reappeared in the fourth season episode "Enemy In-Law" in 2005.[54] Tom Kenny portrays Patchy the Pirate, the president of the fictional SpongeBob SquarePants fan club, while series creator Hillenburg voiced the character of Potty the Parrot.[55] After Hillenburg's departure as showrunner in 2004, Tibbitt was given the role in voicing Potty the Parrot.[56]
In addition to the regular cast, episodes feature guest voices from many ranges of professions, including actors, athletes, authors, musicians, and artists. Recurring guest voices include Ernest Borgnine, who voiced Mermaid Man from 1999 until his death in 2012;[57] Tim Conway as the voice of Barnacle Boy;[58] and Marion Ross as Grandma SquarePants.[59] Notable guests who have provided vocal cameo appearances includes David Bowie as Lord Royal Highness in the television film Atlantis SquarePantis,[60][61] Johnny Depp as the voice of the surf guru, Jack Kahuna Laguna, in the episode "SpongeBob vs. The Big One,"[62] and Victoria Beckham as the voice of Queen Amphitrite in the episode "The Clash of Triton".[63][64]
Voice recording sessions always include a full cast of actors, which Kenny describes as "getting more unusual".[65] Kenny said, "That's another thing that's given SpongeBob its special feel. Everybody's in the same room, doing it old radio-show style. It's how the stuff we like was recorded".[65] Show writer Jay Lender said, "The recording sessions were always fun ..."[66] For the first three seasons, Hillenburg and Drymon sat in on the record studio, and they directed the actors.[67] In the fourth season, Andrea Romano took over the role as the voice director.[67] Wednesday is recording day, the same schedule followed by the crew since 1999.[67] Casting supervisor Jennie Monica Hammond said, "I loved Wednesdays".[67]
Animation
Throughout the series' run, SpongeBob SquarePants has been produced domestically at the Nickelodeon Animation Studios in Burbank, California, and animated overseas at Rough Draft Studios in South Korea.[25][68] Approximately 50 people work together in animating and producing a SpongeBob episode.[30] According to Luke Brookshier, the series' storyboard director, "SpongeBob is structured differently than most cartoons".[30] Basically, the crew at the studio in California storyboard the episode and the crew in Korea will use it.[25] The crew in Rough Draft Studios animate it by hand, color its cels in the computer, paint backgrounds and send it back to the crews in the Nickelodeon Animation Studio for them to edit, and apply the music soundtrack.[30] Characters' designs are updated or modified every season to solve technical issues in animation.[69]During the first season, SpongeBob SquarePants was animated using cel animation.[27] The show shifted to digital ink and paint animation during its second season in 2000.[27] In 2009, executive producer Paul Tibbitt said "The first season of SpongeBob was done the old-fashioned way on cells, and every cell had to be part-painted, left to dry, paint some other colours. It's still a time-consuming aspect of the process now, but the digital way of doing things means it doesn't take long to correct".[27]
In 2008, the crew shifted to using Wacom Cintiqs for the drawings instead of pencils.[18] The fifth season episode "Pest of the West" was the first episode in the series to which the crew applied this method.[18] Series background designer Kenny Pittenger said, "The only real difference between the way we draw now and the way we drew then is that we abandoned pencil and paper during the fifth season".[18] The crew began the shift while they were working on the episode. Pittenger said, "It was while we were working on 'Pest of the West', one of the half-hour specials, that we made the switch … did you notice?"[18] The shift to Wacom Cintiqs let the designers and animators draw on computer screens and make immediate changes or undo mistakes. Pittenger said, "Many neo-Luddites—er … I mean, many of my cohorts—don't like working on them, but I find them useful. There's no substitute for the immediacy of drawing on a piece of paper, of course, but digital nautical nonsense is still pretty fun".[18]
In 2012, Nickelodeon produced and debuted the eighth season episode "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!". The episode was the first full-length episode in the series that was produced in stop motion animation.[70][71] Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh, and Christopher Finnegan of Screen Novelties animated it, and Caballero and Walsh also served as its directors.[72] Production on the episode began in October 2011 in Los Angeles.[73] According to Finnegan, it took about five months to shoot, with a couple of months on either end for research and development and post.[74] In 2009, Screen Novelties also animated the series' 10th anniversary special stop motion opening titles.[72]
Music
| "[The music has gone] from mostly sea shanties and Hawaiian music à la Roy Smeck meets Pee-wee Herman—still the main style for the show—in the early episodes, but it now includes film noir, West Side Story to [Henry] Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith and [Steven] Spielberg. There's Broadway-type scores and plain old goofy, loopy, weird stuff. I try to push the envelope on this show without getting in the way of the story, and I try to push it up and way over the top when I can get away with it, all the time keeping it as funny and ridiculous as possible. |
| —Music editor Nicolas Carr[75] |
The series' music editor and main composer is Nicolas Carr.[75] Carr uses the Associated Production Music Library for most of the background music to give the show its "Ren and Stimpy/Rocko over-the-top style".[75][80] Hillenburg wanted to approach the music for SpongeBob the same way he had on Rocko.[75] He was "also very interested" in building a music library for the show, to build a SpongeBob music library that could be re-edited and reused in the various episodes.[75] Correspondingly, The Sponge Divers Orchestra was formed.[75] Carr said that the show has "a wide variety of styles to draw from".[75]
Alternative rock bands such as Wilco, The Shins, The Flaming Lips, and Ween, as well as metal bands Pantera, and Motörhead, have made appearances on the show and its soundtracks.[77][81]
Tenth anniversary
In 2009, Nickelodeon began celebrating the 10th anniversary of the show with Square Roots: The Story of SpongeBob SquarePants, a documentary special by filmmaker Patrick Creadon, that discusses the history of the show and the ascent of the "absorbing character's journey to pop culture stardom".[82][83][84] "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long," said series creator Hillenburg. "I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it".[85] In an interview, Tom Kenny said, "What I'm most proud of is that kids still really like it and care about it ... They eagerly await new episodes. People who were young children when it started 10 years ago are still watching it and digging it and think it's funny. That's the loving cup for me".[86]Nickelodeon broadcast a 50½-hour television marathon titled "The Ultimate SpongeBob SpongeBash Weekend". The marathon featured the 10 most memorable episodes as picked by its viewers on Nick.com. The night capped off with the television encore of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie at 8 PM.[87] On July 19, 10 new episodes, including the special episode "To SquarePants or Not to SquarePants," premiered.[88][89] On September 22, 2009, Paramount Home Entertainment released a 2,200 minute, 14-disc DVD set titled The First 100 Episodes.[90][91][92] A second television film, titled Truth or Square, debuted on Nickelodeon on November 6, 2009.[93][94] Several celebrities made live action cameo appearances on the film, including Rosario Dawson, LeBron James, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Craig Ferguson, Robin Williams and P!nk, while Ricky Gervais provided opening and closing narration for the special.[95][96]
Broadcast
Episodes
Main article: List of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes
| Season | Episodes / (segments) | Originally aired | DVD release date | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Season premiere | Season finale | Region 1 | Region 2 | Region 4 | |||
| 1 | 20 / (41) | May 1, 1999 | April 8, 2000 | October 28, 2003[97] | November 7, 2005[98] | November 30, 2006[99] | |
| 2 | 20 / (39) | October 26, 2000 | July 26, 2003 | October 19, 2004[100] | October 23, 2006[101] | November 30, 2006[102] | |
| 3 | 20 / (37) | October 5, 2001 | October 11, 2004 | September 27, 2005[103] | December 3, 2007[104] | November 8, 2007[105] | |
| 4 | 20 / (38) | May 6, 2005 | July 24, 2007 | September 12, 2006[106] | November 3, 2008[107] | November 7, 2008[108] | |
| January 9, 2007[109] | |||||||
| 5 | 20 / (41) | February 19, 2007 | July 19, 2009 | September 4, 2007[110] | November 16, 2009[111] | December 3, 2009[112] | |
| November 18, 2008[113] | |||||||
| 6 | 26 / (47) | March 3, 2008 | July 5, 2010 | December 8, 2009[114] | November 29, 2010[115] | December 2, 2010[116] | |
| December 7, 2010[117][118] | |||||||
| 7 | 26 / (50) | July 19, 2009 | June 11, 2011 | December 6, 2011[119] | September 17, 2012[120] | September 12, 2012[121] | |
| 8 | 26 / (47) | March 26, 2011 | December 6, 2012 | March 12, 2013[122] | October 28, 2013[123] | October 30, 2013[124] | |
| 9 | 26 | July 21, 2012 | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | |
| 10[125] | TBA | 2014[125] | TBA | TBA | TBA | TBA | |
International
The series airs on Nickelodeon in Australia and New Zealand,[126] Canada,[127] India,[128] and the United Kingdom and Ireland.[129] It airs on TG4 in Ireland,[130] YTV and Teletoon in Canada[131] and on Eleven in Australia.[132]Characters
Main article: List of SpongeBob SquarePants characters
Other recurring characters appear alongside SpongeBob. These include SpongeBob's driving teacher Mrs. Puff, Mr. Krabs' daughter Pearl, Plankton's computer wife Karen, and SpongeBob and Patrick's favorite superheroes, Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy.
Setting
When the crew began production on the pilot, they were tasked with designing the stock locations where "... the show would return to again and again, and in which most of the action would take place, such as the Krusty Krab and SpongeBob's pineapple house".[143] Hillenburg had a "clear vision" of what he wanted the show to look like. The idea was "to keep everything nautical," so the crew used a lot of rope, wooden planks, ships' wheels, netting, anchors, boilerplates and rivets.[143]
The show features the "sky flowers" as a main setting material.[143] They first appeared in the pilot and have since become a common feature throughout the series.[143] When series background designer Kenny Pittenger was asked what they were, he answered, "They function as clouds in a way, but since the show takes place underwater, they aren't really clouds".[143] Since the show was influenced by tiki, the background painters have to use a lot of pattern.[143] Pittenger said, "So really, the sky flowers are mostly a whimsical design element that Steve [Hillenburg] came up with to evoke the look of a flower-print Hawaiian shirt—or something like that. I don't know what they are either".[143]
Reception
Ratings and run-length achievements
By 2001, the show had flourished into Nickelodeon's No. 2 children's program, after Rugrats. Nearly 40 percent of the show's audience of 2.2 million were aged 18 to 34.[144] As a result, Nickelodeon expanded the show's exposure on television from Saturday morning to almost-prime time, broadcasting at 6 PM, Monday through Thursday.[144] In 2001, Nickelodeon took the "Saturday-morning ratings crown" for the fourth straight season, grabbing a 4.8 rating/21 share (1.9 million viewers) in kids 2-11, jumping 17% compared to the previous year.[145] During its third season, SpongeBob SquarePants passed Rugrats and earned the title of the highest-rated children's show on cable, with a 6.7 rating and 2.2 million kids 2 to 11 in the second quarter of 2002, up 22% over 2001.[144][146][147] Forbes called the show "a $1 billion honeypot," and said that the show was "almost single-handedly responsible for making Viacom's Nickelodeon the most-watched cable channel during the day and the second most popular during prime time".[144] It was also reported that, of the 50 million viewers who watch it every month, 20 million are adults.[148][149]In October 2002, another Nickelodeon show titled The Fairly OddParents ranked as the No. 2 program for children between 2 and 11 years old.[150] Its ratings at that time have been almost equal to SpongeBob, which had an average of 2.2 million viewers per episode.[150] It even briefly surpassed SpongeBob, putting it into second place, registering a 6.2 rating and nearly 2.5 million child viewers, while SpongeBob had a 6.0 rating and 2.4 million kids 2-11.[151] Nickelodeon "recognized" the OddParents for its climbing ratings and installed it into a new time slot, previously occupied by SpongeBob, at 8 PM.[150] In an interview, Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami said, "Are we banking on the fact that Fairly OddParents will be the next SpongeBob? ... We are hoping. But SpongeBob is so unique, it's hard to say if it will ever be repeated".[150]
SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the longest-running shows on Nickelodeon.[152] During the eighth season, the show became the Nickelodeon series with the most episodes, surpassing the 172 episodes of Rugrats with 178.[153] In its ninth season, a total of 26 episodes are in order, which would push the series over the 200th episode mark.[154][155][156] In a statement, Brown Johnson, animation president for Nickelodeon, said, "SpongeBob's success in reaching over 200 episodes is a testament to creator Stephen Hillenburg's vision, comedic sensibility and his dynamic, lovable characters. The series now joins the club of contemporary classic Nicktoons that have hit this benchmark, so we're incredibly proud".[157][158]
Critical reception
SpongeBob SquarePants received generally positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal towards different age groups. James Poniewozik of Time magazine considered the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to match–conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him".[159] According to Laura Fries of Variety magazine, the show is "a thoughtful and inventive cartoon about a hopelessly optimistic and resilient sea sponge ... Devoid of the double entendres rife in today's animated TV shows, this is purely kid's stuff ... However, that's not to say that SpongeBob is simplistic or even juvenile. It's charming and whimsical, but clever enough to appeal to teens and college-aged kids, as well".[160] The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said SpongeBob "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. And it's also good, clean fun, which makes sense because it is, after all, about a sponge". Millman wrote, "His relentless good cheer would be irritating if he weren't so darned lovable and his world so excellently strange ... Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet".[161]Robert Thompson, a professor of communications and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, told The New York Times, "There is something kind of unique about [SpongeBob]. It seems to be a refreshing breath from the pre-irony era. There's no sense of the elbow-in-rib, tongue-in-cheek aesthetic that so permeates the rest of American culture–including kids' shows like the Rugrats. I think what's subversive about it is it's so incredibly naive–deliberately. Because there's nothing in it that's trying to be hip or cool or anything else, hipness can be grafted onto it".[162] In a 2007 interview, Barack Obama named SpongeBob his favorite character, and admitted that SpongeBob SquarePants was "the show I watch with my daughters".[163][164][165] British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also said he watches the show with his children.[24]
Awards and accolades
SpongeBob SquarePants has received many awards and nominations from several award bodies since its debut in 1999. It has been nominated for 15 Emmy Awards, and won Outstanding Special Class Animated Program in 2010.[166] The show received 17 Annie Awards nominations, out of which it has won six times,[167][168][169][170][171][172] as well as four BAFTA Children's Awards, out of which it has won twice. Since 2004, IGN's regional website in the UK placed SpongeBob SquarePants 15th in its top 100 animated series of all time list.[173] In 2006, IGN ranked the show at the same spot on its list of "Top 25 Animated Series of All Time".[174] In a 2013 list, the website ranked SpongeBob SquarePants 12th in "The Top 25 Animated Series for Adults".[175]The show is among the "All-TIME 100 TV Shows" as chosen by Time television critic James Poniewozik. He said, "It's the most funny, surreal, inventive example of the explosion in creative kids' (and adult) entertainment that Nick, Cartoon Network and their ilk made possible".[176] Viewers of the UK television channel Channel 4 have voted SpongeBob SquarePants at No. 28 in its 2005's The 100 Greatest Cartoons.[177] TV Guide listed the character of SpongeBob SquarePants at No. 9 for its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time".[178] In 2013, the publication ranked SpongeBob SquarePants the eighth "Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time".[179] In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named SpongeBob one of the "100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years".[180] However, not all critical reception for the character has been positive. AskMen's "Top 10 Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters" ranked SpongeBob at No. 4 saying that his well-meaning attitude is extremely annoying.[181]
Legacy
In July 2009, Madame Tussauds wax museum in New York launched a wax sculpture of SpongeBob in celebration of the series' 10th anniversary.[182][183] SpongeBob is the first fictional character to be featured in Tussauds.[184][185] In May 2011, a new species of mushroom, Spongiforma squarepantsii, was described, named after the series' title character.[186]The character has also became a trend in Egypt at Cairo's Tahrir Square.[187] After the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, SpongeBob became a fashion phenomenon, appearing on various items of merchandise from hijabs to boxer shorts.[188][189] The phenomenon led to the creation of the Tumblr project called "SpongeBob on the Nile". The project was founded by American students Andrew Leber and Elisabeth Jaquette, and attempts to document every appearance of SpongeBob in Egypt.[190] Sherief Elkeshta cited the phenomenon in an essay about the incoherent state of politics in Egypt in an independent monthly paper titled Midan Masr. He wrote, "Why isn't he [SpongeBob] at least holding a Molotov cocktail? Or raising a fist?"[191] The phenomenon has even spread to Libya, where a Libyan rebel in SpongeBob dress was photographed celebrating the revolution.[192]
In 2013, a clip featuring soldiers in Russia marching as they sing the SpongeBob theme was posted on YouTube.[193] According to English Russia, "One of the most popular marching songs in Russian army is SpongeBob SquarePants theme".[193][194] The video of the soldiers singing the theme was posted online on February 14, 2013.[193] The video garnered 50,000 hits in the first week.[195]
Criticism and controversy
Dobson later stated that his comments were taken out of context, and that his original complaints were not with SpongeBob, the video, or any of the characters in the video, but rather with the organization that sponsored the video, We Are Family Foundation. Dobson indicated that the We Are Family Foundation posted pro-homosexual material on their website, but later removed it.[201] After the controversy, John H. Thomas, the United Church of Christ's general minister and president, said they would welcome SpongeBob into their ministry. He said, "Jesus didn't turn people away. Neither do we".[202]
Jeffrey P. Dennis, author of the journal article "The Same Thing We Do Every Night: Signifying Same-Sex Desire in Television Cartoons," argued that SpongeBob and Sandy are not romantically in love, while adding that he believed that SpongeBob and Patrick "are paired with arguably erotic intensity".[203] Martin Goodman of Animation World Magazine described Dennis' comments regarding SpongeBob and Patrick as "interesting".[204] In August 2012, the Ukrainian National Expert Commission for Protecting Public Morality attempted to ban the show for "promotion of homosexuality".[205][206] The Teletubbies, Family Guy, Pokémon, and The Simpsons are among other programs accused of promoting the "destruction of the family".[207]
In April 2009, in a tie-in partnership with Burger King and Nickelodeon, Burger King released an advertisement featuring SpongeBob and Sir Mix-a-Lot singing "Baby Got Back".[208] The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood protested the ad for being sexist and inappropriately sexual, especially considering that SpongeBob's fan base includes preschoolers.[209][210][211] In an official statement released by Burger King, they claimed that "this campaign is aimed at parents".[212]
| “ | The children who watched the cartoon were operating at half the capacity compared to other children. | ” |
|
—Angeline S. Lillard, University of Virginia[213]
|
||
Criticism of declining quality and 2012 ratings slide
While the 2004 film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, was generally well received by fans of the show, it is also considered a turning point in the show's history, as many of said fans believe the television series has declined in quality since the film's release.[218] While episodes aired before the film were praised for their "uncanny brilliance",[219] ones aired after the film have been variously categorized as "kid-pandering attention-waster[s]",[220] "tedious",[221] "boring" and "dreck",[222] a "depressing plateau of mediocrity",[223] and "laugh-skimpy".[224] Following the film's release, fans "began to turn away from the show," causing online fansites to "bec[ome] deserted".[218] Some believe the show's ratings decline as of 2012 correlates with the alleged decline in quality, and "whatever fan support [the show] enjoys is not enough" to save it from its ratings slide.[218]In 2012, it was reported that the series' ratings were declining.[225][226] The average number of viewers aged 2 to 11 watching SpongeBob at any given time dropped 29% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Nielsen.[218] Wall Street Journal business writer John Jannarone suggested that the age of the series and oversaturation of the show might be contributing to the decline of the series' ratings, and might also be directly responsible for the decline in Nickelodeon's overall ratings.[227] Media analyst Todd Juenger directly attributes the decline in Nickelodeon's ratings to the availability of streaming video content on services like Netflix, a provider of on-demand Internet streaming media.[228]
Philippe Dauman, the president and CEO of Viacom, contradicted the notion, saying he did not think "the limited amount of Nick library content on Netflix ... has had a significant impact".[229][230] A Nickelodeon spokesman said SpongeBob is performing consistently well and remains the number one rated animated series in all of children's television.[227] He added, "There is nothing that we have seen that points to SpongeBob as a problem".[227] Dauman blamed the drop on "some ratings systemic issues" at Nielsen, citing extensive set-top-box data that "does in no way reflect" the Nielsen data.[231]
Juenger noted that SpongeBob could affect the ratings of other Nickelodeon programming because children often change channels to find their favorites program, then stay tuned into that network.[227] Nickelodeon recently reduced its exposure in television. In the first quarter of 2012, the network cut back on the number of episodes it aired by 16% compared with a year earlier.[227]
On April 22, 2013, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced their intentions not to renew their existing deal with Viacom.[232] Since then, Viacom's deal with Netflix expired, and shows such as SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer were removed.[233] On June 4, 2013, Viacom announced a multi-year licensing agreement which would move its programs, such as SpongeBob and Dora the Explorer, to Amazon.com, Netflix's top competitor.[234][235] Amazon agreed to pay more than $200 million to Viacom for the license, its largest subscription streaming transaction ever.[236][237]
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق