SpongeBob SquarePants Stars Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke on the Endurance of SpongeBob & Patrick

Spongebob and Patrick have been best friends for twenty-five years, as Spongebob Squarepants remains arguably the biggest series running on Nickelodeon. So popular did the franchise become, that even Patrick got a spin-off series in The Patrick Star Show. Later this year, a feature-length animated film will arrive on Netflix focusing on Sandy Cheeks, as the streaming service also has a movie featuring the villainous Plankton front and center. We here at ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke, the voices of Spongebob and Patrick, and discussed the longevity of the animated friends.

To start the interview, Kenny discussed the comedic pairing of Spongebob and Patrick, noting that the Bikini Bottom residents were aspiring to be synonymous with the likes of Laurel and Hardy, “The secret to the endurance of the characters is who they are as characters and how they interact with one another as characters. Individually, Spongebob and Patrick are cool but when you put them together, then you get a comedy team happening in the classic sense like Laurel and Hardy. That’s what we aspired to emulate anyway.”

Spongebob x Patrick: Bikini Bottom’s Best Buds

Bill Fagerbakke added to the series that highlights the friendship between the Krusty Krab fry cook and the unemployed starfish, “The blueprint and idea for the show that Stephen Hillenburg laid out for years as a marine biologist and lover of animation and an animator, how that happened. Then he cast these people like Clancy Brown, Mary Jo Catlett, Roger Bumpus, Carolyn Lawrence, and Mr. Lawrence. It just all happened and we got lucky.”

While Spongebob Squarepants has run for decades, the cast doesn’t look to be slowing down any time soon. Earlier this year, Kenny and Fagerbakke provided commentary for the Super Bowl and are planning to be a part of a special panel at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. 

The 2024 Kids’ Choice Awards, hosted by SpongeBob SquarePants (voiced by Tom Kenny) and Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke) live from Bikini Bottom, will air Saturday, July 13, at 8 p.m. (ET/PT) on Nickelodeon. Fans in the U.S. can now cast their votes across 33 categories on the official Kids’ Choice Awards website: KidsChoiceAwards.com.

Want to dive further into the world of Spongebob Squarepants? Follow along with ComicBook for all the latest updates on Bikini Bottom and its surreal inhabitants.