This article is a transcript of the SpongeBob SquarePants DVD bonus feature "Backstage Pants." It can be found in the Nautical Nonsense and Sponge Buddies DVD, which was released on March 12, 2002.
- [The special begins with a segment about the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song.]
- 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 trying to sleep, and you have this pirate screaming in the other room for the kids that jump on the floor. [laughs]
- [cut to Stephen Hillenburg with a painting of Painty from the theme song next to him]
- Stephen 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.
- [A segment with Bill Fagerbakke and Carolyn Lawrence discussing Sandy is shown.]
- Carolyn Lawrence: Well, she's a scientist, and she's, uh, big on adventures, 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. Introduction-
- Bill Fagerbakke: Kinda, kind of a biosphere?
- Carolyn Lawrence: Kinda, yeah.
- Bill Fagerbakke: Experiment?
- Carolyn Lawrence: Yeah, definitely. She's a, you know, a rare woman- squirrel.
- [Another segment with Bill Fagerbakke and Carolyn Lawrence discussing Sandy is shown.]
- Carolyn Lawrence: She's spunky. I think she rocks. She does everything; it's great to see, you know, a girl who's got it all going on.
- Bill Fagerbakke: She's a squirrel to be reckoned with.
- Carolyn Lawrence: She really is.
- [A segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- Tom Kenny: I would have to say that the closest thing that I've smelled to it is, uh, 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. Maybe it was the hash-slinging slasher! [screams]
- [Another segment with Tom Kenny is shown, discussing Gary.]
- Tom Kenny: The great thing about having a snail for a pet: very low maintenance. Uh, 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. Uh, you leave a bowl of food on the floor and your snail is good for two or three years.
- [A segment with Derek Drymon, wearing a pirate hat, is shown, discussing the smell from "Something Smells."]
- Derek Drymon: That smell was bad enough to rot away the walls, you know, so it's pretty corrosive. [laughs] Even that [pointing at Stephen Hillenburg, who has an eyepatch on his nose] wouldn't stop the smell.
- Stephen Hillenburg: Yeah, it was a pretty bad smell. You know, undersea things, uh...
- Derek Drymon: Smell travels faster.
- Stephen Hillenburg: ...have an acute- a lot of animals undersea are, have a very acute sense of smell, and uh, so I imagine it was especially bad for those guys.
- [Another segment with Bill Fagerbakke and Carolyn Lawrence is shown.]
- Bill Fagerbakke: If you ever come across a little, festering pond with different algaes and things, breaking down and fermenting, that would be the base...
- Carolyn Lawrence: Uh-huh.
- Bill Fagerbakke: ...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.
- Carolyn Lawrence: Mm-hmm.
- [A segment with Mr. Lawrence is shown.]
- Mr. Lawrence: You couldn't describe accurately... the stench. How... disgusting. I don't- I mean, we'd have to talk later, so I can describe it to you. It's that bad.
- [A segment with Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke is shown, with them performing a scene from "Something Smells."]
- Tom Kenny: [laughs] Good one, Patrick.
- Bill Fagerbakke: Well, maybe it's just because you're ugly.
- Tom Kenny: Ugly?! You gotta be kidding me!
- Bill Fagerbakke: Better try the reflection test.
- Tom Kenny: Hi... oh no! I can't be! I can't be ugly! I can't be ugly! I can't be ugly!
- [Another segment with Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke is shown, with them performing a scene from "SB-129," as they both holler as Primitive Sponge and Primitive Star respectively]
- [A segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- Tom Kenny: I think one of my favorite episodes is "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. I got- 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.
- [A segment with Jay Lender discussing Nosferatu is shown.]
- 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.
- [A segment with Stephen Hillenburg holding a sponge is shown.]
- Stephen Hillenburg: This is what a natural, dried-up, uh, sponge looks like. So, you can see it's a lot different than SpongeBob. Uh, but as far as sponges go, they are really bizarre and interesting; they, uh, one of the things that I heard about while teaching was that they've done experiments where they put a sponge, a living sponge, in a blender and they blend it up, uh, into a soup and if you leave it overnight, it'll reform back into itself. Uh, so they're very strange animals, and uh, in fact, they are animals by the way. Some people think they're plants but they're not. Uh, and so, just the idea of uh, the main character being about such a bizarre animal, uh, I thought was funny.
- [A segment with Jay Lender discussing "Graveyard Shift" is shown.]
- 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 the floor, he rips up a section of floorboard and says, "I'm delivering the mail to Floorboard Harry!," and there's a little guy under the floorboards who reaches up and grabs the mail and pulls it in- "Thanks! At night!"- and 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 light switch, but we found out that, uh, Nosferatu was funnier.
- [Another segment with Bill Fagerbakke and Carolyn Lawrence is shown. A caption reads "What's in the Krabby Patty?"]
- Carolyn Lawrence: 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.
- Bill Fagerbakke: Well, all I know is that a lot of... little seahorses have been disappearing lately.
- Carolyn Lawrence: Yeah.
- Bill Fagerbakke: That's all I can say about it.
- Carolyn Lawrence: Yeah.
- [A segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- 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 here, 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... [pushes his hand back] There, they will be holding open auditions for your character the following Monday.
- [A segment with Stephen Hillenburg and Derek Drymon is shown. A caption reads "What's in the Krabby Patty?"]
- Stephen Hillenburg: Well, we can't tell you, otherwise it wouldn't be a secret, right?
- Derek Drymon: Exactly, well guarded.
- Stephen Hillenburg: Yes. Even we don't know, I think.
- [A segment with Sherm Cohen discussing "F.U.N." is shown.]
- Sherm Cohen: So, I'm not only the storyboard supervisor, but I wrote the, uh, song that we used in the "F.U.N." show. When uh, 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 picking around with words, and he said for example, that okay, "F" is for "friends" and "U" is for "you and me," and that pretty much gave me the start, so we grabbed Steve's ukulele, and uh, just started picking out notes, and a little while later, it came out to be like this. [grabs ukulele and sings] ♪F is for friends who do stuff together, U is for you and me, N is for anywhere and anytime at all, down here in the deep blue sea. F is for frolic through all the flowers, U is for ukulele, N is for nose-picking, sharing gum, and sand-licking here with my best buddy.♪ Of course, it didn't sound like that at the beginning, but after a few hours, we wound it into a nice, little song.
- [A segment with Mr. Lawrence discussing Karen is shown.]
- Mr. Lawrence: Plankton's computer is actually his, uh, computer wife, Karen.
- [Another segment with Stephen Hillenburg and Derek Drymon is shown.]
- Derek Drymon: Anything Mr. Krabs can do to get people to work harder is "new-age management," I guess to him. And touchy-feely.
- Stephen Hillenburg: 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.
- [A segment with Stephen Hillenburg discussing the explosion in "Dying for Pie" is shown.]
- Stephen Hillenburg: You know, we don't take atomic explosions, when literally, uh, we don't take them lightly, but uh, 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 tests, so uh, I'm not sure, but I think there is a... it is, there is a relationship there.
- [Another segment with Stephen Hillenburg and Derek Drymon is shown, with them discussing Squidward.]
- Stephen Hillenburg: See, Squid belongs to some of those music societies, right?
- Derek Drymon: Yeah, he pro-
- Stephen Hillenburg: The clarinet, undersea clarinet society.
- Derek Drymon: And uh, interpretive dance, club.
- Stephen Hillenburg: Umm, and yeah, he's into interpretive dance, and uh, any kind of, you know...
- Derek Drymon: Health food.
- Stephen Hillenburg: Snobbery, incorporated... uh, he would be into it.
- Derek Drymon: [laughs] A fancy- he has a- he has a...
- Stephen Hillenburg: Uh, fancy living, he uh, subscribes to "Fancy Living Digest"... so anything that SpongeBob's not into, Squidward's probably into.
- [A segment with Rodger Bumpass holding a Squidward figurine is shown.]
- Rodger Bumpass: I don't hate SpongeBob, uh, 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 gotta go make uh, you know, amends to him," you know, so he- he's got a good heart; he just, uh, covers it with his, uh curmudgeon shell.
- Tom Kenny: [as SpongeBob, offscreen] I knew it!
- Rodger Bumpass: [points to Tom Kenny] SpongeBob.
- Tom Kenny: You do care!
- Rodger Bumpass: No, I don't! I do not! That was uh, just uh, a cover. I don't. [mouths silently]
- [A segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- 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 of course, is all fact, and uh, based in truth. And science.
- [Another segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- 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 sometimes ask if this is because he has a bad back, or back problems. The answer, of course, is he has no back, he's an invertebrate; completely spineless. So I think it's just uh, just a personal choice that SpongeBob makes.
- [A segment with Rodger Bumpass discussing Squidward's laugh is shown.]
- Rodger Bumpass: His laugh is- is, kind of a signature thing; his nose always kind of just uh, accordions a little bit and he goes, [laughs as Squidward] "I just crack myself up!"
- [A segment featuring Stephen Hillenburg with paper jellyfish decorations is shown.]
- Stephen Hillenburg: 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, uh, 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, jellyfish; kind of like, bees, umm, they're- they sting, they uh, 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, uh, bees produce honey.
- [A segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- 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, you know. SpongeBob- SpongeBob is unconscious of the fact that he drives Squidward insane, 'cause nothing drives SpongeBob insane.
- [Another segment with Tom Kenny is shown.]
- 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. Uh, 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, 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.