[cheering]

The gang is all here today, so let's just get them all out here.

I'm David Canfield with Entertainment Weekly,

I'm going to start bringing people out here,

first, co- executive producer and head writer, Mark Ceccarelli,

[applause]

Other co- executive producer and head writer, Vincent Waller.

[applause]

SpongeBob Square Pants, Tom Kenny.

[applause]

Patrick Star, Bill Fagerbakke.

[applause]

- Come on Bill, come on baby right there! - Right there.

Right there, I'm sitting' right here.

Right there, yeah.

- Woo! - Woo, yeah!

Squidward, Roger Bumpass.

[applause]

Roger Bumpass!

Get out of my front yard.

Sandy Cheeks, Carolyn Lawrence.

[applause]

Yee haw, y'all!

- What an outfit. - Full on spacesuit,

you are bringing it, girl.

Mr. Krabs, Clancy Brown.

[applause]

[laughing]

Clancy!

Wow.

And last but certainly not least, Plankton, Mr. Lawrence.

[applause]

Oh, yeah!

We've never seen his face!

Wow, if you unmask a luchador,

he loses all honor if you take his mask off.

It's like Lucha Libre.

That has to go back to the Smithsonian this afternoon, sorry.

Welcome, everybody, how you guys feeling?

20 years, just picked up for another season.

[cheering]

The rent is paid.

And nobody really showed up for you, but that's OK.

Let's talk about this special.

It's a live action animation hybrid.

You get to 20 years, what was that decision process like

to be like, this is what we need to do for SpongeBob's 20th birthday?

It was about time for the characters to meet themselves.

[laughing]

Yeah, we needed a big stunt for this.

And we felt that seeing them up on land in their little water- mobile,

being able to see all the even weirder world of the surface world

that's even weirder than bikini bottom.

Yeah because previously on the show, in the series,

whenever they would come up above water, it was done so ghetto, right

where they would get all the Popsicle sticks and a real sponge.

Little stuffed squirrel.

You guys were on a little bigger budget this time, slightly.

Well that was also part of the trick, having to find a way

to get them on land when it didn't switch to that.

So we had to keep them wet

and therefore the aquarium design, wherever that is...

Oh, the bus, the water bus on wheels.

I love it.

Well, to go a little deeper into the production process for us,

what was it like to film and how did you guys

play the characters both in the animated and live action,

did it change your performances at all?

Oh, the only difference is, I mean, the job is kind of the same.

You're just trying to be a cartoon character

and make it as real as possible.

Like make it make sense.

But the thing that I hadn't done-- The thing I love about voice acting

is that it doesn't matter what your body's doing or how you look,

and suddenly you're really aware of your stupid body,

you know what I mean?

What do I do with my hands?

I'm usually just in the booth, going AHHHHH!!!!

This is true, this is true.

Well, what I did in my live action performance.

For 20 years we've been in the studio listening to each other do our parts,

but when I was standing there at the cash machine

and Pat was going, it was... uh.... it was...

[twilight zone theme]

- Yeah. - It was really surreal!

When I walked out on the set and Roger was already behind

the little boat cash register thing,

and he had his hands just like the picture on his T- shirt,

he had his hands on his hips, like that.

Yeah, it was kind of meta, I almost passed out.

I was the squid.

I'm afraid I became a very bad actor,

I couldn't concentrate at all.

Kenny, you've always been a bad actor, don't put yourself down.

It's nothing unusual.

I kept thinking... there's Roger? What's Roger doing here?

And why is he talking like Squidward?

Why isn't he Squidward? And then,

Oh my God look at Clancy! He's walking like Mr. Krabs!

That's hilarious, oh, I'm supposed to be talking here or something.

- Now you said what I was gonna say. - I got him.

I forgot I was so short.

[laughter]

I was impressed that Clancy, like Mr. Krabs,

Clancy was able to put the waistline of his pants up here.

Doesn't that hurt?

He's a soprano now.

I kept flubbing lines because Clancy was right in front of me

and Roger right in front of me the whole time,

and I just started watching them.

I'm like, wow, it's Clancy Brown doing Mr. Krabs.

I'm staring at him, oh, oh, it's me now, I have to act

That's the best line flub excuse I've ever heard.

That really was, yeah.

- He never memorized his lines. - I'm not a movie star.

You are now.

Carolyn you still have your suit on from the special?

Yes, I asked wardrobe when we shot that day,

I said please, please, please, please can I have it

so I can wear it to Comic Con? Please, please, please!

They wouldn't even give me an apron from the 99 cent store!

It's fun.

That's an acorn right there.

That was my idea, when they brought it up I said she's missing her acorn.

Nutsa!

And she usually wears a flower in her hair just like that.

Yes, she does.

I had to buy that one online on the Nickelodeon store website.

Really you should try to wear something else every now and then, Carolyn.

You don't have to wear it every day.

What did it feel like to put on those costumes for the first time

and really inhabit them in a totally new way?

I'd like to go back and do it again, I have new ideas now that we've seen it.

I was like, oh, I should have done that with her, and Oh!

What if we-- Yeah, so I don't know. Maybe we could it again.

I realized I probably don't need any green shorts.

[laughter]

Well, I think it's sort of in the SpongeBob tradition

of really pushing the boundaries, trying different forms.

Did you guys feel like making this, that it was a natural extension

of what you've been doing for the past 20 years now?

It was just another example of what our writers create.

Every episode there's some rich mine

for us to go in and go after.

there was give us a lot of--

like a pretty fun pool to swim around in every Wednesday

when we record the shows,

there's always something you can sink your teeth into

and get stupid with, you know.

This one had more layers than usual.

And then, you know, the Hasselhoff celebrity cameo.

I had not really seen Hasselhoff since the first movie in 2001

and he hugged me really tight.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

OK, David, OK, OK, let me out!

Did you guys have a favorite other celebrity cameo from this one?

- Oh, yeah. - Gilbert Gottfried.

Our hero.

Yes, happy birthday, SpongeBob!

- And how did he get that hat to do that? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

What other celebrities were in it?

- John Goodman. - Kel.

- Kel? - Oh Kel, yeah.

Come on, Good burger, where the Good Burger fans at?

- Yeah. - Super funny.

And there were times during that shoot

that I was looking at the monitor

and I was like, are they speeding him up?

And I looked and said, oh, my God, he's actually able to move that fast!

None of that was sped up, the whole dancing thing he was doing was insane.

I don't know if you guys saw the show, but they were just throwing

vats of baked beans onto underpaid extras.

- And it was cold right? - It was kind of a cold day, too.

It was a very cold day, when you see Tom jump in that ocean,

which, by the way, was his idea, Tom Wilson,

Biff from Back to the Future, of course.

He did that on his own, and it was cold where we were,

and it was colder in the Pacific Ocean, And when he came back up,

oh my God, what a trooper.

I think he's still blue.

Other than freezing water, what was the hardest thing to figure out

about getting this special together?

Well, we kind of did it backwards.

The way you usually do live action and animation

is you usually shoot your live action first and then

you use those as background plates to put your animated characters in.

We sort of storyboarded the whole thing out

and then because of our production schedule,

we had to animate all the animation first,

and then we had to make the live actors kind of fit into the animation.

But it worked out surprisingly well.

Our digital guy that works on SpongeBob,

that he's still alive is amazing because he was having to keep track of

all these shots, comparing storyboards with the direction and everything.

And there was nothing to look at other than, okay,

sort of in here, but it worked.

Those freaking Penguins and Mary Poppins made it look so easy.

How did they do it?

[laughing]

Were you guys worried that it wouldn't work?

Absolutely, always.

We were worried that everything we do might not work.

- Did it work? - Yeah, I guess it did.

I think it did.

- We're nothing without abject fear. - Oh, yeah, yes.

Insecurity is what drives all of us.

For the actors, what was your first reaction when you heard the idea?

Oh, brilliant, fantastic, I can't wait.

- Yeah. - Yeah, we're good to go.

It's funny, voiceover wise, I mean,

it was the same job as ever, you just go in there

and you do what you do and we clown around

and just try to make each other laugh.

The live action stuff was a little more bizarre,

like we were talking about it, but when I first heard about it,

I said yeah, wow, it's got patchy and it's got live action

and it's got people covered in baked beans

and SpongeBob and his friends driving around in a crazy car.

What's not to like?

Did you find it was a little harder in live action to do six arms?

I got in touch with my inner Indian goddess, Shiva.

Yeah. I got all Shiva with it.

What about for the rest of you?

I think we should have a live action series.

[laughter]

- Yeah. - It'd be fun.

It certainly was fun.

And we had everybody, right? We had Lori, who played Pearl.

- That's right. - Going into the fish store--

- Lori Allen? - Yeah, Lori Allen.

And Vince was coming out with the aquarium there,

and opening the door for Lori.

- Joe Tally's in there. - Yeah, Joe.

- Karen. - Yeah, Karen the computer was in there.

Shout out for Karen.

She's in an office, right, when the sprinklers go off.

- He's coming! - Yeah, yeah.

Well I believe we have a little behind the scenes video of the making...

- Woah! - I haven't seen this yet!

Awesome.

It's so dark.