Crew Blog

In every society, there are epoch-making events that completely change life as we know it. The invention of the ¼ pounder with cheese. Kevin Garnett being traded to the Boston Celtics. Luke and Laura’s wedding on General Hospital. Truth or Square, the tenth anniversary special of SpongeBob Squarepants, might just be this century’s epoch-making event.

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the show, the brains behind SpongeBob knew something colossal was necessary. The stops needed to be pulled, the pedal needed pushing to the metal and the dogs needed letting out. It had to be clear: this wasn’t going to be your mama’s special!

While I don’t want to ruin the surprise for you, I can tell you that Truth or Square will be much, much, more than your normal SpongeBob episode! Everything you’ve come to love from the last ten years has been jam-packed into this one extravaganza. Comedy, drama, suspense, Plankton getting smushed; its all there. From the time production began on Truth or Square, Executive Producer Paul Tibbitt made it clear that he wanted the episode to be truly out of the ordinary.

One way in which Paul set out to accomplish this goal was to encourage the crew to really get involved in the production process. For instance, with most episodes of SpongeBob, the majority of the crew will not see a new cartoon until it is completely finished, at a screening a few weeks before it airs on Nickelodeon. But, since Truth or Square is such a monumental undertaking, everyone on the crew was invited to a special screening of the animatic (this is when a black and white storyboard is essentially made into a slideshow to watch like a movie) and were actually encouraged to submit any jokes they thought would make the show funnier! More so than any other episode, Truth or Square truly became a collaborative effort amongst the whole crew.

Still, even with everyone on the SpongeBob team working to make the 10th anniversary special the best it could be, the episode was not without its difficulties.

Brave soul Andy Goodman, our Senior Production Assistant who was responsible for keeping track of each and every change made to the storyboard, perhaps most clearly represented the chaos that often accompanied Truth or Square. At his best, Andy looked slightly unshaven and occasionally in need of a comb. At his worst, when working several hours of overtime each night due to numerous rewrites, things were not quite as peachy. To put it mildly, Andy looked as though he had just spent months living alone in the Alaskan wilderness……. and had lost a wrestling match with a polar bear. Luckily, Andy survived his ordeal and only needed seven months of therapy.

Yet, through all the late nights, rewrites and painful paper cuts, an incredibly funny episode of SpongeBob was conceived. If you’ve ever laughed out loud at the show, or if you’ve never even watched the show but are simply curious as to why you see a yellow talking sponge every time you turn on your TV, then you owe it to yourself, and humanity, to watch our 10th anniversary special Truth or Square. It’s going to be great!!