Tom Kenny, the one-and-only voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, visited the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee during Geek Week to speak with students about his career, characters and life as the ultimate geek.
Kenny is known for being the voice of various characters, including but not limited to Ice King from “Adventure Time,” Dog from “CatDog,” Mayor and Narrator in “The Powerpuff Girls” and Heffer Wolfe in “Rocko’s Modern Life.” Not to mention, Kenny has had several live-action roles as well.
“Obviously, when you’re a voice actor, the more voices you can do, the more you’re going to work,” Kenny said. “Versatility is key.”
Before the moderated discussion, there was an exclusive conversation between UWM students and Kenny called Meals with Meaning, which is sponsored by Student Involvement and Student Leadership Programs.
UWM professor Eric Lohman moderated the discussion, which featured questions being asked by students. He shared his own experience in the classroom with the character SpongeBob SquarePants.
“I have a lot of my students turning in assignments and talking about SpongeBob. Historically, this has been very common for me, for them to relate to me and to the world through SpongeBob and to each other,” Lohman said.
Dr. Lohman is a teaching professor in the Journalism, Advertising and Media Studies program at UWM, where he teaches courses at the intersection of identity, media, technology and capitalism.
“We saw some of them [Kenny’s voice actor roles] in the video, but our purpose tonight is to learn about the man behind the voices, and the voice of SpongeBob especially,” Lohman said.
Throughout the night, Kenny answered questions with great poise and humor, while often bouncing off track, which he blamed on his ADHD.
“ADHD makes a welcome appearance at Tom’s interview,” Kenny said, referring to himself in the third person.
Kenny would maneuver between his regular voice and the voice of one of his characters with great ease. Each time he brought out a voice, the audience would erupt in applause.
The Wisconsin Room stage before Tom Kenny is introduced featuring a cardboard cutout of SpongeBob SquarePants. Credit: Cael Byrne 
The audience awaits the arrival of Tom Kenny. Credit: Mitch Utlaut 
Tom Kenny makes an unexpected entrance ecstatically running through the crowd and giving students high-fives. Credit: Mitch Utlaut 
Tom Kenny finally arrives to the stage after surprising Eric Lohman with an unscripted entrance. Credit: Mitch Utlaut
SpongeBob SquarePants
“SpongeBob is one of the very few things that I did not have to audition for,” Kenny said. “Stephen Hillenburg just created that character and knew me and said, ‘you’re SpongeBob.’ I don’t need to listen to anybody else. You’re him.”
SpongeBob was the big topic of the night, and Kenny spoke about the character with great fondness.
“[SpongeBob] and I have spent so much time together. I feel like we share a brain, and sometimes I feel like I’m his imaginary friend, you know? And it’s like, ‘yeah, this guy, Tom Kenny, he’s not real,’” Kenny said.
The voice of SpongeBob has no resentment with the character, unlike some actors who get annoyed that they are stuck with a recognizable character for which they are only ever identified.
“I know people who don’t have a good relationship with the character that they’re most identified with. That would suck. It would be terrible to be trapped in this bad marriage with somebody that you can’t leave.”
The legendary voice actor has since become the voice director of SpongeBob SquarePants, along with voicing several characters on the show.
“I did an episode in my hotel room here in Milwaukee today,” Kenny said. “I recorded an episode in my condo in Chicago yesterday. And then on Monday, a day or two before that, I recorded an episode in my house in Los Angeles. So, SpongeBob is four days a week for me, and then everything else kind of gets shoehorned in.”
The first time Kenny heard the voice of SpongeBob in his head was when Stephen Hillenburg showed him a drawing of the character, who was named SpongeBoy at the time, at Hillenburg’s apartment.
In this same meeting, Kenny saw the show bible, which featured all the other characters of Bikini Bottom, and he would learn that Hillenburg planned to pitch it to Nickelodeon.
“I said, ‘Steve, not only am I interested, but if this turns into a show and I turn on the TV and I’m not doing the voice, I’m going to cry. I’m going to burst into tears. I love this so much and I get it,’” Kenny said.
Tom Kenny Talks Life, Industry & Career
In high school, Kenny started doing stand-up comedy at local clubs after being inspired by sketch comedy.
“Because when I was in high school,” Kenny said. “My friends and I had our minds blown away. There was this new show called Saturday Night Live.”
After being introduced to SNL, Kenny and his friends started a sketch comedy group and went to a hometown bar to offer a live 90-minute show every week. Somehow, they managed to book themselves for a weekly show while still being teenagers in high school.
“And this is not good college career advice, but total honesty, full disclosure, I really stopped caring about high school then,” Kenny said. “I got to do this thing [school] during the day, but then at night I’m out in nightclubs. I’m hanging out with cute wait staff. I’m writing stuff on a piece of paper, and people are saying it out loud, and other people are laughing. I’m like, ‘geometry: boring’ And so, it was kind of amazing.”
Kenny even got granular in the discussion by explaining much of the voice acting industry and his own process. One topic that came up was the stunt casting of recognizable Hollywood stars.
“I would say one of the challenges of voice acting is celebrity actors,” Kenny said. “Movie stars, where they’re like, ‘oh yeah, sorry, that guy from that giant movie got that, sorry. It came down to you, and Ryan Gosling and Gosling got it.’” Kenny then sarcastically joked, “Oh darn, I didn’t see that coming.”
Afterwards, Kenny would clarify that he’s never been up against Ryan Gosling and just picked him as a random movie star.
“I don’t get as bitter about this as some voice actors, but some voice actors get really bitter about celebrity stunt casting,” Kenny said. “They’re like, ‘he just sounds like himself.’”
In conversation with Dr. Lohman, Kenny talked about the implications of artificial intelligence in the voice acting industry.
“Obviously, I don’t need to tell you guys about the weird, crazy times we live in, and the whole earth is shifting under our feet in every conceivable way,” Kenny said. “There’s not a voice actor or an animator that I know, including 63-year-old me or my 28-year-old son, that’s not going, oh shit, AI.”
Kenny continued, “It’s coming for us, and you try to be hopeful. And I know the delivery system may change, but they’re always going to need ideas, and they’re always going to need stories, right?”
In Tom Kenny fashion, he would make some jokes about science fiction and the fictional Skynet by saying, “Once a machine learns to do something that used to be done by a human, it isn’t good for the humans. I’ve seen ‘The Terminator.’”
Perhaps the most contentious moment of the night came when an audience member asked the big question: Is mayonnaise an instrument?
“I think mayonnaise is an instrument, but don’t try to play Miracle Whip. That doesn’t sound good. Only real mayonnaise. Only 100% mayonnaise,” Kenny said.
Other takeaways from the night:
- Kenny can’t choose which he prefers to play, between Simon and Ice King. He has fun with Ice King’s lack of understanding of social cues and Simon’s relationship with Marceline.
- Kenny’s favorite sketch from “Mr. Show with Bob and David” is a sketch about the founding fathers and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Kenny randomly chose to do a Brooklyn accent for Abraham Lincoln, and this got a ton of laughter from the cast.
- The SpongeBob SquarePants episode Band Geeks where Squidward is trying to teach the band, is Kenny’s favorite scene with Squidward and his voice actor, Rodger Bumpass.
- Mark Hamill came up in conversation, and Kenny spoke about the great friendship he has with the legendary “Star Wars” actor and fellow voice actor.
- Kenny was most surprised to be asked about his involvement in a Smashing Pumpkins music video from the 1990s.