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Visiting SpongeBob and Friends’ Early Years The creatives team behind the new Kamp Koral show discuss their shiny, new CG-animated baby. By Tom McLean
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fter more than two decades ruling the airwaves from his undersea bromeliad home, SpongeBob SquarePants is finally getting a spinoff show that will give viewers a fuller understanding of their porous pal’s misspent youth. Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years debuts its 13-episode first season March 4 on the new Paramount+ streaming service, the same day that the feature that inspired it — The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run — gets its U.S. debut on the same service. Loyal SpongeBob viewers will be glad to know that the original’s creative hands are also guiding Kamp Koral, which is co-executive produced by Marc Ceccarelli, Vincent Waller and Jennie Monica, and reunites original series voice cast members Tom Kenny as SpongeBob, Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick, Rodger Bumpass as Squidward, Clancy Brown as Mr. Krabs, Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy and Mr. Lawrence as Plankton. The CG-animated show puts younger versions of these classic characters into the pressure cooker of summer camp, providing new creative opportunities for the show’s veteran creators. www.animationmagazine.net
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“The nice thing about camp is that it’s an entirely different world with an entirely different set of dials and whistles we can use on SpongeBob,” says Waller. “We were also able to introduce some new characters into this world, too, that allowed us more weird or different dynamics than we usually do,” says Ceccarelli. “It’s like a jumpstart to our creativity, putting somebody in a different space like that.”
Return of the Comedy Champs Ceccarelli and Waller wanted the show to retain the broad appeal and quality of the original series, and wanted to steer clear of being perceived as a “babies” version of the show. So while Sponge on the Run used child actors for the younger versions of SpongeBob and pals, the original series cast returned for
Kamp Koral. Waller says there was some trepidation among the cast at first about the idea, but once they read the scripts and saw the visuals, they were all in. “They’re like, ‘Okay, all right, we’re doing the same thing, it’s just shaped a little bit different and fun to look at in a different way,’” he says. “Some of them are aging themselves down vocally and a few of the other ones we do a little bit of pitch magic to them, to get them into a younger-ish sort of area — but it’s still our comedy actors, you know, being able to do the kind of comedy that we’re used to doing with them,” says Ceccarelli. The premise puts the characters into what Ceccarelli describes as a bit of a pressure cooker. “All the kids are kind of trapped in the same environment,” he says. “Especially our
‘We were also able to introduce some new characters into this world, too, that allowed us more weird or different dynamics than we usually do … It’s like a jumpstart to our creativity, putting somebody in a different space like that.’ — Exec producer Marc Ceccarelli
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