Background: On January 5, 2024, former SpongeBob showrunner Paul Tibbitt did a Q&A with The Art of SpongeBob Discord server (link here). The questions as well as Tibbitt's answers have been replicated here for posterity.

Klaus asks: What external influences affected how you worked on SpongeBob? I understand that SpongeBob was inspired by different celebrities and characters (i.e. Peewee Herman), but I am curious to see if there’s anything you personally took into consideration when working on the show

PT: I was a big fan of the Marx Brothers growing up especially Groucho. I am inspired by music more than anything else in life its hard to put into words how that works but music somehow opens up a creative vein in my brain.

PickleMan: Any particular bands/songs you recall listening to when working on the series?

PT: Yeah Radiohead Ween Bjork lots of jazz. Especially John Coltrane

BeamPopo asks: I remember a developer for the game SpongeBob SuperSponge, for the original Playstation, claimed they had heard word of the show almost being axed after the first season, do you have any idea where that information could have potentially originated from?

PT: Yeah thats pretty true. Every season we didn’t know if there would be another. If SpongeBob came out today it definitely would have been. Luckily the network was willing to let the audience grow.

In the first three especially

claykid asks: When you were in charge of the show, how different was the approach/vision compared to when Stephen was showrunner? were there any intentional changes in direction, whether initially or gradually?

PT: Very different even though I did my best to keep it the same. But over time the whole process changed as the show became the juggernaut it is

I always took my job as basically an editor. I would listen to input from everyone and sort of mold it as best I could with the demanding schedules

PickleMan: regarding process changing, what was it like working in 16:9 compared to 4:3? was it a challenge to make that jump?

adding on to that, was there any reason the show didn't make the jump to HD earlier?

PT: We did have to rethink some of our staging due to the extra space but it was a mostly smooth transition. The weirdest thing was when they showed the old shows with bars of out of focus graphics

On the sides

derpybaymax asks: Were any episodes made prior to season 9 (Aside from Truth or Square or the first movie) produced in widescreen or HD?

PT: Honestly I forget. Its been awhile and I wasn’t all that aware of tech stuff. Concentrating on the writing. Sorry.

Jaic asks: Are there any funny or interesting memories you had with the SB crew? (besides pretending to be zoo animals with aaron springer)

PT: Ha

I could fill a whole book with my memories. Being part of a once in a generation show like SB every day was fun. During the first movie Aaron and Kent Osborne kept a log of all the places we had lunch and although the perimeters of the game are lost to time it ended with a winner. Kent had to go out to the winning restaurant dresses as The Food King. We made a scepter with a plastic burger on it. He had a crown and a cape with fake food glued to it. Hurt myself laughing that day.

Ill try to find a photo and post it on my IG

PTPG2449 asks: What was your favorite episode that was boarded and written Aaron Springer? Do you have any favorite memories of working with him?

PT: My all time favorite episode of SB is The Alges always greener. Working with Aaron was pure entertainment I learned so much about drawing and storyboarding from him he is a profoundly talented man.

He is the only crew member I’m still in contact with.

Jaic asks: Why did you stop doing the voice for Mama Krabs?

for context, when she appears in episodes after the movie, she's voiced by sirena Irwin

PT: Well i think I never really liked my performance and for some reason I lost the ability to act while doing her voice. I just wanted her to have a little depth that I couldn’t provide   So i handed it to the lovely and talented Sirena Irwin

I’m just not as good at acting

PickleMan: that's fair enough! i always thought it was a funny performance

in terms of depth, something i've noticed personally is that season 4 has a lot of emotional depth compared to episodes that came out before the movie, for example spongebob and patrick's friendship being tested in "Patrick SmartPants" or obviously the episode where Gary runs away. Was it an intentional choice to go for something more emotionally driven or did those stories just happen to come up like any other episodes?

PT: I think we realized soon after the movie that we needed to stretch the characters out a bit as we did more and more episodes.  The first three seasons were really simple stories and gags. But we needed to give the characters more depth in order to continue to widen the pallet.

I loved doing the Gary Come Home episode

I still get a tear in my eye whenever I hear Stew’s song

PickleMan: the gary come home episode is such a standout for me not just in writing but for its animation. in general s4 just looks a lot better than what came before and probably after too, to me anyways.

PaleBob Whatpants asks: What was the work enviroment like in the early days of the show? How did the overall culture change overtime as staff members came and went?

PT: I went to see Stew’s Broadway show passing strange and david hasselhoff was in the audience. I went over during intermission and he talked to me about the giant hasselhoff from movie 1 in his garage.

The early days were magical and you know I was just a storyboard artist so I was much more immersed in it. We were a pretty tight knit group and we all believed in SpongeBob   After the first movie things changed as the show became a worldwide phenomenon. I felt a lot of pressure to keep it going forward so I naturally distanced from the crew culture. But we still tried to keep it light and fun.

Rare34🧽 asks: What was Stephen Hillenburg's favorite aquatic species, if you recall? and yours?

P.S.

Here's a Gift for you

PT: Love that ❤️

You know I think Steve loved everything about the sea. Especially how it all works together. I don’t recall him having a favorite. He did talk about octopi more than most.

My favorite are definitely Octopi. And if you wanna know why I recommend a book called Other Minds.

Totally amazing animals

glurtzen asks: aside from scripts, were there any outlines during your time on the show that ended up having to be changed or scrapped? what was the easiest or hardest one to work on?

PT: The hardest of all was Atlantis Squarepantis. There was “under pressure” because my musical hero Bowie was in it. I lost alot of sleep worrying if it was up to his high artistic standards. Ultimately it wasn’t what we had hoped for due to budgetary issues but I’m still reeling from the experience of meeting and directing him. Definitely a peak experience

I was not there was.

AViewFromTheTop asks:  How much did deadlines/budget actually impact the output of episodes? I’ve heard rumors and hints from crew members that it was tough on them during that time for those reasons, but I’d like to hear more details on that if possible!!

PT: Well certainly its tough to go from a meeting with the merchandising people telling you that SpongeBob made Billions with a B to production meeting where they would turn out their empty pockets and say “whomp whomp” but you make do and you push forward stiff upper lip and all that rot.

So many shows did suffer from that but mainly the budgets effects the number people you can bring on the crew to meet the absolutely insane deadlines. A wise man once said. “The television business is a long shallow money trench where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs” its true I’ve been there

PickleMan: the common conception is that atlantis squarepantis, being a tv movie, is the reason for a lower budget for the episodes going forward from it. is there truth to that statement?

PT: No it just took the place of four episodes in the schedule. It was the same budget just one big show

reki asks: what was it like filming live action scenes like for Patchy? Do you have any favorite memories working on those scenes?

PT: I loved Patchy and we tried to cast him as the pirate in sponge out of water but alas the machine needs big celebrities

My favorite patchy that I was part of was truth or square. Getting to meet Robin Williams.

Tom and Robin knew each other from way back so alot of hilarious stuff happened when the camera wasn’t even on.

PickleMan: is anything that ended up in the episode unscripted/improv? do you remember a lot of that going on between them?

PT: Most of Robins dialogue was improv. I remember the line this is where careers go to die really busting everyone up

They knew where each scene was going but there is no director in his right mind who wouldn’t let Tom and Robin go off

Albert’s Country asks: What was your involvement with the episodes of Season 9 produced after the second movie? Do you know why the show switched from board driven to script driven?

PT: We never switched to real scripts. But in an effort to take some of the pressure off the board artists because i can tell you from experience its really really hard to do from a short outline. I brought in a friend of mine who was a writer on south park to run the writers room because he was used to 6 day!!!! Turn around on SP. there has always been an adversarial relationship in animation between writers and board artists and I thought I could change that. It really came out of the difficulty of  hiring storyboard artist who could write.

I was also being tasked with coming up with a third movie at the same time. So things were a bit of a poop show at the time.

ok asks: Has there ever been an episode outline or script or sequence that was rejected by Nickelodeon outright? If so, what was it?

PT: They rejected our first pitch of SB 3 because they said movies about Atlantis are not successful at the box office. Then after I left Tim Hill reworked it and they made it. Without my participation.

As far as the show they really trusted us. I can’t think of anything that was rejected outright for TV

Oswarudo asks: How was it working on Diggs Tailwagger since that pilot had alot of SB crew members on it ?

PT: my involvement in Diggs was mainly just watching Dereks animatic and making suggestions. I will never understand why Nick passed on it. Funny stuff

I was actually shocked i ever got any credit on it. But was glad to have been involved

PickleMan: in terms of pilots that weren't picked up, big fan of Aaron Springer's Periwinkle as well. Do you have any thoughts on that one?

PT: I loved that. Again another in the long line of shows that could have changed animation that were passed on due to The transitory nature of middle management.

I still have a crew shirt Aaron gave me. Will post a photo of that at some point

-Catt- asks: what episode did you and your crew have most fun making as a whole?

PT: Thats a hard question to answer because for every moment of fun there are two moments of stress.

I think I had the most fun making the Christmas special with Screen Novelties. Because it was a life long dream to make a rankin bass style show for me.

PickleMan: if i remember right, that episode was written after/based on the "don't be a jerk song" was made for a christmas album by tom kenny. if that's correct, that's the second time that's happened (the first being "The Best Day Ever") What was it like writing an entire episode like The Best Day Ever based on a song? How did the idea for that even come up?

PT: With the Christmas episode it was much easier because the theme of the song was pointed and clear. I think the other was more difficult because firstly we’d never been tasked with building a show around a song and the theme was much more vague.

Overall much more successful was the Christmas episode

Sorry I dont know why i answered like Yoda

PickleMan: so id assume the best day ever was an order from the top? there was a big marathon for it and stuff, so that makes sense

PT: Yeah Tom and his pal Andy had written and recorded a whole batch of songs that they pitched as episodes and best day ever was the most in line with SpongeBobs character

PickleMan: oh hey that's really interesting! i love that album. were the other songs developed as episodes at all?

PT: Not that I’m aware of

The mists of time cloud my memories

PickleMan: this is like such a hyper specific production thing you may not be able to answer since so much time has passed, but the best day ever episode has a season 5 production code, but was released as a part of season 4 and is officially a part of season 4. is there any reason for that or is it just how production ended up on it?

PT: Oh they would hold things sometimes for special weekends nothing odd about that

WinterArcanine asks: Is there anything you wanted to do with the characters that you never got the chance to do?

PT: Make another movie

PickleMan: those pitches for the third movie are so awesome and different from anything the show had done, whether theatrically or otherwise

PT: Yeah i was super excited about that project. We had BIG plans

PickleMan: such a shame that the production was so messy and then the final product didn't even get a proper theatrical release anyways because of COVID

PT: Yeah

There was alot going on at Paramount at that time too

Cartoonkal asks: When it comes to writing songs for episodes, did you guys decide there would be songs during the outline stage, or did you come up with them while writing the storyboards?

PT: Yeah until best day ever songs would usually come up during the storyboard process or suggested in the out line.

amazingrocketcar22 asks: How many rewrites does a typical episode get?

PT: Well that depends on how funny the first draft is

PickleMan: what would you say the average is?

PT: Well we rework the board until production tears it from our hands then animatic was where the bulk of rewrites happen

So its a very amorphous process hard to count rewrites as number

PickleMan: is there an episode besides atlantis you remember needing more rewrites than others?

PT: The general rule was keep rewriting until production says stop. As they say “writing is rewriting “

Or as Alan Moore says “ the purpose of a second draft is to make it seem like you knew what you’re doing” or something like that

carrotaza asks: Any fond memories from hanging out with the crew outside the production?

PT: Yeah there was a trip to the ocean institute where steve worked and where SpongeBob was born that really sticks out in my mind. It was fun to return to where it all began for steve and get a day to just hang out. So many memories. I was thinking about the time Aaron and Carl and I waited in line all night for the game cube by the time we got the machine and hooked it up we were delirious and I fell asleep with a controller in my hand. Not really an interesting story but a good memory

PickleMan: did you ever play any of the spongebob games that came out around that time period?

PT: Not really we always tried them out but then would soon realized we played games to get away from work so it didn’t make sense

PickleMan: spongebob is inescapable!

PT: Somewhere there’s footage of Vince Waller and I playing a game in the wii

Thats for sure

PickleMan: SpongeBob SquigglePants!

PT: There it is

HEAVimations asks: Are you aware of the uncensored version of the SpongeBob episode titled "Sailor Mouth"? What was it like being there for the recording session?

PT: I used to have a vhs tape of the uncensored cartoon. Not sure what became of it it was funny especially Clancy

PickleMan: there's a subset of the fandom that's just obsessed with finding any scrap of that version of the episode. im sure theyre very happy to know that it exists at all, haha

PT: I’m sure I would go to Nickelodeon prison if I ever let that slip.

PickleMan: do you have a particular favorite episode recording session that you can recall?

PT: Of course Bowie was my favorite. For the show the session with Ray Liotta sticks out. He was so funny.

PickleMan: i remember reading somewhere that steve/derek and the board artists were sort of de facto voice directors in the original wave of the show. how did that change once you took over the show after the movie? were artists/writers still involved in the sessions?

PT: Yes the board artists were usually welcome to sit in and give notes. If there was room  on the couch

Steve used to sit in the booth with the actors and direct

I found that way too distracting

Sharped Cheddar asks: What did you think of the last produced episode you oversaw, “Goodbye Krabby Patty?” Was there a party for when you were going to leave?

PT: There was no party. I was shipped off to make a movie that never got made so I never got a send off

I never saw that episode

It was a very sad ending to a fantastic run.

The next time i saw the crew was at a dinner after Steve passed.

PickleMan: How involved were you with those later s9 episodes compared to the ones made before the second movie? you're only credited as 'executive producer' on those instead of 'supervising producer' like the ones made before the second movie. does that change of credit mean anything in terms of production?

PT: It just meant my contract was up to a point. But I wasn’t day to day supervisor so I was only really involved finishing the outlines for season 9 .

I hope that answers the question

PickleMan: it does! so was vince the "showrunner" already by that point?

PT: More or less

TheRetroOreo asks: Could you elaborate on what Patchy's role would have been in Out of Water? (i.e. was his motivation the same as Burger Beard's)

PT: Yes he would have been the Antonio Banderas part if Steve and I had our way

PickleMan: was he still the antagonist in that draft? changing the book and trying to get the krabby patty and stuff? or did the idea of patchy being the pirate not even make it far enough to develop that much

PT: Yeah it was made clear pretty early that we needed a STAR.  But it was the same

PickleMan: patchy as a villain would have been interesting!

PT: Some stars we asked Jack Black

Will Ferrell

PickleMan: i was always surprised jack black was never a guest star on the show or anything, it seems like he would be/would have been a great fit!

PT: Some other names Mellisa McCarthy (!) my favorite Peter Dinklage

We tried but he is a busy busy man

JB that is

We also floated Zach Galifinakas but the studio said NO

SpongeBobFOPFan asks: Do you have any information about the Ren & Stimpy short that was planned to be attached to Sponge Out of Water's theatrical release?

PT: No

I never heard that

If it was it never reached my desk

amazingrocketcar22 asks: Board Artists had to take a storyboard test before they got to work on the show. What was the Spongebob board test like when you were running it?

PT: We would give them a script page and highlight a scene. And see what came back

PickleMan: interesting! so no generalized test, just whatever episode was being worked on at the time? or was it always the same episode?

PT: Yeah i think we used the same scene

BobCarotte asks: has anything in real life that's happened to you inspired your episodes or joke ideas?

PT: Well the flying dutchman’s line “mold on the ceiling bugs in the sink” was based on my filthy apartment not because im filthy but my slumlord who decided that he would “fix” my clogged sink by removing the drain pipe and let water just drain under the house.

I stayed there for way too long cuz rent was 400$. Unheard of in LA. Bit theres why

Znail Fail asks: what episode made you the most proud of during development?

PT: The Christmas stop action

Is the most proud

I ever was

salmon asks: What is your favorite memory of working with Stephen Hillenburg, inside or outside production?

PT: I think my favorite memory was steve did a drawing of a guy with a bowl cut hairdo and buck teeth wearing a SpongeBob shirt on the movie and I showed up on the last day before we broke for the holidays looking exactly like his drawing. I think that was the hardest i ever made him laugh. I will look for that photo and post it on my IG if i can find it.

Ok again i love you all and thanks for letting me do this. Lets do it again some day!!

PickleMan: thank you for all the time you've given us paul! we'll talk again some day!

happy new year!

PT: Hah

Man I wish that sequence would have been made.

Be good to each other