List of SpongeBob SquarePants characters

Almost all of the SpongeBob SquarePants characters in the show.

The characters in SpongeBob SquarePants were created by artist, animator and former marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg. In addition to the series' main cast, various celebrities have voiced roles in SpongeBob SquarePants. Notably, Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway voice the roles of recurring characters Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy respectively, while others have taken a cameo part.

Creation and conception

Stephen Hillenburg conceived the characters for SpongeBob SquarePants in 1984, while he was teaching and studying marine biology at what is now the Orange County Ocean Institute. During this period, Hillenburg became fascinated in animation, and wrote a comic book entitled The Intertidal Zone starring various anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters, including "Bob the Sponge", who was the co-host of the comic and resembled an actual sea sponge as opposed to SpongeBob. In 1987, Hillenburg left the institute to pursue his dream of becoming an animator.

Main characters

• SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny) is the title character and the main protagonist of

Minor characters

• Painty the Pirate (Patrick Pinney) – A painting of a pirate head that sings the SpongeBob SquarePants theme. Painty also makes minor appearances in several episodes.
• Bubble Bass (Dee Bradley Baker) – An obese Bass who is SpongeBob's rival since he is picky about food. He made his first appearance in "Pickles," and also appears in "F.U.N." when SpongeBob and Plankton are at the movie theatre. He made a third appearance in "Plankton's Good Eye" where he is saved from his burning house by Plankton.
• Bubble Buddy (Brad Abrell) – A bubble friend that SpongeBob makes himself after Patrick, Sandy and Squidward were too busy to play with him. He causes a lot of trouble in Bikini Bottom such as fussing over his order at the Krusty Krab, paying Mr. Krabs with bubble money and hogging the porta potty at Goo Lagoon. He leaves Bikini Bottom at the end of the episode but returns when he wants SpongeBob to babysit his son, Shiny who causes even more trouble than his father.
• Stanley S. SquarePants (Christopher Guest) – SpongeBob's cousin who has a similar appearance to SpongeBob, but is much taller. SpongeBob and Stanley try to help each other whenever possible. Stanley is accident-prone and causes destruction wherever he goes.
• Flatts (Thomas F. Wilson) – A mean flounder who went to boating school with Patrick and bullies SpongeBob at Mrs. Puff's boating school in the episode "The Bully," for whom Poppy (Mary Jo Catlett) appreciates for that decision. He was first seen in "Sandy's Rocket," and later "Texas".
• Grandma SquarePants (Marion Ross) and Grandpa SquarePants (Tom Kenny) – SpongeBob's grandparents. Grandpa SquarePants is mentioned in past tense and Grandma SquarePants lives alone and sometimes treats SpongeBob like he is still a little sponge. Grandma SquarePants made her first appearance in the episode "Grandma's Kisses". She did not make her next appearance until the 2007 episode "Blackjack". She made two more appearances in the episodes "The Abrasive Side" and "Pet Sitter Pat".
• Neptune XIV of the Pacific (Paul Tibbitt/John O'Hurley (series) and Jeffrey Tambor (movie)) – The king of the ocean, King Neptune is a massive magical green merman with red glowing hair, although he looks slightly different from one appearance to another. Neptune also appears as one of the movie's characters, although with a very different appearance, including a blindingly bald head; in the movie, he is also shown to have a daughter named Mindy. In "SpongeBob and the Clash of Triton", it is shown that he has a son named Triton and is married to Queen Amphitrite. His name is also used frequently as a substitute for "God" in colloquial phrases (e.g. "Sweet mother of Neptune!" and "What in Neptune's name is that?").
• Jack Kahuna Laguna (JKL) (Johnny Depp) – A surfer who prefers to be called JKL, and helps SpongeBob, Patrick and Squidward get home by teaching them how to surf. He only appears in the special episode "SpongeBob vs. The Big One". His initials are most likely a parody of Matthew McConaughey's mantra of "Just Keep Livin'" from his role in Dazed and Confused.
• Jim the Former Frycook (Patton Oswalt) – A rich fry cook who formerly worked at the Krusty Krab and later quit because Eugene did not give him a raise in his pay. He now works at the finest restaurants of Bikini Bottom and visits the Krusty Krab sometimes. He is much wealthier than Mr. Krabs. He appears in "The Original Fry Cook".
• Lord Royal Highness (David Bowie) – The king of the lost city Atlantis. L.R.H seems to have somewhat of an extraterrestrial appearance. He only appeared in the special SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis .
• Lord Poltergeist (Tim Curry) – A pirate ghost who is the former first mate of the Flying Dutchman. He took the Dutchman's treasure while going for a pizza and never returned. He now haunts a boat house in Bikini Bottom with 3 of his own mates. In "Ghoul Fools" the Dutchman returned to take back his stolen treasure and punish Poltergeist and his crew with eternal torment.
• Janet (Clea Lewis) and Marty (Thomas F. Wilson) – Patrick mistakes them for his parents. They appear in the episode "I'm With Stupid".
• Kelpy G (Rodger Bumpass) – Squidward's favorite smooth jazz clarinet player. He first appears in "The Thing" and makes another appearance in "Smoothe Jazz at Bikini Bottom" when SpongeBob and Squidward sneak backstage at one of his concerts. SpongeBob ends up playing ukelele with Kelpy on stage after he was so impressed with SpongeBob's talent. The character is a cephalopod version of saxophonist Kenny G.
• Nicolas Withers (Alton Brown) – The host of the House Fancy television show, in which Squidward and his rival Squilliam were competing against each other over whose house was better.
• Triton (Sebastian Bach) – King Neptune and Queen Amphitrite's son. He is also the brother of Mindy even though Mindy was not shown in the episode "Clash of Triton". Triton was always fascinated by the "mortal" world. When King Neptune destroyed Triton's cure for all "mortal" diseases, Triton confronts King Neptune, forcing King Neptune to lock him away in a cell that shrinks 7% of the way. Triton's first appearance was on the episode "Clash of Triton".
• Mindy (Scarlett Johansson) – King Neptune's and Queen Amphitrite's daughter (who has so far only appeared in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie) who tends to be sweeter and kinder than her dad, and helped SpongeBob and Patrick with their journey in the movie. Unlike her father King Neptune, brother Triton and mother Queen Amphitrite, Mindy has never been seen using magical powers. Patrick seems to have a crush on Mindy, often calling her pretty and hot. Interestingly, she does not appear alongside her family in "Clash of Triton". This absence is unexplained.
• Queen Amphitrite (Victoria Beckham) – The wife of King Neptune, and the mother of Triton and Mindy. She tends to be very caring of her husband, even though it is not proven she shows a minor dislike for Mr. Krabs, after he called her a prankster on the phone pretending to be Amphitrite.
• Blackjack SquarePants (John DiMaggio) – SpongeBob's older and meaner cousin who used to bully SpongeBob as a child in the episode "Blackjack". He was arrested for littering and then released. SpongeBob had thought Blackjack would be a huge brutish sponge who was planning to murder his parents, and set out to find them by visiting members of his family. When SpongeBob had reunited with Blackjack, it is shown that he had apparently not grown since he and SpongeBob last saw each other (when SpongeBob was a toddler), making him about as tall as SpongeBob's foot.
• Dennis (Alec Baldwin (Mercenary) and unknown (SpongeBob's classmate)) – an assassin hired by Plankton to kill SpongeBob and Patrick in the movie. His last battle with the two was on David Hasselhoff and most likely died when about to squash SpongeBob, hit by a passing boat and fell to the bottom of the sea. There is also another more recurring character with the same name who was one of SpongeBob's former Elementary school classmates.
• Redbeard Krabs (Dennis Quaid) – The pirate grandfather of Mr. Krabs who only appeared in the episode Grandpappy the Pirate. His desire was for Mr. Krabs to follow the family tradition and grow up to be a pirate.
• Lord Reginald (Rik Mayall), Dr. Marmalade (Nigel Planer) and Professor Percy (Christopher Ryan) – Sandy's chimp bosses who come to check on her in "Chimps Ahoy."
• Master Udon (Pat Morita) – A real estate con man who tried to get Sandy and SpongeBob to buy into his vacation condo scheme on "Karate Island". Despite having large muscles Sandy is easily able to defeat him (after he captures SpongeBob) by kicking him out a window and falling into the water. He survives and returns at the end of the episode when Squidward shows up at what is now "Clarinet Island."
• Gordon (Ian McShane) – The leader of the Vikings that visit the Krusty Krab, after receiving a letter from SpongeBob in "Dear Vikings."
• Madame Hagfish (Kristen Wig) – An old fortune teller who supposedly hexes the Krusty Krab after Mr. Krabs refuses to sell her a patty after the Krusty Krab is closed in "Curse of the Hex." It turns out she didn't curse the Krusty Krab at all and just puts a closed sign out front.
• Grandma (Amy Poehler/Tom Kenny/Sirena Irwin) - An elderly woman who mistakes Gary for her snail, Miss Tufsy after finding him in an alley in "Have You Seen This Snail?." She also appears in "Shuffleboarding" where she is arrested for "being too old" by SpongeBob and Patrick (working as Mermaidman and Barnacleboy) and "Choir Boys" where she plays the piano for the men's choir. She also makes cameos in "Boating Buddies" and "Gramma's Secret Recipe".
• Sergeant Roderick (Robin Sachse) – A military-strict driving instructor (He is a Shark) who took Mrs. Puff's place in the episode "Mrs. Puff, You're Fired". Even though Roderick is considered the best driving teacher by the Boating Teachers Creditation Bureau he was still unable to get SpongeBob to pass his class. During another test with Mr. Fitz, his car's brakes were removed and he tried to stop it by jumping in front, but he gets run over.
• Health Inspector Yellowtail (Dee Bradley Baker) – A Health Inspector that visits the Krusty Krab in "Nasty Patty." SpongeBob and Mr. Krabs think they killed him after they serve him a tainted patty that they prepare for him when they think he is a fake. He makes a second appearance in "The Krabby Kronicle" when he shuts down the Chum Bucket after Mr. Krabs prints a fake story in his newspaper about Plankton.
• Alternate-Universe SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) - An "alternative universe" variation of SpongeBob SquarePants who appeares normally confined in mirrors. He has only been named on-screen in one episode, but has appeared roughly five times.
• Raargh is a blue coral monster who befriends SpongeBob and Patrick in The Monster Who Came to Bikini Bottom. He says his name by shouting it out.

Reception

The characters of SpongeBob SquarePants have been well-received overall. The titular character SpongeBob has become very popular with both children and adults. The character's popularity has spread from Nickelodeon's original demographic of two to eleven-year-olds, to teenagers and adults, including college campuses and celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver and Bruce Willis. The popularity of SpongeBob translated well into sales figures. In 2002, SpongeBob SquarePants dolls sold at a rate of 75,000 per week, which was faster than Tickle Me Elmo dolls were selling at the time. SpongeBob has gained popularity in Japan, specifically with Japanese women. Nickelodeon's parent company Viacom purposefully targeted marketing at women in the country as a method of building the SpongeBob SquarePants brand. Sceptics initially doubted that SpongeBob could be popular in Japan as the character's design is very different from already popular designs for Hello Kitty and Pikachu. However, the characters have also attracted negative reception, including SpongeBob himself, who was listed as number four on AskMen's Top 10: Irritating '90s Cartoon Characters. SpongeBob SquarePants was ranked on TV Guide's top 50 cartoon characters.

Arthur Brown, author of Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Cartoons!, has compared Squidward's voice to that of Jack Benny's.

Appearances in other media

The characters of SpongeBob SquarePants have been parodied various times in popular culture. In 2007, the Amsterdam-based company Boom Chicago created a SpongeBob parody called "Back to Work!" in which a Chinese Patrick refuses to go to work and advocates freedom of speech and rights of leisure and income. During the same year, production company Camp Chaos created a SpongeBob parody entitled SpongeBong HempPants which features five of the series' characters parodied in the form of various drugs. The series has received mixed reviews from television critics; Adam Finley of TV Squad believed the series sounded "hilarious on paper", but ultimately did not demonstrate its full potential. SpongeBob and Patrick have a root were also referenced in Phineas and Ferb when they dug a hole and found a sponge and a seastar. SpongeBob and Patrick also have an appearance in the Disney show Good Luck Charlie when Charlie's parents have a pink square and a yellow star puppet and are performing a potty training show on a fake television set.

References

General

• Banks, Steven (September 24, 2004). SpongeBob Exposed! The Insider's Guide to SpongeBob SquarePants. Schigiel, Gregg (Illustrator). Simon Spotlight/Nickelodeon. ISBN 978-0689868702. 

Specific

External links

• List of characters at SpongePedia
• Full list of SpongeBob SquarePants characters at the SpongeBob SquarePants Wiki