20 years of SpongeBob: Bill Fagerbakke shares what he loves most about Patrick

SpongeBob SquarePants is celebrating 20 years on the air, and voice actor Bill Fagerbakke has been there since the beginning. Here’s what he loves most about his character, Patrick Star.

It may come as a shock that millennials, who are now fully entering adulthood, have a not-so-guilty pleasure: SpongeBob SquarePants. And it’s not just the titular character of the show that we love, it’s others too:  including his loveable, goofy best friend, Patrick Star.

A Google search of “Patrick memes” will pretty much guarantee you a full page (and then some) of hilarious moments from the show — that of which we owe so much credit to Patrick Star voice actor Bill Fagerbakke.

Culturess sat down with Fagerbakke one-on-one during San Diego Comic-Con, inside none other than the Krusty Krab (or at least Comic-Con’s take on the Krusty Krab for Nickelodeon’s amazing booth) to hear what keeps him excited after all these years.

Here’s what Fagerbakke had to say about his 20 years of working on the show, and by the looks of it, he may be up for another 20 more.

What was your first impression when you heard about SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star?

“Help Wanted” was the episode — that’s the pilot. And I think it’s only an eight-minute episode. And they sent it to us — and this was before Nickelodeon I think had even decided to pick it up. They sent us a copy of it, and I watched it.

(Fagerbakke channels his inner-self from 20 years ago.)

“Oh. My. What! This is amazing. Oh, please let this get a chance.” It was so great.. and that’s when I really realized what I was dealing with.

And for me, Patrick is really kind of a response to SpongeBob. You know, the character SpongeBob, who, in my mind, who really embodies the nature of Stephen Hillenburg tied with the incredible talent of Tom Kenny.

Patrick is in response to that. He’s kind of like the yin to the yang. And he’s kind of, you know, he counter-balances that. So that’s, I guess, the foundation of the character.

Was it easy to come up with Patrick’s voice?

You know, it was another unusual thing about was the audition. It wasn’t in a studio. Usually, you go into a sound booth to audition for a cartoon.

And this was in some weird conference room. And Hillenburg was sitting in there. I’d never met him before. And he was sitting in there with one of those little old cassette decks. And he put in the tape, and he played what was then called SpongeBoy. And he’d already developed it with Tom Kenny in mind. And so he played some of Tom’s stuff, and he goes, “So his friend Patrick is a counterbalance to that.”

So, you know, I’ve been doing “big and dumb” since, well, before I started acting, I was big and dumb. So that… was comfortable to me. I guess I also didn’t want to get trapped in a “too obvious” kind of thing. So I just played it off of Tom. It all goes off of Tom.

What’s been one of your favorite moments of getting to work on the show?

Well, you know, doing it for 20 years now, the response we get from fans, it’s incredible. And nothing prepares you for that. And it’s this beautiful love, you know, it’s love. And it’s such an amazing experience to be on the receiving end of that.

My daughters are in their mid-20s now, so they were 5 and 7 when it started. So I got to see how that was a part of their childhood. So I have a deep appreciation for that.

For “SpongeBob’s Big Birthday Blowout,” what was it like getting to play your character in a live-action scene?

It was so weird. We do these characters, and yeah, we’re in the same room. But you’re with the person, but you’re looking at the words.

Sometimes you get a line in your mind; you don’t look at the words. But the rest of that… it’s between your ears: it’s your imagination. So you’re thinking of the characters and… I really see the characters in my mind, and I’m seeing what’s happening in my mind.

And so suddenly, we’re on that set. And I’m looking at Clancy [Brown] going, “What’s going on?” And then I’m looking at Roger [Bumpass] and going: “This is so weird. Where’s Squidward?” But yet, he’s talking like Squidward.

So, it was odd. It was odd, but man, it was really cool. It was really cool. I was so happy that [Vincent Waller] and Marc [Ceccarelli] came up with that concept.

SpongeBob SquarePants has been renewed for a 13th season, and Fagerbakke is also set to appear in the third SpongeBob movie out next year.