SpongeBob SquarePants is an animated series that has played around with mixed mediums through the years, whether they are live-action, stop-motion, or traditional 2D animation. It’s a playground that fosters creativity, and the new holiday special, SpongeBob and Sandy’s Country Christmas, continues the SpongeBob team’s love for stop-motion animation. Executive producers Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller and Screen Novelties talk about the stop-motion process in creating the beloved characters and world of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Stop-Motion Joy

It was always a dream for executive producers Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller to collaborate with Screen Novelties on previous SpongeBob projects. “We look for any excuse to work with them,” Ceccarelli shares with Nerd Reactor. “They’re our favorite alternate vendor.” Waller agreed with the sentiment and described Screen Novelties’ studio as an amazing maze. “Going through their tiny little studio, it’s like a maze. Every corner you turn, it’s another amazing setup with the characters,” Waller said.

Screen Novelties was excited to bring Sandy Cheeks’ family into the SpongeBob stop-motion world. Seamus Walsh, a member of the team, revealed his excitement. “Sandy’s family is a really cool gang of characters that you can do a lot of fun stuff with,” he said.

The holidays seem to be a recurring theme of the SpongeBob team working with Screen Novelties. “And if you’ve seen our spin-off, The Patrick Star Show, there’s an ongoing segment that pops up in various episodes that Screen Novelties also does for us of Plankenstein’s laboratory,” Ceccarelli said. “This is our version of the classic monsters, and we decided to do those in stop motion because we have different animation styles in that show.”

Mixed Media Playground

The SpongeBob show has a love for mixed media, and the Christmas special pushes the medium with a mix of live-action and stop-motion footage.

“SpongeBob has already established a mixed-media look, and the sense of humor is so irreverent that it totally works with SpongeBob,” Screen Novelties’ Chris Finnegan said. “So that’s one of the reasons why we love doing it on these projects.”

Waller went all in for the live-action portion by donning a sweltering 130-degree helmet.

“Stop motion, if you’re not careful, can be a little more grounded because you’re feeling physical objects,” Walsh said. “So because they set such a high bar on the show, we love the challenge that it gives us to keep up with them on that stuff, which is not easy.”

Innovation Meets Tradition

Stop-motion techniques have mostly remained the same all these years, but there are advancements in technology that helped Screen Novelties with production.

“The core process of stop motion has remained unchanged for like a century, more or less, like the core idea of moving the puppets frame by frame on a set,” Finnegan said. “But there are some technological advancements that do help. The Dragonframe Software that we use helps a lot. We use 3d printing and 3d sculpting a lot now, which is funny, because it it helps with some things, making some things more efficient, but then it also adds complexity because you can do all these different replacement faces and stuff.”

Stop motion isn’t as common as CG-animated projects; luckily, there will always be a few animators who will keep the medium alive.

“It’s not like there’s 1000s of people out there making stop motion right now,” Walsh said. “It’s always going to be this few dozen weirdos throughout the world that do this… There’s still going to be another 12 or 15 weirdos that’ll take it over after we stop. Stop motion’s never gonna be this giant mainstream technique.”

“We love working in different mediums,” Ceccarelli said. “It’s it keeps it kind of fresh for us. But I wouldn’t want to take anything away from the great work that RDK does.”

About SpongeBob and Sandy’s Country Christmas

SpongeBob SquarePants, “SpongeBob & Sandy’s Country Christmas,” is an all-new half-hour special where one of Sandy’s experiments goes awry and the Cheeks family must team up to save Christmas in Bikini Bottom. The special features stop-motion animation and will premiere on Nickelodeon at 5:00 pm ET/PT and stream exclusively on Paramount+ on December 2.