KEN PLUME: The thing about doing a record like that is you have to worry if it will sustain itself…
KENNY: Yeah, a couple of the songs are a little long. I wanted to cut a couple of them down and I got talked out of it. But yeah, I think for the most part…
KEN PLUME: I was actually gonna say that it does sustain itself…
KENNY: Well, thank you. I think it mostly does. I’m always the hardest on myself of anybody, but it was… yeah, I think it sustains itself. We tried really hard to really treat the characters as characters and the songs as songs. It’s almost like, if you’re trying to write – if you’re Leiber & Stoller and you’re trying to write… “Hey, Elvis Presley needs a new song, what do you guys got?” “Okay, we gotta write an Elvis song.” With Spongebob, you had this well known personage, this quantity… you know what I mean? So it’s almost like writing a song on assignment for a real entertainer. And the same with all of the characters. It’s like they’re pretty… you know their personalities are pretty cut and dried and pretty written in stone, so it was fun to do. But we wanted it to sound as if they had written these songs themselves, and hopefully we wanted it to sound as if they’re also playing the instruments themselves. Patrick is on drums, Sandy is playing guitar…
KEN PLUME: So, in other words, you were going for a Monkees Headquarters sound.
KENNY: A total Monkees Headquarters sound, exactly. And James Burton played on all those Monkees records, too. There’s so many funny lines you can connect to this. You know, James Burton played on every Elvis record, every Ricky Nelson record, a ton of Monkees records. He even played guitar on “Flintstones, meet the Flintstones…” He’s like the most recorded session guitarist of all time…
KEN PLUME: See, I can imagine – as a music aficionado – that it must have been a thrill to be in a room with someone like that.
KENNY: Well, it’s obvious that you are a music aficionado, which is really nice to talk to somebody where music actually matters to them. Yeah… Well, you know what? It’s funny. Somebody like him… James Burton isn’t a rock star. He played on a lot of records by rock stars. So he’s got a very… even though he’s 67 years old and he’s in the rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame and Keith Richards tearfully inducted him into the rock ‘n’ roll hall of fame, he has a very work-a-day attitude. And all these session guys like Tommy Morgan, our bass harmonica player, had played on tons of Beach Boy records. He plays that big huge bass harmonica that’s like the size of an electric piano. He played on Sanford & Son, (sings) “Ba ba ba ba…” that beginning of Sanford & Son…
KEN PLUME: Oh yeah, I definitely know…
KENNY: That’s him. Green Acres and the big wheezy bass harmonica…. That’s another guy to like… to me, he’s a rock star. His playing has been on so much crazy stuff.
KEN PLUME: I’ve always been disappointed when people have dismissed session men, like, “Oh, well, they’re nothing.” No, 90% of the sounds that people have come to love comes from the session men.
KENNY: Oh yeah, and guys like Brian Wilson and Frank Sinatra know it. Those guys don’t dismiss the session guys… Ricky Nelson or Elvis… which is why they used the same session guys on all their records. It’s like Flaco Jimenez – the Rolling Stones could have any accordion player play on Voodoo Lounge or whatever, but it’s got to be Flaco because he’s got the soul and he’s the guy.
KEN PLUME: You’re right in saying that part of the genius of people like Wilson is to recognize and hold onto those people…
KENNY: Yeah. It was Walt Disney’s talent. He didn’t really draw Mickey Mouse, but…
KEN PLUME: He knew who did it well.
KENNY: He was able to assemble this bullpen of people that… Brian obviously is really super talented in almost like an alien being kind of way…
KEN PLUME: Yeah, I’ve heard Billy’s stories about him.
KENNY: Otherworldly, you know? Yes, so to me those guys had played on so many records and so many TV shows and movie scores and stuff. Tommy Morgan played “Moon River” – he plays harmonica on that record, one of the biggest records of all time. And those guys… I identified with those guys. And because all us voiceover people did, the cast, too, was like, “God, I love these old guys.” They don’t even seem old. They have that youth that, when you find something you like to do and you do it for 80 years, you don’t seem old.
KEN PLUME: Yeah, but what’s interesting is that you can make a very definite comparison to studio musicians and voiceover artists…
KENNY: Yeah. I really identify with them. I always have thought that what I do is less like… what I leave the house and do every day for a living is less like being an actor, like on Desperate Housewives and Flyboys or something. It’s much less like that and much more like being the session musicians. Hal Blaine shows up with his drumsticks – “Hey, what are we doing today? Country? Jazz? Is this Motown? What are we doing today?” And that’s kinda what the voiceover people are. It’s artistic… It’s not like it’s hacky. It’s artistic but it’s also very much…
KEN PLUME: It’s an amazing skill that often largely goes uncelebrated by the general public.
KENNY: Yeah, you know? And, of course, I always… you know, maybe it’s self-delusional, but I always felt like that, too. I always thought I had a kinship with those guys… like, “Wow, nobody knows that this guy played on these records that are gigantic and he is responsible in large part for what people’s ears love about that record, but they don’t know him.” But in a way, I never thought that was a shortcoming, I always thought it was cool. In my case, I regard that as being one of the perks of the job is that you can work on a hit show, or a bunch of hit shows, with Spongebob being the biggest, but then stuff like Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends and Camp Lazlo and Powerpuffs and stuff like that being considered hit shows, too. Nothing’s as big as Spongebob. But you know, nobody really… I like to know that nobody really knows who you are. It’s kinda nice. You get your yayas out and you can… it’s good. It’s a fun job where you don’t have that burden of… your character doesn’t look like you. Like William Shatner always looks like Captain Kirk, and Mark Hamill, who’s a friend of mine and he’s a great voiceover guy, but he’s got Luke Skywalker’s face. And that can sometimes be a drag in your everyday life. So I really…
KEN PLUME: Similar to those studio guys, you can go in and do a 50-year-old man in one session, and then you can play a 5-year-old boy in the next…
KENNY: Yeah, it’s like Kath Soucie, who’s a big voiceover person for many more years than me – she said what she liked about voiceover is that you’re not a prisoner of your own body. And it’s just exactly what you’re saying – you can play somebody younger than you, older than you, skinnier than you, fatter than you. You can play somebody markedly different from you in every way, and you actually get a chance to do it. Without hours and hours of prosthetic makeup to turn you into a fat guy or a freakish monster or whatever.
KEN PLUME: Or a woman.
KENNY: Or a woman, exactly, in Mrs. Doubtfire. But to me that’s what makes this the best job around. And it’s what a lot of on camera actors see. They come to these sessions and they just go… it’s kind of a world that they haven’t ever really thought about, this kinda A-Team, Navy Seals subculture of voiceover pros. Pretty small pool of people that do a lot of the stuff. It’s just kind of an eye opener for them. They just go, “Wow, hey, this is pretty cool. Hey, I like this.”
KEN PLUME: Would you say that the closest you can come to something like that in live action is doing something like a sketch show, like a Mr. Show?
KENNY: Well, again, I think a sketch show is even more akin to the animated thing because you’re playing a whole lot of different characters, and they don’t look like you. That’s what I liked about… and my wife who was on Mr. Show and also is the voice of Karen the Computer on Spongebob…
KEN PLUME: And she’s an amazing actress in her own right.
KENNY: Yeah, she’s funny as hell, man. God, she’s the funniest.
KEN PLUME: In fact, I think she’s a little more talented than you, I’m sorry to say.
KENNY: I’ve always thought that. I completely agree…
KEN PLUME: In fact, frankly – right now, I’d like to end the conversation and just talk to her.
KENNY: (laughing) Even before I was dating her I was like, “This is the funniest human being I’ve ever met in my life.”
KEN PLUME: I don’t understand why she doesn’t get more props or attention than she has.
KENNY: Part of it is that we’re not real super type-A career-minded. We got a couple of kids and we do alright. We’re not real Machiavellian players.
KEN PLUME: I thought it was interesting to watch the two of you last year at Comic-Con. I was waiting for Paul Dini in the DC booth…
KENNY: Were you talking to him?
KEN PLUME: Oh yeah, I’m friends with Paul…
KENNY: You’re friends with Paul? Wow!
KEN PLUME: Paul does “Monkey Talk” here at Quick Stop…
KENNY: Wow, that’s cool. It’s funny, I was just looking in a catalogue and seeing the upcoming Jingle Belle book. The one with Kyle Baker. That’s the other cool thing about this job, is that you get to… I’m into what I’m into, and to me – and again, somebody like Paul Dini, long before I met him, I liked his work a lot. I was very familiar with what he does. I liked those things he did with Alex Ross… those oversized things for DC. So you’re watching us at the Comic-Con just so…
KEN PLUME: You were doing the family thing, sort of having a… I wouldn’t say argument, but a mini-discussion as you and Jill were juggling things for about 15 minutes.
KENNY: Yeah, yeah.
KEN PLUME: And there was this odd…
KENNY: … Comic-Con, which is the most insane, frickin’, like, full immersion…
KEN PLUME: It was almost like a discussion of who’s running here and who’s gonna be with the kids kind of thing between the two of you.
KENNY: Well, it’s like all that stuff is like real life, and I think we’ve gotten a little better… it was at this last Comic-Con?
KEN PLUME: No, it was the one last year, 2005.
KENNY: After three Comic-Cons I think this past year we finally figured out how to do it with kids and actually… it took us a couple of attempts, how to integrate the family fun weekend in San Diego with the Comic-Con, which is essentially, as I’m sure you know, a work-related thing. We run our ass off at Comic-Con. It’s really fun and everything, but…
KEN PLUME: It’s like moving in a herd.
KENNY: Yeah. You’re networking, which I don’t really do that much so I feel like at Comic-Con I gotta make up for all the network shit that I don’t do during the rest of the year. And I actually love old comics and newspaper strips and stuff like that. Jill doesn’t even have that going for her. It can get very tiring for her.
KEN PLUME: The odd thing is when you talk about the anonymity, Comic-Con is the one place where neither of you can really have any anonymity.
KENNY: Or somebody like Paul Dini The guy who created Bone, Jeff Smith, gets mobbed. It’s so funny. I always say it’s like Earth-2… 48 hours you’re on a different planet where people know your whole resume and your shit really matters to them.
KEN PLUME: There is no secret identity.
KENNY: Yeah, and it’s really fun. For a change. And then you go back to Earth-1, and it’s back to being the session bass player.
KEN PLUME: The mild-mannered Tom Kenny.
KENNY: Yeah, where you’re basically just like a carny. There’s the guy who sets up the Tilt-A-Whirl, and then the voiceover people are the next rung up.
KEN PLUME: It’s fascinating, because you two were standing there doing the family thing, and yet I noticed it more from Jill than from you, where you were making these, “Please someone don’t come up to us. Leave us to our family thing…” glances.
KENNY: Yeah.
KEN PLUME: It was a “please move along” look.
KENNY: Yeah, you know, it’s hard because your kids are… it gets easier as your kids get older at Comic-Con, like my 8-year-old loves Comic-Con. He loves it. Little tougher go for a one or two year old, which is how old our daughter was. You’re just trying to please all these masters. You’re trying to do right by your kid, do right by your wife, and do the networking thing, and be nice to the fans, because you’re a fanboy yourself at heart and you want to just do unto others… you want to just give people that come up to you a good experience. Especially if it’s little kids, because Spongebob has such a huge kid following. You want to really give that fan face time and talk to them and have a moment with them so they don’t feel like… you go to some of these shows, especially sports guys, where they’re just signing stuff and they never even look up and make eye contact with the person who’s been waiting in line for two hours. But even people at Comic-Con are like that. David Prowse, my kid goes up to him – he’s super into Star Wars – and David Prowse never stops trying to pick up the chick that he’s talking to, to make eye contact with a 6-year-old who loves Star Wars. It’s like, “Come on, man, you’re not even… you’re just a guy in the black suit. Come on!”
KEN PLUME: “These people support you in your old age…”
KENNY: Yeah – and these weren’t people that were trying to overstep the boundaries. It was just people standing in line that want to go, “Hey, how are you doing, I really like that thing you did in Empire Strikes Back. Oh, thank you, thank you. Nice to see you. Maybe I’ll see you at Comic-Con next year.” “Oh thanks.” And then you move onto the next person. And it’s… I’m really conscious about that, that country music thing of just like… unless somebody’s an actively irritating dickhead, corny as it sounds, they are the people who support you and the reason that… you know, they’re watching the stuff you’re doing.
KEN PLUME: You don’t want to be the guy that the 6-year-old walks away from going, “Spongebob made me cry.”
KENNY: Well, I’m a fanboy like you are, too, and if I was 10-years-old in 1972 and saw Mel Blanc somewhere and went up to him and he was an A-hole, I’d still be telling that story today. And if he’s nice, I would still be telling that story today. You try to be conscious of it, but in a place like Comic-Con, you’re trying to make everything work.
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