He spent a decade going nowhere as a stand-up, then landed a $16 billion character without even auditioning for it.
At a glance
- Known for
- Voice of SpongeBob SquarePants since 1999
- Before fame
- Stand-up comic for eight years in Boston and San Francisco
- Off-screen
- Married SpongeBob co-star Jill Talley, who voices Karen Plankton
Rise to Fame
A casting call for Rocko's Modern Life in 1993 pulled a stand-up comedian into voice acting by accident. He'd spent eight years grinding open mics in Boston and San Francisco, doing cable sets and a short-lived Fox sketch show called The Edge, when animator Joe Murray offered him his first booth work. The real luck was sitting in the writers' room: marine scientist Stephen Hillenburg, on Rocko's creative team.
Four years later, Hillenburg showed him drawings of a cheerful sea sponge and cast him without a formal audition. SpongeBob SquarePants debuted on Nickelodeon in May 1999, and within three years, dolls were moving at 75,000 a week, faster than Tickle Me Elmo. The stand-up career was over. Something considerably weirder had replaced it.
In the Spotlight
His performance as Simon Petrikov in Adventure Time, a man losing his mind to a cursed crown, won him an Annie Award in 2014 and earned praise as his most emotionally complex work. Voice actors rarely get credit for range. He's one of the few who proved the booth can hold as much gravity as any soundstage.
The franchise he voices has generated over $16 billion in merchandise revenue. The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants grossed $169 million worldwide and pulled the franchise's best Rotten Tomatoes score at 85%. He didn't build that empire, but he's the reason it sounds the way it does.
Side Notes
The friendship that started everything wasn't with a showrunner or a producer. It was with a six-year-old who made a nun cry. He met Bobcat Goldthwait in first grade in Syracuse, and by 15 they were doing open-mic nights under the names Tomcat and Bobcat, a tribute to local comedian Barry Crimmins. Goldthwait has called him "the funniest person I ever met in my life" and credits Kenny with making him a comedian.
He married Jill Talley in 1996 after meeting her on The Edge. They both ended up on SpongeBob (she voices Karen Plankton) and both appeared in The Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight, Tonight video as a couple on a trip to the moon. The voice acting power couple nobody talks about.