An aspiring dancer. A wealthy benefactor. And 'Dreams' turned to nightmare

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli. The latest SpongeBob SquarePants movie, "The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants," is now streaming on Paramount+, and that's reason enough to revisit our interview with Tom Kenny, who has been providing the voice of animation's most celebrated sponge since it premiered on Nickelodeon in 1999. "SpongeBob SquarePants" isn't the oldest continually running animated series currently on TV. Comedy Central's "South Park" first appeared two years earlier in 1997. Both shows have launched popular Broadway musicals and movie spinoffs. And like Fox's "The Simpsons," which launched as a series way back in 1989, all have had a major impact on the current generation, which has been watching these shows and characters all their lives.

When I teach television history to young 20-somethings in college, the one show with which they are more familiar and fluent than any other is "SpongeBob SquarePants." They all know and love the antics of SpongeBob and his undersea pals, including Patrick the starfish, Squidward the octopus and Mr. Krabs. All these characters and more were created by Stephen Hillenburg, who was a marine science educator as well as an animator. He died in 2018 at age 57, but his characters and his series live on.

In "Search For SquarePants," SpongeBob wakes up one morning to discover he's had a small growth spurt, making him 36 clams high, which to a sponge who's been waiting all his life to be tall enough to be allowed onto an amusement park ride is a big deal. As his friend Patrick notes, he's now a big guy. Tom Kenny is the voice of SpongeBob. Bill Fagerbakke is the voice of the starfish Patrick.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SPONGEBOB MOVIE: SEARCH FOR SQUAREPANTS")

TOM KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) Patrick, I've never felt so respected before.

BILL FAGERBAKKE: (As Patrick Star) Get used to it, buddy. And do you know what the best part of being a big guy is?

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) What is it, Patrick?

FAGERBAKKE: (As Patrick Star) No, I'm asking.

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) It means I finally get to do what every little guy dreams of doing when they grow up.

FAGERBAKKE: (As Patrick Star) You don't mean...

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) That's right. Ride the big-guy roller coaster at Captain Booty Beard's Fun Park.

BILL FAGERBAKKE AND TOM KENNY: (As Patrick Star and SpongeBob SquarePants) Woo-hoo.

BIANCULLI: Somehow, this leads to an adventure where SpongeBob sails away with a nefarious, ghostly Flying Dutchman, whose voice is provided by Mark Hamill of "Star Wars" fame. It's more silly than scary, but between all the sight gags, goofy jokes and bouncy music, manages to teach subtle lessons about friendship, loyalty and even maturity. Tom Kenny, as always, provides the voice of SpongeBob. Before taking that role, he was a stand-up comic and a cast member of "Mr. Show," the HBO sketch series starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. He spoke with Terry Gross in 2004, when there also was a new SpongeBob movie being released.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

TERRY GROSS: Let me ask you to describe SpongeBob for someone who's never seen the cartoon.

KENNY: Oh, wow. Yeah. SpongeBob SquarePants is a little square kitchen sponge, even though he was born of sea sponges. It's kind of an accident of nature, but he lives in a pineapple under the sea, works in a fast-food restaurant called the Krusty Krab in the undersea community of Bikini Bottom. What else can I tell you? He pals around with an incredibly dim starfish named Patrick Star, has a crabby neighbor named Squidward Tentacles, who lives in a giant Tiki head next door to him. He's incurably optimistic and enthusiastic and kinetic. And yeah, and he has a cartoon show on Nickelodeon.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Now, if you're doing a voice for, say, a cartoon animal, you know, animals make noises, so you can maybe base your voice on, like, a cat's meow or a dog's bark or, you know, a bear's growl or something. If you're doing the voice of a human character, humans really speak. If you're doing the voice of a sponge, there's really, like, nothing in nature to base that on. So how did you figure out what voice you wanted to use?

KENNY: Which is actually very freeing in a way because there's no template. So when it came time to come up with a voice, it was just a matter of finding a voice that was childlike and maybe childish but not a child, non-age-specific, enthusiastic and just kind of weird. And we finally settled on this elfish helium - (as SpongeBob SquarePants) helium voice that SpongeBob wound up being (laughter).

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And, you know, this weird - you know, that was the fun part, was before it was even a pitch or even a show, and we were just, you know, sitting in coffee shops, irritating people at other tables going, you know, what would he laugh like? What would his laugh be like? And, you know, how about a dolphin? How about kind of like a dolphin? (As SpongeBob SquarePants laughing) - like Flipper used to. Yeah, that's good. And, you know, it was really a blast. And then Steve went in and pitched it to Nickelodeon, and they liked it. It's the only job in all the hundreds of voice-overs I've done that I really didn't have to audition for. I had the job from the get-go, which was nice.

GROSS: You mentioned, like, the voice sounds as if it's on helium. Have you ever inhaled helium to see what it would do to your voice?

KENNY: (Laughter) You know, it's funny you should mention that. In the seven-minute pilot episode that we did - which, as far as we were concerned, might be the only episode of "SpongeBob" ever made - there was a school of anchovies that invade SpongeBob's restaurant and, you know, just this big school of - just struck like locusts, you know, that just descend on the restaurant and go (vocalizing). And Steve Hillenburg actually brought a tank of helium into the studio, and all of us voice actors just (as SpongeBob SquarePants) suck on it (vocalizing).

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And it was just - that was the pilot. So I said, boy, if this thing goes, we are going to have a lot of fun.

GROSS: (Laughter) So did it help to hear what your voice sounded like on helium? Did you learn something about your voice you didn't know before?

KENNY: Yeah. I learned that I don't really need the helium.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) 'Cause it's pretty easy to flick that switch and go right up there.

GROSS: (Laughter) Were there voices you came up with for SpongeBob that you rejected?

KENNY: Oh, yeah. It's all hit and miss on any animated character in any animated show. You're trying to dial in a voice that the creator is hearing in his head. And in the case of SpongeBob and a lot of the shows I've worked on, the creator of the show has a very definitive idea that he sometimes can't articulate, 'cause he himself is not a voice actor, of what this character should sound like. So really, it's a matter of just letting yourself be dialed in like a radio or something, with the creator going, OK, no, a little - add 20 pounds. OK, now five years younger and, you know, maybe he has a deviated septum. OK, yeah. You know, and - you know, it really is hit or miss. You're zeroing in on this target. And when it hits, it's pretty obvious.

GROSS: OK, can you...

KENNY: You just know.

GROSS: Could you do that for me? Could you add 20 pounds to SpongeBob's voice?

KENNY: Yeah, when he absorbs water.

(As SpongeBob SquarePants) I guess it's water weight. I have a tendency to retain water, Terry. This is SpongeBob on a very - I'm feeling very obese and very large today.

GROSS: And make him five years younger.

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) Oh, make him five years younger? This is SpongeBob as a child. I am in sponge kindergarten. (Vocalizing).

GROSS: Deviated septum.

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) Oh, deviated septum. I don't know what that means. I'm just a dumb sponge.

GROSS: (Laughter) What was it like for you the first time the voice and the image were matched up and you actually saw, you know, a little bit of completed animation of SpongeBob with your voice?.

KENNY: It was really great 'cause like I said, I had gone over to Steve's house, you know, even before the pitch was a pitch, and he had drawings and watercolor paintings of SpongeBob's pineapple house and Squidward's tiki head house and the Krusty Crab restaurant, which looks like an overturned lobster trap. And they were just so beautiful. You know, it was like looking into an aquarium or something. He had - they were just gorgeous. And then when I started to do informal focus group testing at my house, you know, translation, forcing people that drop by to watch my cartoon pilot. Sit down, we're watching SpongeBob.

(LAUGHTER)

KENNY: The clamps come out of the arms of the chair. (Vocalizing). But, you know, people really liked it more than they usually like a cartoon, especially kids. They liked it more than a little bit. They were just entranced and wanted more. And luckily, Nickelodeon took a flyer on it as a series.

GROSS: Now, the movie, "The SpongeBob Movie," is kind of a musical. There's a bunch of songs in it. You sing a couple. And one of the songs you sing in the movie is called "The Best Day Ever". Before we hear it, can you talk a little bit about what it's like to sing in character?

KENNY: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. Boy, I've never talked about that before. Some voices really lend themselves to singing. And even though I didn't really think about it ahead of time, it's just serendipitous that (as SpongeBob SquarePants) SpongeBob did. It's pretty easy to sing in that voice. (Singing) La, la, la, la, la, la, la. My dog has fleas.

But, you know, there are other voices that I've done where I'm just so glad I don't have to sing in them. (Vocalizing). You know, if you're doing that guy, there's not a lot of...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: There's nothing - not a lot of Sondheim-like range that you can tap into. But, yeah, SpongeBob really, really is fun to sing as. It's sort of like a weird mix between, you know, Jerry Lewis and the guy from the schlock '70s band Styx, you know, it's kind of...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants, singing) I'm leaving. Must be on my way.

It's very weird.

GROSS: Where do you place that voice in your head?

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants) In my - boy, that - I would have to say that if I were going to draw a circle around the target area, it would be somewhere between my fairly sizable proboscis and my thorax.

It's definitely up in the nasal cavity, back of the throat area. And Bill Fagerbakke that does the voice of - or it's Faggerback (ph) or Faigerbakke (ph). He's never told me how to pronounce his name. He says whatever. (As Bill Fagerbakke) I'm not fussy. Whatever.

But, you know, his voice as Patrick is just - (impersonating Patrick Star) is just all pushed down right into his big barrel chest.

(As SpongeBob SquarePants) And then SpongeBob is way up here.

So it's kind of a neat contrast between SpongeBob and Patrick Starfish.

GROSS: Well, Tom Kenny, let's hear you sing. And this is from the soundtrack of "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie." And here's Tom Kenny singing "The Best Day Ever," a song you co-wrote.

KENNY: Yes, I did with Andy Paley, power pop meister.

GROSS: OK, here it comes.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE BEST DAY EVER")

KENNY: (As SpongeBob SquarePants, singing) Mr. Sun came up and he smiled at me, said it's going to be a good one. Just wait and see. Jumped out of bed and I ran outside feeling so extra ecstatified. It's the best day ever. It's the best day ever. I'm so busy, got nothing to do.

GROSS: That's Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob and the star of "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie." So you actually wrote "The Best Day Ever," which we just heard. Tell us...

KENNY: Yes.

GROSS: ...Something about your approach to writing a song for SpongeBob to sing.

KENNY: You know, it was this really fun mental exercise where my friend Andy Paley and I, and, you know, if you Google Andy Paley, it's insane. He's produced records by Jerry Lee Lewis and, you know, Brian Wilson and, you know, all these people. But it was very freeing to just put on SpongeBob's brain and say, Wow, well, SpongeBob is this unbridled optimist. You know, he jumps out of bed every day and greets the new day with the mantra...

(As SpongeBob SquarePants) This is going to be the best day ever.

You know, every day has the potential to be the best day ever, which is, you know, how we'd all like to be. And then we're - by the time we walk out the front door, we're beaten into submission by life. But yeah, it was really fun, and we tried to make the song sound like - you know, we were trying to figure out who in rock 'n' roll history has been most in touch with their inner SpongeBob.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And - you know? And it's John Sebastian...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: ...From The Lovin' Spoonful. You know, he is SpongeBob. "Do You Believe In Magic?" You know, Brian Wilson, you know, who will write, like, this beautiful font opus about the wind chimes.

(As SpongeBob SquarePants, singing) These are my wind chimes.

You know? And it's like, you know, they sort of have this naif-like child-man sort of sensibility that is SpongeBob. So it's like, let's write a Lovin' Spoonful, Brian Wilson "Pet Sounds," you know, sort of thing with SpongeBob singing it. And that's where "Best Day Ever" came from.

BIANCULLI: Tom Kenny speaking to Terry Gross in 2004. More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 2004 interview with Tom Kenny. He provides the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, whose newest movie "The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants" is now streaming on Paramount+.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

GROSS: So what were the cartoons you grew up with?

KENNY: Oh, man, I was obsessed with Popeye the Sailor Man as a kid. I think, I don't know, six or seven Halloweens in a row I was Popeye (laughter) the Sailor Man, which, you know, is a pitch that probably would not fly now. You know, you go into the big cartoon network and go, OK, he's a sailor and his eye has been poked out and he likes to punch people. What do you think? - you know? But I loved...

GROSS: Oh, and the real thing is he eats spinach (laughter).

KENNY: He eats spinach...

GROSS: Wow.

KENNY: ...And then he gets strong, and this enables him to punch people harder and beat them up more completely. What do you think? But (laughter) it was Popeye the Sailor Man. And it was a particular honor for me when SpongeBob and Popeye shared a cover of TV Guide as they did the - a series of covers featuring the top 50 cartoon characters ever. And they had a cover drawing that was Popeye the Sailor Man drawing his anchor up out of the water, and it's caught on SpongeBob's underwear and he's just kind of hanging off the anchor, looking at Popeye. It was a weird, kind of, I don't know, like, full-circle cosmic moment for me.

GROSS: So...

KENNY: I started crying in the grocery store.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: That's all I'm going to say, Terry.

GROSS: So when you were a kid and you loved Popeye, did you do the Popeye voice and that kind of Popeye mumble that he's always doing as he's walking...

KENNY: Oh...

GROSS: ...And thinking?

KENNY: ...I loved that. Yeah, that thing that Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye - you know, he was Popeye for 80 years or something, you know? He was incredible. And I also loved the - you know, the "Looney Tunes," you know, Bugs and Daffy, of course. And, you know, Bullwinkle and Rocky were huge for me. And even those early Hanna-Barbera cartoons like Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound and Top Cat, you know, they had - even when the animation was fairly limited, the voice work was really great. And from a really early age, I was conscious of the fact that there were grown men (laughter) whose job it was to help bring these things to life, and it seemed like a really fun job to me.

I had an aunt, a very hep aunt, who, when I was a kid, gave me a bunch of Stan Freberg record albums, like "History Of The United States" (ph) and all that. And they had little biographies of the voice actors on the back of the album. Like, you know, Stan Freberg, June Foray, Daws Butler - you know, people like that. And they were amazing. I was very aware that there was a guy named Mel Blanc whose name was on every cartoon, but, you know, pre-internet - in the pre-internet world, it was kind of hard to find out about that stuff. You had to sort of feel your way around. But that only made it more kind of mysterious. You know, I liked to - I don't know, I felt like it - there was this whole hidden world of cartoons and voice acting that needed to be uncovered by me.

GROSS: So did you have a sense when you were a kid that you wanted to be a voice actor?

KENNY: I did, yeah. I did. And by the time I was a teenager, it was firmly in place. In fact, one of my best friends from first grade on is the comedian Bobcat Goldthwait, and we met in first grade and, you know, are still close at 42 years old or whatever. And he reminded me recently of a conversation that he and I had in high school, like, just kind of - you know, kind of walking around your hometown where there's no show business and playing this game of whose career do you want?

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: If you could have anybody's career in show business, who would you want? And this was probably '76 or '78. And Bob reminded me of this conversation we had had where he said John Belushi and I said Mel Blanc. And he said, wow, isn't that weird that you - you know, you sort of did it? You're doing - you know, you're doing the same kind of work that Mel Blanc did. And I said, yeah, it is weird. Like, I wanted to be an astronaut and I kind of got to go up in space a couple of times. It's cool.

GROSS: I don't know how Bobcat Goldthwait still manages to have a voice because...

KENNY: (Laughter) Yeah.

GROSS: ...The voice that he does sounds like it would just rip up your vocal cords.

KENNY: Yeah, I know. I don't, either. He has vocal chords of steel.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: He is more than human. But yeah, he's - we met in first grade. We went to the same Catholic school, but we were in separate first grades. And the first time I became aware of Bob was when the nun that taught his classroom just dragged him by the ear into the nun that taught my classroom. And his nun was crying.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And she just threw him into the classroom and said, I can't take him anymore, Sister. You have to - this Goldthwait boy, I don't know (ph). And I said, whoa. Like, I have to get to know this boy who can make...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: ...A grown nun cry (laughter). It was really bizarre. And so him and I - he was the only other kid that had an interest in that left field kind of, you know, stand-up and sketch comedy. And when "SCTV" came on the air, it totally blew our minds. And we went to see Andy Kaufman perform in Syracuse when we were - and, you know, it was cool to have another person who was into that stuff so you knew that you weren't crazy. 'Cause, again, now, you know, a kid can get on the internet and just, you know, immediately be in touch with, you know, how many hundreds of like-minded square pegs. But, you know, (imitating senior's voice) it wasn't that way back in the '70s.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: (Imitating senior's voice) We had to find other nerds to talk to...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: ...(Imitating senior's voice) Ourselves.

There was one really funny memory I have. You know, I was - Bob was the quintessential fat kid that was the class clown, and I was the quintessential shy, skinny kid who didn't have the guts to be class clown, but considered himself the class clown's head writer.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: You know, I - (laughter) hey, try this during math class, Bob. It'll work for you, you know?

(SOUNDBITE OF BLOWING RASPBERRY)

KENNY: That's a good sound. Try that one. But, you know, I have a great memory of us in gym class, and they were picking teams for basketball and, of course, Bob and I were both just hopeless at sports and (laughter), you know, funny as a defense mechanism - that old chestnut. And it came down, they were picking teams, and everyone got picked except Bob and myself and this little girl who had a hook for a hand.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And Bob and I just look at each other, and the kid - the captain of the other team says, I'll take Susie (ph).

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And she walked - the girl with the hook for the hand walked over to play hoops.

(LAUGHTER)

KENNY: Bob and I just looked at each other and just started laughing. You know, these, like, you know, fourth graders just laughing our heads off at how stupid and hopeless we were. Even now, I can't explain how - you know, how perfect that moment was, where it's just you and your other nerdy friend and the girl with the hook, and the girl with the hook goes off to play basketball. And they're going, yeah, Tom and Bob, it doesn't really matter what team they're on. They're just there to make us laugh anyway.

BIANCULLI: Tom Kenny speaking to Terry Gross in 2004. After a break, we'll continue their conversation, and we'll have two reviews. I'll review Prime Video's "Man On The Run," the new Morgan Neville documentary about Paul McCartney, and film critic Justin Chang reviews "Dreams," the new psychological drama starring Jessica Chastain.

I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEST DAY EVER")

KENNY: (As Spongebob SquarePants, singing) It's the best day ever.

BIANCULLI: This is FRESH AIR. I'm TV critic David Bianculli. The latest movie in the "SpongeBob SquarePants" cartoon franchise is now streaming on Paramount+. It's called "The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants" and, as always, stars Tom Kenny as the voice of the popular Porifera. Let's get back to his 2004 conversation with Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

GROSS: Do you remember the first voices that you started doing that made you realize that you could do it?

KENNY: You know, like I said, I was kind of shy up until junior high school. And it wasn't until then that I started to kind of step out and think that maybe - you know, maybe I could be funny in front of more people than my handful of selected, trusted friends. So, you know, I wasn't really wocka-wocka kooky guy in class. I had this secret desire to be, which makes the world of cartoon voice-over perfect for me 'cause, you know, if you're simultaneously a little bit shy and also an annoying, irritating showoff at the same time, it's the perfect gig.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: Do you have a favorite theme song from all the cartoon shows?

KENNY: Oh, man, I love "Top Cat." I thought that that - (singing) Top Cat, the invincible (ph) leader of the gang. You know, that was just such a cool, snappy, Rat Pack-y (ph)...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: And, you know, when I was thinking about it, I realized that all those Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters that I grew up with as a kid were basically ne'er-do-well con men. You know, Top Cat lived in an alley, and him and his buddies were always stealing from garbage cans and hiding from the cops. You know, it was like, our market research shows us that children enjoy grifters. Let's make the cartoon series about...

(LAUGHTER)

KENNY: You know, Yogi Bear is always stealing picnic baskets. It's like, you know, they were all con men and crooks. They were all - they had this Sergeant Bilko whiff of illegality about them that I was responding to for some reason.

GROSS: Now, you did a lot of stand-up comedy, too. And what was your stand-up act like?

KENNY: You know, boy, I wish I remembered it. It was, I guess, very kinetic, pop-culture-oriented, also a lot of stories about just people I had met or seen or people in my family or, you know, it sort of lent itself. It sort of was a good stepping-off point for the sketch comedy stuff like "Mr. Show With Bob And David" on HBO that I later did. You know, just very broad strokes, very high energy, kinetic. I would change it a lot, which, you know, club owners occasionally did not appreciate. (Imitating New York accent) Your act is different than it was the first show. You got to do the same thing you did the first show.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: You know, well, I get bored. I don't want to do it. What's the point if you can't throw some stuff against the wall? And if it doesn't stick, well, those are the breaks. I don't tell you how many cases of Heineken to order. Get off my case. But...

GROSS: But when I was growing up, all the comics - like, so many of the comics did impressions, and they did impressions of people who they must have grown up with, you know, like James Cagney and Al Jolson and then...

KENNY: Right.

GROSS: Contemporary politicians like JFK and Nixon were thrown in there.

KENNY: Vaughn Meader.

GROSS: Ed Sullivan. Yeah. Right. Everybody had to do...

KENNY: Yeah.

GROSS: ...Ed Sullivan.

KENNY: Yeah.

GROSS: Did you grow up with any of that? And was - did you ever do impressions? Impressions just aren't what they used to be. Very few people do impressions in their act anymore.

KENNY: Yeah. And especially - you know, I was doing stand-up comedy. You know, I started in '83 or so as a rank open-mic-er. And to us - I don't know. Maybe we were, like, snot-nosed little wise guys, but to us - people like me and Bobcat - like, the impression guys were - there was just something kind of square about it. There was just something kind of corny, like, hey, here's - you know, what if Jack Nicholson was on "Star Trek," you know?

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: It was just some sort of - who cares, you know? You know, who cares? So, impressions were really not of much interest to me, and maybe because I'm not very good at them myself. Maybe it's just sour grapes 'cause there are voice-over guys that I work with every day that are just - have the most incredible ears and incredible radar for doing these uncanny impressions not just of huge celebrities, but celebrities that you would think you couldn't do an impression of.

Like, you know, my friend Billy West, who's, like, a monster cartoon voice guy, you know, he was Ren and Stimpy and a bazillion other characters, including Popeye currently. But he - you know, he'll do, like, a dead-on Charlie Sheen. And you go, wow, I didn't know there was enough to Charlie Sheen to do an impression of. Wow, that's really cool. And I never had that skill. You know, my strength was always creating characters out of whole cloth and looking at a drawing or a picture and kind of figuring out what - you know, what these things might sound like.

By the same token, though, a lot of my cartoon voices that I've actually been hired to do have been the result of my highly unsuccessful and lame attempts at impressions.

GROSS: (Laughter) Like who?

KENNY: You know, like, well, I'll do an impression that's so terrible that it sounds like an original voice. You know, people go, wow, we haven't heard that before. That's very good. And I'll go, well, I was trying to do, you know, this person or that person. But - or sometimes they're amalgams, like the series "The Powerpuff Girls," you know, (impersonating Mayor of Townsville) has this ineffectual mayor of the town. Welcome to Townsville, ladies and gentlemen.

That's sort of an amalgam of my bad impressions of Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz, (impersonating Joe Flynn) and Joe Flynn, the guy from "McHale's Navy." I'm going to toss you in the brig for this, McHale.

And, you know, who's the woman? Ruth Gordon, you know, in her later years in those awful movies with Clint Eastwood and an orangutan. (Impersonating Ruth Gordon) Get that monkey out of my Oreos. You know?

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: So it's like, there's three horrible, weak attempts at impressions that actually turned into an employment opportunity for me (laughter).

GROSS: How did you break into voice work?

KENNY: You know, fortuitously, I was doing stand-up one night at the now-defunct Improv in Santa Monica. And there was a person from Nickelodeon and also a person from what was then Hanna-Barbera in the audience. And they both approached me the same night and said - it was a showcase. And they said, jeez, have you ever thought about doing animated voices for cartoons? And I said, ah, you know, maybe every day of my life perhaps.

(LAUGHTER)

KENNY: Where do I sign? And yeah, that was - it was great. I really felt like, you know, once I did the first couple of them - the first one or two were extremely terrifying. And then I felt like I had just found this suit that fit me so well. It was like, wow, this is what I was looking for, you know? This feels even much better and righter to me than stand-up does. It was a blast.

GROSS: What is the most devious thing you have ever done with your voice?

KENNY: (Laughter) Oh, boy. That is very weird. Well, I have to say, occasionally, parents who are maybe a little pushy will foist their kid on you and just say, this is Mr. Kenny. He does SpongeBob. Do SpongeBob. Do SpongeBob for Timmy (ph), Mr. Kenny. Do SpongeBob. Do SpongeBob. Do SpongeBob. And then you do the voice, and the kid just - you know, they're 2 years old, so they don't understand why this man with three-day stubble is yammering...

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: ...SpongeBob in their face. It's terrifying for them. So that's kind of unwittingly evil on my part, but I sort of get hornswoggled into it. But I just know that that kid is going to be on a psychiatrist couch somewhere down the line. (Impersonating accent) So tell me again when the sponge man yelled in your face.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: But - (impersonating accent) and that made you cry.

But it's weird. And then there's another school of kid who finds out what you do and just comes up with this sense of demanding entitlement and starts poking you and going, talk SpongeBob, talk SpongeBob, talk SpongeBob. It's weird. And then you just say, (As SpongeBob SquarePants) all right, I'll talk SpongeBob. Why don't you go to your parents and ask them to teach you some manners.

GROSS: (Laughter) Do you ever get recognized by your voice, since you don't really use your real voice in your work?

KENNY: No. Actually, this is a character that I'm doing right now.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: This is - you know, this is really hard for me to do right now. No, my real voice is kind of just uninteresting and vanilla and, you know, nasal, you know, Syracuse accent. And, you know, if I didn't - if I wasn't able to twist it into various shapes, you know, I'd be working in a store. Like, I see guys like James Earl Jones, and they've got the voice. They've got that voice, and it's what they do. And it's - you know, it's a gold mine. It's - you know - if I say Darth Vader's lines, it doesn't have the same cachet.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: Hey, I find your lack of faith disturbing, OK?

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: I must have those plans. But - you know?

(LAUGHTER)

KENNY: So, you know, like the guy that does the trailers. (Impersonating movie trailer voice) In a world where a man's voice goes down at the end of every sentence.

It's like, wow, that guy really talks like that. I run into that guy. That really is his voice. (Impersonating movie trailer voice) And he really does do the thing where he goes down, then...

Like, in promos, you listen to promos and you realize that it's all about the word then, you know. (Impersonating movie trailer voice) On a very special "CSI: Toledo." Then on "Buffy."

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: (Impersonating movie trailer voice) Then on a very special pretty people in their 20s, cellulite is discovered on Sarah.

With a, you know...

GROSS: Have you really met that guy?

KENNY: I have, yeah. Yeah, man.

GROSS: He gets a lot of work.

KENNY: He's the guy. I mean, there's - it's him. You walk around, you go, wow. (Impersonating movie trailer voice) Yes, I'm ready for my car now.

It's like, I love it, you know? Like, I can make fun of that, but I can't really do it.

GROSS: Well, you just did it.

KENNY: And you have to be able to reference the word masterpiece in illimitable ways. You know, (impersonating movie trailer voice) it's been called a small masterpiece. Critics are calling it some kind of a masterpiece.

GROSS: (Laughter).

KENNY: (Impersonating movie trailer voice) It's being hailed as a masterpiece.

It's like, wow, if everything's a masterpiece, that makes everything sort of generic. (Laughter) If it's all a masterpiece, it's all...

GROSS: Well, Tom Kenny, it's just been great talking with you. Thank you so much.

KENNY: Thank you very much, Terry (laughter).

GROSS: What voice was that?

KENNY: That was - (impersonating Mr. Haney) that was my Mr. Haney hillbilly voice from "Green Acres." I don't know. No, I think that was I-did-interviews-all-day-today voice. That's Phlegm (ph). That's Mr. Phlegm, my new character that I'm working on.

GROSS: (Laughter).

BIANCULLI: Tom Kenny speaking to Terry Gross in 2004. "The SpongeBob Movie: Search For SquarePants" is now streaming on Paramount+. Coming up, I review Prime Video's "Man On The Run," the new Morgan Neville documentary about Paul McCartney. This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Today, on Prime Video, the new documentary "Man On The Run" makes its streaming premiere. It's about Sir Paul McCartney, but it's not about his years with the Beatles. Instead, it's about his first years without them. Yes, there have been plenty of Beatles-related documentaries in the past decade or so. And yes, I've reviewed most of them. But in my defense, the Beatles are a great subject, musically and biographically, and the best filmmakers are drawn to them. Peter Jackson gave us the "Get Back" documentary miniseries and the latest installment of the Beatles anthology. Ron Howard directed "Eight Days A Week" about the group's touring years. Martin Scorsese directed "Living In The Material World," his two-part biography of George Harrison. All of them were terrific, and all of them were made by Oscar-winning directors.

Documentary filmmaker Morgan Neville, who won an Oscar for his film about backup singers "20 Feet From Stardom," has joined that club. He's already directed outstanding biographies of everyone from Johnny Cash and Anthony Bourdain to Steve Martin and Fred Rogers. And now, Prime Video is premiering his latest documentary, "Man On The Run" about former Beatle Paul McCartney. And the word former is key here. While brief, artful montages encapsulate the frenzy and impact of Beatle mania, "Man On The Run" is focused on the decade immediately afterward, the 1970s. Specifically, it spans the period from when McCartney left the Beatles to when his former bandmate, John Lennon, was shot and killed. Neville conducted many lengthy new interviews with McCartney but uses only the sound. Virtually all the footage in "Man On The Run" is vintage, so there are no white-haired rock stars in sight. But because McCartney is an executive producer and has provided a stunning amount of previously unseen private footage, there's lots of fresh stuff to see here.

The danger of McCartney having such input, though, is of "Man On The Run" becoming too sanitized as a personal biography, but it's not. The decade covered includes McCartney announcing the breakup of the Beatles, his very public musical feud with Lennon, the formation of McCartney's post-Beatles band Wings, even the Paul is dead rumor. And in these new interviews, McCartney seems to be speaking honestly, not only about what happened, but how he felt about it all. On the Beatles' breakup, for example, it was McCartney who announced it publicly, but it was Lennon who already had left the group.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MAN ON THE RUN")

PAUL MCCARTNEY: John had come in one day and said he was leaving the Beatles. He said, it's kind of exciting. It's like telling someone you want a divorce. But I was thinking, what do I do now? Because it'd been my whole life, really. You know, I've had growing up, going to school and then becoming the Beatles. It was a puzzle I had to kind of unravel.

BIANCULLI: Paul's reaction at age 27 was to retreat with his wife, photographer Linda Eastman, and family to a remote property he owned in Scotland. In a vintage interview, she recalls his out-of-the-blue suggestion.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MAN ON THE RUN")

LINDA EASTMAN: He said, I've got this farm. I know you won't like it. But it was so beautiful up there.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHEEP BAAING)

EASTMAN: Way at the end of nowhere. Civilization dropped away. It was quite a relief.

BIANCULLI: "Man On The Run" does rely on other voices and perspectives to defend some of McCartney's infamous actions during this period. John Lennon's son, Sean, for example, excuses Paul's stunned, understated reaction to John's death. When asked by reporters, Paul called it a real drag, having been in shock. And John himself, in an interview filmed years after the Beatles' breakup, admits that Paul was right in hating and suing the manager that John had brought in to handle the group. At the time, John and Paul even attacked one another in song. And in a new interview, Paul is very open about how much that stung.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DO YOU SLEEP? (TAKES 5 AND SIX / RAW STUDIO MIX)")

JOHN LENNON: (Singing) The only thing you done was yesterday.

MCCARTNEY: The only thing you did was yesterday was apparently Allen Klein's suggestion. But the back on my mind, I was thinking, but all I ever did was "Yesterday," "Let It Be," "The Long And Winding Road," "Eleanor Rigby," "Lady Madonna." [Expletive] John (ph).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW DO YOU SLEEP? (TAKES 5 AND SIX / RAW STUDIO MIX)")

LENNON: (Singing) Tell me, how do you sleep?

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MAN ON THE RUN")

MCCARTNEY: How do I sleep at night? Well, actually, quite well.

BIANCULLI: That same refreshing honesty extends to other key moments - the formation of his group Wings and recruiting Linda as its first charter member, his jail time in Japan for bringing pot into that country, even the time Lorne Michaels on "Saturday Night Live," jokingly offered the Beatles a ridiculously small check if they would reunite on his show.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

LORNE MICHAELS: Now, here it is, as you can see, a check made out to you, the Beatles, for $3,000. All you have to do is sing three Beatle tunes - "She Loves You." Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a thousand dollars right there.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MAN ON THE RUN")

MCCARTNEY: Me and Linda were over to John's apartment out of Dakota. He said, oh, this is a big show over here - "Saturday Night Live."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

MICHAELS: In my book, the Beatles are the best thing that ever happened to music. It goes even deeper than that. You're not just a musical group. You're a part of us. We grew up with you.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MAN ON THE RUN")

MCCARTNEY: We got kind of excited. We'd just go down. We'd show up. Hey.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: It's "Saturday Night Live."

(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MAN ON THE RUN")

MCCARTNEY: But it was like, why? You know, I mean, it would be great for them. Would it be great for us? We've come full circle, and now we're off on another journey. So we just decided to just have another cup of tea and forget the whole idea.

BIANCULLI: "Man On The Run" is more about the man than it is about his creative process. But his music runs all through the documentary, and it all adds up to an impressive, inspirational second act.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET ME ROLL IT")

MCCARTNEY: (Singing) I can't tell you how I feel. My heart is like a wheel. Let me roll it. Let me roll it to you. Let me roll it.

BIANCULLI: Coming up, Justin Chang reviews "Dreams," starring Jessica Chastain. This is FRESH AIR.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In the psychological drama "Dreams," Jessica Chastain plays a San Francisco philanthropist whose foundation supports a dance academy in Mexico City. The movie, which also stars the Mexican actor and ballet dancer Isaac Hernández, is the latest from the writer and director Michel Franco, who previously worked with Chastain in the 2024 film "Memory." "Dreams" opens in select theaters this week. And our film critic, Justin Chang, has this review.

JUSTIN CHANG, BYLINE: The first thing you see in the new movie "Dreams," from the Mexican filmmaker Michel Franco, is a freight truck parked in the middle of nowhere. Inside the truck are several migrants, who are making the perilous journey from Mexico to the U.S. Franco is vague on specifics. He observes and implies more than he explains. One of the migrants is a young man named Fernando, played by Isaac Hernández. And he quickly separates himself from the others and makes his way towards San Francisco. There's determination as well as exhaustion in Fernando's stride, almost as if he knows exactly where he's going. He does.

Fernando heads to a swanky apartment, the home of a philanthropist named Jennifer McCarthy, played by Jessica Chastain. Jennifer is surprised to see him but they're clearly not strangers. They immediately fall into bed in the first of the movie's many explicit sex scenes. The backstory comes together gradually. Fernando studied at a Mexico City dance academy that receives funding from Jennifer's arts foundation. Their torrid affair began some time ago during one of Jennifer's many trips to Mexico. Now Fernando has entered the U.S. illegally to be with her. And he's determined to stay and perhaps even launch his dance career.

"Dreams" first screened at the Berlin International Film Festival last February, less than a month into the second Trump presidency. Although there are references to ICE and the looming threat that Fernando could be arrested and deported, immigration provides the context rather than the subject of the movie. What interests Franco the most is the ever-shifting balance of power between Fernando, an undocumented immigrant trying to make ends meet as a bartender, and Jennifer, a privileged older white woman who travels by private jet. It's a dynamic as complicated as it is toxic.

Fernando needs Jennifer's support but only up to a point. He's a talented enough dancer to make inroads with a prestigious San Francisco ballet company. Jennifer's desire for Fernando verges on an obsession, but one that she indulges only on her terms. Things were so much more convenient for her when she could see Fernando down in Mexico, away from the prying eyes and sharp judgments of her family members and colleagues. In this scene, the two are at a restaurant, where Fernando strikes up a conversation in Spanish with their waiter.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DREAMS")

ISAAC HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez, speaking Spanish)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, speaking Spanish)

HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez, speaking Spanish)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, speaking Spanish)

JESSICA CHASTAIN: (As Jennifer McCarthy) I'm going to start with the goat cheese salad.

HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez) He's actually asking if you want something to drink.

CHASTAIN: (As Jennifer McCarthy) Oh, sorry. No, I'm fine. Didn't mean to interrupt your conversation.

HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez, speaking Spanish)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, speaking Spanish)

CHASTAIN: (As Jennifer McCarthy) Forget I'm here?

HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez) Why?

CHASTAIN: (As Jennifer McCarthy) Well, you can speak English.

HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez) I think you should know a little Spanish by now - no? - after all the time spent in Mexico having a Mexican boyfriend. I'm from Quito, senorita.

CHASTAIN: (As Jennifer McCarthy) Sorry.

HERNÁNDEZ: (As Fernando Rodríguez) Por favor.

CHASTAIN: (As Jennifer McCarthy, laughter)

CHANG: Chastain also starred in Franco's previous film, "Memory," playing a sexual abuse survivor drawn into a relationship with a man with early onset dementia, played by Peter Sarsgaard. The setup was tortured, but the actors were good enough to make you believe it. In a way, "Dreams" plays like a cruel B-side to "Memory's" more optimistic romance. And Chastain, so sympathetic in the earlier film, here swaps virtue for outright villainy.

She's long been one of our most fearless actors. And she gives herself over chillingly to the role of Jennifer, a monstrous manipulator and exploiter of someone she claims to love. Franco's films, including the class uprising thriller "New Order," do not exactly overflow with the milk of human kindness. He's often struck his critics, myself included, as something of a Junior League Michael Haneke, hurling contempt at his characters, especially the rich ones, from a cold, clinical distance.

With "Dreams," an ironic title if ever there was one, he's on predictably cynical terrain. Here he targets the racism and hypocrisy of liberal do-gooders like Jennifer, and his point is as inarguable as his methods are obvious. This is the kind of movie where Jennifer's smarmy brother, well-played by Rupert Friend, will make crass comments about Mexicans, utterly oblivious to the Latina cleaner quietly tidying up the office around him. I rolled my eyes at that scene, recoiling, not for the first time, from Franco's posture of smug superiority.

But not all of "Dreams" is so easy to shake off. After a season of high-minded movies about the redemptive power of art, there's something bracing about Franco's ruthlessly unsentimental view of the ecosystem in which artists and their benefactors operate. Not even Fernando's extraordinary talent is ultimately enough to make his dreams come true. Isaac Hernández is a principal dancer at the American Ballet Theatre. And the film's most pleasurable scenes are those in which we see Fernando dancing, fleeting moments of beauty in a film with a relentlessly ugly vision of the world.

BIANCULLI: Justin Chang is a film critic for The New Yorker. He reviewed the new film "Dreams." On Monday's show, Jessie Buckley, the star of "Hamnet," for which she's nominated for an Oscar and has already won a Golden Globe. She launched her career on a British TV singing competition with judges Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Cameron MackIntosh. We'll hear what that sounded like. Hope you can join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANNE SAJDERA'S "BOUNCE")

BIANCULLI: To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair. You can subscribe to our YouTube channel at youtube.com/@thisisfreshair. We're rolling out new videos with in-studio guests, behind-the-scenes shorts and iconic interviews from the archive.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Sam Briger. Our senior producer today is Roberta Shorrock. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. For Terry Gross and Tonya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.

(SOUNDBITE OF ANNE SAJDERA'S "BOUNCE")

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