SpongeBob SquarePants -- along with its two spin-off shows, the prequel Kamp Koral and the chaotic variety show stylings of The Patrick Star Show -- haven't necessarily been all that grounded. Each one is a wild exploration of Bikini Bottom and its bizarre inhabitants. Things get even weirder than normal in SpongeBob SquarePants: The Tidal Zone, an hour-length special anthology that reimagines the characters in a series of even weirder circumstances than usual, all book-ended by the show's French Narrator doing a riff on Rod Serling's iconic The Twilight Zone. It's weird, zany, and all sorts of fun.

During interviews with CBR ahead of the Jan. 13 premiere of SpongeBob SquarePants: The Tidal Zone on Nickelodeon, Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Jill Talley, Clancy Brown, Cree Summer, and Dana Snyder sat down to discuss the inherent fun of the SpongeBob franchise. The group dished on what it's like to riff on classic horror/sci-fi anthologies like The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery and how they approached elevating the already pretty out-there world of SpongeBob SquarePants.

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CBR: First off, congratulations on The Tidal Zone! It's so much fun, and it's out there, even for this franchise.

Bill Fagerbakke: It's kind of alarming. You really got it because I watched it, and I was kind of destroyed. So much is happening.

Jill Talley: I think back to when SpongeBob SquarePants first came out, and people -- like, family members -- would say, "What are you working on?" You try to explain it. "Well, it's a sponge, and he lives under the sea." You try to tell them everything, and it was so confusing for them. I think, explain this. This is... so weird and crazy and fun and unique.

Cree Summer: I think we've come to expect it now. We just know that we are going to go far out every time -- further out, even further out there. I mean, that's what we come to expect now, so we're always ready for a trip.

Clancy Brown: I was wondering what the kids were smoking -- they were, like, definitely in the college dorm room.

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One of the things I find fascinating about this special is that SpongeBob SquarePants doesn't usually have much in terms of firm rules or laws of physics in-universe, but this special goes even more over the top with it. How do you escalate something already as wacky as SpongeBob and Kamp Koral and The Patrick Star Show? From the inside, how did you approach that?

Talley: We have such creative writers on the show.

Fagerbakke: And really, how much fun for them, I think, to not feel tied to a predetermined narrative. No, this is what this character does, and that's what that other character does. It's really the toolbox and the play chest -- they're both wide open. It's always fun to crack a storyboard and see what they came up with.

Summer: It just keeps getting bigger and wackier. Yeah, it never ceases to amaze.

I can't imagine what getting the storyboards for The Tidal Zone was like.

Tom Kenny: Looking at the storyboards is never a chore. It's not like, "Oh, no, make the donuts." It's really fun. There's always something in there that makes me laugh when I'm going through it -- funny drawings and funny gags. I'm thinking of how it's gonna sound when these guys perform it, so you're kind of laughing ahead of time. It's just a blast, you know? Rod Serling, he's a hometown boy from Syracuse, born on Christmas day in Syracuse, New York. I love Rod Serling, so it was fun to be able to get to do his voice and pay tribute to his great anthology shows, The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery.

Brown: I'm just a part of the audience. I'm loving it. The brilliant thing about it was that Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, those sort of cues that we all get set us up exactly for that kind of world that... we're going to go into where there's no holds barred. Then, of course, the characters are never afraid. They never react the way the people in The Twilight Zone react. They're just robots and enjoying it now. That's awesome.

Talley: That is one thing I think Tom is really... When he directs, he's really great at explaining... if you're confused, he's really good at breaking stuff down.

Fagerbakke: I've said this a few times, but I always have to point out [that] as a session director, we're so lucky to have him because it's on the stupid Zoom stuff. A lot of us are isolated, and in my mind, we thrive when we're performing together. So he's helped kind of keep that key focus alive and well in the sessions.

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SpongeBob SquarePants The Tidal Zone Interview 4

What's it like to see this universe continue to grow and evolve and expand in ways like this?

Kenny: Even if people have never seen those shows, actually, they're so in the cultural consciousness, and you know, with Black Mirror and [Guillermo] Del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities, it's kind of cool that format is actually kind of hip now. It's actually really current; in a way, it's never really gone away. Right now, there's a couple of really high-profile anthology shows, so we're right there [with] you, too. As usual, smart by mistake. That's gonna be the title of my autobiography.

Fagerbakke: It's like a miracle. It really is because for 23 years, this content has been created and written, and to do that and to do a character for that long and to not say, "Ugh, boring," it's a miracle.

Dana Snyder: It's always enjoyable because it's so filled with buoyancy and wit. I don't know what's going on. There's a chemical thing.

Talley: I think also that you have people that worked on SpongeBob that are working on Tidal Zone. They've been around -- we've had a lot of people that have worked on the show for a long time, since the beginning. So we all love it. It's like a baby that we all watched grow up, and we all love it, and now the baby's really weird.

SpongeBob SquarePants: The Tidal Zone premieres Jan. 13 on Nickelodeon.