Tom Kenny

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Tom Kenny

Born

7/13/1962, East Syracuse, New York

Birth Name

Thomas James Kenny

Gender

Male

Also Known As

Thomas J. Kenny
9.5
out of 10
User Rating
315 votes
REVIEWS
80 reviews
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Biography

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Tom Kenny was raised in East Syracuse, New York, where he later attended Catholic School. Tom Kenny was always fascinated with comic books and animated programs, which he read and watched on a constant basis, which permitted him to know more about the two subjects than anyone in…more

Credits

Trivia and Quotes

  • Trivia

    • As a child, he rarely tried to do imitations of characters, but instead enjoyed making up ones on his own.

    • He's done commercials for Home Depot and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

    • His favorite shows that he grew up with were Looney Tunes, Yogi Bear, Popeye, Top Cat, and Huckleberry; the voice acting on those shows inspired him to get into the job.

    • Brian Wilson was his big inspiration for the Best Day Ever album.

    • His top 20 favorite episodes of SpongeBob (in no particular order) are:
      Band Geeks
      Best Day Ever
      Chocolate with Nuts
      Frakendoodle
      Graveyard Shift
      Help Wanted
      Hooky
      Idiot Box
      Krusty Krab Training Video
      Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy VI
      Pizza Delivery
      Sailor Mouth
      Single Cell Anniversary
      Slide Whistle Stooges
      Squirel Jokes
      Tea at the Treedome
      The Camping Episode
      The Card
      Toy Store of Doom
      Valentine's Day

    • Tom Kenny has been in over 250 DVD's.

    • He considers himself to be like SpongeBob in the fact that they're both optimistic and they shared in low-paying jobs.

    • He did commentaries with Stephen Hillenburg on the SpongeBob SquarePants episodes "Dumped" and "Sleepy Time" on the SpongeBob DVD "Tide and Seek."

    • He was a writer for America's Funniest People, Everything but the Show, ABC, Inside America's Totally Unsolved, Fox, Lifestyles, and Puss in Boots.

    • Altogether, he's collected over 194.4 million dollars from his roles.

    • He sometimes pretended to be his own agent to get roles in shows.

    • Along with Andy Paley, Tom Kenny wrote all 13 songs on the Best Day Ever Album, as well as additional comedy material.

    • As a kid, Tom Kenny was obsessed with Popeye, and even dressed up as him for thirteen Halloweens in a row.

    • In honor of SpongeBob's tenth anniversary, Tom Kenny was asked to post his top 20 favorite episodes in no particular order.

    • Altogether he does five major voices on SpongeBob SquarePants: SpongeBob, his most well known job, Gary the snail, Patchy the Pirate, Mr. SquarePants, and the French Narrator. As well, he also does many various voices on the show.

    • His favorite episode of SpongeBob is "Chocolate with Nuts."

    • He began doing standup comedy in Boston and made his way to San Francisco where his voice acting talents were discovered.

    • In the 1980's, Tom belonged to a band called the Tearjerkers, which were a punk rock/hillbilly style of music.

    • Tom Kenny has acted in 192 productions so far.

    • Tom Kenny voiced Peter Cottontail in the 2005 direct-to-DVD movie, Here Comes Peter Cottontail: The Movie.

    • Tom Kenny played the dog at fun land on "That 70's Show".

    • Tom Kenny creates the laughter of SpongeBob SquarePants by rubbing his hand against his Adam's Apple.

    • Tom Kenny voices Scooter the talking baseball who explains pitches while the game is in play and was produced by FOX.

    • Tom Kenny appeared on the Pat Sajak show with Bob Goldthwait.

    • Tom Kenny and Bob Goldthwait worked together on the Showtime sit-com Out There.

    • Tom Kenny had a conversation with Bob Goldthwait from mid-'70s high school days, when they asked each other whose show-biz careers they wanted to emulate. Goldthwait said he wanted to be John Belushi. He said he wanted to be Mel Blanc.

    • He created a SpongeBob SquarePants album along with his pal Andy Paley, a producer/musician who's worked with everybody from Brian Wilson to the Ramones. Together, they came up with The Best Day Ever, a CD album that has a touch 60's pop.

    • Tom Kenny's first steady paycheck as a performer was Fox's sketch comedy The Edge, where he worked with Jennifer Aniston, Julie Brown, Wayne Knight, and Alan Ruck.

    • Tom Kenny's SpongeBob SquarePants squeaks and giggles have been described as "a potent combination of Jerry Lewis's geekmania and Pee-Wee Herman's pathological optimism".

    • Tom Kenny helped develope an unreleased cartoon called "Plastic Man" which was based on a DC comic character created by Jack Cole. Not only did Tom help develope but also voiced Plastic Man himself.

    • According to Tom Kenny when he did the voice of the Mayor, they were actually based on bad impressions of Frank Morgan and Joe Flynn.

    • He auditioned for Saturday Night Live, where he was a finalist when the show had two openings, which were filled by David Spade and Rob Schneider.

    • Tom Kenny and Bobcat Goldthwait co-founded a local comedy troupe called Genric Comics.

    • Tom Kenny and Bobcat Goldthwait performed stand-up together at local clubs as Tomcat & Bobcat.

    • He and Bobcat Goldthwait first worked together when they were hired by Barry Crimmins (who is a successful political commentor).

    • On November 16, 2004, which was 3 days before The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie aired, he was interviewed by Fresh Air from WHYY.

    • Even though Tom Kenny wasn't credited, he does a voice in the film, Scary Movie 3, as the invading aliens.

    • In two episodes of Camp Lazlo, Parasitic Pal and Loogie Llama, he sang a song in both the episodes.

    • He provided the voice of Henderson, the co-host of the children's programming block entitled Tickle U on Cartoon Network.

    • His first voice acting job that he had was for the Nickelodeon series Rocko's Modern Life, providing the voice of Heffer.

    • He still performs stand-up comedy when he has time away from voice acting.

    • He voiced the character Rin in the Square-Enix RPG video game, Final Fantasy X-2

    • In an early 2005 episode of Teen Titans, he sang a full length song in order to permit a musical scene to exist in one of the episodes.

    • In high school, he was classmates with comedian, Bobcat Goldthwait.

    • He provides the voice of Spyro in the video game series Spryo the Dragon, in which he replaced voice actor Carlos Alazraqui for the role. Tom Kenny voiced Spyro in these games: Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage, Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and Spyro: Legend of the Dragonfly.

    • He attended Bishop Grimes High School, in East Syracuse, New York.

    • In some SpongeBob SquarePants special episodes, he dresses up in a pirate costume, and he takes on the persona of Patchy the Pirate, the president of the SpongeBob SquarePants fan club.

    • He appeared in the Smashing Pumpkins' music video for the song Tonight, Tonight, along with his wife.

    • He appeared alongside his wife in a cameo during the Disney feature film, Sky High.

    • He provided the voice for Poppa in Joe Murray's internet cartoon, Le Family Poppa.

    • The first anime that he provide voices for was Dragonball Z, though they were merely minor characters. His first major role providing the voice in an anime was for the series Rave Master.

    • He hosted Cartoon Network's Funniest Bloopers and Other Embarrassing Moments in June, 2003.

    • He provided the voice for the judge during a commercial for the cereal Cocoa Pebbles.

    • He was the announcer for the Kids Choice Awards in 2004 to 2006, and most recently, 2008.

    • He is most well known for his work on the Nickelodeon series, SpongeBob SquarePants, where he provides the voice for SpongeBob, as well as his pet snail Gary. He also plays the live action role as Patchy the Pirate.

    • Tom Kenny is married to Jill Talley (who is also the voice actress) and have two children (a boy and a girl).

  • Quotes

    • Tom: I just felt like there was a world of cartoon voices that had to be discovered by me.

    • Tom: You have to remember we're just performers, that we seldom have any kind of grasp on real life.

    • Tom: I seem to voice a lot of sweet, kind of dumb yellow characters for some reason.

    • Tom Kenny: Bill, Carolyn and Rodger Bumpass... aren't in the room, it's not even a recording room, it's Bikini Bottom, it's like for eight hours you are this... sponge!

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Fan Reviews (80)

SUBMIT REVIEW

  • Voice of SpongeBob SquarePants

    10
    By fsaenz0125, Mar 25, 2012
    I think Tom Kenny's an excellent voice actor. He does a great job at voicing SpongeBob (in addition to voicing French Narrator, Gary, SpongeBob's Dad, Gary). I don't get some people think that Tom Kenny isn't voicing SpongeBob anymore because his voice got higher. He is still on SpongeBob, and he does a LOT of voices there (it doesn't bothered me, but his voices are easy torecognize, especially when he uses an old man voice). Also, besides SpongeBob, Tom is in Rocko's Modern Life (Heffer), CatDog (Dog), PowerPuff Girls (Narrator/Mayor), Dexter's Lab (Various voices), Fairly OddParents (Cupid), Camp Lazlo (Lumpus/Slinkman), and many more. Overall, Tom Kenny does a lot of great voice work. 10/10moreless

  • he's an good guy

    9.5
    By dragondude4, Aug 17, 2011
    Tom Kenny is one of those actors that are in almost any cartoon in the Nickelodeon CartoonNetwork and the disney Channel. tom Kenny isn't quiet in a lot of Live action show he is mostly in Cartoons. Tom Kenny is famous for Voice one of the best cartoon Character in the World. Tom Kenny is the voice of the famous Nickelodeon cartoon Spongebob Sqaurepants. One of the things that I don't like about him is that in some cartoons he mostly uses the same voice like he uses his spongebob voice to voice pat from Handy Mandy but he is still a good guymoreless
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