Drymon: Steve’s original idea for the pitch was that we would write a storyboard for a possible episode and pitch it to the network. He wanted to write an episode with SpongeBob and Squidward on a road trip, inspired by the movie Pow Wow Highway. It’s a road trip movie staring Gary Farmer, who is an innocent, kid-like character who is traveling with a curmudgeon. The SpongeBob/Squidward dynamic really developed while we were working on it but eventually Steve gave up on the storyboard idea for the initial pitch. We resurrected the Sponge/Squid road trip during the first season and used a lot of the ideas for an episode called “Pizza Delivery.”
While we were trying to write the road trip storyboard, Steve came up with the idea of a starfish character. The original character was angry and had a huge chip on his shoulder because he was pink. He was the owner of a roadside bar that the guys went to on their trip and was a bully, but that didn’t last long. Steve was going through a lot of ideas at the time. We worked on and off for about six months, and when we were done Steve had all the characters and settings that became the show.
With the help of writer Tim Hill and art director Nick Jennings, Steve finished the pitch and sold SpongeBob to Nickelodeon. Meanwhile I had cowritten a pilot for Nickelodeon, so I had some idea of what they were looking for in their pilots. Steve and I had dinner and came up with the idea for “Help Wanted” based on an experience Steve had in the Boy Scouts. He and Tim worked it into an outline—the network approved it—so we were ready to go.
