Voice actor Tom Kenny was born in Syracuse, New York in 1962. He got his start in show business as a comedian when he and his friend Bob Goldthwait were just teenagers. The two saw an open-mic night ad and decided to perform under the monikers Tomcat and Bobcat (as a tribute to stand-up comedian Barry Crimmins who performed under the name “Bear Cat”). While Bobcat Goldthwait would go on to become known for his bizarre black comedy and satirical takes, Kenny was said to have been more inspired by Woody Allen’s neurotic stage routine. But both turned into successful stand-up comedians.

After performing comedy across the nation for eight years, Tom Kenny got the opportunity to star in a few films and TV shows, including variety shows like Friday Night Videos (NBC’s attempt to capitalize on the success of MTV which ran from 1983 to 2002), The Edge (1992-93), David Mirren’s short-lived sketch comedy series on FOX featuring such cast members as Julie Brown, Jennifer Aniston, Wayne Knight and Jill Talley (Tom Kenny’s future wife) and most notably Mr. Show (1995-98), David Cross and Bob Odenkirk’s HBO sketch comedy series featuring Cross, Odenkirk, Kenny, Talley, John Ennis and Jay Johnston in addition to featuring regular appearances from a lot of talented people from the alternative Gen-X comedy scene who would later go on to bigger success, like Jack Black, Brian Posehn, Paul F. Tompkins, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Scott Aukerman, Dino Stamatopoulos, Karen Kilgariff, Scott Adsit and Sarah Silverman.

But Tom Kenny is most prolific as a voice actor, which started when animator Joe Murray was auditioning people in L.A. for his series Rocko’s Modern Life which premiered on Nickelodeon in 1993 and featured Tom Kenny in the role of Heffer. After that breakout role Kenny voiced cartoon characters in one successful kids’ series after another, including Valhallen from Dexter’s Laboratory, Carl Chryniszzswics from Johnny Bravo, Dog from CatDog and the Mayor of Townsville from The Powerpuff Girls. But Tom Kenny’s first lead role in the series SpongeBob SquarePants is his most famous.

Marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, who Kenny met while both men were working on Rocko’s Modern Life, first approached Kenny about voicing SpongeBob in 1997, and when that series premiered on Nickelodeon in 1999 and became a phenomenon, Kenny’s voice became one of the most famous in TV history. Kenny also voices SpongeBob’s pet snail Gary, the Jacques Cousteau-like narrator and he portrays the live-action character Patchy the Pirate, but it’s his role as the absorbent, yellow and porous title character that has earned him an Annie Award as well as several Emmy nominations. Kenny regularly reprises the role, including in the spin-off series The Patrick Star Show, the Paramount+ prequel series Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, various video games and even the 2024 Super Bowl for which Kenny improvised commentary live with Patrick voice actor Bill Fagerbakke on a special alternate broadcast that aired on Nickelodeon at the same time the real game was airing on CBS.

Looking at the roles I’ve mentioned alone you can tell Tom Kenny has a wide range when it comes to voicing characters, and it only got wider since then as he continues to voice many animated characters from many popular animated series, including some you may not have even known he voiced. Those roles include Raimundo in Xiaolin Showdown, Mumbo Jumbo in Teen Titans, Ed the otter in Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Gibson in Super Monkey Robot Team Hyper Force Go!, Penguin in The Batman, Eduardo in Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Scoutmaster Lumpus in Camp Lazlo, Jake aka the monkey from My Gym Partner’s a Monkey, Mr. Lopart from Handy Manny, both Dr. Two-Brains and Becky’s little brother TJ Botsford in WordGirl, the Autobot Starscream and the human Professor Isaac Sumdac in Transformers: Animated, Plastic Man, Deadshot and Mirror Master in Batman: The Brave and the Bold, the Ice King in Adventure Time, the supervillains Dr. Octopus and Vulture in Ultimate Spider-Man, Commander Peepers in Wander over Yonder, Sumo in Clarence, Squanchy in Rick and Morty, the Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy and the artificially intelligent H.U.E. from Final Space.

Other animated shows that Tom Kenny has contributed his voice to include Dr. Katz, Cow and Chicken, The Wild Thornberrys, Futurama, The Fairly Oddparents, Codename: Kids Next Door, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Generator Rex, Doc McStuffins, The Legend of Korra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), Teen Titans Go!, Niko and the Sword of Light, Miles from Tomorrowland, DC Super Hero Girls, Ben 10, DuckTales (2017), Harley Quinn, Solar Opposites, Looney Tunes Cartoons and Kiff. He can also be heard in animated feature films like Hoodwinked!, Meet the Robinsons, Winnie the Pooh (taking over the role of Rabbit from Ken Sansom), Frankenweenie, Hotel Transylvania and Guillermo del Toro’s Oscar-winning Pinocchio in which Kenny voiced fascist Italian leader Benito Mussolini. In the world of video games Kenny has voiced Spyro the Dragon ever since taking over the role from Carlos Alazraqui in Spyro 2, as well as voicing Biggs in the Star Wars Rogue Squadron series and Rin in both Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2.

Tom Kenny is one of the busiest voice actors. This summer he voices Firefly in Bruce Timm, Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams’ Batman: Caped Crusader on Prime Video and the day after that he’s got a role in Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie on Netflix. Actually you may have seen him in the news recently when a SpongeBob fan asked him whether or not SpongeBob was autistic and Kenny responded with a yes. Although the people who only read the headlines and didn’t dig deeper into that story may have missed that the fan who asked that question was actually autistic, and Kenny only said SpongeBob was autistic to affirm and hopefully empower them (although I’m neither denying nor opposed to the idea of SpongeBob being autistic). Kenny even admitted later that he had no idea that his one-on-one interaction with a fan would become a headline, but given the positive response to it, it seems like Kenny struck a very positive chord. Which is something he has also been doing in his professional life for years.