Nickelodeon Announces Voice Cast for Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, First-Ever SpongeBob SquarePants Spinoff
Original Animated SpongeBob SquarePants Prequel to Debut July 2020
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BURBANK, Calif.--Feb. 19, 2020--Nickelodeon is bringing the original SpongeBob SquarePants voice cast to Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, the brand-new animated spinoff of the beloved hit series. Premiering this July, the CG-animated prequel (13 episodes) follows 10-year-old SpongeBob during his summer at sleepaway camp and stars Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick Star), Rodger Bumpass (Squidward), Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs), Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy Cheeks) and Mr. Lawrence (Plankton), all of whom are reprising their iconic roles in this new series.
“When our younger characters first meet in Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, there is an instant chemistry among them that could only be conveyed by the incredible talents who have lived and breathed them every day for the last two decades,” said Ramsey Naito, Executive Vice President, Animation Production and Development, Nickelodeon. “We are so excited to have the original SpongeBob cast join our new series, which is incredibly inventive and funny, and visually stunning in CG.”
Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years will also feature returning SpongeBob SquarePants voice cast members Mary Jo Catlett (Mrs. Puff), Jill Talley (Karen) and Lori Alan (Pearl), among others. Additionally, Carlos Alazraqui (The Casagrandes) and Kate Higgins (Blaze and the Monster Machines) will join the cast as new characters Nobby and Narlene, narwhal siblings who live in the woods surrounding the camp.
In the new series, SpongeBob and his pals spend the summer building underwater campfires, catching wild jellyfish, and swimming in Lake Yuckymuck at the craziest camp in the kelp forest, Kamp Koral.
Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller (SpongeBob SquarePants) serve as co-executive producers on Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years, which is produced by Nickelodeon in Burbank.
Since its launch July 17, 1999, SpongeBob SquarePants has reigned as the number-one kids’ animated series on TV for the last 17 years, while generating a universe of beloved characters, pop culture catchphrases and memes, theatrical releases, consumer products, a Tony award-winning Broadway musical and a global fan base.
The forthcoming Kamp Koral: SpongeBob’s Under Years series underscores a key element of Nickelodeon's content strategy, to build and expand the worlds of its enormously popular franchises like Henry Danger, SpongeBob SquarePants, and Blue's Clues & You!, among others, to give audiences more of what they love. Nick's new content slate is informed by the network's ongoing research and insights into today's generation of kids, who: are the most diverse generation ever and expect to see themselves authentically represented in media and in the world around them; want to make a positive difference in the world as they grow up; consider social media stars as their top role models, alongside their parents; and increasingly meet their much-desired need for family time by co-viewing entertainment content together.
Nickelodeon, now in its 40th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The brand includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, digital, location based experiences, publishing and feature films. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of ViacomCBS Inc. (Nasdaq: VIACA, VIAC).
From Media Play News:
It’s a ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ World at ViacomCBS
“SpongeBob SquarePants” may be an American animated comedy television series originally created for Nickelodeon, but the series about a sea sponge and his aquatic friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom is also a distribution goldmine for ViacomCBS.
So much so that CEO Bob Bakish used the cartoon character to underscore how the media giant hopes to monetize content assets across emerging distribution platforms.
Speaking March 4 at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom confab in San Francisco, Bakish outlined how “SpongeBob” IP helps link ViacomCBS’s three business units: linear television, video streaming and feature film.
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Bakish said the cartoon franchise is currently distributed globally on television, including serving “roughly 40% of all children” in the United States. “SpongeBob” is distributed on both ad-supported Pluto TV and subscription-based CBS All Access and Noggin.
“That provides additional reach as we build out our assets,” Bakish said. “In the studio business, ‘SpongeBob’ will debut its third feature film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run in the second quarter. That film has tested very well and provides incremental reach and incremental monetization.”
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004) generated $140 million at the worldwide box office, including $85 million in the United states. A sequel, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015) generated $325 million at the global box office, including $163 million in the U.S.
Bakish said ViacomCBS is producing two feature-length “SpongeBob” spin-off movies for Netflix, representing a “profitable, low-risk rental business with set margins,” which he said translates to content ownership for separate distribution down the road, including consumer products and recreation.
“So, we’re convinced that both an O&O [owned and operated] and a third-party studio strategy is absolutely right for ViacomCBS,” Bakish said. “We believe that maximizing the value of our content asset, that is what you see us executing in 2020 and beyond.”
At Paramount Pictures, Bakish said the focus is to improve content ROI, which he said means a balanced release slate and co-financed movies. Pending releases include: A Quiet Place Part II and Top Gun: Maverick.
The studio in the most-recent fiscal period generated more revenue from home entertainment than theatrical distribution. Bakish dismissed that “aside” and pointed to Paramount’s improved growth in revenue and earnings over the previous eight fiscal quarters.
He said the studio has ramped up television content production, a business that didn’t exist five years ago. The segment is now producing 27 series, including “13 Reasons Why” for Netflix and “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan” on Amazon Prime Video.
Bakish said Paramount’s “pay 1 window,” the period in which content rights are available to premium cable networks as Starz and HBO and subscription streamers like Netflix, has “tremendous” value.
“We’ve certainly gotten calls about it,” he said. “At the same time it certainly has strategic value to us.”
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From Kidscreen:
SpongeBob 100x more in-demand than average show
Nickelodeon's yellow sponge has been hugely in-demand so far this year in North America, but globally, eOne's Peppa Pig comes out on top.
In North America, SpongeBob SquarePants (pictured) is reigning supreme as the most in-demand kids show between January 1 and March 1, according to Parrot Analytics. But, on a global level the popular underwater sponge has been bested by a little pink pig that goes by the name of Peppa.
Parrot’s proprietary algorithm measures social media interactions, social video views, online research for the shows and piracy numbers to figure out what the demand is for the average show. It then weighs individual series against this average to determine a rank.
For the beginning of 2020, Parrot found that Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants was 117.26x more in-demand than the average series in North America. Next up was Steven Universe (84.96x), followed by Star Wars: The Clone Wars (71x), Dragon Ball Z (64.65x) and PAW Patrol (56.64x).
SpongeBob falls to second place globally, however, at 17.16x more in-demand than the average series. eOne’s Peppa Pig is at number one with 18.76x, while PAW Patrol comes in at number three (15.05x), followed by Masha and the Bear (14.75x) and Star Wars: The Clone Wars (12.66x).
In Asia, Peppa Pig is still the most in-demand (15.73x). In LatAm, however, Steven Universe comes out on top with 31.21x more demand than the average show. And in EMEA it’s PAW Patrol that tops the list (21.23x).
Star Wars: Clone Wars has made quite the ascent after not showing up in the October, November or December rankings—it’s now at number five globally and shows up in the top five in both Asia and North America. This follows the series getting cancelled after season six in 2013, and then brought back for a seventh season on Disney+ starting on February 21, showing Disney+’s programming is starting to make an impact on what kids want to watch.
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Originally published: Wednesday, February 19, 2020.
Source: Business Wire.
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