HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" is the 23rd episode of the eighth season, and the 175th episode overall of the American animated
television series A television show, TV program (), or simply a TV show, is the general reference to any content produced for viewing on a television set that is broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, and cable, or distributed digitally on streaming plat ...
''
SpongeBob SquarePants ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' is an American animated television series, animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It first aired as a sneak peek after the 1999 Kids' C ...
''. It originally aired on
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
in the United States on November 23, 2012, and on
Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...
on December 6. In the special,
Plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms that drift in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current, currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are ca ...
tries to convince SpongeBob to transform everybody in Bikini Bottom into jerks by feeding them his special jerktonium-laced
fruitcake Fruitcake or fruit cake is a cake made with Candied fruit, candied or dried fruit, Nut (fruit), nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in liquor, spirits. In the United Kingdom, certain rich versions may be iced and Cake decorating, decorated. ...
s in order to get his Christmas wishthe Krabby Patty secret formula. The episode was produced in
stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...
animation at
Screen Novelties Screen Novelties (stylized as SCREEN NOVELTIES) is an American animation studio, specializing in stop motion animation. It was founded by Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh, and Chris Finnegan. Overview Their work fuses classic cartoon sensibilitie ...
, and was directed by Mark Caballero and Seamus Walsh, two of the founders of the company. The animation style was inspired by those of the classic Rankin/Bass television specials. Written by Luke Brookshier, Marc Ceccarelli, Derek Iversen, and Mr. Lawrence, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was based on
Tom Kenny Thomas James Kenny (born July 13, 1962) is an American actor and comedian. He has been voicing SpongeBob SquarePants (character), the titular character in ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' and associated media since its debut in 1999. Kenny has voice ...
and
Andy Paley Andrew Douglas Paley (November 1, 1951 – November 20, 2024) was an American songwriter, record producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who formed the Paley Brothers, a 1970s power pop duo, with his brother Jonathan Paley. Following thei ...
's 2009 song "Don't Be a Jerk (It's Christmas)", which was also featured in the episode.
John Goodman John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He rose to prominence in television before becoming an acclaimed and popular film actor. Goodman has received List of awards and nominations received by John Goodman, various acc ...
guest starred as the voice of
Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...
. On November 6, 2012, the soundtrack album and the
DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
for the episode were released simultaneously. Upon premiere, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" attracted nearly five million viewers and met positive critical reception. It received four nominations at the 40th Annie Awards including Best Animated Television Production for Children (with Dan Driscoll winning the Character Animation in an Animated Television or other Broadcast Venue Production category). It was also nominated for Best Sound Editing in Television at the 60th Golden Reel Awards.


Plot summary

In the opening wraparound of the special, Patchy the Pirate and Potty the Parrot are driving in a
mail truck A mail truck or post van is a type of delivery vehicle that is used to transport post. Originally horse-drawn, most modern mail trucks are automotive vehicles. Evolution In his article, "Right through the Post", John Hollingshead des ...
which the former had stolen. While arguing about the directions to the
North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
, Potty sees a
fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods either to h ...
in the road and crashes. During Christmas season in Bikini Bottom,
Plankton Plankton are the diverse collection of organisms that drift in Hydrosphere, water (or atmosphere, air) but are unable to actively propel themselves against ocean current, currents (or wind). The individual organisms constituting plankton are ca ...
becomes angry that his evil acts have landed him on
Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...
' naughty list, and he won't receive his Christmas wish—the Krabby Patty secret formula. However, he discovers jerktonium, an element that can turn anyone nice into a jerk, and plots a scheme. He bakes the jerktonium into
fruitcake Fruitcake or fruit cake is a cake made with Candied fruit, candied or dried fruit, Nut (fruit), nuts, and spices, and optionally soaked in liquor, spirits. In the United Kingdom, certain rich versions may be iced and Cake decorating, decorated. ...
s he intends to spread around the town. To test it, Plankton lets SpongeBob taste a fruitcake, but learns he is immune to jerktonium. Upset that his plan seemingly failed, Plankton gives his fruitcake dispenser to SpongeBob, who promptly distributes the fruitcakes to all of Bikini Bottom and turns all the residents into jerks. Plankton then sends out an evil wind-up robot SpongeBob to commit troublesome deeds and frame the real SpongeBob. The next day, SpongeBob begins to notice that everyone is acting like jerks. SpongeBob and Sandy Cheeks discover the antidote for jerktonium, and it happens to be a song. SpongeBob sings the song and brings back the residents' Christmas spirit. When Santa Claus arrives, however, he states that everyone in town is on his naughty list except for Plankton, whom he gives the secret formula. The SpongeBob robot arrives to eliminate Santa, but SpongeBob destroys the robot with the fruitcake dispenser. Santa thanks SpongeBob and gives Plankton coal upon learning that he was behind the chaos. As Patchy is about to give up searching for Santa, he suddenly finds what he believes to be Santa's workshop. He then sees Santa with gifts in a cave and tells him his Christmas wish is to meet SpongeBob. Patchy realizes that he was hallucinating and in reality encountered a
polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear ...
, which starts chasing him. After Santa puts Patchy on the naughty list for stealing the mail truck, he and Potty wish the audience a Merry Christmas.


Voice cast


Main voices


Additional voices

*Tom Kenny *Bill Fagerbakke *Rodger Bumpass *Carolyn Lawrence *Mr. Lawrence *Jill Talley


Production


Development, writing, and voice casting

Luke Brookshier, Marc Ceccarelli, Derek Iversen, and Mr. Lawrence served as the episode's writers, with Brookshier and Ceccarelli serving as storyboard directors. "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was based on the 2009 Christmas song "Don't Be a Jerk (It's Christmas)" written by SpongeBob's voice actor
Tom Kenny Thomas James Kenny (born July 13, 1962) is an American actor and comedian. He has been voicing SpongeBob SquarePants (character), the titular character in ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' and associated media since its debut in 1999. Kenny has voice ...
and his writing partner
Andy Paley Andrew Douglas Paley (November 1, 1951 – November 20, 2024) was an American songwriter, record producer, composer, and multi-instrumentalist who formed the Paley Brothers, a 1970s power pop duo, with his brother Jonathan Paley. Following thei ...
. They wrote it as "...just sort of a little sample calling card of what we were thinking about." The story of the song was conceived with the help of one of the episode's writers Mr. Lawrence. Kenny explained, "...Eventually somebody at Nickelodeon found it
he song He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...
on their desk and decided to make it into a holiday special." The network let Kenny and Paley write three more songs for the upcoming special episode (Nickelodeon eventually decided to release a soundtrack album, which became '' It's a SpongeBob Christmas! Album'', containing the songs to coincide with the episode). "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was the first full-length episode of the series to be produced in
stop motion Stop-motion (also known as stop frame animation) is an animated filmmaking and special effects technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exh ...
animation. Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh, and Christopher Finnegan animated it at Screen Novelties, while Caballero and Walsh served as the directors. Screen Novelties was chosen by the show's executives to execute the animation because they had already worked with them before in other several smaller projects. These include the revamping of the opening title sequence of the show for 2009's '' SpongeBob's Truth or Square'' and the stop motion sequence of
The Spongebob Squarepants Movie ''The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie'' is a 2004 American adventure comedy film, animated adventure comedy film based on the television series ''SpongeBob SquarePants''. It was co-written, co-produced, and directed by series creator Stephen Hill ...
. Walsh explained, "They dug one of our shorts that we'd done a while back, which was called ''Graveyard Jamboree with Mysterious Mose'', and wanted to have us apply our sensibilities to ''SpongeBob'' ... We come from the same planet as far as our sense of humor and comic sensibilities are concerned. But we also wanted to make sure that it felt like a ''SpongeBob'' episode." All the main ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' cast members lent their voices to the episode. Series executive producer Paul Tibbitt also had a minor speaking role as the voice of Potty the Parrot. In addition to the regular cast, American actor
John Goodman John Stephen Goodman (born June 20, 1952) is an American actor. He rose to prominence in television before becoming an acclaimed and popular film actor. Goodman has received List of awards and nominations received by John Goodman, various acc ...
guest starred in the episode as the voice of
Santa Claus Santa Claus (also known as Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle or Santa) is a legendary figure originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Chris ...
.


Animation and filming

The animators cited the classic television specials ''
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer created by Robert L. May. Rudolph is usually depicted as the ninth and youngest of Santa Claus's reindeer, using his luminous red nose to lead the reindeer team and guide Santa's sleigh on C ...
'' and ''
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" is a Christmas music, Christmas song written by John Frederick Coots, J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, and first recorded by Harry Reser and His Orchestra. When it was covered by Eddie Cantor on his radio show ...
'' by
Rankin/Bass Productions Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment (founded and formerly known as Videocraft International, Ltd. and Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc.) was an American production company located in New York City. It was known for its seasonal television specials, ...
as inspirations for the episode's animation styles. Caballero said, "Well, we are heavily immersed in that particular Arthur Rankin and
Jules Bass Julius Caesar Bass (; September 16, 1935 – October 25, 2022) was an American director, producer, lyricist, composer and author. Until 1960, he worked at a New York advertising agency, and then co-founded the film production company Videocraft ...
style. They are big heroes of ours ... So we tapped into that knowledge for sure. We definitely use modern tricks, though. We shot everything with digital cameras directly to the hard drives of our
iMac The iMac is a series of all-in-one computers from Apple Inc., sold as part of the company's Mac (computer), Mac family of computers. First introduced in 1998, it has remained a primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since and evol ...
s." Production on the episode officially began in October 2011 at
Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, after several months of research and development. The animators worked closely with executive producer Paul Tibbitt, creator Stephen Hillenburg, and creative director Vincent Waller to ensure the cartoon characters were properly translated into three-dimensional puppets. Hillenburg and Tibbitt provided hands-on feedback on the production on a weekly basis. "They'd check out the weeklies and go back and forth with us on the various gags ..It was really a pleasurable experience when they came to visit, because we come from the same planet. It all felt very easy and natural," Walsh said. About 30 peoplewhom Walsh described "...seemed to be thrilled to work on the show"worked on the making of the episode over at Screen Novelties. Walsh described the initial stage of production as "a very busy period for all of us ... We came in at about 8:30 in the morning and didn't leave until midnight some days. But it all zipped by pretty quickly." He said that they "felt pretty lucky because usually executives involved with productions look at the stop-motion process as annoying, but on this special, they were very jazzed and gung-go about it." To keep the production crew in the Christmas spirit, six months worth of Christmas music was played, which included 83 versions of ''The Nutcracker'' suite. According to Finnegan, it took about five months to shoot.


Set construction

Caballero and Walsh had conflicts on making sure the stop motion version of Bikini Bottom will resemble the 2D world of the series. Caballero said that "We didn't want to make exact sculptural copies of the cartoon drawings and layouts, just because it might've ended up feeling too 'perfect' or something. So we chose to re-appropriate real world objects as much as possible." Art director Kelly Mazurowski focused on "digging through salvage yards", picking the right materials to be used in the set. Caballero described this process as "'puppetizing' the world of Bikini Bottom." Six sets were constructed on which 60 pounds of
baking soda Sodium bicarbonate (IUPAC name: sodium hydrogencarbonate), commonly known as baking soda or bicarbonate of soda (or simply “bicarb” especially in the UK) is a chemical compound with the formula NaHCO3. It is a salt (chemistry), salt compose ...
were used as snow (the crew tried to use real snow but it melted), 42 pounds of
glitter Glitter is an assortment of flat, small, reflective particles that are precision cut and come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Glitter particles resemble confetti, sparkles and sequins, but somewhat smaller. Since prehistoric times ...
were used to cover the background, and 20 boxes of breakfast cereal were used to cover the coral rocks. Over 38 different types of foam were used to make the set pieces and the characters' bodies and heads. To render SpongeBob's pineapple house, palm fronds from a tree in a school yard were used. Other props and materials used were an actual
starfish Starfish or sea stars are Star polygon, star-shaped echinoderms belonging to the class (biology), class Asteroidea (). Common usage frequently finds these names being also applied to brittle star, ophiuroids, which are correctly referred to ...
, three Christmas trees (for the Patchy the Pirate's Winter Wonderland scenes), six boxes of puff cereal (to create the fruitcake inside SpongeBob's mouth), 21 pounds of googly eyes (for rivets, texture pieces, knobs, etc.), 22 pounds of
woodchips Woodchips are small- to medium-sized pieces of wood formed by cutting or chipping larger pieces of wood such as trees, branches, logging residues, Tree stump, stumps, roots, and wood waste. Woodchips may be used as a biomass solid fuel and are r ...
(to create Sandy's treedome floor), and 24 bunches of craft flowers (to create the
parade float A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually s ...
).


Character design

According to Caballero, SpongeBob was the most challenging character to translate to stop motion. It was so "...just because of the sheer number of parts that needed to be made. We wanted to retain as much of that squashy-stretchy goofiness as possible, so he had dozens of replacement parts, like arms, noses, even various sizes of cheeks and freckles. Of course, as the main character, you really want to make sure he will charm the audience, which brings a special kind of pressure." Walsh said, "The most important thing is to capture the spirit of the character, not necessarily a literal copy of the 2D. Puppets have their own kind of energy and you have to be careful about what to include and what to leave out." On the other hand, Patchy the Pirate became the easiest character to make "because he has the most humanoid proportions."


Release


Broadcast

A sneak-peek trailer for the episode was released in June 2012. On September 9, 2012, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" premiered in Israel. On November 23, 2012, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" aired on
CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...
in the United States and on YTV in Canada. It also premiered in the United Kingdom and Ireland on December 2, 2012. On December 6, 2012, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" aired on
Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...
in the United States, twelve years after the original airing of the first ''SpongeBob SquarePants'' Christmas special "Christmas Who?". According to Caballero, the decision to make the episode a CBS
prime time Prime time, or peak time, is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for television shows. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...
special "came along later" and the crew "were stoked when heyheard the news." He said it may be because "most of the classic Christmas specials like ''Rudolph'' 'the Red-Nosed Reindeer'' ''Frosty'' 'the Snowman'' air on that channel. To be included in that line up was far out!"


Home media and other releases

"It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was released on a DVD compilation of the same name on October 30, 2012, in Canada and on November 6, 2012, in the United States. The DVD features exclusive content including behind-the-scenes making of the special and interviews with the cast and crew, a pre-color animatic, and yule log. The initial announcement of the DVD release stated that it would contain three Christmas specials from '' T.U.F.F. Puppy'', '' Fanboy & Chum Chum'', and ''
The Fairly OddParents ''The Fairly OddParents'' is an American animated television series created by Butch Hartman for Nickelodeon. The series follows the adventures of Timmy Turner, a 10-year-old boy with two Fairy godmother, fairy godparents named List of The Fai ...
'' as bonus features; however, these were dropped from the actual release. However, the Target exclusive of ''It's A SpongeBob Christmas!'' included the Christmas episodes of those shows on a bonus disc. A
Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...
release was also announced, but was cancelled a week afterwards for unknown reasons; however, on July 22, 2013,
Paramount Home Media Distribution Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, originally Paramount Home Video, and operating as the namesake film studio since 2022) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures. The division oversees Para ...
announced that the Blu-ray would be released on October 15, 2013. "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was released for digital download on October 31, 2012, featuring over 30 minutes of exclusive behind the scenes footage, a sing along version of "Don't Be a Jerk (It's Christmas)," and more. On March 12, 2013, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was released on the '' SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete Eighth Season'' DVD, alongside all episodes of the eighth season. On June 4, 2019, "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!" was released on the ''SpongeBob SquarePants: The Next 100 Episodes'' DVD, alongside all the episodes of seasons six through nine.


Reception


Ratings

In its original airing on CBS on November 23, the episode was viewed by an estimated 3.626 million households and received a 0.9
Nielsen rating Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the #Nielsen TV ...
and a 3% share among adults between the ages of 18 and 49. On December 8, Saturday, the airing of the episode on Nickelodeon drew 4.8 million viewers making the special win its time period across all television and posted strong, double-digit gains over last year with Kids 2–11 (7.8/2.6 million, +30%), Kids 6–11 (7.7/1.5 million, +45%), Teens 9–14 (5.7/1.2 million, +84%) and Adults 18–49 (1.2/1.3 million, +33%).
Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (nicknamed Nick) is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first ca ...
closed the week as the most-watched net in total day with kids 2–11 (2.8/936,000) and total viewers (1.8 million). In the United Kingdom, 273,000 viewers watched the episode and 78,000 viewers watched the timeshift broadcast. The broadcast in Canada received 835,000 viewers, the 23rd highest of the week on all Canadian television. In Spain, the premiere on December 20, 2012, received 618,000 viewers making it the 44th highest broadcast for that day.


Critical reception

The special episode received positive reviews from media critics. In his review for the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', Robert Lloyd wrote, "I felt I'd been somewhere, watching this. When it ended, I was not ready to leave." David Hinckley of the ''
New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'' wrote, "It's enough to make you want to dream of a yellow Christmas." Zack Handlen of ''
The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...
'' called the episode "cute, and goofy and doesn't have a mean bone in its body." Mark Frauenfelder of
Boing Boing ''Boing Boing'' is a website, first established as a zine in 1988, later becoming a group blog. Common topics and themes include technology, futurism, science fiction, gadgets, intellectual property, Disney, and left-wing politics. It twice wo ...
said that "...they he animatorsperfectly captured the look and feel of those delightful old stop motion specials." Judge Dawn Hunt of
DVD Verdict DVD Verdict was a judicial-themed website for DVD reviews. The site was founded in 1999. The editor-in-chief was Michael Stailey, who owned the website between 2004 and 2016, and the site employed a large editorial staff of critics, whose revie ...
called the episode "a sweet holiday treat, punctuated by musical numbers that'll leave you smiling." He added "If you're looking for a new holiday viewing, 'It's a SpongeBob Christmas!' is definitely worthy of consideration." Paul Mavis of
DVD Talk DVD Talk is a home video news and review website launched in 1999 by Geoffrey Kleinman. History Kleinman founded the site in January 1999 in Beaverton, Oregon. Besides news and reviews, it features information on hidden DVD features known as ...
applauded the episode and felt it would become a classic that would be watched every season. Director Walsh said that "Hopefully this will become a new tradition." In her review for the
About.com Dotdash Meredith (formerly The Mining Company, About.com and Dotdash) is an American digital media company based in New York City. The company publishes online articles and videos about various subjects across categories including health, hom ...
, Nancy Basile's review was mixed to positive and gave the episode a score of four out of five. She wrote, "...though I disagree with a few of the animator's choices, this Christmas special is a treat." Basile criticized its characters especially the use of foam to create the characters and the way Santa Claus was depicted saying "...he looks like a pig with
liver spot Liver spots (also known as age spot, solar lentigo, "lentigo senilis", "old age spot", "senile freckle") are wikt:blemish, blemishes on the skin associated with aging and exposure to ultraviolet, ultraviolet radiation from the sun. They range in c ...
s." The animators responded to this comment about their interpretation of Santa Claus, saying "We definitely wanted to keep an element of strangeness, almost scary aspects in the story." Caballero explained that the idea of making Santa Claus look tired and strange came when they saw a drawing of him by Marc Ceccarelli or Luke Brookshier. Caballero said, "We thought that was a great idea. So we came up with our own little back story where Bikini Bottom is the last stop for Santa. He's tired, he wants to get home, take his shoes off ... We honed in on the old descriptions of Santa being a jolly old elf. We pictured him as humanoid, but not necessarily directly human."


Accolades


Merchandise

Nickelodeon and
Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
released a book based on the episode called ''It's a SpongeBob Christmas!''. The book is illustrated by Heather Martinez and was released on September 10, 2013.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:It's a SpongeBob Christmas! 2012 in American television 2012 American television episodes 2012 television specials 2010s animated television specials 2010s American television specials CBS television specials Christmas television specials CBS original programming Claymation Santa Claus in television SpongeBob SquarePants episodes American Christmas television episodes Stop-motion animated television episodes