About

Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years is an announced prequel series to SpongeBob SquarePants in production at Nickelodeon. The series is planned to be CG-animated and take place when SpongeBob is ten years old, attending the titular summer camp.

All ten main characters from the original series are confirmed to appear in Kamp Koral.^[1] SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, and Sandy are campers; Mrs. Puff and Mr. Krabs are camp counselors; Plankton and Karen are camp chefs; Pearl is a baby; and Gary is a formerly-stray snail who becomes SpongeBob's pet.

History

On June 4th, 2019, Deadline^[1] reported that Kamp Koral, a working title, was under production at Nickelodeon. It will be the first spinoff of the series and feature CG animation as opposed to the traditional 2D used on the main show, similar to how the animation was used in the SpongeBob film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water. Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller will serve as co-executive producers. The series is confirmed for 13 episodes.

According to TV Guide, the ten main characters from SpongeBob will all appear in the spin-off.^[1] Their original voice actors will reprise their roles. TV Guide also announced that it will introduce two new characters: twin narwhals named Nobby and Narlene, who live near the campsite.^[1]

According to IP Owner in March 2020, Nickelodeon intends to release a wide variety of Kamp Koral merchandise, including: action figures, plush toys, games, sports equipment, clothing, footwear, and headgear.^[13] Since then, images of the merchandise have frequently been used in discussions of whether or not the spin-off was created to sell toys.

Online Presence

Twitter users voiced their displeasure with the project, citing how Stephen Hillenburg (the late creator of SpongeBob, who passed away in 2018) was strongly against spin-offs and aging SpongeBob down. A vocal critic was the former showrunner of SpongeBob, Paul Tibbitt, known for writing many of the show's most popular episodes ("Chocolate with Nuts," "Krab Borg," etc.) and voicing the character DoodleBob. Tibbitt tweeted^[2] that Nickelodeon execs would know Stephen Hillenburg would have hated the idea. His tweet gained over 870 retweets and 3,100 likes (shown below). Tibbitt and Hillenburg were very good friends, and Tibbitt frequently visited him even when Hillenburg became too ill to speak.^[9] In an interview for Longreads, Tibbitt elaborated: "Steve [Hillenburg] would always say to me, 'You know, one of these days, they're going to want to make SpongeBob Babies. That’s when I’m out of here.'"^[9]

User @paperking99^[3] tweeted a SpongeBob meme implying that Nickelodeon was only doing this for money, gaining over 19 retweets and 100 likes. A thread on the announcement gained over 170 points in /r/television.^[4] On June 6th, Redditor^[6] Slyric posted an object labeling image macro in which Nickelodeon is depicted as defiling Stephen Hillenburg's grave. The post received more than 4,900 points (99% upvoted) in two months.

On June 5, 2019, petitions began to appear on Change.org,^[5] asking Nickelodeon to cancel the spin-off out of respect for Hillenburg. The earliest petition was started by Change.org user Brendan Kelley,^[5] and its description explained the context of Paul Tibbitt's tweet and why Hillenburg was against spin-offs and aging SpongeBob down.

Danny Giovannini's Response

Danny Giovannini, who is working on Kamp Koral as a script coordinator, first responded to the controversy on Twitter on February 26, 2020.^[10] When asked if Hillenburg was aware of Kamp Koral before his passing, Giovannini said in a tweet (archived here): "I honestly don't know, as I did not work on the movie and I'm not in a position where I'm involved in any decision making at that level. What I do know is development of the most popular kids show ever takes a long time."^[10]

Later, after discussion of Kamp Koral was revived on May 19th, Giovannini changed his story. He pretended that Hillenburg was involved (using unclear wording, relating to how Hillenburg liked the crew's work on the original series) and discredited Paul Tibbitt's tweet, unaware that Tibbitt had frequently visited Hillenburg until the latter's death. Giovannini stated: "we all like what we're doing, and Steve absolutely knew about it before he passed. That's why it's in the SB3 movie. Everyone is getting this weird rumor from Paul Tibbitt's tweet, but that dude hasn't worked on the show in years. He has been out of the loop for so long. Please just give the show a chance. You will be very impressed!"^[11] Giovannini later deleted this comment after it was discovered that he changed his story.

On May 20th, Instagram user @muttrodgers questioned Giovannini for "changing his tune" and pointed out that the third SpongeBob film had gone through major changes of its plot and directors. Giovannini explained that he changed his story to protect the Kamp Koral crew from online harassment. He stated: "I wasn't aware SB3 switched plots or directors (didn't work on the movie). For all I know, Steve didn't know of Kamp Koral, but it's not like he told us not to do it either. I may have stretched words but did it for a good cause. Until I spoke out, countless people were harassing the Kamp Koral crew. We all love Steve's characters and are working hard to make a show that fans will love."^[11]

Screenshot Release

On May 18th, 2020, a screenshot of SpongeBob and Patrick's designs in Kamp Koral was released by ViacomCBS in an upfront presentation.^[12] The image revived discussion about the series, and additional concept art images were circulated on the SpongeBob wiki Encyclopedia SpongeBobia.

Search Interest

External References