Derek Drymon, longtime writer and creative director of the SpongeBob SquarePants series, finally got to direct the latest Search for SquarePants movie (Paramount/Nickelodeon, December 19). What intrigued him the most was exploring a more paternal relationship between Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) and SpongeBob (Tom Kenny), and reintroducing The Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill), who sets a trap for SpongeBob to free him from his spectral ghost ship.

“This father-son relationship has always been touched on in certain episodes, but on this one we were able to dive into it a little bit more,” Drymon said. “I think you can still show those stories with humor but then watch these guys cry. And the Dutchman has been a core part of the show from the very beginning.

“When we first started working with the character,” he continued, “I was reminded of the first Halloween episode he appeared in. And Mr. Krabs’ reaction to him was terrified. He fainted. As we went on, we made him more comedic, but I wanted to go back to that moment and figure out why he fainted. I was thinking about this story from that point and gave Mr. Krabs a back story where had a relationship with Dutchman that we could tie into this movie.”

Casting Hamill, though, was an inspiration. Drymon previously worked with him briefly on Adventure Time, but that was purely comedic. “I wasn’t sure what to expect,” he added, “but he had done The Joker and he was good friends with Tom Kenny, who does the voice directing. He’s just this very nice, chatty guy. Millions of stories. And then he does the Dutchman voice and he’s got this real gutteral attack. It was just super impressive. And then, when we did the live-action portion, he becomes a little more comedic. He’s a big fan of silent comedians and we referenced Oliver Hardy. It worked really well, and I asked him if he had ever done this style of acting before. He said no but he watches them all the time and he could just pull them up.”

Drymon also had high praise for Regina Hall (One Battle After Another), who voices the Dutchman’s assistant, Barb, as well as Ice Spice, performs the original song, “Big Guy,” and also has a voice cameo.

“It was Regina’s first time doing voiceover work and she was a little nervous about it, but Tom guided her through it,” Drymon explained. “He gave her advice on how to find the character through every available sound.”

It helped that Ice Spice was a big fan of SpongeBob and that one of her early songs was the very adult “Bikini Bottom.” “Getting her early on was great,” Drymon said, “and then she was asked if she could do a voice. That was something she always wanted to do, so she came in and did the ticket taker at the roller coaster, one of the aggravated Bikini Bottomites. I think she enjoyed that.”

But the highlight of the movie was the underworld, production designed by Pablo R. Mayer, and  animated by Reel FX. In fact, it was one of the hooks that enticed Drymon to want to direct the film. “It was fun to be able to invent a whole new place,” he added. “And then the trick was how do we make it feel like it’s been there all the time and that it belongs in Bikini Bottom.

“I was in Hawaii and I visited these lava fields and it looks like it’s moving. There’s an animation to it because it like froze so there’s a movement to it. And then you can see faces. It’s almost like looking at clouds, but they’re all spooky and creepy. We took a bunch of photos and then Pablo helped put it all together. He added these Tiki bar kind of lights to it to make it feel like it belonged to the SpongeBob world, and added these underwater caves, which have a very unique look where you can see the surface and the stalactites are popping through.”

This surreal quality was given a Loony Tunes vibe that reminded the director of Daffy in Wackyland. They took a nautical object and then combined it with a creature. “We had an octopus made of ropes and jelly fish with fish jooks and anchor bats,” Drymon added. “They’re kind of monsters but silly in a very SpongeBob way.”

“We had a tight budget and schedule, like always,” he continued. “But Reel FX were great partners in figuring out this 2D-inspired CG sensibility. I worked on Hotel Transylvania 4, so I had some experience with that. But the [animation supervisor], Wes Mandell, told me that if it’s easy in 2D, it’s really hard in CG, and if it’s easy in CG, it’s impossible in 2D. So I had to think that way. But the good thing is that I don’t know a lot about CG. So I purposely would draw things and come up with ideas and then go to Reel FX. A big trick from the show was where SpongeBob would slide his eyeball and it gives the illusion that he’s looking back. That was really hard in CG. But they figured it out, which is all you can ask for with an animation partner.”