“Sailor Mouth” Made Tom Kenny Laugh So Hard He Cried, And 13 Other Fun Facts I Learned From The “SpongeBob” Star
BuzzFeed: You recently brought Patchy the Pirate to life at the Macy’s Parade!
Tom Kenny: I felt that in Macy’s Parade with Patchy, I was not just a guy dressed up like a pirate on a float in the rain; I was Patchy the Pirate! There’s kids out there, you know? Patchy has got to be Patchy.
BuzzFeed: I saw you all over TikTok that morning!
Tom Kenny: Oh, good, wow! I don’t look at social media. What was the word? Did they like it?
BuzzFeed: Oh, it went viral! I saw one video of someone shouting hi, and you waved back to her, and it got millions of views.
Tom Kenny: This sweet girl yelled, “Patchy!”
BuzzFeed: I’ll make sure to link the video in the article so you can see it!
Tom Kenny: Steve cast me as Patchy, probably just because I was standing there, but he’s like, “We need a cut-rate kids’ show host on your local TV channel, and he’s a pirate, but really, he just thinks he’s a pirate. He lives in the suburbs, he lives in a split-level house in Encino but he dresses up like a pirate. He goes to work every day as a pirate, and he’s the biggest SpongeBob fan in the world. Tom, do you want to do that?” I’m like, “Of course, that sounds great!”
I gotta look up the [Macy’s Parade] videos now because I’m not on any social media. I’m a total social media hermit. But I love that, because when you’re doing that stuff, you’re not aware that you’re being filmed or whatever. You’re just interacting with people.
At the staging area where you’re waiting and you’re getting on your float, there were these kids from these marching bands, and we’re all soaking wet. We’re all just so happy to be there, and they were excited to see Patchy. A bunch of them were tuning up their instruments, and then I said, as Patchy, “Are you ready, kids?” And they responded, “Aye, aye captain!” They were just so happy and into the spirit of the fun of it. I found their enthusiasm for what they were doing, despite the pouring rain, to be really SpongeBob-ish—you know what I mean? It was a blast.
