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How the voice of Plankton turned his idea into a hit SpongeBob spinoff movie for Netflix
Voice actor Mr. Lawrence has been the man behind Plankton since 1999. Now, Netflix is giving his tiny green villain time to shine
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The classic green villain turned protagonist on everyone's mind these days is probably the one that's all about Defying Gravity, but if you're Netflix, your focus this past week was on a very different one. That's because Plankton, the longtime nemesis of one SpongeBob Squarepants, is finally in the underwater limelight, as Plankton: The Movie has not only released on the streamer, but is currently sitting as its #1 movie.
And perhaps the most exciting part? The whole idea comes from the man who knows Plankton best.
Ever since 1999, voice actor Douglas Lawrence Osowski, better known as Mr. Lawrence, has been providing the pipes for pipsqueak patty pilferer Plankton, main rival of Mr. Krabs and antagonist of Bikini Bottom. Decades after he first appeared in the third episode of the first season, Nickelodeon started searching for a spinoff story that Plankton could call his own, and naturally, Lawrence answered the call.
"I came up with the idea for the movie four or five years ago," Lawrence, who goes by Doug to his coworkers, told Animation Magazine, "In my head, it was going to be a half-hour special for the series, but around the same time, the studio was asking us to come up with new movies for Sandy and Plankton, and my story [...] was perfect for a movie."
When Lawrence talks about "the studio," he's referring in particular to executive producers Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller. Both Ceccarelli and Waller are veterans in the world of SpongeBob, so their approval makes a lot of the TV and film set in Bikini Bottom possible. But as Ceccarelli was very sure to clarify, Plankton's feature debut owes most of its existence to Mr. Lawrence.
"Doug remained a constant throughout the whole thing, like from beginning to end," Ceccarelli told AM. "It was sort of Doug’s movie, and it’s really helpful when he’s writing his voice. He is this unique talent, as he’s been both a writer and a main character on the show since the early days. So, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore both sides of what he has to offer for the show."
So what exactly was Mr. Lawrence's idea, the one that got turned into Plankton's big moment? Well, according to the actor himself, the germ is the idea that Karen, Plankton's long-suffering computer wife, flips roles on Plankton, using her massive intellect to accomplish the things he couldn't.
"He’s insane," Lawrence says of his role of decades, "he’s megalomaniacal, he’s a criminal, but he’s got a wife pointing out his faults all the time, [which] makes him funny and humble even though he’s screaming in protest. There’s a little part of Plankton in all of us, a very small and angry part, but it’s there!"
Plankton: The Movie is streaming on Netflix now.
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