When COVID hit and production suddenly went dark, I didn’t wait for the usual playbook to return. I pitched a remote SpongeBob SquarePants special and built the deck to get everyone aligned fast, then wrote the script with one goal: make something that still felt like SpongeBob even if it had to be made from living rooms instead of studios.

That meant rebuilding the whole production around Zoom. I brought the core cast together, ran the sessions remotely, and shaped the performances so the comedy and timing still landed. Instead of treating it like a stripped-down table read, we treated it like an event, syncing new reads to the original animation and re-creating fan-favorite moments in a way that felt true to the show.

Then came the moment that summed up the entire experience. A technical glitch knocked Mr. Lawrence out of the main record, and suddenly we had a cast ready to go but no Plankton. So I jumped in as his stand-in and played Plankton opposite the rest of the cast to keep the session moving, then we recorded him properly later. That’s what making it during that time looked like: solve the problem in front of you, keep the train moving, protect the performances.

To build momentum leading up to release, I also created a Nick.com fan-voting component so audiences could help shape which moments we brought back, turning the special into something fans participated in, not just watched. From there, I stayed with it through edit supervision, approvals, and final delivery. It was my second SpongeBob special, and one of the coolest firsts was bringing “Imagination” to life with the original actors.