The uncensored artwork can be seen here. If more content is released, it will be updated - archive.org/details/behind-closed-doors-sponge-bob

When the "my friend's dad works at Nintendo" kid is not bullshitting you.

IDK what's more incredible: the content of this book or the fact that no one was even looking for it and it just suddenly appeared.

This shouldn't be treated like there's some sort of deeper meaning. It's incredibly common for animators to do stuff like this just for the laughs.

“How do you make it sing like that?” “It only sings around you, squidward.” This interaction alone invokes a primordial fear into me like nothing else

Holy cow, this is shockingly eye-opening to Nickelodeon's work culture. I remember one time Seth McFarlane said something along the lines of "You can tell when the writers are getting sick of working, because there'll be an exponential increase in poo and pee jokes." I can only say that this is similar to that

This is hands down one of the biggest lost media discoveries related to Spongebob in existence.

one of these photos are probably the secret embarrassing photo of SpongeBob from the Christmas party we never got to see

I remember hearing that there was an entire vault at Disney where they kept the racy and lewd doodles the artists did of the Disney characters. Whether it actually exists or not, you _know_ those artists absolutely made doodles like that. This is just more proof that artists are gonna draw whatever they want to draw, and not all of it will be in keeping with the, er, theme of the show or movie lol

Adult versions of spongebob always seemed so strange a concept, kinda reminds me of old school KZfaq poops.

So now we basically have the SpongeBob equivalent of the Rugrats Storyboard Jam? This is legendary.

This just seems like a creative outlet for the team to help them have fun while remaining passionate about the show /characters. Definitely interresting to see

As someone who’s studying animation it can get really frustrating. Upon making some of my final pieces I would often just grab a scrap piece of paper and draw the characters vomiting bc I felt so sick from staring at screens and blank white paper all day. I would get so tired I would half heartedly doodle characters clawing their eyes out. If my hand hurt really bad I would just draw the characters with big naked butts because I thought it was funny and helped me lighten up a little. It was weird, but a small dumb thing to get the frustration out. I don’t think the offensive things are the best but slapping male genitals or having them do stupid dumb sexual favors for each other with stupid eyes is so accurate to my experience of just getting your frustrations out as an artist.

Let’s just take a moment to appreciate his ability to talk about the censored pictures without laughing

Tom Kenny himself confirmed the existence of these types of drawings on a panel he did with the cast. I believe it was the same panel where he talked about sailor mouth but I could be wrong.

I love how you're describing all this disgusting shit in such a polite way

"It only sings around you Squidward" We found the squidbob shipper, everyone

I can't believe SpongeBob was the Zodiac Killer this whole time. Holy hell.

This is actually fairly common for various kids cartoons. Maybe not specifically a “Behind Closed Doors” book compilation of this crude artwork, but just this type of media being drawn by the official crew all the same. They seem to be more popular through the practice of a “storyboard jam”, a game where a storyboard is started, passed around and is added to by different members of the production crew of a cartoon, often resulting in rather lewd or offensive depictions. Production crews are said to have often used storyboard jams to relieve anger and tension while working on a project. Various examples of these jams that are available on the internet is the infamous Rugrats Storyboard Jam as well as the Phineas and Ferb Storyboard Jam (though this one is a lot more tame in comparison to the others).

I remember watching an interview from the voice actors that played as Ed, Edd, and Eddy, and they mentioned something similar that the artists would draw crude stuff of the characters as a joke. I'm guessing that this is just pretty normal and a way to have fun/ joke around during work

The soulless drawing of Patrick at 6:48 is sending me. It reminds me of when Patrick eats the glass of chunky seahorse milk and then shudders, but like, WORSE. Bro looks like a demon is coming out of him

It’s amazing how much SpongeBob lost media there is

I’m impressed by how you managed to describe those hilarious images in the most innocent way. A true master of euphemisms.

As an animator in the TV industry, I can't tell you how many people make inappropriate drawings of characters as a joke. I've seen things that would make Rule34 blush

Nickelodeon would definitely prefer the Sailor mouth audio being leaked instead of the storyboard jams

“Dude, put that thing away. There are, like… CHILDREN here!”

Speaking of Dan Schneider, I read a theory somewhere that the episode where SpongeBob and Patrick mentioned dirty Dan was about him

Today, I learned that dick jokes and toilet humor are considered to be "dark".

"Engaged in some group activity" made me laugh so hard. Your narration is amazing and I love you.

The first image being a Got Milk ad parody is funny af. Two pieces of most media being vastly different in tone were related

I can't speak much to Nickelodeon's work culture at the time, but if you know anything about the animation world - especially up to the era that Behind Closed Doors was made - the fact that this exists shouldn't surprise you at all. Animators used to do stuff like this all the time to blow off steam, and I guarantee the rumors you've heard about other Nicktoons shows having similar in-joke zines are very likely true - remember the infamous "Incredible Storyboard Jam" from Rugrats? Punishing environment or not, making shows aimed at kids all day can be mind-numbing work, and these kinds of things were/are an act of rebellion against the content itself inasmuch as they are against any boss or company. Plus they just like making each other laugh. I have yet to meet a cartoonist or animator that didn't have a hidden blue streak a mile wide. I've had friends in the industry show me things that were as hilarious as they were horrific, and the reason you never hear about them is simple: These people enjoy having jobs. There's an unspoken rule (or used to be, at least) that you never show this stuff to outsiders, for obvious reasons. The animation field used to be a relatively small, insular community, and it was a lot easier to keep secrets back then - or get blacklisted if you screwed up. The internet either didn't exist or wasn't ubiquitous so the temptation to leak things wasn't there, and most of them wouldn't have done so anyway. There's likely tons of stuff just like this hidden away in storage units, attics, and hard drives belonging to animators that's been completely forgotten about, and will never see the light of day.

I’m honestly not surprised that something like this exists. A lot of artists Ik eventually draw some “lewd” stuff when they’re bored. Also this is basically “official” rule 34 of SpongeBob

Since the Rugrats case, I, for some reason didn't think most artists that worked in shows did it too... Now, imagine how MANY secret storyboards are out there... It could be of your favorite show.

as someone who has discussed in depth the comedy style of early SpongeBob with my friends a lot, the fact that the original team made a gag/parody version of their own ad using leftover template paper from production of the ad ABSOLUTELY checks out.

As one of Spongebob’s Boating School classmates said, “Oh that’s real nice…”

I'm actually not surprised at all. And also I think this is common for most artist, specially animators. My whole animation class for example, at the start of the year, teachers gave us very cute and pure egg and chicken characters to work on a children aimed short animation. In the end of the year me and all my classmates made 2 minute animations for that egg things and very "interesting" unused storyboard drawings. We all did it for fun "haha look i turned this pure character into a p... star" for example. And i think animators who got their drawings in this book too did it just for giggles.

Bruh this aint SpongeBob square pants, this is SpongeBob no pants

Being a cartoonist, artist, designer, otherwise creative person is really a thankless job. You're expected to be "on" and able to draw everything once, perfectly 24/7 and that's excluding the deadlines. I can't imagine non-creative executives irrational demands. They're humans, not robots.

I don't blame people for thinking some Adult Party Cartoon version of SpongeBob was on the works. Over here in Latin America, SpongeBob was so popular among the teen and young adult demographic it aired on MTV at night alongside South Park and Drawn Together.

As a storyboard artist this is absolutely fascinating! The chaos of the off model art in that book is absolutely wild to me especially since I've personally studied from spongebob boards before.

When you describe the images, I feel like your my dad and I just found a copy of one of your dirty magazines and you are trying to explain what I saw without traumatizing me further.

out of pure morbid curiosity, i hope the full thing gets found one day

Plankton screaming "I went to college" is the darkest joke in SpongeBob

I wouldn’t be surprised if something like this exists for every Nicktoon considering the work culture, and that the Rugrats “storyboard jam” was also known about for quite a while now.

This made me remember that on one of the game development discs SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge has three risque sketches. Two are of SpongeBob, Patrick, and Sandy doing "a group activity", and the other is of a grotesque version of SpongeBob. But those sketches don't overshadow how strong this book is.

Honestly, I wasn't imagining this sort of thing to ever happen, but it's also so freaking funny that it is and sort of in character given the therories about the show's whacky nature and animators just screwing around. It really makes me wonder what other kinds of drawings studios or animators have drawn from certain shows or movies for the fun of it lmao. I would still die to hear that lost audio of the spongebob sailor episode tho!!

This is genuinely so interesting! It just makes the production of the show feel a lot more human, and gives us an interesting peek behind the production of a children's show

I never knew I'd see the day with these drawings and the stories that came from it. Great video!

Stephen Hillenburg is looking down at us and he’s laughing his ass off

On one hand, the fact that this exists is… whoa. On the other hand, I can’t imagine how fun this must’ve been for the crew. I imagine many of them are having a good laugh now that knowledge of it is gonna become widespread

There was an anecdote about how a creator for a Disney Channel cartoon (might have been American Dragon) was shown several pieces of rule 34 art of other Disney stuff they had on file, saying "This is what will happen to your show". I guarantee every single animated show out there has this sort of stuff made by the staff, even going back to the golden age; Which is why I don't dispute the existence of either the Mickey and Minnie thing or the Popeye and Betty Boop one.

8:18 The Spongebob crew making a "Dickward" joke before any of us could think of it is honestly a mind blowing, and hilarious reveal that I can't deny is my favorite part of this whole thing.

I definitely wasn't expecting this to be the lost media you were talking about in that recent community post, but this definitely lived up to it! Quite surreal knowing this exists and was made by the actual artists, and the commentary about the workplace goings-on at the time helps put it in context.

6:20 this image really brings new meaning to "Are You Feeling It Now Mr. Krabs?"

I’m like 90% sure that the cover image of Krabs “feeling it now” is drawn by C.H. Greenblatt. If anyone doesn’t know, he’s a writer/storyboard artist from the show’s golden age, he wrote on some of the funniest episodes in the show’s history. He’s also the creator of Chowder.

I don't even care about how crude it is, the artstyle is so funny to me😭

This is an incredible recap. How fascinating. Thank you so much for sharing this in such a delightful and in depth video for us- this is some really, really fine KZfaq work!

Amazing historic find. This is basically like finding a modern day version of the dirty Cinderella cartoon that was supposedly made for Walt Disney

after getting only 5 pages into the archive, i can declare that this is, without a doubt, the greatest thing ever made

To say you hit a gold mine is an understatement, it’s an incredible find and something that definitely deserves to be documented (Even if it is a bit out of taste)

so THIS was the holiday party photo....

This reminds me of the Rugrats' incredible storyboard jam, if I recall the story correctly this is an incredibly common way to blow off steam in the animation industry. I'd bet there's tons more like it out there.

While all the images in the collection are horrendously vile, I kind of want to see the rest...

This puts Patrick's secret picture of SpongeBob in a whole new perspective

"Engaged in some group activities" 💀💀💀

How could anyone believe that SpongeBob was originally pitched to Adult Swim when SpongeBob didn't even premiere until 1999 and Adult Swim was not launched until 2001? Anyway, it doesn't have any involvement with the original crew, but VH1 once aired an adult parody of SpongeBob that was short-lived called SpongeBong HempPants, so an adult SpongeBob cartoon a la Ren and Stimpy APC did air once.

the fucking clinical tone you are describing this smut with is unbelievable holy shit

Its amazing how lost media went from finding creepy media to finding the most funniest thing

reminds me of that one spongebob gba game having nsfw hidden in the files for literally no reason

"book doesnt exist" Something tells me it exists

I remember that SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge for PlayStation apparently had images very similar to these hidden in its development discs, so seeing a whole book of these drawings is pretty wild

9:37 Mr. Krabs really giving SpongeBob the secret formula with his secret claw💀☠️🗿🥛🦗

this is a fantastic uncovery! i’m sir there are plenty objectionable things in that book, but I think it’s so important for us to see art for what it really is. i’ve yet to witness successful media that doesn’t have this kind of a trail behind it. in order to dig up the good stuff, we have to dig through the rest of the human psyche.

now this is the spongebob lost media worth finding

This seems more like bored adults having fun making random stuff they’d know they’d never want to show to the world, almost as if it’s a harmless “what if” scenario. I still think the Rugrats Storyboard Jam has to be the most depraved piece of Nickelodeon lost media ever found though

I love that this exists. I just love seeing artists let loose and make each other laugh, no such thing as taboos.

Fun fact: these drawings actually remind me of a thing called "storyboard jams", it's when the animation team creates weird drawings of the shows they work on; this also happened to the Rugrats.

imagine a timeline where the behind closed doors version of the got milk ad was found before the real one, and a bunch of people had to pass around storyboards of patrick splooging on spongebobs face as proof that it existed

"Are you feeling it now, Mr. Krabs?" "Five... You do the rest, buddy!" "Firmly grasp it."

Most of these doodles can be found drawn or carved on half of the desk tables at my old highschool by bored students

This heavily reminds me of the explicit sketches found in a prototype version of SpongeBob SquarePants: SuperSponge. It seems unlikely to me that these are directly linked (I don't believe any of the artists for the game worked on the show, I don't see why the crew would handout Behind Close Doors to the developers, the artstyle is different, and none of the sketches are drawn over official Nickelodeon storyboards). For those curious, the drawings can be viewed on The Cutting Room Floor.

Spongebob YTPs but from the official storyboard artists

If SpongeBob auditioned for the hub

John K was at Spumco, not Nickelodeon studios. And I think these were just crew members having fun, I have a feeling it’s nothing deeper than that, and not a result of the staff going insane from workplace conflict. I know the internet loves to formulate theories and enjoys drama but let’s try to stay realistic

Just want to take the time to give props to LsupersonicQ. He might not be as big of a name as Jorge who is considered to be the main lost media channel, but LsupersonicQ’s dedication to covering lost media in a wide range of topics from Toys to Cartoons and even Anime is amazing, and he even provides updates on many of them regularly. Hope your channel blows up further, especially with this video. This is something that no other lost media youtuber can claim to find.

Even though there have been several crude and raunchy SpongeBob parodies in the past, the fact that this one was made by the actual Nickelodeon crew makes it all the more bizarre. It's hilarious that something like this could even happen but I honestly don't know how to watch the real show anymore.

These are the emberrasing fotos of spongebob at the christmas party

Spongebob was using all of his holes that day

This is just what any artist draws the second they get bored lol. This is great

This might be one of the best lost media finds EVER!! I can only imagine how you feel that this person trusted you enough to reach out to you. Great video💖

SpongeBob's packing, I'm not even mad

11:56 I honestly feel like you're reading into it too much, animators screw around with drawing their characters like this all the time

Ch Greenblatt (who wrote many episodes of SpongeBob) said that this practice was common. "You have to be a bit of a pervert to work in animation"

Wow, that was eye opening. This reminds me of the time that people found SpongeBob smut art in an official video game. Forgot the name though.

8:14 THIS LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE CHRIS O'NEAL ART IM SCREAMING

wikipedia has a page about this book now 💀

As an artist i am not suprised in the least bit i wouldve 100% done the same if i had to draw spongebob that much

So, SpongeBob/Squidward has been a thing since day one, and even the people who worked on the show “shipped” them? Interesting to know. Never had a clue this existed, fascinating video!

STILL CACKLING AT THE TITLE AND THE TONE OF THIS VIDEO OH MY LORD

Just tried watching on 1.25x for the first time and never going back lol Awesome video man absolutely love the channel you always put out the most quality work!