Derek Drymon
Derek Drymon (born November 19, 1968) is an American writer, storyboard artist, television director, executive producer, and supervising producer. He has worked on numerous animated cartoon productions of the 1990s and 2000s, best known for his work on Rocko's Modern Life, SpongeBob SquarePants and Adventure Time.
Derek Drymon | |
|---|---|
| Born | November 19, 1968 Morristown, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Education | School of Visual Arts |
| Occupation | Comedian, voice actor, television writer, storyboard artist, animator |
| Years active | 1990–present |
Early life
Derek Drymon was born in New Jersey.[1] He attended Jefferson Township and Dover public schools as a child and enjoyed drawing and making comic books. Drymon graduated from Jefferson Township High School in 1987.[2] Drymon attended the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, where he majored in Illustration, sharpening his drawing skills and moving from still images to animation. He graduated from SVA in 1992.[3]
Career
Drymon obtained an internship with Disney on the strength of his life drawings.[3]
Drymon was discovered by Nickelodeon in 1993. He moved to California to work as an animator for Nickelodeon. In 1993, Drymon also began working as a storyboard artist and writer for Rocko's Modern Life. It was here he met two of his future employers, Tim Hill and Stephen Hillenburg; Hill was a writer, Hillenburg a co-producer and storyboard artist. In 1997, Hillenburg created SpongeBob SquarePants. Drymon performed many duties on SpongeBob, including being a writer on all episodes, the creative director, and, on his last season with the show, supervising producer.[4] Drymon also worked on the Cartoon Network animated series Camp Lazlo. Drymon worked on Tim Hill's side project, the popular KaBlam! skit Action League Now!, as a storyboard artist. He also wrote the Emmy Award-nominated episode of CatDog "Doggone".[5]
Drymon met Stephen Hillenburg on the Nickelodeon cartoon Rocko's Modern Life. Hillenburg recalled Drymon as "one of the main people in the genesis of SpongeBob". Drymon teamed up with Hillenburg and Nick Jennings who was also a companion from Nickelodeon. Drymon was the creative director for the first three seasons and became Supervising Producer in season 3 until being replaced by Paul Tibbitt starting in season 4. Along with Stephen Hillenburg, Drymon approved the writers' ideas and outlines for episodes and controlled the creative and production process on SpongeBob.
Drymon was eventually promoted to Executive producer on television show Adventure Time, and become a lead writer for DreamWorks Pictures, and a director at Illumination Entertainment. During the first three seasons of SpongeBob, Drymon being creative director allowed him to work with executive story editor Merriwether Williams and the rest of the writing team. Drymon's past experiences in life allowed writers to gain inspiration for episodes. In the satirical season 2 episode "Sailor Mouth", SpongeBob and Patrick learn "bad words" and eventually start using them only discover the words causing controversy with the citizens Bikini Bottom, the episode was inspired by Drymon as a kid who said a bad word to his mother once at a very young age".
Staff writer Kent Osborne responded to the writing process with Drymon and other writers by saying "By the third season we had done 26 half-hours. I came up with millions of ideas". Despite the issues with writing new episodes, Drymon collaborated with the writers to create episode ideas like the half-hour specials and episodes that focused on other characters, for example the season three episodes "The Algae Always Greener" and "Plankton's Army" focused on Sheldon Plankton and "Doing Time" focused on Mrs. Puff. Drymon said in an interview "Coming up with episode ideas was always tough". The writers were influenced for the episode "The Secret Box", which was influenced by Drymon because he told them when he was younger he kept a "secret box", the writers thought it was hilarious and weird and used Drymon's idea to create the story of the episode. Drymon co-wrote the pilot episode "Help Wanted". Drymon earned two Emmy nominations and along with the crew of SpongeBob won the "Best Animated Television Production" Annie award in 2005 for season 3 of SpongeBob.
Drymon hired a large amount of the staff writers, including Sam Henderson, a friend and fellow alumnus of SVA, along with Kent Osborne and Walt Dohrn.
Drymon was an executive producer (with Fred Seibert) on the Cartoon Network series Adventure Time, created by Pendleton Ward for the show's first season. He was no longer credited on episodes starting with the second season.[6] Drymon currently works for DreamWorks Animation.
On September 17, 2020, Drymon was set to co-direct Hotel Transylvania 4 with story artist Jeniffer Kluska.[7]
Personal life
As of 1998, Drymon lives in Los Angeles.[1]
Filmography
Television
| Year | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1994–1996 | Rocko's Modern Life | Storyboard artist/writer |
| 1996 | Hey Arnold! | Storyboard artist/director |
| 1996–2000 | KaBlam! | Storyboard artist |
| 1998 | CatDog | Storyboard director/storyboard artist/storyboard supervisor/writer |
| 1999–2004 | SpongeBob SquarePants | Creative director (1999–2004)/writer (1999)/storyboard artist (Help Wanted)/voice director (1999–2004)/supervising producer (2002–2004) |
| 2007 | Diggs Tailwagger | Creator/director/writer/executive producer (pilot) |
| 2008 | Camp Lazlo | Writer/storyboard director |
| 2010 | Danger Planet | Creator/writer (pilot) |
| 2010 | The Stockboys of the Apocalypse | Creator/writer (pilot) |
| 2010 | Adventure Time | Executive producer |
| 2017 | Billy Dilley's Super-Duper Subterranean Summer | Writer ("Crab Hands" episode) |
Film
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | My Life with Morrissey | Bad Comedian | |
| 2004 | The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie | The Screamer/Fisherman | writer/storyboard artist/executive producer/sequence director |
| 2008 | Kung Fu Panda | additional story artist | |
| 2009 | Monsters vs. Aliens | additional story artist | |
| 2010 | Shrek Forever After | story artist | |
| Megamind | special thanks | ||
| 2011 | Hop | storyboard artist | |
| Kung Fu Panda 2 | additional story artist | ||
| Puss in Boots | additional story artist | ||
| Night of the Living Carrots | storyboard artist | ||
| Arthur Christmas | executive producer/special thanks/additional voices (Uncredited) | ||
| 2013 | Turbo | Worker Snail #2/FAST Network Trackside Reporter | story artist |
| 2014 | Penguins of Madagascar | head of story | |
| 2015 | The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water | writer, "Squeeze Me" | |
| 2016 | Kung Fu Panda 3 | story artist | |
| 2017 | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie | story artist | |
| 2021 | Hotel Transylvania 4 | director |
Bibliography
| Month | Title | Issue | Story | Publisher | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr. 2011 | SpongeBob Comics | No. 2 | "Picture This!" | United Plankton Pictures | Story |
| Jun. 2011 | No. 3 | "Squidward and the Golden Clarinet" | |||
| Oct. 2011 | No. 5 | "Day Off / Off Day" | |||
| Aug. 2012 | No. 11 | "Dear Diary" | |||
| Oct. 2012 | No. 13 | "Drawn In" and "The Curse of the Flying Dutchman" | |||
| Nov. 2012 | No. 14 | "For the Love of Chum" | |||
| Dec. 2012 | No. 15 | "Connect the Dots" | |||
| Jan. 2013 | No. 16 | "The Treasure of Captain Goldfish" | |||
| Apr. 2013 | No. 19 | "Morning Melody" | |||
| May 2013 | No. 20 | "Sponge Monkey" | |||
| Oct. 2013 | No. 25 | "The Dutchman's Challenge" | |||
| Jan. 2014 | No. 28 | "Curse of the King Krabbe" | |||
| "My Life as a Crossing Guard" | |||||
| Feb. 2014 | No. 29 | "Scaredy Snail" | |||
| May 2014 | No. 32 | "Showdown at the Shady Shoals: Part 1" | |||
| Jun. 2014 | No. 33 | "Showdown at the Shady Shoals: Part 2" | |||
| Jul. 2014 | No. 34 | "Showdown at the Shady Shoals: Part 3" | |||
| Aug. 2014 | No. 35 | "Showdown at the Shady Shoals: Part 4" | |||
| Sept. 2014 | No. 36 | "Showdown at the Shady Shoals: Part 5" | |||
| Oct. 2014 | No. 37 | "Dreams of the Dreaming Dreamer" | |||
| Feb. 2015 | No. 41 | "Star of the Show" and "Snow Job" | |||
| Apr. 2015 | No. 43 | "Fry Cook 2.0" | |||
| Jun. 2015 | No. 45 | "Patrick's Itch" | |||
| Oct. 2015 | No. 49 | "Patty Thing!" | |||
| Nov. 2015 | No. 50 | "Mash-Up Pants" | |||
| Apr. 2016 | No. 55 | "The Ballad of Barnacle Bill: Part 1" | |||
| May 2016 | No. 56 | "The Ballad of Barnacle Bill: Part 2" | |||
| Jun. 2016 | No. 57 | "On the Lam" |
References
- [ht=movies "Derek Drymon"]. Metacritic. Retrieved October 29, 2017.
- Jennings, Rob. "Jefferson native, SpongeBob go way back: Cartoonist an executive producer for animated film" Archived September 8, 2012, at Archive.today, Daily Record, November 19, 2004. Retrieved Octo2007. "But in Jefferson, Drymon is perhaps best remembered as an offensive guard and defensive tackle on the high school's state championship football team in 1986.... At Jefferson High School, when not playing football, Drymon was sketching comic books."
- Halm, Dan (Winter 2002). "Soaking in Talent" Visual Arts Journal, School of Visual Arts (New York City). pp. 24 – 25.
- Heintjes, Tom (September 21, 2012). "The Oral History of SpongeBob SquarePants". Hogan's Alley. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015. Retrieved August 23, 2013.
- "Legacy: 26th Annual Annie Award Nominees and Winners (1998)". AnnieAwards.org. ASIFA-Hollywood. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007. Retrieved December 1, 2012.
- Meiss, Richard. "8 Facts You Might Not Have Known About 'Adventure Time'", Smosh November 18, 2015. "We show you the most surprising facts about Adventure Time we ... are stretched – that's Derek Drymon, the former executive producer, typing."
- Donnelly, Matt (September 17, 2020). "Selena Gomez Upped to Executive Producer for 'Hotel Transylvania 4,' Returns as Female Lead (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
