Squidward Tentacles

Stephen Hillenburg first became fascinated with the ocean and began developing his artistic abilities as a child. During college, he majored in marine biology and minored in art. After graduating in 1984, he joined the Ocean Institute, an ocean education organization, where he had the idea to create a comic book titled The Intertidal Zone, which led to the creation of SpongeBob SquarePants.[9][10][11] In 1987, Hillenburg left the Institute to pursue a career in animation.[11][12]

Early rough sketches of Squidward from creator Stephen Hillenburg's series bible.

Several years after studying experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts,[12] Hillenburg met Joe Murray, creator of Rocko's Modern Life, at an animation festival. Murray offered Hillenburg a job as a director of the series.[11][13][14][15] Martin Olson, one of the writers for Rocko's Modern Life, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, Hillenburg had not considered creating his own series, but soon realized that this was his chance.[10][16][17] Shortly after production on Rocko's Modern Life ended in 1996,[18] Hillenburg began working on SpongeBob SquarePants.[10]

Hillenburg used some character designs from his comic book. He designed "SpongeBob's grumpy next door neighbor" as an octopus because he liked the species' large head; he said octopuses "have such a large bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he's an intellectual, so of course he's gonna have a large bulbous head."[1] Hillenburg explained that Squidward is normally drawn with six limbs because "it was really just simpler for animation to draw him with six legs instead of eight".[1] Squidward is only shown with a full set of eight legs in two episodes: the live-action sequence in "Pressure" from season two, and briefly in "Sold!" from season nine. Hillenburg named the character Squidward after the squid, which is closely related to the octopus and has ten limbs. In the words of Squidward's voice actor Rodger Bumpass, the name Octoward "just didn't work".[2]

Of Squidward's design, show writer and storyboard artist Vincent Waller said in 2010:

Squidward is hard to draw—he has a very odd-shaped head. Fortunately, his emotions are pretty even, but to get a whole lot of big emoting out of him is a challenge. His nose splits everything in half, so it's always like, 'OK, how am I going to work this and still make it read?'[19]

Hillenburg thought of making jokes with Squidward ejecting ink but retired it because, according to him, "it always looks like he's pooping his pants".[1] Despite this, inking jokes would appear in the episodes "Giant Squidward" and "Ink Lemonade". The sound of Squidward's footsteps, which evokes that of suction cups pulling on the ground, is produced by rubbing hot water bottles. The footsteps, and those of the rest of the main characters, are recorded by the show's foley crew. Sound designer Jeff Hutchins said that footstep sounds "[help] tell which character it is and what surface they're stepping on".[20] Bumpass inspired the idea of having Squidward ride a recumbent bicycle; Bumpass owns one of these bicycles, which he rides around Burbank, California.[21] Bumpass described it as his "little inside joke".[2]

Squidward's voice has been compared to that of American comic actor Jack Benny.

Squidward's voice is provided by actor Rodger Bumpass, who voices several other SpongeBob SquarePants characters, including Squidward's mother. While creating the show and writing its pilot episode in 1997, Hillenburg and the show's then-creative director Derek Drymon were also conducting voice auditions.[22] Mr. Lawrence, who had worked with Hillenburg and Drymon on Rocko's Modern Life, was Hillenburg's first choice for the role. Hillenburg had invited Lawrence to audition for all the show's characters.[23] Instead of Squidward, Hillenburg decided to give Lawrence the part of Plankton, the series' villain.[22]

According to Bumpass, Squidward was "a very nasally, monotone kind of guy". He said the character became interesting to perform because of "his sarcasm, and then his frustration, and then his apoplexy, and so he became a wide spectrum of emotions".[24] Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, describes Bumpass recording his lines in the studio, saying, "I love watching Rodger ... He's right next to me". According to Kenny, when Bumpass "goes apoplectic" as Squidward while recording, his head turns red, "and you're afraid he's going to have an embolism".[21]

Several of the show's crew praise Bumpass for his performance and similitude to the character. Kenny called Bumpass "brilliant" and said, "[he] is sort of like Squidward".[21] Staff writer Kent Osborne said, "I remember thinking about how much Rodger talks and acts like Squidward. That's why it's such a good voice—he's so connected to it".[25] However, Bumpass said, "I'm not him and he's not me, but what I'm required to do for him and what I am enabled to do for him is what makes it like me. It fits my particular talents and skills very well. So in that respect, yeah, he is me, but I am not the cranky, sarcastic, underachieving kind of guy that he is. He's easy to fall in, I will say that."[24]

Squidward's voice has been compared to that of Jack Benny's. Kenny said, "To me, there's something just so funny about that Jack-Benny-loyal-to-nobody character that Rodger Bumpass does such a great job of playing [...] Squidward".[26] Arthur Brown, author of Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Cartoons!, said that Squidward "sounds a lot like Jack Benny".[27] Bumpass repudiated the relationship, saying "Jack Benny, no. Although he does have this observational sarcasm he occasionally brought out."[24]