Trick-or-Nick! This Friday, October 22, fright fans and toon fanatics can click over to Nickelodeon to catch brand-new 30-minute Halloween-themed episodes of the rebooted Rugrats and SpongeBob spinoff The Patrick Star Show. To celebrate the occult occasion, we’re offering a screaming sneak peek at both specials, plus a behind-the-scenes look at how the the mad stop-motion scientists at Screen Novelties created a felted Frankenstein tale for SpongeBob, Patrick and Plankton … if you dare to cast your eyes upon them!
Rugrats “The Werewoof Hunter” – Tommy needs his friends’ help to save Angelica after she turns into a werewolf at a scary Halloween party where their parents seem to be disappearing one by one. The episode is now available on Paramount+, and will air on Nickelodeon on Friday, October 22 at 8:30 p.m. (ET/PT).
The Patrick Star Show “Terror at 20,000 Leagues” – Patrick goes on a spooky adventure for Halloween, with a mix of stop-motion, puppets and 2D animation. The half-hour episode will air on Nickelodeon on Friday, October 22 at 7 p.m. (ET/PT).
Los Angeles-based Screen Novelties produced the special, in which miniature puppets and sets bring the series and characters to life in three dimensions. They also produced two original Halloween-themed shorts for the series, which premiered last Friday.
It took two main stages and two ancillary stages running for several months to create the nearly 12 minutes of footage in “Terror at 20,000 Leagues.”
Dr. Plankenstein’s castle is a sandcastle somewhere on the spooky outskirts of Bikini Bottom and the “forest” around the castle is made of those “drip castles” often made on the beach as kids.
The special features … oatmeal! It took about six different formulas to come up with visually satisfying, animatable oatmeal. Real oats were mixed with wax, classic “elementary school science project” slime, and other secret ingredients. Then the animation took days to accomplish, so it had to hold its shape for many hours at a time.
