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Steven Banks | |
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| Born | Steven Craig Banks November 27, 1954 |
| Other names | Steve Banks |
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| Years active | 1986–present |
Steven Craig Banks (born November 27, 1954) is an American actor, musician, comedian, and writer of television, plays, books and cartoons, including CatDog , Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi , and SpongeBob SquarePants .
In 1987, Banks landed his first acting role, performing as a minor character in the fantasy-comedy Date with an Angel .
Banks hit it big when he developed (and starred in) a one-man theatrical show titled Home Entertainment Center – a comedic play about an easily distracted procrastinator trying to meet a work deadline. He gave 440 performances of Home Entertainment Center at venues like the Canon Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Marines' Memorial Theater, and The One Act in San Francisco (where the show ran for eleven months). For his performances, he was awarded the LA Weekly Theater Award, four Drama-Logue Awards, and three San Francisco Bay Area Critic's Awards. He also performed at the Aspen Comedy festival, the Cast Theater, Callboard Theater, and Las Palmas Theater.
In 1989, Home Entertainment Center achieved national fame when it was filmed and aired on Showtime; the filming was done at the Marines' Memorial Theater. The show featured original songs written and performed by Banks. On May 14, 1989, he appeared (with Penn Jillette) on the Dr. Demento radio program (that year's Mother's Day Special) and performed a number of his songs live on-air.
The ensuing fame landed him a TV pilot on Showtime in January 1991 – The Steven Banks Show (sometimes inaccurately referenced as The Steven Brooks Show). The plot of the show was much the same as his one-act play: Banks portrayed Steven Brooks – an underachieving, chronic procrastinator fascinated by trivia and cursed with a penchant for comedic songs.
In the summer of 1991, after Paul Reubens was arrested for allegedly masturbating in an adult movie theater, Banks was among a number of entertainers who protested the decision of CBS to drop Reubens' show from their lineup. Banks can be seen in a crowd of protestors on an LA street in the E! True Hollywood Story episode about Reubens' arrest. Reubens was later offered (and declined) a supporting role on Banks' fledgling TV program.
Showtime aired the pilot for Banks' show but never ran any other episodes. In 1994, PBS took an interest in his act. They filmed and aired The Steven Banks Show that summer – the first original sitcom ever produced and run by PBS. Brandon Tartikoff produced the show, filmed at WYES in New Orleans. A CD album for the show was also released, consisting of original songs written and performed by Banks. Thirteen episodes were shot and the program garnered critical acclaim, but one episode, "Miss Janie Regrets", was not aired due to controversy over a PBS-like children's show parody. Banks' show has attained a kind of cult status despite its short run on PBS. In one episode, Penn Jillette sang and played guitar, Teller on the keyboard, joining Steven Banks. The song was "I wear the clothes of the dead", the setup for which was Penn wearing suits bought at estate sales.
Banks has appeared in movies and several TV shows such as Beverly Hills Cop III , Dharma & Greg , King of the Hill , Dream On , Caroline in the City , The Jimmy Kimmel Show , Parks and Recreation , Mom , and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend .
Banks performed as "Billy the Mime" in the 2005 comedic documentary The Aristocrats which was created by Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza. [1] Other appearances include Jimmy Kimmel Live! , Penn & Teller's Bullshit!, Parks & Recreation (his scene was cut out), and The Green Room with Paul Provenza.
Billy the Mime presented a six-week engagement at The Flea Theater in New York and has also appeared at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater (LA and NYC), [2] The New York International Fringe Festival, The Montreal Just For Laughs Festival, The Aspen Comedy Festival, SketchFest (San Francisco), The Revolutions International Theater Festival (New Mexico), The Lakeshore Theater (Chicago), and in Los Angeles at The Actors Gang, Sit 'n Spin, Largo, The Comedy Central Stage, The Steve Allen Theater in Girly Magazine Party and The Rudy Casoni Show and the Sacred Fools Theater Company.
In March 2012, he performed in San Paolo, Brazil at the Risadaria Comedy Festival and did 24 shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August.
He founded Billy's Moving Art Gallery in 2014. Their slogan is "Bringing Affordable Art To The Masses Since 2014". His paintings have hung in The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Whitney Art Museum in New York, in The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Getty, The Broad and The Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, The Hamburger Bahnhof Museum and The East Side Berlin Wall Gallery in Berlin.
In 1998, Banks began writing for Nickelodeon's animated series CatDog . He wrote several CatDog books as well. He continued working for Nickelodeon, penning several SpongeBob books (including The Big Halloween Scare, which actually charted on The New York Times bestseller list).
In 2001, Banks was a freelance writer for season 2 of The Fairly OddParents .
In 2002, Banks was named head writer for The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius , and in 2004, he was nominated for one of the 56th Annual Writers Guild Awards for the episode Rescue Jet Fusion.
In 2004, he wrote for Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi , an animated series from the Cartoon Network about the adventures of real-life J-pop music stars Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura.
In late 2004, he became a story editor and then head writer for SpongeBob SquarePants for seasons 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2008 for the SpongeBob episode he wrote, "The Two Faces of Squidward."
Banks and Penn Jillette also collaborated in writing Love Tapes – an unconventional love story for the stage which premiered in February 2005 at Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood.
Banks' novel, King of the Creeps, was published by [Knopf] in 2006.
In 2009, he collaborated with the dance company Pilobolus co-creating a full-evening piece, Shadowland, currently touring internationally.
He developed the CGI series and wrote the pilot for Nickelodeon's Planet Sheen .
His play, Looking at Christmas, opened in New York at The Flea Theater on November 20, 2010, and was filmed by a local television station WNET. That play aired on WNET the following year in December 2011.
Banks was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure Section on November 28, 2010.
He wrote the pilot for the Arnold Schwarzenegger / Stan Lee animated series The Governator. [3]
In 2012, he wrote the pilot for a new updated version of the 1960s animated classic Underdog for Red Kite Animation, and co-developed Supernuts! with Niki Yang for Nickelodeon.
In October 2012, he joined the staff of Two and a Half Men as Co-Producer.
In 2013, he wrote a one-hour dramedy pilot called A Beautiful Mess for Chuck Lorre Productions.
He co-created and directed, with Pilobolus, Shadowland, which has been performed in 31 countries and sold over 500,000 tickets. It is currently touring the US. A new full-evening piece, Shadowland II: The Adventure Continues, premiered in Berlin in 2016.
His play Looking at Christmas was published by Broadway Play Publishing in 2016. In 2016, he was also the head writer for Genius Brands' SpacePOP series. [4]
In 2016, he was a writer for a few episodes from "Mixels".
As of 2017, Banks is developing an adult animated action/comedy project for Sony Animation and Netflix about a very famous rock and roll star who faked his own death in 1977 and became a secret agent. [ citation needed ]
In 2017, Banks was a writer for Harvey Beaks .
In 2019, Banks was a writer for Lego City Adventures .
His original book series, Middle School Bites, published by Holiday House, distributed by Penguin Random House came out in 2020. There are four books in the series.
In April 2021, Banks served as a head writer on the animated streaming series Stan Lee's Superhero Kindergarten writing all 26 episodes. [5]
In 2005, Banks joined SpongeBob in season 4 as head writer and story editor for six years. SpongeBob producer Eric Coleman, called Banks to tell him he was being considered by executive producers Stephen Hillenburg and Paul Tibbitt to become a writer on the show. Banks was already a huge fan of the show and described the hiring process as being interviewed by Paul Tibbitt for about five minutes.
SpongeBob SquarePants is the protagonist of the American animated television series of the same name. Voiced by Tom Kenny, he is characterized by his optimism and childlike attitude. SpongeBob is commonly seen hanging out with his friend Patrick Star, working at the Krusty Krab, and attending Mrs. Puff's Boating School, while getting involved in zany hijinks along the way.
Eugene Harold Krabs, better known as simply Mr. Krabs, is a fictional character in the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by actor Clancy Brown and first appeared in the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. The character was created and designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg.
Sandy Cheeks is a fictional character in the American animated comedy television series SpongeBob SquarePants and the Nickelodeon franchise of the same name. She is voiced by Carolyn Lawrence and first appeared in the episode "Tea at the Treedome" that premiered on May 1, 1999. She was created and designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg who is also the creator of the series. Sandy is portrayed as an intelligent anthropomorphic squirrel who wears a diving suit and lives underwater.
Carl Harvey Greenblatt is an American animator and voice actor. He has worked on Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants and on Cartoon Network's The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and Evil Con Carne. He is the creator of Cartoon Network's Chowder, Nickelodeon's Harvey Beaks, and creator and executive producer of Jellystone!, a Hanna-Barbera animated series for HBO Max produced by Warner Bros. Animation.
Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi is an American animated series created by Sam Register and produced by Renegade Animation and Cartoon Network Studios, which aired on Cartoon Network from 2004 to 2006. The series stars fictionalized and animated versions of the Japanese pop rock group Puffy AmiYumi. The series premiered on November 19, 2004, and ended on June 27, 2006, with a total of three seasons and 39 episodes.
Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was an American animator, voice actor, and marine biology educator. He is best known for creating the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants for Nickelodeon in 1999 – serving as the showrunner for its first three seasons, and again from season nine until his death – which has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series. He also provided the original voice of Patchy's pet parrot Potty the Parrot from the show.
Derek Drymon is an American animator, writer, storyboard artist, director, comedian, and producer. He has worked on numerous animated cartoon productions.
SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg that premiered on Nickelodeon as a sneak peek after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It chronicles the adventures of the title character and his aquatic friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The series received worldwide critical acclaim, and has gained popularity by its second season. As of 2019, the series is the fifth-longest-running American animated series. Its popularity made it a multimedia franchise, the highest rated Nickelodeon series, and the most profitable intellectual property for Paramount Consumer Products. By 2019, it had generated over $13 billion in merchandising revenue.
Kazimieras Gediminas Prapuolenis, known professionally as Kaz, is an American cartoonist, animator, writer, storyboard artist, and illustrator. In the 1980s, after attending New York City's School of the Visual Arts, he was a frequent contributor to the comic anthologies RAW and Weirdo. Since 1992, he has drawn Underworld, an adult-themed syndicated comic strip that appears in many alternative weeklies.
Martin Olson is an American comedy writer, television producer, author and composer. He is known for his unusual subject matter, and is an original member of the Boston Comedy Scene. He is the father of actress Olivia Olson.
Douglas Wood is an author, writer, actor, creative executive, director, producer and professor. He has been a VP of Animation Development and Production for Steven Spielberg at Amblin Entertainment, Turner Pictures, Warner Bros. and Universal.
The first season of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, created by former marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, aired on Nickelodeon from May 1, 1999, to March 3, 2001, and consists of 20 half-hour episodes. The series chronicles the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The show features the voices of Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Jill Talley, Carolyn Lawrence, Mary Jo Catlett, and Lori Alan. Among the first guest stars to appear on the show were Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway voicing the superhero characters of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, respectively.
The fifth season of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, created by former marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg, aired on Nickelodeon from February 19, 2007, to July 19, 2009, and contained 20 half-hour episodes. The series chronicles the exploits and adventures of the title character and his various friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The season was executive produced by series creator Hillenburg and writer Paul Tibbitt, who also acted as the showrunner.
"Help Wanted" is the pilot episode of the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. It first aired on Nickelodeon in the United States on May 1, 1999, following the television broadcast of the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards. The episode follows the series' eponymous protagonist SpongeBob, a yellow anthropomorphic sea sponge, attempting to get a job at a local fast food restaurant called the Krusty Krab.
Patrick Star is a fictional character in the American animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by actor Bill Fagerbakke and was created and designed by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. He first appeared in the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. In addition to his supporting role on SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick also serves as the main protagonist of The Patrick Star Show, which premiered in 2021.
Kent Matthew Osborne is an American screenwriter, actor, animator, producer, and director. He has worked for such animated television shows as SpongeBob SquarePants, Camp Lazlo, Phineas and Ferb, The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, Adventure Time, Regular Show and The Amazing World of Gumball, he has received multiple Emmy Award nominations and has won twice for Adventure Time. He is currently the head writer for the Cartoon Network animated series Summer Camp Island, which premiered in 2018, and is also co-producer and story editor for the Disney Channel animated series Kiff. He has also starred in several mumblecore films, including Hannah Takes the Stairs, Nights and Weekends, All the Light in the Sky and Uncle Kent. His brother is the director Mark Osborne. Osborne had replaced Walt Dohrn as a storyboard director and writer after Dohrn left SpongeBob to work on more DreamWorks films in 2002.
John Andrew Overtoom is an American animation director, writer, photographer, and cinematographer. Recent credits include Nickelodeon’s The Patrick Star Show as well as the animated feature film The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, where he served as CG animation director and head of character animation. He was supervising animation director on the Cartoon Network series Clarence, as well as Disney XD’s animated television series Billy Dilley's Super-Duper Subterranean Summer where he was a writer and animation supervisor. In 1999, after two years as an animation timer on The Angry Beavers, Overtoom was hired as an animation director on the Nickelodeon animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants, for which he was nominated for Emmy Awards in 2004, 2007 and 2011. My Life with Morrissey is Overtoom's first award-winning live action feature as a writer/director/cinematographer and is distributed by MVD. Other credits include Family Guy and American Dad for Fox TV, and Phineas and Ferb and Dave the Barbarian for Disney.
Lynne Rae Naylor is a Canadian animator, artist, designer, director, and producer for television. She is best known for co-creating DreamWorks' The Mighty Ones, co-founding the animation studio Spümcø with John Kricfalusi, Bob Camp, and Jim Smith, and co-developing The Ren & Stimpy Show for Nickelodeon. She also worked on Batman: The Animated Series, The Powerpuff Girls, Samurai Jack, Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and Wander Over Yonder.
Bill Burnett is an American writer, composer, television producer, singer-songwriter, and actor who is best known for co-creating Nickelodeon's ChalkZone along with Larry Huber. He is also an accomplished singer/songwriter and the leader of the LA-based band The Backboners. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated comedy media franchise created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It began with the series, which premiered in 1999, and went on to become one of the longest-running American animated series. The franchise is the most profitable property for Paramount Consumer Products, having generated over $13 billion in merchandising revenue.
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