Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years

Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years is the first spin-off series based on SpongeBob SquarePants. It was confirmed by Nickelodeon on June 4, 2019. It is executive produced by Marc Ceccarelli and Vincent Waller.

The spin-off uses designs and elements from The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. It features SpongeBob and his pals spending the summer "building underwater campfires, catching wild jellyfish, and swimming in Lake Yuckymuck at the craziest camp in the kelp forest, Kamp Koral."

The series premiered on Paramount+ on March 4, 2021. It aired on Nickelodeon on April 2, 2021 (with The Barbarian and the Troll premiering right after).

Premiseedit | edit source
The show is set at a summer sleepaway camp called Camp Coral, located in the Kelp Forest. SpongeBob SquarePants is a ten-year-old camper who wears a red cap. Mr. Krabs is the camp director, and he stays in a cabin with his baby daughter, Pearl. Other campers include SpongeBob's friends, Patrick, Sandy, and Squidward. Squidward is slightly older than the others and works as a junior counselor. Mrs. Puff is the teacher of arts and crafts, as well as the scoutmaster who keeps an eye on the kids. Plankton and Karen are the chefs of the camp. The gang spends the summer catching jellyfish, building camp-fires, and swimming in a goo lake called Lake Yuckymuck.

Charactersedit | edit source

 * SpongeBob SquarePants is a ten-year-old sea sponge who is the most enthusiastic camper at Kamp Koral.
 * Patrick Star is SpongeBob's best friend and bunkmate.
 * Squidward Tentacles is slightly older than the other campers. He is practicing to be a junior counselor.
 * Mr. Krabs is the camp director who spends his time taking care of his baby daughter Pearl.
 * Pearl Krabs is a baby whale who lives with Mr. Krabs in their cabin.
 * Sandy Cheeks is a squirrel from land who joins the camp by living in an enclosed glass treehouse.
 * Mrs. Puff is the scoutmaster and arts-and-crafts teacher of the camp.
 * Sheldon J. Plankton is a camp chef who secretly has a lab full of inventions.
 * Karen Plankton is Plankton's assistant, a talking calculator who moves around in a pink rollerskate boot.
 * Gary the Snail is a stray snail who befriends SpongeBob and becomes his pet.

New characters also appear, such as a pair of narwhals named Nobby and Narlene.

Episodesedit | edit source

 * Main article: List of Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years episodes

Productionedit | edit source
The characters and locations in Kamp Koral are based on scenes from the third movie, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run. In the movie, Camp Coral is featured in several flashbacks. All main characters that appear in them are aged up in the spin-off; some designs (such as SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star, and Mrs. Puff's camp outfits) remained mostly the same, whereas others (such as Squidward Tentacle and Sandy Cheeks' designs) were heavily updated. In the movie, Mrs. Puff was the only camp counselor, but in the series, she is joined by Mr. Krabs as the camp director.

The series is being animated by a different studio from Sponge on the Run to decrease the time and cost spent on animation. It is being animated by Technicolor's animation studio, in Bangladesh, India; the corporation also owns Mikros Image, which provided animation for the third movie. Executive producer Vincent Waller said in an interview, in regards to the final animation: “The main challenge was finding a crew capable of building a new world, from the sand up to the beautiful ocean/sky above our Kampers, at breakneck speed to have our show premiere in March [...] Having seen other CG TV shows, we were very worried we wouldn’t be able to hit the same high mark when it comes to the characters’ acting and posing. But those challenges excited the crew, and they came up with innovations to hit the wild and varied expressions our storyboard artists were throwing at them.”

Brian Robbins stated that he helped create the idea for Kamp Koral. In October 2018, Robbins became the president of Nickelodeon. On his "second or third day" at Nickelodeon, he "was asked to go to a SpongeBob season 12 or 13 pickup meeting" and "asked a lot of questions." This made him realize that SpongeBob had "basically stayed the same" and inspired him and others together to come up with ideas for spin-off shows and new characters.

On February 14, 2019, it was announced that an unnamed spinoff of SpongeBob SquarePants was in the works at Nickelodeon. On June 4, 2019, it was announced that a CG-animated spinoff of SpongeBob SquarePants under the working title of Kamp Koral was officially green-lit with a 13-episode order.

On February 19, 2020, the show's official title was given as Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years. It was also announced that the voice cast from SpongeBob SquarePants would return for the spinoff series. Those cast members being: Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, Carolyn Lawrence, Doug Lawrence, Mary Jo Catlett, Jill Talley, and Lori Alan. It was also announced that Carlos Alazraqui and Kate Higgins would voice two new characters: Nobby and Narlene, twin narwhals. On January 10, 2021, during an NFL Wild Card game playoff aired on Nickelodeon, a six-minute sneak peek of "The Jellyfish Kid" was shown. On February 2, 2021, a promotional short titled "I'm Urchin You to Leave" was released on The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run Blu-ray and DVD in Canada.

Generaledit | edit source

 * Unlike The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run, where the characters' young selves are voiced by child actors, the series retains their adult actors. The character designs from the show are "similar but not the same" to the designs used in the third movie.
 * Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years is the first Nicktoon to be released exclusively on Paramount+.
 * As revealed in the episode "Camper Gary," the Kamp Koral series takes place one year after the events of the flashbacks in Sponge on the Run.