Tom Kenny

Born: 1962
Where: East Syracuse, New York, USA

The sometime stand-up comedian is the multi-voiced virtuoso behind characters ranging from SpongeBob SquarePants.

As a child, Kenny was a comic books fan and once played the monster in the haunted house (with his friend and now successful director Bobcat Goldthwait) at his local fair.

As a teenager turned to stand-up comedy with stints in Boston and San Francisco, where he attracted the attention of TV producers.

His shows leds to on comedy cable shows in the 1980s which, in turn, landed him spots on prime-time Late Night With Letterman.

Kenny was a regular on Fox TV's The Edge and spent year as a the host of Friday Night Videos as well as a role in the Alan Grier sitcom The Preston Episodes.

Early big screen appearances included the 1989 romantic comedy How I Got Into College as well as the villainous Binky The Clown in Shakes The Clown in 1992.

At the same time he was providing voiceover for the likes of Heffer in Rocko's Modern Life and the dog in Cat/Dog.

Subsequent vocal work included work on the Powerpuff Girls, N.I.G.E.L in Godzilla: The Series and Asok in the Dilbert cartoons.

In 1999, he first voiced SpongeBob SquarePants in the most popular children's show in television history.

In 2001 he voiced the tortoise in Dr Dolittle 2 with other big screen work including Orange County, The Powerpuff Girls and Eight Crazy Nights with Adam Sandler.

He played a record store clerk in the comedy My Life With Morrissey in 2003 and also appeared in the horror yarn Creeptales.

Outside cartoons, he and his wife appeared in the Smashing Pumpkins video Tonight Tonight and he also featured in the Travis video Sing.

Another cameo included "the man wrapping presents" in Ben Affleck turkey Surviving Christmas and voiced SpongeBob for the 2004 big screen outing of the cartoon.