Growing up, I loved reading Mad Magazine, especially the Sergio Aragones’ little mini comic strips, like the wordless comic strips in the margin.
That sad moment on the train is so funny when the Paddington bear has his hand out.
And when we were breaking stories, we wanted the Pupa – who’s basically a non speaking character for the most part – to kind of have these nonverbal adventures.
So when the writers were pitching and breaking these ideas – it might have been [executive producer/writer] Josh Bycell – we wanted the Pupa on this big, grand adventure, and when that put him in this area full of somebody who’s collecting almost-famous animals, that they might think that the Pupa kinda looks like SpongeBob a little bit.