Clancy Brown Says Mr. Krabs Is Misunderstood By Everyone, Even the ‘SpongeBob’ Writing Staff
Nobody knows what it’s like to be the Krab man.
Despite his gruff voice and tough exterior, Mr. Krabs is more than a pair of big meaty claws that’s constantly pinching pennies. He’s also a loving father, a devoted small business owner and an avid electronic music enthusiast. However, contemporary readings of SpongeBob SquarePants would have the audience view Mr. Krabs as the direct opposite of the show’s protagonist, at least through the Hegelian lens. Where SpongeBob is generous, Mr. Krabs is greedy. SpongeBob works for joy and love, while Mr. Krabs works purely for material gain. Mr. Krabs exploits all the selfless enthusiasm that makes SpongeBob such an endearing figure for personal gain and profit, making Mr. Krabs, in some SpongeBob fans’ eyes, the show’s true antagonist.
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Clancy Brown, on the other hand, doesn’t see his character that way, and he’s willing to challenge anyone who would make Mr. Krabs out to be the bad guy — even the show’s own writers. In a recent interview with BuzzFeed, Brown defended his most prolific animated character and even professed to enjoying the task of properly explaining Mr. Krabs’ soft side, saying of his “favorite thing” about the character, “I love that he’s so misunderstood.”
“He’s really not complicated,” Brown said of the Krusty Krab proprietor. “I mean, he does love money, and he loves his daughter (Pearl) and everything like that. He won’t always make great choices, but, you know, he’s not a jerk. He’s just kind of who he is.”
Brown seemed to acknowledge the online sentiment from some SpongeBob fans that Mr. Krabs should be considered among fiction’s greatest villains, saying, “We all know people like him, but he’s not Mr. Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life — he’s not that guy. He does love his employees, and he loves his town, and we see that every now and then. He does the right thing, but he’s basically misunderstood.”
Even the SpongeBob makers themselves are unfair to Mr. Krabs, says the voice actor. “He’s also misunderstood sometimes by the writing staff,” Brown explained, “(Animator and voice actor) Mr. Lawrence writes him very well. He writes him really comically, but then some writers sometimes write him as kind of a jerk, which I kind of push back against.”
To Brown’s credit, a large part of Mr. Krabs’ humanity (crabmanity?) comes from the voice actor’s performance, as he can slide into the weepy wailing that puts even Pearl to shame with spectacular ease. Ultimately, the rare moments when Mr. Krabs can shed his tough shell and show his compassion are that much more impactful because an expert actor like Brown can master those emotions.
Are you feeling understood now, Mr. Krabs?
