By Greg Psomas

Nickelodeon’s porous protagonist Spongebob Squarepants will be packing up with his beloved snail Gary and moving from his pineapple under the sea to the silver screen.

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, rated PG, hits theaters nationwide Friday.

The film is what Spongebob creator Steven Hillenburg continually refers to as, “the ultimate road trip movie for Spongebob and Patrick (Spongebob’s star fish pal).”

The two pals go on an adventure to save their beloved town of Bikini Bottom in which they “must learn to believe in themselves,” Hillenburg said. Along the way, the duo encounter many challenges and obstacles as well as some brand new characters.

Many big names have been brought aboard to voice some of the film’s new characters. These stars include Alec Baldwin as Dennis the hit man fish, Jeffrey Tambor as King Neptune, Scarlett Johansson as Mindy the mermaid and David Hasselhoff as David Hasselhoff.

Hasselhoff’s appearance in the film is something Hillenburg is quite proud of.

“We wrote David into the script without even asking him,” Hillenburg said.

He said they would have been in big trouble had he turned them down but “his daughter was a big fan of the show” and he gladly agreed to do it, Hillenburg said.

The scene in which Hasselhoff appears is one of the crucial points in the movie, he said. Spongebob meets Hasselhoff, performing in his stereotypical beach hero character, in a scene that mixes both live action and animation.

“It is the first time we’ve ever done a live action sequence,” Hillenburg said.

While Hillenburg had envisioned Hasselhoff in the film, Johansson’s involvement was more of a studio decision than Hillenburg’s, he said.

Nickelodeon and Paramount were interested in adding new cast members, and they encouraged Hillenburg to use film actors.

The role of Mindy the mermaid was one of the newly created roles and after being rejected by a list of other actresses, the film’s producers called Johansson, without much confidence that she would sign on, Hillenburg said.

Her decision to come aboard, “really saved us,” he said. He lauded her for being extremely talented, calling her performance in “Lost in Translation” “amazing.”

“I never wanted to make a Spongebob movie,” he said of his earlier days on the show. However, after about 60 episodes of the television series, Hillenburg said he started to wonder what they could do with a 75 minute story, rather than an 11 minute story.

Expanding the length of his story by almost sevenfold proved to be one of the most challenging aspects of creating the film. Along with that, Hillenburg said he was worried about “banking everything on one story.”

Despite his concerns, he said he also realized he had a distinct advantage over many other filmmakers.

“I was already familiar with the characters … other movies have to build from the ground up,” he said.

Hillenburg said he believes the overwhelming success of his creation can be attributed to these characters with whom he is so familiar, as well as a team of talented writers.

He said he believes people enjoy the character-based humor found in Spongebob and said he tries to avoid using topical humor. It is remarkable to him that he has had so much success.

“You write a show about a sponge and hope someone finds it funny … I never expected this,” he said.