Rodger Bumpass

Rodger Bumpass was born on November 20, 1951, in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Carroll C. (1924–2009) and Virginia Cathey Bumpass (1921–2004). He had two siblings, one of whom was stillborn. His parents ran a dry cleaning business. He described his mother as “the life of the family” and his father “a typical Southern male with Southern male disgust“ but added that he was loving and giving. As a child, Bumpass idolized Mel Blanc and would do impressions of Looney Tunes characters as well as other cartoon characters. He memorized the comedy albums of Jonathan Winters and Bill Cosby and was inspired by Tim Conway’s physical comedy. Bumpass attended Little Rock Central High School, where he received his first training in theater. He then majored in radio–TV and minored in theater at Arkansas State University. He worked at the campus radio station and also at Jonesboro's ABC affiliated television station, KAIT-TV, where he had multiple duties as announcer, film processor, cameraman, audio technician, and technical director. While at KAIT, Bumpass also wrote, produced, and performed in a late-night comedy program called Mid-Century Nonsense Festival Featuring Kumquat Theater. He graduated from A-State in 1976, and when encouraged by an A-State professor to consider professional theater, he moved to New York in June 1977.Bumpass has been voicing and acting in films since the 1960s and has also appeared on stage through the mid-1970s until the late 1980s. He is also known for voicing The Chief from Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, Doctor Light on Teen Titans, and Professor Membrane on Invader Zim. In the late 1970s, Bumpass was involved with a number of National Lampoon productions. In 1977, he won a role in the National Lampoon music and comedy road show That's Not Funny, That's Sick and toured with them until 1978. That same year, he appeared in the National Lampoon TV special Disco Beaver from Outer Space for HBO. In 1979, Bumpass was cast as the leading role in a National Lampoon film to be called Jaws 3, People 0 in which he would have a love scene with Bo Derek. However, the film was canceled due to objections by the creators of the movie Jaws. In 1980, Bumpass created the character of 'Fartman' to appear on the National Lampoon LP The White Album, which later inspired the Howard Stern character by the same name. Bumpass is best known to present-day viewers as the voice of Squidward Tentacles and various incidental characters on the Nickelodeon animated comedy series SpongeBob SquarePants. In 2012, Bumpass received a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for his role as Squidward.