Squidward Tentacles

Squidward Quincy Tentacles is the tritagonist in the series. He hates SpongeBob and Patrick.

Although he is an octopus he has 6 arms/legs. Squidward is an anthropomorphic octopus. He lives in a moai between SpongeBob SquarePants' and Patrick Star's houses. The character is portrayed as ill-tempered, manipulative, pretentious, cynical and incredibly hostile, and he strongly despises his neighbors for their constant annoying, noisy behavior. To SpongeBob and Patrick, his enemacy is unseen and they see him as a friend. (mainly SpongeBob, as Patrick is sometimes aware or at least suspects it, like in "SB-129"). Squidward works as a cashier at the Krusty Krab restaurant, a job that he is apathetic towards.

He has gained lots and lots and lots of positive reviews.

Role
Squidward is depicted as a bitter, very unfortunate, desperate, somewhat depressed, curt, arrogant, occasionally selfish, turquoise octopus. He lives in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom in a moai situated between SpongeBob SquarePants' pineapple house and Patrick Star's rock. He views his neighbors for their perpetual laughter and boisterous behavior, though SpongeBob and Patrick are oblivious to Squidward's animosity towards them and regard him as a friend, though there are times when at least one of them is slightly aware of it, notably in the episode "SB-129" when Patrick voiced suspicion and was beginning to believe Squidward's hatred of them was real.

Squidward lives in a life of pity and misery. He yearns for celebrity status. For now, he is a cashier at the Krusty Krab. Squidward resents his job and is irritated by his greedy employer Mr. Krabs and by having his own resented neighbor SpongeBob as a colleague.

Squidward longs for peace but his wishes remain unsatisfied. He believes he is talented and deserves a higher social status, but despite having a love for music, Squidward remains being bad at playing the clarinet.

Pre-Squidward (1996-1999)
Stephen Hillenburg, a marine biologist and artist, was amazed and fascinated about the ocean and its inhabitants. He started drawing as a child. Later, he created a comic called The Intertidal Zone, starring Bob the Sponge. In 1996, he started to make the series.

Hillenburg used some character designs from his comic book. He designed "SpongeBob's grumpy next door neighbor" as an octopus because the species' large head; octopi, he said, "have such a large bulbous head and Squidward thinks he's an intellectual so of course, he's gonna have a large bulbous head." Hillenburg drew Squidward with six tentacles because "it was really just simpler for animation to draw him with six legs instead of eight". Show writer and storyboard artist Vincent Waller said:

"Squidward is hard to draw—he has a very odd-shaped head. Fortunately, his emotions are pretty even, but to get a whole lot of big emoting out of him is a challenge. His nose splits everything in half, so it's always like, 'OK, how am I going to work this and still make it read?"

Now-Squidward (1999-present)
Hillenburg thought of making jokes with Squidward ejecting ink but retired it because, according to him, "it always looks like he's pooping his pants". However, it occurs in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and the sixth season episode, "Giant Squidward".

Conflicting statements from Hillenburg and Nickelodeon's official website have led to some doubt over whether the character is an octopus or a squid. Hillenburg named him Squidward because the name Octoward did not work.

The sound of Squidward's footsteps is produced by rubbing hot water bottles. The footsteps, and those of the rest of the main characters, are recorded by the show's foley crew. Sound designer Jeff Hutchins said that footstep sounds "[help] tell which character it is and what surface they're stepping on".

Bumpass inspired the idea of having Squidward ride a recumbent bicycle; Bumpass owns one of these bicycles, which he rides around Burbank, California. Bumpass described it as his "little inside joke".

Voice
Squidward's voice is provided by actor Rodger Bumpass, who voices several other SpongeBob SquarePants characters, including Squidward's mother. While creating the show and writing its pilot episode in 1997, Hillenburg and the show's then-creative director Derek Drymon were also conducting voice auditions. Mr. Lawrence was the first person. Instead of Squidward, they gave him the voice of Plankton.

According to Bumpass, Squidward was "a very nasally, monotone kind of guy". He said the character became interesting to perform because of "his sarcasm, and then his frustration, and then his apoplexy, and so he became a wide spectrum of emotions".[25] Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, describes Bumpass recording his lines in the studio. "I love watching Rodger ... He's right next to me,” Kenny said. According to Kenny, when Bumpass "goes apoplectic" as Squidward while recording, his head turns red, "and you're afraid he's going to have an embolism".

Several of the show's crew praise Bumpass for his performance and similitude to the character. Kenny called Bumpass "brilliant" and said, "[he] is sort of like Squidward". Staff writer Kent Osborne said, "I remember thinking about how much Rodger talks and acts like Squidward. That's why it's such a good voice—he's so connected to it". However, Bumpass said, "I'm not him and he's not me, but what I'm required to do for him and what I am enabled to do for him is what makes it like me. It fits my particular talents and skills very well. So in that respect, yeah, he is me, but I am not the cranky, sarcastic, underachieving kind of guy that he is. He's easy to fall in, I will say that."

Squidward's voice has been compared to that of Jack Benny's. Kenny said, "To me, there's something just so funny about that Jack-Benny-loyal-to-nobody character that Rodger Bumpass does such a great job of playing [...] Squidward". Arthur Brown, author of Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Cartoons!, said that Squidward "sounds a lot like Jack Benny". Bumpass repudiated the relationship, saying "Jack Benny, no. Although he does have this observational sarcasm he occasionally brought out."