CD cover from the 1994 album Songs From the Steven Banks Show.

Steven Banks is an American musician, comedian, actor, and writer of television cartoons, including SpongeBob SquarePants. Image File history File links Album cover for Songs from the Steven Banks Show soundtrack CD album. ... Image File history File links Album cover for Songs from the Steven Banks Show soundtrack CD album. ... A musician is a person who plays or composes music. ... A comedian (also comedienne, female) is a person who attempts to make people laugh through a variety of methods, normally through joke telling, or a stream of funny banter. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... The term writer can apply to anyone who creates a written work, but the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... SpongeBob SquarePants is a popular animated television series created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. ...

Early life

Banks attended Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College. Shortly after that (during his honeymoon), he met fellow clown college alumn Penn Jillette and began a lifelong friendship with the future magician. Both shared a fascination with punk and classic rock and roll music, yet both men eschewed drugs and alcohol. The two also shared a love for comedy. Ringling Bros. ... Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Clown College was an eight to ten week course in the art of clowning, offered every Fall from 1968 to 1998. ... Penn (left) & Teller Penn and Teller are a two-man magic and comedy team, specializing in gory tricks (in which the mechanisms of the illusions are fully revealed) and clever pranks, who have become associated with Las Vegas and skepticism. ... A flourish with a deck of playing cards. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... Classic rock was originally conceived as a radio station broadcasting format which evolved from the album oriented rock (AOR) format in the mid-1980s. ...

Performing

In 1987 Banks landed his first acting role, performing as a minor character in the fantasy-comedy Date with an Angel. 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Banks hit it big when he developed (and starred in) a one-man theatrical show titled Home Entertainment Center – a comedic play about an easily-distracted procrastinator trying to meet a work deadline. He gave 440 performances of Home Entertainment Center at venues like the Canon Theater, Pasadena Playhouse, Marine's Memorial Theater, and The One Act in San Francisco (where the show ran for eleven months). For his performances, he was awarded the L.A. Weekly Theater Award, four Drama-Logue Awards, and three San Francisco Bay Area Critic's Awards. He also performed at the Aspen Comedy festival, the Cast Theater, Callboard Theater, and Las Palmas Theater. Procrastination is the deferment or putting-off of an action or task, usually by focusing on some other distraction (compare temporisation). ... A deadline is a point in time at which some task must be completed. ... The downtown San Francisco skyline, looking east from the central part of the city. ...

In 1989 Home Entertainment Center achieved national fame when it was filmed and aired on Showtime. The show featured original songs written and performed by Banks. On May 14 of 1989, he appeared (with Penn) on the Dr. Demento radio program (that year's Mother's Day Special) and performed a number of his songs live on-air. 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Showtime is a subscription television brand used by a number of channels and platforms around the world, but primarily refers to a group of channels in the United States. ... May 14 is the 134th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (135th in leap years). ... Dr. Demento Dr. Demento (born April 2, 1941) is the stage name of Barret (Barry) Hansen, who has made a successful career as a radio disc jockey specializing in novelty songs and pop music parodies. ... Mothers Day is a day for celebrating motherhood and thanking mothers. ...

The ensuing fame landed him a tv pilot on Showtime in January of 1991 – The Steven Banks Show (sometimes inaccurately referenced as The Steven Brooks Show). The plot of the show was much the same as his one-act play: Banks portrayed Steven Brooks – an underachieving, chronic procrastinator fascinated by trivia and cursed with a penchant for comedic songs. A television pilot is the first episode of an intended television series. ... Showtime is a subscription television brand used by a number of channels and platforms around the world, but primarily refers to a group of channels in the United States. ... January is the first month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

In the summer of 1991 after Paul "Pee-Wee Herman" Reubens was arrested for allegedly masturbating in an adult movie theater, Banks was among a number of entertainers who protested the decision of CBS to drop Reubens' show from their lineup. Banks can be seen in a crowd of protestors on an LA street in the E! True Hollywood Story episode about Reubens' arrest. Reubens was later offered (and declined) a supporting role on Banks' fledgling TV program. Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman. ... CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) is a major radio and television network in the United States. ... E! (Entertainment Television) is an American cable television and direct broadcast satellite network. ... The E! True Hollywood Story is a TV documentary series on the E! Entertainment Television cable and DBS channel that deals with famous Hollywood celebrities, movies, and TV shows. ...

Showtime aired the pilot for Banks' show, but never ran any other episodes. In 1994, PBS took an interest in his act. They filmed and aired The Steven Banks Show that summer – the first original sitcom ever produced and run by PBS. Brandon Tartikoff produced the show, filmed at WYES in New Orleans. A CD album for the show was also released, consisting of original songs written and performed by Steven Banks. 13 shows were shot and the progam garnered critical acclaim, but one episode "Miss Janie Regrets" was not aired due to controversy over a PBS-like children's show parody. 1994 was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International year of the Family. ... PBS re-directs here; for alternate uses see PBS (disambiguation) PBS logo The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service with 349 member TV stations in the United States. ... A sitcom or situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. ... Brandon Tartikoff (July 13, 1949 – August 27, 1997) was a popular NBC executive who was credited with turning around NBCs low prime-time reputation with such hit series as Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, Family Ties, The Cosby Show, Cheers, Miami Vice, The Golden Girls, Knight Rider, The... WYES TV 12 is local PBS affiliate owned by Greater New Orleans Educational Television Foundation. ... New Orleans (local pronunciations: , , or ) (French: La Nouvelle-Orléans, pronounced in standard French accent) was the largest city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. ...

That same year, Banks landed a bit roll in Beverly Hills Cop III. By the late 90s, Banks was making guest appearances on various TV shows, including Dharma & Greg, King of the Hill, and Dream On. He also appeared in Caroline in the City. Beverly Hills Cop III is a 1994 Eddie Murphy motion picture that was directed by John Landis. ... Dharma & Greg was an American television situation comedy broadcast between 1997 and 2002 on ABC. The premise of the show was a relationship between two characters regarded as cultural opposites. ... This article needs a complete rewrite for the reasons listed on the talk page. ... Dream On is a cult American adult situation comedy about Martin Tupper, a dreamer whose life is full of colourful characters. ... Caroline in the City was an American sitcom that ran from September 21, 1995 to May 11, 1999 on the NBC television network. ...

Steven Banks performed a set of songs at the 2004 B.O.R.E.D. Tour on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA [] Among the women known to history as Queen Mary are: Mary of Hungary (1371-1395), queen regnant of Hungary, was the daughter of Louis I of Hungary and the wife of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor. ... County Los Angeles County, California Area  - Total  - Water 170. ...

Banks most recently performed as "Billy the Mime" in the 2005 comedic documentary "The Aristocrats" which was uncoincidentally co-created by his good friend Penn Jillette. 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... The Aristocrats (also known as The Debonaires in England) is a joke which is alleged to have been told by numerous stand-up comedians since Vaudeville, and often only among an audience of other comedians. ... Penn (left) & Teller Penn and Teller are a two-man magic and comedy team, specializing in gory tricks and clever pranks, who have become associated with Las Vegas and skepticism. ...

Writing

In 1998 Banks began writing for Nickelodeon's animated series CatDog. He wrote several CatDog books as well. He continued working for Nickelodeon, penning several SpongeBob books (including The Big Halloween Scare which actually charted on the New York Times bestseller list). In 2002 Banks was named head writer for The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, and in 2004 he was nominated for one of the 56th Annual Writers Guild Awards for the episode Rescue Jet Fusion. 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Nickelodeon (Nick for short) is a cable TV network for children. ... CatDog is an animated cartoon on Nickelodeon created by Peter Hannan. ... The New York Times bestseller list is a weekly chart in The New York Times newspaper that keeps track of the best-selling books of the week. ... 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius is a spin-off of the Oscar-nominated computer-animated movie; Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, first officially aired in September 2002. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is the collective bargaining representative, or labor union, for writers in the motion picture and television industries. ... Annual awards given out by the Writers Guild of America for outstanding achievements in film, TV, or radio writing. ...

In 2004 he began writing for Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi – an animated series from the Cartoon Network about the adventures of real life J-pop music stars Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura. In late 2004 he became head writer for the hit show "Spongebob Squarepants". Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi is an American animated television series produced by Renegade Animation for the Cartoon Network cable channel, following the adventures of cartoon versions of the J-Pop musical duo Puffy AmiYumi (a/k/a Puffy), created by the shows executive producer Sam Register and made its... The current Cartoon Network logo, was used in North America since June 14, 2004, in Latin America since January 1st, 2005, and in Europe since April 11, 2005. ... J-pop is an abbreviation of Japanese pop and refers to Japanese popular music. ... Ami Jane Onuki (大貫 亜美; Ōnuki Ami), often thought of as the cute side of the Japanese pop sensation, Puffy, was born on September 18, 1973 in Tokyo, Japan. ... Yumi Yoshimura. ... SpongeBob SquarePants is a popular animated television series created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg. ...

Banks and friend Penn Jillete also collaborated in writing Love Tapes – an unconventional love story for the stage which premiered February 2005 at Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood. February is the second month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and is the current year. ... Greetings from Hollywood Hollywood is a district of the city of Los Angeles, California, U.S.A., situated northwest of Downtown. ...

Banks also has a novel (King of the Creeps) scheduled for publication by Random House in 2006. Random House is a publishing division of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG, which acquired it in 1998. ... 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...