Halloween came early this year for San Diego Comic-Con attendees who got to see Nickelodeon's SpongeBob SquarePants panel. The cast and crew of the long-running animated hit revealed the first look at Season 11's upcoming Halloween special, the stop-motion animated "The Legend of Boo-kini Bottom." Though this early look is of an unfinished production, the animation looks spectacular, the effects look super-spooky, and the characters look delightfully huggable. SpongeBob even looks like an actual sponge! (Nickelodeon, I'd like to purchase this maquette once you're done animating him, please and thank you.)

During the panel, Vincent Waller (supervising producer), Marc Ceccarelli (supervising producer) and Mr. Lawrence (story editor, voice of Plankton) were joined by Chris Finnegan, Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero to share behind-the-scenes footage from the upcoming SpongeBob SquarePants stop-motion special and introduce one of Bikini Bottom's spookiest citizens. Tom Kenny (SpongeBob), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick), Rodger Bumpass (Squidward) and Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy) also did a live table read of a fan-picked classic Halloween episode.

Check out the early look at the stop-motion animated SpongeBob SquarePants: The Legend of Boo-kini Bottom (via Facebook):

For more on the making of the Halloween special, check out this panel recap:

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Image via Nickelodeon