Series background designer Kenny Pittenger said that 'the only real difference between the way we draw now and the way we drew then is that we abandoned pencil and paper during the fifth season.' The crew began the shift while they were working on the episode. Pittenger said that 'it was while we were working on 'Pest of the West', one of the half-hour specials, that we made the switch. Did you notice?' The shift to Wacom Cintiqs let the designers and animators draw on computer screen and make immediate changes or undo mistakes.
Pittenger said 'Many neo-Luddites—er. I mean, many of my cohorts—don't like working on them, but I find them useful. There's no substitute for the immediacy of drawing on a piece of paper, of course, but digital nautical nonsense is still pretty fun.' Animation directors credited with episodes in the fifth season included,,,. Episodes were written by a team of writers, which consisted of,,,,,,, Tom King,,, Chris Mitchell,,,,,,. The season was by Alexander, Bean, Brookshier, Cash, Cervas, King, Miller, Chris Mitchell, Mike Mitchell, Reccardi, Springer, and Tucker. Cast [ ] The fifth season featured as the voice of the title character and his pet snail Gary.