Squidward's surprise, the band is tremendously successful, playing "Sweet Victory" for the crowd. Squilliam enters a state of shock and faints, leaving Squidward to happily conduct the band and celebrate. Production "Band Geeks" was directed by Aaron Springer, and was written by Springer, C. H. Greenblatt, and Merriwether Williams. Frank Weiss served as animation director, and Greenblatt worked as storyboard artist. The writers started to work for "Band Geeks" with the idea of a rival. Williams said, "We always wanted to do a rival show, and I think we tried to do a rival show for SpongeBob, and it wasn't working. So we came up with the idea of a rival for Squidward and, in some ways it's Squidward's story, and SpongeBob and Patrick are just kind of around." The idea of having a band was unspecified. Williams remarked, "I forget who was in band. I was not in a band, but I think maybe Doug Lawrence was in a band. I think Steve Hillenburg was in a band, too." The music used in the segment of the episode where Squidward's marching band is playing while coming down the street was from Nick Carr, the series' music editor. He found a piece of marching band music that was a band intentionally playing poorly, but sound designer Jeff Hutchins said, "You could still discern the tune." Hutchins thought, "Well, let's take this one step further. What if they couldn't even play their instruments, let alone a tune?" He brought his portable DAT recorder to a musical instrument retail store and met two men who worked on its loading dock, packaging and shipping the instruments. Hutchins made the two men play most of the instruments terribly. He said, "I got these two guys to squeak, blast, and squawk on most of the instruments they sold." Upon returning to the studio with the sound effects, he built a marching band, one instrument at a time. Hutchins said, "They weren't in any key and had no rhythm whatsoever. When you heard it, you just had to say 'Ouch!'" Hutchins played the sound effects for series creator Hillenburg for review. Hillenburg rejected it, saying "it was too far over the edge." Hutchins said, "a lot of effort for something that lasts only 15 seconds on screen. In this case, the whole thing never made it on the air." When storyboard artist Greenblatt, with the writers,