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 2001, Banks was a freelance writer for season 2 of The Fairly OddParents.
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.
In 2004, he wrote 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 a story editor and then head writer for SpongeBob SquarePants for seasons 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. He was nominated for an Emmy in 2008 for the SpongeBob episode he wrote, "The Two Faces of Squidward."
Banks and Penn Jillette also collaborated in writing Love Tapes – an unconventional love story for the stage which premiered in February 2005 at Sacred Fools Theater in Hollywood.
Banks' novel, King of the Creeps, was published by [Knopf] in 2006.
In 2009, he collaborated with the dance company Pilobolus co-creating a full-evening piece, Shadowland, currently touring internationally.
He developed the CGI series and wrote the pilot for Nickelodeon's Planet Sheen.
His play, Looking at Christmas, opened in New York at The Flea Theater on November 20, 2010, and was filmed by a local television station WNET. That play aired on WNET the following year in December 2011.
Banks was profiled in the New York Times Sunday Arts & Leisure Section on November 28, 2010.
He wrote the pilot for the Arnold Schwarzenegger / Stan Lee animated series The Governator.
In 2012, he wrote the pilot for a new updated version of the 1960s animated classic Underdog for Red Kite Animation, and co-developed Supernuts! with Niki Yang for Nickelodeon.
In October 2012, he joined the staff of Two and a Half Men as Co-Producer.
In 2013, he wrote a one-hour dramedy pilot called A Beautiful Mess for Chuck Lorre Productions.
He co-created and directed, with Pilobolus, Shadowland, which has been performed in 31 countries and sold over 500,000 tickets. It is currently touring the US. A new full-evening piece, Shadowland II: The Adventure Continues, premiered in Berlin in 2016.
His play Looking at Christmas was published by Broadway Play Publishing in 2016. In 2016, he was also the head writer for Genius Brands' SpacePOP series.
In 2016, he was a writer for a few episodes from Mixels.
In 2017, Banks developed Agent Elvis, an adult animated action/comedy project for Sony Animation and Netflix.
In 2017, Banks was a writer for Harvey Beaks.
In 2019, Banks was a writer for Lego City Adventures.
His original book series, Middle School Bites, published by Holiday House, distributed by Penguin Random House came out in 2020. There are four books in the series.
In April 2021, Banks served as a head writer on the animated streaming series Stan Lee's Superhero Kindergarten writing all 26 episodes.
