History

Creation

Creator Stephen Hillenburg initially conceived SpongeBob SquarePants in 1984, while he was teaching and studying marine biology at what is now the Orange County Ocean Institute. During this period, Hillenburg became fascinated with animation, and wrote a comic book entitled The Intertidal Zone starring various anthropomorphic forms of sea life, many of which would evolve into SpongBob SquarePants characters, including "Bob the Sponge", who was the co-host of the comic and resembled an actual sea sponge as opposed to SpongeBob.In 1987, Hillenburg left the institute to pursue his dream of becoming an animator, and began to envision the possible concept of a project involving anthropomorphic sea life, drawing several rough sketches. In 1992, Hillenburg began to attend the California Institute of the Arts to study animation, having been accepted into the institute by Jules Engel, who was impressed with Hillenburg's previous work.

While attending animation school, Hillenburg received a job on the children's TV series Mother Goose & Grimm, and worked on the series from 1991 to 1993. When attending the California Institute of the Arts, he made his thesis film entitled Wormholes, which was funded by the Princess Grace Foundation and was later displayed at various animation festivals. In 1993, Hillenburg graduated from the institute, earning a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation. In 1995, Joe Murray, creator of Rocko's Modern Life, met Hillenburg at one of said animation festivals, and offered him a job as a director of the series.animated series as a writer, producer, and storyboard artist during the series' third season, continuing his position for much of the fourth season. The third season episode "Fish-N-Chumps" (November 12, 1995) was directed by Hillenburg, and involved Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt going on a fishing trip, oblivious to the fact that a pair anthropomorphic fish are attempting to catch them from underwater. While working on Rocko's Modern Life, Hillenburg became friends with Tom Kenny, who was later approached by Hillenburg to become the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants, and future SpongeBob SquarePants collaborators Doug Lawrence, Paul Tibbitt and others. Hillenburg then joined the Nickelodeon

Rocko's Modern Life ended in 1996.Shortly following this, Hillenburg began working on SpongeBob SquarePants, teaming up with several Nickelodeon veterans and Rocko crew members. To voice the character of SpongeBob, Hillenburg approached Tom Kenny, who had worked with him on Rocko's Modern Life. Originally SpongeBob was to be named SpongeBoy but this name was already in use. This was discovered after voice acting for the original seven minute pilot was recorded in 1997. The Nickelodeon legal department discovered that the name was already in use for a mop product. Upon finding this out, Hillenburg decided that the character's given name still had to contain "Sponge" so viewers would not mistake the character for a "Cheese Man." Hillenburg decided to use the name "SpongeBob." He chose "SquarePants" as a family name as it referred to the character's square shape and it had a "nice ring to it".

Whilst pitching the cartoon to Nickelodeon executives, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an “underwater terrarium with models of the characters”, and Hawaiian music to set the theme. The setup was described by Nick executive Eric Coleman as "pretty amazing". When given money and two weeks to write the pilot episode (“Help Wanted”), Derek Drymon, Stephen Hillenberg, and Nick Jennings returned with, described by Nickelodeon official Albie Hecht, “a performance (I) wish (I) had on tape”. Although described as stressful by executive producer Derek Drymon, the pitch went “very well”; Kevin Kay and Hecht had to step outside because they were “exhausted from laughing”, making the cartoonists worried.

Season one

SpongeBob SquarePants aired its first episode, "Help Wanted/Reef Blower/Tea at the Treedome," on May 1, 1999, following the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. The series later made its "official" debut on July 17, 1999 with the second episode "Bubblestand/Ripped Pants."

The series initially suffered in the ratings, and failed to attract a steady audience. Creator Hillenburg was confident that due to the low ratings, the Nickelodeon executives would cancel the series after its first season.Sumatra and noticed a schoolgirl carrying a bootleg SpongeBob SquarePants bookbag, convincing him of the series' cult following. However, he continued to believe that the series would be canceled after its first season, and was surprised when Nickelodeon renewed the series for a second season. However, during this period, Hillenburg visited

Season two through three

The second season began on October 26, 2000 with the episode "Your Shoe's Untied/Squid's Day Off," and during this time, the show propelled into stardom, with the help of a huge merchandising campaign that continues to this day. The growing popularity of SpongeBob led to Nickelodeon immediately ordering a third season, which began on October 5, 2001 with the episode "Just One Bite/The Bully."

In 2002, as the show's success continued to grow, production on a feature film spin-off began. The announcement of the movie led some fans to fear that the series was being cancelled and rumors of such were spread. Nickelodeon, having aired half of the third season by then, decided to spread the remaining episodes out over two years and the final episode, "SpongeBob Meets The Strangler/Pranks A Lot," aired on October 11, 2004.

Released in the U.S. on November 19, 2004, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie received generally positive reviews from critics and successfully grossed over $140,000,000 worldwide. The film was intended to be the series finale, and creator Hillenburg announced that he would resign. However, in 2005, it was announced that SpongeBobexecutive producer. The job now belongs to Derek Drymon, with Paul Tibbitt taking over Drymon's job as creative director. would be continuing with a fourth season due in May. Stephen Hillenburg was rumoured to have left the series; however, he did not actually leave the show but resigned from his position as the show's

Deleted scenes

"Just One Bite" was edited from subsequent airings compared to its original airing in 7 October 2001 because of a scene near the end of the episode. In the scene, Squidward opens a trap burglar alarm containing gas, a robot hand drops a match on the gas, causing Squidward and the room to go on fire. Squidward goes into the fry-cook room in panic, and the same process happens again. This scene was removed from later airings and DVD prints (including the "Complete Third Season" DVD) and in this case was replaced with another scene where the camera zooms into the Patty Vault without Squidward saying his censored lines, and Squidward enters the vault without getting burned by the traps. Nickelodeon did not explain the cause and reason of this, although similarities between 9/11 may have been why.

Another deleted scene was in the episode "Procrastination", where SpongeBob looks out the window and see everyone having fun, imagines a live-action racecar crashing to the side (most likely the reason why this scene was cut), and when he does calisthenics.

Season four through seven

The new episodes began airing on May 6, 2005. The first new episode was "Fear of a Krabby Patty"/"Shell of a Man". After airing three new episodes on Fridays from May 6 – May 20, Nickelodeon showed no new episodes until September 2005. For the first time in the series' run, Nickelodeon began airing 11-minute segments of new episodes separately, spread over two weeks. This practice began with the airing of the episode "Selling Out" on September 23; its companion episode, "Funny Pants," premiered the following week. The Star Online eCentral reported in December 2005 that Nickelodeon had ordered 20 more episodes, bringing the show’s total to 100.

In December 2006, SpongeBob was approved for a fifth season which began on February 19, 2007 with the episode "Rise and Shine"/"Waiting"/"Fungus Among Us." On July 23, 2007 Nickelodeon aired a special event, called the "SpongeBob New-New-New-New-New Week" in which from Monday to Friday, a new episode would air. This continued until the end of the second week. Later on November 12, 2007 a TV movie aired titled Atlantis SquarePantis, guest staring David Bowie as the voice of Lord Royal Highness. On March 13, 2008, it was announced that SpongeBob will have an additional thirty-nine episodes, which includes the remaining episodes of the sixth season, and a seventh season. The last remaining episode from the fifth season, "Goo Goo Gas", finally aired on July 19, 2009, completing the fifth season of the series.

Tenth anniversary

On July 14, 2009, a primetime SpongeBob tenth anniversary documentary titled Square Roots: The Story of SpongeBob SquarePants, aired on VH1, discussing the history of the show, and its impact on popular culture. Starting on July 17, 2009 at 8:00 PM EST, Nickelodeon aired a 50½-hour marathon titled "The Ultimate SpongeBob Sponge Bash." The marathon included the premiere of 11 new episodes, countdowns of celebrities' and viewer-chosen top 10 episodes, and more. On November 6, 2009, a second TV movie debuted on Nickelodeon, titled Truth or Square, in which SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, and Mr. Krabs are accidentally locked inside the Krusty Krab freezer on the night of the restaurant's eleventy-seventh anniversary celebration. While trapped inside, the friends look back on their shared memories with "shocking" reveals. Several celebrities made live-action cameo appearances on Truth or Square, including Rosario Dawson, LeBron James, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Craig Ferguson, Robin Williams and Pink, while Ricky Gervais provided opening and closing naration for the special. Also Victoria Beckham was set to lend her voice as Queen Amphitrite, a Brit-accented goddess of the sea in an upcoming episode most likely to air during an hour-long special this summer.