{"id":15437,"date":"2018-11-30T12:49:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T17:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/spongebob-squarepants-creator-steve-hillenburg-remembered\/"},"modified":"2018-12-13T09:36:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T14:36:06","slug":"spongebob-squarepants-creator-steve-hillenburg-remembered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/spongebob-squarepants-creator-steve-hillenburg-remembered\/","title":{"rendered":"SpongeBob Creator Steve Hillenburg Remembered"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emmy winner Stephen Hillenburg, creator, writer, producer and director of the long-running animated comedy <\/em>SpongeBob SquarePants, has died at the age of 57. <\/em>TV Kids\u00a0takes a look back at what he told us about the creation of the hit Nickelodeon show in a 2004 interview.<\/em><\/p>\n

What do science and cartoons have in common? Generally not a lot. But the combination of marine biology and the love of animation lies behind Steve Hillenburg\u2019s creation of one of the most popular cartoon characters ever, SpongeBob SquarePants.<\/p>\n

\"***Image***\"Growing up in Southern California, Hillenburg developed a love of art, painting and drawing, and the ocean, where he surfed and snorkeled off the picturesque beaches. When he entered college, he worried that he might have trouble making a living as an artist. So, to be practical, he studied marine biology, and after finishing school, he taught kids at the Orange County Ocean Institute for three years. Eventually, however, \u201cI realized I was more interested in animation than teaching,\u201d Hillenburg says. He went back to school and got a master\u2019s degree in animation from the California Institute of the Arts. One of his student films was shown at a festival, where it caught the eye of Joe Murray, the creator of Rocko\u2019s Modern Life<\/em>, and in 1992, Hillenburg landed a job at Nickelodeon working on the series, eventually working his way up to creative director. \u201cI learned a fantastic amount about animation\u201d during that period, he says.<\/p>\n

When he began developing some of his own ideas, Hillenburg turned to the sea for inspiration. \u201cI wanted to do something that would be set undersea and that would involve all the things I really love\u2014nautical kitsch, surf culture,\u201d and other elements that would become part of SpongeBob\u2019s world. To pitch the show to Nickelodeon, Hillenburg even brought in a ukulele to sing a theme song he\u2019d written.<\/p>\n

Nickelodeon bought the idea, but Hillenburg didn\u2019t have high expectations for the show. \u201cYou can\u2019t start making a show about a sponge and think it will be a huge hit,\u201d he says. \u201cI thought it would have a cult audience but no broad appeal.\u201d Nor did he spend a lot of time thinking about merchandising. \u201cMy focus was always on making a really funny cartoon,\u201d he says. \u201cLicensing was not something you could count on. I think Mike Judge\u201d\u2014creator of King of the Hill<\/em>\u2014\u201csaid it best when he said, \u2018You make something that will make your friends laugh and then you hope other people will like it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

SpongeBob<\/em> was both classic and cutting-edge. Hillenburg pursued a class of animation style that he compares to the old Warner Bros. cartoons, and the show was written to target a wide audience. But he used a very \u201cloose style\u201d of painting to render the figures, and \u201cwe took a lot of liberties with the characters and the setting,\u201d he says, creating a strange landscape populated with unusual characters that is filled with both na\u00efve wonder and campy effects. Audiences love it. Unlike many kids\u2019 shows, SpongeBob<\/em> appeals to many college students and adults, and its hugely successful merchandising campaign has also appealed to both kids and adults. \u201cI wanted something that would attract the whole family,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Looks back at a 2004 interview in which the late creator discussed the hit Nickelodeon show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,21],"tags":[809,4169],"class_list":["post-15437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-profiles","category-top-stories","tag-spongebob-squarepants","tag-stephen-hillenburg","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nSpongeBob Creator Steve Hillenburg Remembered - TVKIDS<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvkids\/spongebob-squarepants-creator-steve-hillenburg-remembered\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"SpongeBob Creator Steve Hillenburg Remembered - 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