Quotes from Stephen Hillenburg

I was thinking about what would it be, what would the characters be like, and it just suddenly dawned on me that, hey, nobody is doing an underseas show. So I started drawing these weird invertebrate animals, various characters like crawfish and starfish and squids and sponge.

You have to imagine you write a show about a sponge and you think that maybe a few people will think it is funny, some college students, but it takes off. It is truly shocking - to the point where it is bizarre.

In the spring of 1996, I was working for Nickelodeon on a show called 'Rocko's Modern Life,' and I was interested at the time in doing a show about the ocean, an undersea show.

A sponge is a funny animal to center a show on. At first, I drew a few natural sponges - amorphous shapes, blobs - which was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine science teacher. Then I drew a square sponge, and it looked so funny.

A natural sponge is not as funny. A square sponge also fit that squeaky-clean idea I was going for.

SpongeBob is just made of cellulose, but he has parents who are natural sponges - he got the square gene.

I drew these natural sponges for a while and gave them googly eyes, and it didn't come together until I drew a sink sponge one day. I thought, 'This is the guy.' He's the square peg, literally, in this world of animals.

I was planning on being a starving artist.

Obviously, we're never going to say what the Krabby Patty secret formula is.

SpongeBob represents idiocy. He is dumb. Patrick is dumb. Mr. Krabs is greedy. Squidward is a snob and vain.

I am an ocean lover and fish watcher and had studied marine biology and even taught marine sciences before I got into animation.

I studied marine biology, even taught marine science before I got into animation, so I had an interest in that field and those animals.

I studied natural resources planning and thought I could get a job at some marine park. But I was great at art and so-so at marine biology. It's funny how the two eventually came together.

It's not like the computer magically does it for you. Animation just takes forever.

I pitched the idea that SpongeBob and Patrick learn a swearword. Everyone said no. I couldn't even use a bleep. So I used a dolphin sound instead.