Top 35 Stephen Hillenburg Quotes

I thought, well, what about a show that stars undersea creatures, and some of the ones you rarely see animated. So, from there, I just started drawing different animals in a kind of a setting that was this nautical world. It’s not realistic but sort of a fantastic environment.

Most sponges in the ocean are sedentary: They attach themselves to a rock and sit and filter-feed the rest of their lives and reproduce, and that’s about it. Not that they are not interesting, but they are not that kinetic. They are not mobile. They don’t cook Krabbie Patties!

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

We wanted the humor to come from the characters and their world – you go down there to escape the world up here for a while. So when the crew would write jokes that would refer to American TV or culture, I’d just eliminate them because it just seemed odd that SpongeBob would know about it.

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

I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays.

I think the source of SpongeBob’s humour is classic, and that’s always appealing.

You don’t want to work on a job where you’re looking at your watch.

‘The Simpsons‘ is a tough act to follow, so I thought it was best not to do what they do.

I was into Jacques Cousteau as a kid and started scuba-diving around 14, which blew my mind. It was all colour, another world.

The essence of the show is that SpongeBob is an innocent in a world of jaded characters. The rest is absurd packaging.

I do think that the attitude of the show is about tolerance. Everybody is different, and the show embraces that. The character SpongeBob is an oddball. He’s kind of weird, but he‘s kind of special.

On TV, it is more efficient to use voice-over people because it is really hard to get celebrity voices to recur in a series.

I’m hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a ‘SpongeBob’ comic book from me. All the stories will be original and always true to the humor, characters, and universe of the ‘SpongeBob SquarePants‘ series.

One night, I was really beat; we worked really late and went to get food at some takeout place. And I leaned over against this gumball machine, just exhausted, and there was a SpongeBob looking back at me. And it’s just, like, ‘Oh, brother.’

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.

Everybody’s got some fascination with undersea life, don’t you think?

I think it’s amusing to watch a naive, well-meaning character kind of undo more cynical characters – kind of like watching Laurel and Hardy or Charlie Chaplin.

To do a 75-minute movie about SpongeBob wanting to make some jellyfish jelly would be a mistake, I think.

SpongeBob is a kid living an adult life. He has a job. Kids think being a fry cook is a great job.

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

To be honest, there is a special gift for doing voice-overs, and the people who did the voices in the ‘SpongeBob’ cast are excellent at cartoon voice-overs, and they bring something extra to the reads.

When I pitched the show, I made this special seashell. You could pick it up and hear me singing, ‘Spongeboy, Spongeboy!’ I also made an aquarium with Patrick planted on the side, SpongeBob sitting on a barrel, and Squidward inside. I wore a Hawaiian shirt. I don’t know what they thought of it.

For me personally, snorkeling in a cove in Hawaii, floating along, and looking at all the animals and the colors – I mean, that’s pretty peaceful.

SpongeBob is a complete innocent – not an idiot. SpongeBob never fully realizes how stupid Patrick is. They’re whipping themselves up into situations – that’s always where the humor comes from.

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.

A lot of things came out of my interest in marine biology, like the fact that there are scallops that fly in the air, and in SpongeBob’s world, scallops swim the same way in the ocean.

For some reason, not many women go into cartooning.

I was always interested in the ocean and also in art. I had to figure out how to put the two together, but painting fish sounded boring.

SpongeBob is an innocent, and people respond to an innocent. I don’t think it matters if you’re young or old.

Twentysomethings thank me for their childhood… SpongeBob lives at the bottom of the sea, but he brings a lot of great stuff to the surface.

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

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

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.

It’s always great to hear adults say they can stand to watch our show.