SpongeBob SquarePants (character)

SpongeBob SquarePants (born July 14, 1986) is the protagonist of the Nickelodeon animated series of the same name. He was designed by a former marine science teacher, Stephen Hillenburg. Hillenburg based SpongeBob on Bob the Sponge, a character he had created for his educational book "The Intertidal Zone" in the late 1980s.

SpongeBob is a childish and joyful sea sponge who lives in a pineapple with his pet snail Gary in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom. He works as a fry cook at the Krusty Krab, a job which he is exceptionally skilled at and enjoys a lot. He attends Mrs. Puff's Boating School, though he has yet to receive a driver's license due to his inability to drive a boatmobile properly. SpongeBob is very good-natured and loves to hang out with his best friend Patrick. His teacher is Mrs. Puff and his boss is Mr. Krabs.

In The SpongeBob Musical, SpongeBob's exact species of sea sponge is identified: Aplysina fistularis, a yellow sea sponge commonly found in open waters.

SpongeBob or some form of him appears in every episode of the series, beginning with the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted." He is voiced by Tom Kenny, who is married to Karen Plankton's voice actress, Jill Talley.

Production details
While Stephen Hillenburg worked as a teacher of marine science at the Ocean Institute in California, he authored an educational book called The Intertidal Zone. The book was intended for children and taught about the behaviors of different sea creatures. Bob the Sponge, a natural sea sponge with sunglasses, was the "host" of the book.

Hillenburg revisited the concept of The Intertidal Zone in 1996 when he started sketching concepts for a cartoon series about undersea life. He wanted the title character to be an under-represented creature, with the rest of the main characters being iconic and easily recognizable sea animals: a crab, a whale, and a starfish. "What's the weirdest animal? The sponge came to mind," he recalled in 2012. As he drew a sea sponge character, he originally wanted to use the shape of a natural sponge, but later decided that a "squeaky-clean square" would better portray a nerdy personality.

An early colored sketch portrayed SpongeBob as wearing a red hat with a green base and a white business shirt with a tie. SpongeBob's look gradually progressed to brown pants that were used in the final design. SpongeBob was designed to be a kid-like character who was goofy and optimistic in a style similar to that made famous by Jerry Lewis.

Originally, the character was to be named "SpongeBoy," but the name was already in use by a mop product. This was discovered after voice acting for the original seven-minute pilot was recorded in 1997. 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," and 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."

When Hillenburg pitched SpongeBob to Nickelodeon in 1997, the network gave him an order: they would only produce the show if SpongeBob was a kid who went to school, like "Arnold from Hey Arnold! under the sea." Hillenburg was prepared to "walkout" on Nickelodeon, as writing SpongeBob as a school-age child went against his creative vision. However, he came up with Mrs. Puff and her Boating School as a compromise, allowing SpongeBob to attend school as an adult. Hillenburg was very fond of the "way things worked out," as Nickelodeon's order brought in a whole new main character, "Mrs. Puff, who I love."

SpongeBob is voiced by veteran voice actor Tom Kenny. Kenny previously worked with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, and when Hillenburg created SpongeBob SquarePants, he approached Kenny to voice the character. Hillenburg used Kenny's and other actors' personalities to help create the personality of SpongeBob.

The voice of SpongeBob was originally used by Kenny for a background character present in a crowd scene in Rocko's Modern Life. Kenny forgot the voice initially as he created it only for that single-use. Hillenburg, however, remembered it when he was coming up with SpongeBob and used a video clip of the episode to remind Kenny of the voice. Kenny says that SpongeBob's high-pitched laugh was specifically aimed at being unique, stating that they wanted an annoying laugh in the tradition of Popeye and Woody Woodpecker.

In SpongeBob SquarePants broadcast in non-English languages, the voice actors dubbing SpongeBob's voice use Tom Kenny's rendition of the character as a starting point but also add unique elements. For example, the French version has SpongeBob with a slight Daffy Duck-style lisp.