Marine Biologist Creates Spongeboy

My teenager and my preteen are sitting in front of the TV watching Sponge Bob this evening.  It is nice to see that they still enjoy cartoons once in a while.  I googled Sponge Bob and discovered that he was created by a marine biologist/animator named Stephen Hillenburg.  It is Nickelodeon's highest rated show, bringing in $8 billion worth of revenue.  Many of the ideas for the series sprang from an educational comic book called The Intertidal zone, also created by Hillenburg.  The show was originally titled Spongeboy Ahoy, but that name was already trademarked.  The title character was slated to be a jellyfish.

When it came time to pitch his idea, Hillenburg arrived at the studio in a Hawaiian shirt.  He set up an underwater terrarium with models of the characters and played Hawaiian music to set the scene.  The cartoonist was worried when at one point the executives stepped outside the studio; however, it was simply because they were laughing so hard they had to excuse themselves.  A few minutes later, they said Hillenburg got the job.  Fifteen years later, it's still a hit.

Here are the top ten episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants:

1.  Pizza Delivery
2.  Graveyard Shift
3.  Valentine's Day
4.  Band Geeks
5.  Rock Bottom
6.  Opposite Day
7.  Dying for Pie
8.  Squillium Returns
9.  Rockabye Bivalve
10.  Chocolate with Nuts

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