SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob SquarePants, also known simply as SpongeBob, is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It first aired as a sneak peek after the Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It showcases the adventures of the character SpongeBob SquarePants and his aquatic friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom.

Many of the series' ideas originated in The Intertidal Zone, an unpublished educational comic book Hillenburg created in the 1980s to teach his students about undersea life. After spending several years as an artist and director on Nickelodeon's series Rocko's Modern Life, Hillenburg began developing SpongeBob SquarePants into a television series, and in 1997, he and his crew pitched a seven-minute pilot to Nickelodeon, whose executives wanted SpongeBob to be a child in school. This conflicted with Hillenburg's idea to have SpongeBob be an adult character; he compromised by creating a boating school so SpongeBob could attend school as an adult.