Stephen Hillenburg

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

“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, literal...”

“I don't want to be the Pied Piper of fast food.”

“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.”

“Generally, we try not to write down to kids. We really just try to write a visual, character-driven cartoon that has a lot of slapstick and really appeals to us. I guess we are just lucky th...”

“I knew I wanted to create a character who was nerdy and kind of square, so when I drew a square sponge, everything came together. And originally his name was SpongeBoy, but there we couldn't...”

“When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask ourselves if it's appropriate for children.”

“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.”

“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 fr...”