Development became an
animator during his period of study at the
California Institute of the Arts. In the mid-1980s,
SpongeBob SquarePants creator
Stephen Hillenburg taught and studied
marine biology at what is now the
Orange County Ocean Institute. While Hillenburg was there, his love of the ocean began to influence his artistry. He created a precursor to
SpongeBob: a
comic book titled
The Intertidal Zone used by the institute to teach visiting students about the
animal life of tide pools. The comic starred various
anthropomorphic sea lifeforms, many of which would evolve into
SpongeBob SquarePants characters. Hillenburg tried to get the comic professionally published, but none of the companies he sent it to were interested. By the time ''Rocko's Modern Life'' concluded in 1996, Hillenburg had risen to the rank of
creative director and showrunner following Murray's departure from the show. Shortly following this, Hillenburg began developing
SpongeBob SquarePants, using
The Intertidal Zone as basis for the show following a discussion with
Rocko writer
Martin Olson, and worked with several Nickelodeon veterans and
Rocko crew members, writer
Tim Hill, Martin Olson, animation director
Alan Smart, and story editor
Merriwether Williams. The series was originally going to take place in a post-apocalyptic war that ravaged Earth, with Bikini Bottom being the only surviving place from said war. Although, this concept was later scrapped during the first season's development.
Cast The first season featured
Tom Kenny as the voice of the title character
SpongeBob SquarePants and his pet snail Gary. SpongeBob's best friend, a
starfish named
Patrick Star, was voiced by
Bill Fagerbakke, while
Rodger Bumpass was the voice of
Squidward Tentacles, an arrogant and ill-tempered
octopus. Other members of the cast were
Clancy Brown as
Mr. Krabs, a miserly crab obsessed with money and SpongeBob's boss at the
Krusty Krab;
Mr. Lawrence as
Plankton, a small green
copepod and Mr. Krabs' business rival;
Jill Talley as
Karen, Plankton's sentient computer wife;
Carolyn Lawrence as
Sandy Cheeks, a squirrel from
Texas;
Mary Jo Catlett as
Mrs. Puff, SpongeBob's boating school teacher; and
Lori Alan as
Pearl Krabs, a teenage whale who is Mr. Krabs' daughter. While Hillenburg,
Derek Drymon, and
Tim Hill were writing the pilot "Help Wanted", Hillenburg was also conducting auditions to find voices for the show's characters. He had created the character of SpongeBob with
Tom Kenny, The voice of SpongeBob was originally used by Kenny for a minor female alligator character named Al 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. Hillenburg originally had
Mr. Lawrence for the role of voicing Squidward. Borgnine said "We [he and Conway] played off each other. Tim's such a performer – a little more caustic than I am. We were making all sorts of noise. People outside the room were guffawing. We're supposed to be underwater, you know." They would reprise their role in the episode "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II", which also guest starred
Charles Nelson Reilly as their nemesis, the Dirty Bubble. In the episode "Scaredy Pants", a
Halloween special, American band the
Ghastly Ones had a special musical performance, while
Brian Doyle-Murray voiced the Flying Dutchman. American
country guitarist and singer
Junior Brown made a vocal cameo, performing the song "Texas" in the episode of the same name. In "Neptune's Spatula",
John O'Hurley appeared as King Neptune.
John Lurie and
Jim Jarmusch (who collaborated to make the films
Stranger Than Paradise and
Down by Law) made a cameo as themselves in the episode "Hooky" through excerpts from the
Bravo series
Fishing with John.
Writing wrote the book
Zen in the Art of Writing, which
Merriwether Williams used to conceive an exercise for writing meetings that could generate ideas for possible episodes. Prior to start of production on the show, Hillenburg decided early that he wanted
SpongeBob SquarePants to be a
storyboard-driven show, rather than
script-driven. Storyboard-driven is an approach that required artists who could take a skeletal story outline and flesh it out with sight gags, dialogue and a structure that "would strike a balance between narrative and whimsy."
Animation and design The animation was handled overseas in
South Korea at
Rough Draft Studios. In the first season,
SpongeBob was animated using
cel animation. The show switched over to
digital ink and paint for its second season in 2000. Hillenburg had a "clear vision" of what he wanted the show to look like. The idea was "to keep everything nautical" so the crew used lots of rope, wooden planks, ships' wheels, netting, anchors, and boilerplate and rivets. The season marked the introduction of the "sky flowers" as the main background. It first appeared in the pilot and has since become a common feature throughout the series. When series background designer Kenny Pittenger was asked "What are those things?", he answered, "They function as clouds in a way, but since the show takes place underwater, they aren't really clouds." Since the show was influenced by
tiki, the background painters have to use a lot of pattern. Pittenger said, "So really, the sky flowers are mostly a whimsical design element that Steve [Hillenburg] came up with to evoke the look of a flower-print Hawaiian shirt—or something like that. I don't know what they are either." == Reception ==