Stephen Hillenburg

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, writer, producer, director, voice actor, and marine biology educator. He is best known for creating the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants for Nickelodeon in 1999. The show has become the fourth longest-running American animated series. He also provided the original voice of Patchy the Pirate's pet, Potty the Parrot.

Hillenburg was born in Lawton, Oklahoma and grew up in Anaheim, California. He became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He began a career in 1984, instructing marine biology at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote and illustrated The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. After two years of teaching, he enrolled at California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita in 1989 to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996) after the success of his 1992 short films The Green Beret and Wormholes, which were made as part of his studies.

In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants, which has aired continuously since 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. He then resigned as showrunner, but remained credited as executive producer on subsequent seasons (even after his death). He later resumed creating short films including Hollywood Blvd., USA (2013). He co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), and received a posthumous executive producer credit for the third film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020).

Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognitions, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts in elevating marine life awareness and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but continued working on SpongeBob for as long as possible. He died on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.