Happy St. Patrick's Day - mostly from Scott. Have I ever mentioned on this blog how much Scott loves SpongeBob SquarePants? He could sit for hours and watch SpongeBob cartoons, and he would be laughing the whole time. You would hear him from other parts of the house. He has most of them memorized. He owns a dozen SpongeBob DVDs.
Sometimes SpongeBob can be annoying and even unacceptable. Then I turn it off. But generally, (especially the early episodes), watching Patrick, Mr. Squidward, Sandy, and the rest is a bit of fun - a lot of fun for Scott.
Here's a Wikipedia paragraph on the creator of SpongeBob: Stephen Hillenburg majored in marine biology and minored in art. After graduating in 1984, he joined the Ocean Institute, an organization that educated the public about marine science. While he was there, he had the idea that would lead to the creation of SpongeBob SquarePants: a comic book titled "The Intertidal Zone," which was used to teach visiting students about the animal life of tide pools.The comic starred various sea lifeforms, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters. The comic's main character was "Bob the Sponge" who, unlike SpongeBob, resembled an actual sea sponge, rather than a kitchen sponge.
In 1987, Hillenburg left the institute to pursue his dream of becoming an animator. Although he drew several rough sketches of the concept, it would be close to a decade before his idea would become a reality. He tells about pitching his idea to Nickelodean in 1997. "The execs from Nickelodeon flew out to Burbank, and we pitched it to them from the storyboards. We had squeezy toys, wore Hawaiian shirts and used a boom box to play music. We really went all out in that pitch because we knew the pilot lived or died by if the execs laughed. When it was over, they walked out of the room to discuss it. We figured they would fly back to New York and we'd hear in a few weeks. We were surprised when they came back in what seemed like minutes and said they wanted to make it".
