Encyclopedia SpongeBobia
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Encyclopedia SpongeBobia
Person

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg[1] (born August 21, 1961) is an American animator and the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants. He has returned as a SpongeBob SquarePants crew member as of after the second movie. He was also the early voice of Potty the Parrot and is the one who made all the show's episodes possible.

Hillenburg also played the ukulele on some of the original music composed for the show, including the "Best Day Ever" special.

Credits

Episodes

Episode Credits
Season 1
1a - "Help Wanted" Writer, Storyboard Director, Executive Producer
1b - "Reef Blower" Writer, Storyboard Director, Executive Producer
2a - "Bubblestand" Writer, Executive Producer
Season 9
190a - "Lost in Bikini Bottom" Executive Producer
190b - "Tutor Sauce" Executive Producer
List of episode credits



Movies

Episode Credits
F1 - "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" Executive producer, Writer
F2 - "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water" Executive producer, Story Writer, Voice of Baby in Stroller
List of episode credits



Amusement rides

Episode Credits
- "SpongeBob SquarePants 4-D: The Great Jelly Rescue!" Writer
List of episode credits



Trivia

  • On May 25, 2012, Hillenburg announced that he would be writing The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.
  • Sometimes, he is referred to as "Steven or Steve Hillenburg."
  • After The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie came out, Hillenburg left the show, because that is when the show was originally supposed to end. However, Hillenburg didn't leave the show entirely, he still serves as an executive producer.
  • According to Paul Tibbitt's Twitter feed, Stephen Hillenburg came back to work on the SpongeBob series in January 2015.
    • "Ok everybody. One last time. Steve Hillenburg is coming back to the show in January, Your collective dreams are coming true." - Paul Tibbitt's Twitter
  • He is also a marine biologist.
  • He has been sued by Troy Walker (see below).

Lawsuit

  • In 2007, Troy Walker, a cartoonist from Fairfield, California, sued Hillenburg, claiming that Hillenburg stole his ideas from Walker's 1991 comic strip, Bob Spongee, the Unemployed Sponge. Walker argued that the concept and design of Hillenburg's SpongeBob SquarePants was lifted from his "Bob Spongee" homemade toy character. In his original concept, Walker drew a face on a kitchen sponge and attached plastic googly eyes. He placed the model in a transparent bag that included the comic strip, and sold it in Northern California as collectibles at flea markets and through the mail in 1992. Walker claimed that he produced 1,000 of the "drawn-on" dolls. In 2002, after learning about SpongeBob SquarePants, Walker concluded: "It obviously fell into the hands of one of the producers of the show. It's a clear pattern of duplication." He filed the lawsuit against Hillenburg, Paramount Studios, and Nickelodeon and their parent company, Viacom, in a United States district court in San Francisco. He had demanded $1.6 billion in damages, and alleged that the accused used his idea without his permission [2] .[3] He said that "they took all of it." Walker also pointed out that the show's pilot episode, "Help Wanted" (in which an unemployed SpongeBob gets his job at the Krusty Krab), was proof that the defendants stole his concept. The settlement was later dropped after a summary judgement in Viacom's favor.

Video

References

External links

Wikipedia may have more biographical information on this person. Please see Wikipedia's article here. Template:CastCrew

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