Stephen Hillenburg

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, voice actor, and marine biology educator.

Stephen McDannell Hillenburg was born on August21, 1961 at Fort Sill, a United States Army post in Lawton, Oklahoma, where his father, Kelly N. Hillenburg Jr. (1936–2006), worked for the U.S. military.

His mother, Nancy (née Dufour), taught visually impaired students.

When he was a year old, the family moved to Orange County, California, where his father began a career as a draftsman and designer in the aerospace industry.

His younger brother, Bryan, eventually became a draftsman/designer as well.

When an interviewer asked Hillenburg to describe himself as a child, he replied that he was "probably well-meaning and naive like all kids."

His passion for sea life can be traced to his childhood, when films by Jacques Cousteau, a French oceanographer, made a strong impression on him.

Hillenburg said that Cousteau "provided a view into that world", which he had not known existed.

He liked to explore tide pools as a child, bringing home objects that "should have been left there and that ended up dying and smelling really bad."

Hillenburg also developed his interest in art at a young age.

His first drawing was of an orange slice.

An illustration which he drew in third grade, depicting "a bunch of army men... kissing and hugging instead of fighting", brought him the first praise for his artwork, when his teacher commended it.

"Of course, this is 1970... She liked it because, I mean, obviously that was in the middle of [the Vietnam War ] . She was, I would imagine, not a hundred percent for the war like a lot of people then. ...I had no idea about the implications, really, because I just thought it was a funny idea. I remember that still, that moment when she said, 'oh my gosh, look at that'", Hillenburg elaborated.

It was then when he knew he "had some [creative] skill".

He asserted that his artistry came from his mother's side, despite his father being a draftsman, noting that his maternal grandmother was "really, really gifted" and a "great painter".

In the 1970s, someone took Hillenburg to the International Tournée of Animation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

He was "knocked out" by the foreign animated films, including Dutch animator Paul Driessen's The Killing of an Egg (1977).

"That was the film that I thought was uniquely strange and that lodged itself in my head early on," he recounted.

He attended Savanna High School in Anaheim, describing himself as a "band geek" who played the trumpet.

At age 15, he snorkeled for the first time; Hillenburg took part in a "dive program" at Woods Coves in Laguna Beach, as part of the Regional Occupational Program at Savanna.

This experience, as well as subsequent dives, reinforced his interest in, and led to his decision to study, marine biology in college: "The switch clicked and I decided I wanted to be a marine biologist, but I also liked being an artist."

Some of his high-school teachers, who knew of his interest in art and fascination with the ocean, advised him otherwise, saying: "You should just draw fish."

However, the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him and he was more riveted by "making weird, little paintings".

During a few summers after finishing high school, he worked as a fry cook and lobster boiler at a fast-food seafood restaurant in Maine.

He started his professional 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.

In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, he enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation.

He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996) following 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.

(This later inspired SpongeBob SquarePants' occupation in the television series, which he would begin developing in 1994. )

Hillenburg went to Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, as a marine-science major.

He is best known for creating the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants for Nickelodeon in 1999 – serving as the showrunner for its first three seasons, and again from season nine until his death – which has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series.

He also provided the original voice of Patchy's pet parrot Potty the Parrot from the show.

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art.

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 with 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 production 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.

Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue working on SpongeBob for as long as possible.

He died from the disease on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57.