When You Create The Biggest Cartoon Ever

One of the most well-known Creators in Animation is Stephen Hillenburg, who created the Nickelodeon Cartoon 'SpongeBob SquarePants'. Dying in 2018, over the years we've seen people criticize Nickelodeon's treatment of the series, claiming it to have betrayed Hillenburgs' wishes. But is there any merit to that?

#spongebob #spongebobsquarepants #nickelodeon

When You Create The Biggest Cartoon Ever
0:00 Compromise
1:29 When You Create the Biggest Thing Ever
10:08 Why Was SpongeBob So Big?
13:53 The Sudden Excessive Merchandising
16:15 Hey Hartfans
20:05 Pressure
22:55 Disrespecting Stephen
28:00 Coming Back to SpongeBob

[LSMark]

How would you react in Stephen Hillenburg's shoes 🤔

[psychomanatee]

I think one thing that mustve hurt most is being a marine biologist who loves all these sea animals, and then you create this show that ends up creating so much plastic merch that ends up in the ocean

[pajamapantsjack]

I still find it so funny that ween, a band known for songs like HIV and Piss up a rope, made a song so perfect for spongebob like ocean man. Still one of my favorite songs by them too.

[thedawgduane]

The idea that Butch was salty about his fairies being second best to the sponge will never not be funny to me

[BugsyFoga]

Genuinely couldn’t imagine the feeling creators have gotten when the thing they made eventually outgrows them, sometimes to the point lt evolves to a thing that was unfamiliar to the original vision they initially had for it.

[TheRandomPosterTRP]

Stephen Hillenburg's mindset reminds me of Calvin and Hobbs creator Bill Watterson. He had a very similar experience after Calvin and Hobbs got popular, saying he was yelling at executives about merchandising as much as he was drawing.

[NoCreepersPeepers]

Spongebob's success led to nickelodeon ignoring and killing nicktoons that don't reach Spongebob's success. The shows like Avatar, TMNT, Fairly oddparents ended on own terms while other nicktoons gets cancelled due to nickelodeon maintaining their viewership and preventing their downgrade

[ThePizzaPagel]

Steven Hillenberg once said that he doesn’t want the Krabby Patty to be made in real life since it would crush the idea of the Krabby Patty tasting like God’s light and everyone would just be thinking “Bro why are all these radioactive fish tweaking over a shitty ass burger?”


And what did Nick do after his death? Make a shitty ass burger with shitty ass sauce…

[a_b]

30:23 really effective ending by not having the usual outro music play for this one, really lets you think about it and showed real respect for Stephen.

[switchspeedster]

There's a quote from Emplemon that stuck out to me, that could be apply to Stephen:

"What would you be willing to sacrifice if it meant you live forever? Since the dawn of civilization, mankind has sought the secret to immortality. We can only wonder if science or religion will ever help us achieve eternal life? But at the very least, art can get us pretty damn close."

[Drolltic]

SpongeBob is a perfect example of when something that is just a simple idea made of passion explodes in a way nobody could have ever predicted. I can compare this show to something more recent like The Amazing Digital Circus, with a similar thing happening to the creator Gooseworx; Her creation is regarded by many to be THE face of indie animation, with just 3 episodes already having a Netflix deal and worldwide appeal overnight. I bet she does have stress from all these many eyes watching all of a sudden, an agonizing fear to not fuck up as now your show represents an entire Youtube medium.

[justsomeyearoldwithsmug]

Haven't watched the whole video yet (no duh) but Hillenburg went back and looked over the show and gave the writers some input just before his death, the fact he did such a thing shows how much he loved his characters and wanted to make sure they were still in goods hands for fans all over the world.

We'll never get someone humble like him ever again in the creative landscape, may he rest in peace.

[krimsonklaww]

11:15 SpongeBob predicted this would happen in S2E19.

"It feels like somebody...WANTS TO SELL ME SOMETHING!"

[breadbuggenius]

I watched Sponge Out Of Water for the first time a couple years ago, and one aspect that really stuck out to me was how the narrative almost depicts SpongeBob as this, like, "fabled legend" that everyone knows. With his whole life being chronicled in this magic book upon Bikini Atoll, a book that the antagonist takes and uses to tamper with the story for his own gain... I think in a way, the second SpongeBob movie is about Stephen Hillenburg confronting how SpongeBob became far bigger than himself, and how to make peace with that...

[Crimson_Mayhem]

This was such an excellent and refreshing take discussing the topic of one’s creation outliving their creator. For the past few months, I’ve have been reading, researching, and writing regarding to Walt Disney, his studio, and his legacy. The death of Walt Disney, in particular, brought an end and the beginning of a new era. Many people who worked with him would often pondered over “what would Walt do”. Throughout the 70s and 80s, the idea of how would Walt feel about the new state of The Walt Disney Company without him had always bounced back and forth between executives, animators, and even close friends. To me, I cannot imagine how it must feel to put someone on that extreme scale of a pedestal. It was this reason why Disney’s focused on the past is what eventually led up to the studio’s dark age up until the Renaissance.

[adriansandlin]

I think it goes without saying that Spongebob Squarepants had a huge impact on my childhood and that of others. However, it created a ridiculous standard that ended up screwing over so many cartoons that had the potential to be big hits.

[wwandmitski]

Lowkey i love the way u titled this “When you Create the Biggest Cartoon Ever” and not some crap like “How the Spongebob Franchise KILLED its Creator!!!1!1!😱😱👀” like i see some people do. puts respect on Stephen Hillenburg’s name. it’s nice :)

[lesterwilliamsjr]

I really love the idea that SpongeBob became so popular because his ambiguous age made it so everyone can relate to him to some degree.

I remember hearing that him being in boating school was the creators work around for SpongeBob to being in school.

I also think thats why the first SpongeBob movie work so well it made fun of the ambiguous age of SpongeBob by having confront the idea he is a kid whiteout ever acknowledging what his age is.

The problem with the other SpongeBob movie is that they struggle to find a theme as personal to SpongeBob like age which makes it hard for him to have a unique arc.

[TwisterzX_VIII]

I'm glad this video exists. Im glad that you actually talked about how Stephen as person than just "a creator of a very popular nickelodeon cartoon."

[MegaChan]

I’m so happy to see a bigger YouTuber finally bring light to the whole Hillenburg situation. Normally it’s all “EUUUUGH HE DIDN’T WANT SPINOFFS!!!!” Thank you for actually doing the research.