Hillenberg supervised the series as show-runner. A huge hit from the get-go, it soon become a signature show for Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon threw its faith behind Hillenberg and SpongeBob SquarePants premiered on Saturday morning May 1st, 1999. It was during the latter days of Rocko’s production, Hillenberg expanded on his marine comic book, The Intertidal Zone, turing it into a pitch for a show starring “Spongeboy”. Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor. Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko’s Modern Life at the time, saw Hillenburg’s film and offered him a directorial role on the television series. Hillenburg met the show’s creator, Joe Murray, at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival, where Wormholes and Murray’s My Dog Zero were both in competition.
Rocko modern life airport professional#
His first professional job in the animation business was as a director on Rocko’s Modern Life (1993–1996), Nickelodeon’s first in-house cartoon production. Hillenburg studied under Jules Engel, the founding director of the program, whom he considered his “Art Dad” and mentor.Īt one point during his tenure with the Orange County Marine Institute, Hillenburg started going to animation festivals such as the International Tournée of Animation and Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation where films made by CalArts students were shown. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko’s Modern Life (1993–1996) after his success with short films The Green Beret and Wormholes (both 1992), which he made while studying animation at Cal Arts. In 1989, two years after leaving teaching, Hillenburg enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts to pursue a career in animation.
He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology, at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote The Intertidal Zone, an informative comic book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. 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 was not only a cartoonist and animator, but a marine biologist and teacher as well. To say he was one of the nicest guys in animation would be an understatement. Stephen Hillenberg, the creator of Nickelodeon’s Spongebob Squarepants passed away yesterday, November 26th, from complications from ALS.
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