Stephen Hillenburg

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Stephen Hillenburg (2011)
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Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (* 21st August 1961 in Fort Sill , Oklahoma ; † 26. November 2018 in San Marino , California ) was an American cartoonist , cartoon - producer , animator , director , screenwriter , actor , voice actor , a marine biologist , and the inventor of the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants .

Youth and education

His family moved from Oklahoma to California in the mid-1960s. Hillenburg was enthusiastic about the marine world from a young age. He was fascinated by Jacques-Yves Cousteau's films and started snorkeling at the age of 15 . After the High School in Anaheim had graduated, he enrolled in Humboldt State University one. He graduated in 1984 with a degree in prospecting with a focus on seabed mining . He chose art as a minor. In 1992 he received a Master of Fine Arts in experimental animation from the California Institute of the Arts , founded by Walt Disney .

Career

Hillenburg was a marine biology teacher at the Orange County Ocean Institute . He worked as a marine biologist from 1984 to 1987. In 1987 Hillenburg decided to pursue a career in animation, his second lifelong passion. He made several short films, two of which were shown at the International Animated Film Festival. His two short films Das Grüne Berett (1991) and Wurmlöcher (1992) have been shown at several film festivals and have received various awards.

While he was still attending animation school, Hillenburg got a job on the children's television series Mother Goose & Grimm from 1991 to 1993. He showed his films at various animation festivals. Joe Murray , creator of Rocko's modern life , met Hillenburg at such a festival and made him an offer to direct the series. Hillenburg accepted and joined Nickelodeon as a writer and storyboard artist. He befriended Tom Kenny , who later took on the English-speaking voice of SpongeBob, and future collaborators on the series, including Doug Lawrence and Paul Tibbitt .

When Rocko's Modern Life ended in 1996, Hillenburg, with fellow artists Derek Drymon and Nick Jennings, developed a concept for a new series on marine life , based on characters he had created for a book on tidal pools at the California Institute of the Arts in 1989. He focused the series on a sponge , which he initially drew as a natural sponge, but which he later gave a cuboid appearance. In 1997 Hillenburg teamed up with some of his former colleagues from Rockos Modernes Leben . They helped design the series' backgrounds and characters.

SpongeBob SquarePants

While working at the Marine Institute, he wrote the comic book The Intertidal Zone . He showed it to Martin Olson , one of the authors of Rocko's Modern Life . He was enthusiastic and suggested that Hillenburg should rewrite it as a submarine cartoon series. In 1998 Hillenburg presented the Nickelodeon show . After the pilots Help Wanted , which was shown on 1 May 1999, bought the rights to the Nickelodeon series began in July 1999 with the broadcast.

Originally the main character was supposed to be called SpongeBoy . However, this name was protected by copyright. Karen, Plankton's computer woman, was named after Stephen Hillenburg's wife. Hillenburg resigned from his position after producing The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie . However, he played the ukulele song in the episode Best Day Ever .

Private

In March 2017, Hillenburg announced that he had been diagnosed with ALS . He died on November 26, 2018 at the age of 57 from complications from the disease. His ashes were scattered on the California coast. Stephen Hillenburg was married and has a son.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Commons : Stephen Hillenburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephen Hillenburg. (No longer available online.) In: Current Biography. April 2003, archived from the original on August 14, 2011 ; accessed on May 25, 2020 (English).
  2. ↑ Evan Real: Stephen Hillenburg, Creator of 'SpongeBob SquarePants,' Dies at 57 . In: hollywoodreporter.com of November 27, 2018.
  3. ↑ 'SpongeBob SquarePants' creator death cert reveals ashes spread under the sea. TMZ . dated December 6, 2018.
personal data
SURNAME Hillenburg, Stephen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hillenburg, Stephen McDannell (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American comic book artist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 21, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Fort Sill , Oklahoma , United States
DATE OF DEATH November 26, 2018
Place of death San Marino , California , USA