While working on Rocko he realized that “if I were to do an animal show there is all this stuff that I am interested in that really no one has ever animated. Things like plankton.”
He adds, “A lot of things came out of my interest in marine biology, like the fact that there are scallops that fly in the air and in SpongeBob’s world scallops swim the same way in the ocean.”
“So that is just an example where it kind of informs the show,” he says, “but we are more about just making things humorous.”
Hillenburg thinks that it is this pervasive humor which really attracts college-aged viewers. He is more surprised that the audience extends beyond them.
“You have to imagine you write a show about a sponge and you think that maybe a few people will think it is funny, some college students, but it takes off. It is truly shocking,” he says. “To the point where it is bizarre.”
—Staff writer Alexandra B. Moss can be reached at abmoss@fas.harvard.edu.