Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? It’s a question that nearly everyone knows the answer to these days, a true show of just how far the reach of Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob Squarepants series has gone. Here’s a look at how SpongeBob rose to fame over the years. 

Made with love by the late Stephen Hillenburg, the series first aired during the 1999 Kids’ Choice Awards. It follows the life of SpongeBob Squarepants, a sea sponge who works as a fry cook for a fast food restaurant known as the Krusty Krab. Together with his best friend, a starfish named Patrick, SpongeBob is always up to some wacky shenanigans, much to the annoyance of their neighbor and co-worker Squidward. As more audiences tuned into the wacky sponge’s adventures, it slowly crept up as the network’s biggest show and currently sits as Nickelodeon’s longest-running animated series. 

Hillenburg originally worked as an artist for the Ocean Institute. During this time, he had hoped to create a comic that would teach children various things about various aquatic life. Titled The Intertidal Zone, the show had been inhabited mostly by the same characters Hillenberg created for the comic. Toying around with animation as his medium, Hillenberg attended a few animation festivals to screen a short he had made about the theory of relativity. It was during one of these festivals that he met Joe Murray, creator of another iconic Nicktoon, Rocko’s Modern Life. Murray was thoroughly impressed by Hillenburg’s work and invited him to join the crew. During this time, Hillenburg started conceptualizing a pilot for a show centering around a character named SpongeBoy, an early iteration of SpongeBob. It was also during his time working for Murray that he met Tom Kenny, who would later provide the iconic voice for the character. Kenny would also be credited as the one who helped provide the last name for SpongeBob after commenting on the character’s square appearance.

After the show’s initial airing during the Kid’s Choice Awards, it became an instant hit. Sweeping away its competition each year, SpongeBob Squarepants has dominated the favorite cartoon category of the Kid’s Choice Awards. Currently, it is running on a 16-year winning streak, during which it has won the award 21 times, only being beat once in 2008 by Avatar: The Last Airbender. Despite Hillenburg’s passing in 2018 after succumbing to ALS, the show continues to stand strong as new episodes continue to come out, including spin-off series for the show’s other characters. Now on its 25th year of running on air, here’s to hoping that the beloved sponge will continue to warm the hearts of future generations to come with his infectious laughter and wacky adventures.