Oh no! I always enjoyed Spongebob, and my kids love the cartoons too (my wife not so much), but only 57! That’s awful.
RIP. In addition to his shows, the man who indirectly launched a thousand memes!
I’ve probably watched more hours of Spongebob than any other single show, being that my son came into his cartoon-watching years just as Spongebob was hitting its peak.
ALS sucks. RIP.
Oh man. His influence through Spongebob is enormous. What a shame that he died so young.
Noooo! I love Spongebob so much and think the world of Stephen. Why does such a wonderful person like him die yet some horrible scumbag like trump lives on? Where’s my alternate universe? I want to go live there.
Before gay marriage was officially legalized, I felt like Spongebob was sending a message of tolerance, friendship, and love - ironically something the right-wing zealots hated. It made a show I enjoyed that much better as tv preachers went crazy.
I didn’t have cable when SpongeBob first got big. I’ve watched a few episodes since then and they were very funny. (But I am mainly a Cartoon Network watcher.) RIP
RIP. No politics for me, my family just enjoyed Spongebob for the show’s general wackiness and humor.
I’m having a hard time thinking of anything from that era that’s as influential in media as Spongebob, with the exception of Harry Potter. My kids grew up on extremely surreal, extremely creative, extremely goofy high-quality cartoons because of Mr. Hillenburg.
This is very sad news indeed. My condolences to Stephen Hillenburg’s family, friends and everyone at Nickelodeon who has worked with him over the past two decades. ALS sucks, another talented and creative person taken too soon by this terrible condition.
SpongeBob will always hold a special place in my heart as my second son was born in 1999, the year it debuted on Nickelodeon, and my first son was 9 at the time and an avid Nickelodeon watcher. The show basically became a staple of first my older son, then my younger one and finally my daughter as each child “inherited” their love of the show from the child before them. My family literally grew up around the show, with many of it’s most iconic characters and lines inserting themselves into our everyday banter for years. My children are all grown now, 28,19 and 15 respectively, so we haven’t watched SpongeBob (or Nickelodeon at all for that matter) in several years, but we may have to revisit some episodes this weekend in tribute to Mr. Hillenburg.
I mentioned in the first post that my wife isn’t a fan of SpongeBob and doesn’t like my kids watching it, she finds it “irreverent”, which cracks me up. I don’t find that a bad thing necessarily! But authority figures gonna authority, I guess.
Tell your wife I wasn’t allowed to watch shows like The Simpsons, Bevis and Butthead, and Ren & Stimpy growing up, and just look how I turned out! DUN DUN DUNNNNN
I don’t know why they waited so long to reveal Spongbob’s sexual proclivities, but he likes boys.
