14 Things You May Not Have Known About SpongeBob SquarePants

You know a lot about Spongebob Squarepants: he lives in a pineapple under the sea, he is absorbent and yellow and porous, and his best friend is a starfish named Patrick. But how much do you know about the TV show Spongebob Squarepants? And haven’t you, at one time or another, wondered how they came up with such a bizarre cartoon concept? Of course you have. Well, here’s a start:

1. THE IDEA FOR THE SERIES WAS FROM AN ACTUAL MARINE BIOLOGIST

Stephen Hillenburg has a degree in natural resource planning with a marine resources emphasis, and he used to teach Marine Biology at the Orange County Marine Institute. Hillenburg also liked to draw, and created a comic book called Intertidial Zone for the Institute, which starred an early version of SpongeBob. When he worked as creative director for the Nickelodeon animated series Rocko's Modern Life, fellow animators saw the potential appeal of SpongeBob.

2. SPONGEBOB'S ORIGINAL NAME WAS SPONGEBOY

And the show's title was initially SpongeBoy Ahoy!. SpongeBoy was a copyrighted name for a mop, however, but Hillenburg made sure to keep the "sponge" in the name of his protagonist as he was worried that children might mistake him for a block of cheese.

From there, you get twelve more facts that add up to the story of Spongebob Squarepants, the series, told at mental_floss.