SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the most popular television shows of the modern generation, with SpongeBob earning his place among the other cartoon titans such as Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, and Mickey Mouse.
Since the show first began airing in the late 1990s, fans of the show have loyally supported its characters’ endeavors, and it is still a massive part of popular culture.
Very few cartoon characters have warranted this level of love from multiple generations of fans.
How Old Is SpongeBob?
According to creator Stephen Hillenburg, SpongeBob is meant to be ageless in order to appeal to a wider audience.
Hillenburg has also stated that SpongeBob is 50 years old in “sponge years,” but he is likely vastly younger in human years.
While there’s no official human-to-sponge years ratio, we are able to get a hint at what SpongeBob’s age may be in human years thanks to the two times we see SpongeBob with a driver’s license.
In the episodes, “Sleepy Time” and “No Free Rides,” SpongeBob’s birthday is listed as July 14th of 1986.
When SpongeBob Squarepants first hit television around the country, SpongeBob only would have been about 13 years old in human years.
While that may seem a bit young to own a house and live on your own, there’s nothing stating that SpongeBob matured at the same rate as humans.
Although maturity may not be normally associated with SpongeBob, there are hints through the show that would point to SpongeBob being an adult sponge.
During Season 2’s episode “Grandma’s Kisses,” SpongeBob is teased by his friends about the way his grandma treats him like a child.
After struggling to act more like an adult, SpongeBob’s grandma reassures him by telling him “Remember, you can kiss your grandma and still be an adult.”
The whole episode is surrounded by the idea that it can be hard for young adults to adjust from childhood and going into adulthood.
Some fans may point to SpongeBob’s newest movie Kamp Koral, which occurs 10 years before the show.
Both SpongeBob and Patrick are said to be 10 years old in the show, but sadly, this movie is not considered to be canonical.
Most fans consider SpongeBob’s age to be somewhere between 18 and his early 20s.
When Did SpongeBob SquarePants First Air On Television?
The first episode of SpongeBob SquarePants aired on May 1st of 1999 and has been running consecutively since July 17th of that same year.
This cartoon has won countless awards, ranging from American and British Emmy Awards to ASCAP Awards.
SpongeBob SquarePants is now subbed and dubbed in more than 60 languages for fans around the world to enjoy.
Stephen Hillenburg had no clue what kind of megahit he was creating when he designed the SpongeBob cast.
Before Hillenburg was a director, he was a marine biologist who had obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Natural Resource Planning and Interpretation from Humboldt State University.
One of his first careers was as a marine biology teacher at the Orange County Marine Institute, now known as the Ocean Institute.
To engage his students, Hillenburg would put his art skills to work in order to write and draw a variety of sea creatures.
These teaching tools would later go on to become the denizens of Bikini Bottom.
By 1987, Hillenburg began pursuing a degree in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of Arts in Valencia and went on to earn his Masters of Fine Arts in 1992.
Only a year later, Hillenburg would be working on his first hit television show, Rocko’s Modern Life.
With the television show garnering a massive fanbase, it wouldn’t take long for SpongeBob SquarePants to get his own movie, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
Hillenburg would be the one to write, produce, and direct the film.
Eleven years later, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water was released.
This film was executive produced and written by Stephen Hillenburg as well.
In 2018, Stephen Hillenburg passed away after fighting amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as ASL.
Hillenburg embodied optimism, friendliness, and the importance of imagination until the day he died.
Who Is The Voice Of SpongeBob?
Tom Kenny is the voice actor who portrays SpongeBob SquarePants, but he has played a variety of other characters in both cartoons and video games.
While SpongeBob is unquestionably Kenny’s most popular role, he has sneaked his way into many hit shows and video games from the 1990s and early 2000s as well.
SpongeBob SquarePants wasn’t even the first time that Tom Kenny had worked with the late Stephen Hillenburg because Kenny is also the voice of Heffer and Chuck Chameleon from Rocko’s Modern Life.
Those who grew up watching Cartoon Network at the same time would have heard some of Kenny’s other work, such as voicing the Narrator for The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, and Dexter’s Laboratory.
Tom Kenny played a long list of roles on many of the shows that he appeared in, thanks to the large range of voices he can do.
When he isn’t doing small roles on his main television shows, sometimes he likes to hop into other shows that he appreciates, like when he voiced Courage’s mom from Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Kenny didn’t limit himself to just Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, though.
He even took on roles for some of Disney’s early animated shows based on their movies like Hercules and Lilo & Stitch: The Series.
While Tom Kenny may be better known for his television work, he has also played some of the most beloved characters throughout gaming history.
Kenny’s most popular video game character that he voices is Spyro the dragon.
Kenny began voicing Spyro in 1999 when he appeared in Spyro’s sequel, Spyro 2: Ripto’s Rage, meaning that Kenny has played Spyro just as long as he’s voiced SpongeBob.
This legendary voice actor has also played Rin and Wantz from the English dub of Final Fantasy X-2.
How Old Is Patrick Star?
Patrick Star is 37 years old, according to his driver’s license.
His official birthday is August 17th of 1984, which would make him only about 15 years old when SpongeBob SquarePants first aired back in 1999.
Patrick was one of the characters that Stephen Hillenburg designed during his days at the Orange County Marine Institute.
The starfish’s original design was meant to teach young children and was much more realistic.
Rather than having two eyes towards the top of his almost human-like head, Patrick had an eyehole at the end of each of his arms and a mouth hole in the center of his body.
When redesigning Patrick for the entertaining children’s show, Hillenburg decided to make his character’s design reflect what starfish were like in real life, which was “dumb and slow.”
However, Hillenburg also wanted to show how active and aggressive starfish can actually be when they want to be.
Hillenburg wanted to make characters with strengths and weaknesses, so he could use their weaknesses to create funny situations.
To help explain how SpongeBob and Patrick were getting themselves into the silly situations shown in the show, Hillenburg wanted to ensure that the audience knew that Patrick is “probably the dumbest guy in town.”
It’s SpongeBob’s willingness to do whatever Patrick wants to do that gets the pair of best friends into so much trouble.
According to the episode The Secret Box, Patrick and SpongeBob have been friends since they were babies and have grown up with each other.
The episode Home Sweet Pineapple reveals how Patrick was kicked out of his parents’ house.
He then rented his rock house until he was able to purchase it outright.
His rock house looks nearly identical to his parents’ house, with the only difference being Patrick’s crocked satellite antenna.
Are Gary And Patrick Related?
Yes, Patrick Star and SpongeBob SquarePants’ pet snail Gary are canonically related to one another.
During season 4’s episode “Rule of Dumb,” Patrick discovers that he is the great-great-grandson of King Amoeba.
Patrick is eager to take on his new role as king of the sea, but the power quickly goes to his head, and he becomes too tyrannical for even his best friend to handle.
After SpongeBob begins to fear Patrick, SpongeBob decides to walk away and leave Patrick.
Without his best friend by his side, Patrick no longer feels the desire to be king.
Even if he can have everything else that he wants, what Patrick wants most of all is to have his childhood best friend by his side.
Patrick decides to step down from the throne and hands the crown back to the Royal Ministry, who are now on the hunt for King Amoeba’s next decedent.
To find the new heir to the throne, the Royal Ministry consults the royal family tree.
The family tree shows that King Amoeba married Queen Mildew, who was a fish.
The royal couple has their daughter Princess Tulsa, who is a fish like her mother.
Princess Tulsa went on to marry another fish, and they somehow ended up with Maw Tucket, who is a starfish.
Maw Tucket married another fish named Billy Bob and they had two sons.
Their son Sluggo was a snail, and their son Herb was a starfish like his mother.
Herb and Margie Star are the parents of Patrick, while Sluggo and an unnamed mother are the parents of Gary.
This makes Patrick and Gary first cousins, while also raising many questions about how biology works in Bikini Bottom.
Although Gary and Patrick are opposites when it comes to personality, SpongeBob is their common interest.
Who Voices Patrick Star?
Bill Fagerbakke is the voice of Patrick Star and has been voicing the character since the premier of the show.
While most fans of Fagerbakke know him from SpongeBob SquarePants, he also voiced Broadway from the television series Gargoyles.
Like Tom Kenny, Fagerbakke could be found across multiple channels starting in the 1990s and going onto this day, such as Cyclos on Disney Channel’s Hercules.
He is also known to have played a variety of characters for the shows he appears in, such as Dumb and Dumber the animated series, Beethoven, and Gargoyles.
Bill Fagerbakke was Alan Parrish in the animated television series Jumanji.
In Roughnecks: The Starship Trooper Chronicles, Fagerbakke provided the voice for Corporal Jeff Gossard, although the show only ended up lasting a year.
This voice actor is willing to sneak into the shows he likes, even if it means taking a one-off role.
How Old Is Squidward?
Squidward is currently 45 years old since he was born on October 9th of 1977.
When SpongeBob SquarePants first premiered, Squidward was 22 years old and has always been noticeably older than SpongeBob, yet younger than characters like Mr. Krabs or Plankton.
Of all of SpongeBob’s neighbors, Squidward tends to be the most mature of the bunch.
He prefers quieter hobbies like painting and playing the clarinet over the spastic nature of SpongeBob’s favorite hobbies like karate or jellyfish hunting.
The audience also knows that Squidward once had long golden locks that fell out shortly after he began working at the Krusty Krab.
We also know that his lifelong rival, Squilliam Fancyson is the same age as him.
While SpongeBob may struggle with not being mature enough, Squidward is often shown dealing with the opposite side of growing older.
Squidward is extremely mature in personality, but he has a difficult time accepting his life circumstances that have led him to being a cashier for Krusty Krabs for years rather than moving on with his life like his successful rival.
Squidward often acts as a balancing force among the rest of the SpongeBob SquarePants cast, thanks to his constant pessimism and irritability.
However, Squidward is also the character that is most likely to get SpongeBob and Patrick out of tricky situations, when they aren’t creating havoc in his life.
Like much of the main cast, Squidward has been a part of the show since the very first day.
Although he takes on the role of the antagonist in SpongeBob’s misadventures, he has shown multiple times throughout the running of the hit series that he does care about SpongeBob and worries about him when things go wrong.
Squidward’s gloomy demeanor made him a fan favorite and one of the most relatable characters.
Mr. Krabs’s daughter, Pearl, is a whale because Stephen Hillenburg designed Pearl before he designed her father.
Hillenburg thought it would be funny for his whale character to have a crab father, and he wanted to have a large variety of sea creatures for the show.
Pearl is the only thing that Mr. Krabs cares about more than money.
Although his cheap behavior has been known to ruin her birthday parties or even prom for her, he still tries to do his best by his beloved daughter.
