Spongebob Squarepants

SpongeBob SquarePants is a fictional main character in the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. He is voiced by Tom Kenny and first appeared on television in the series' pilot episode "Help Wanted" on May 1, 1999. SpongeBob was created and designed by cartoonist Stephen Hillenburg shortly after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life in 1996. Hillenburg intended to create a series about an over-optimistic sponge that annoys other characters. Hillenburg compared the concept to Laurel and Hardy and Pee-wee Herman. As he drew the character, he decided that a "squeaky-clean square" (like a kitchen sponge) fits the concept. His name is derived from "Bob the Sponge", the host of Hillenburg's comic strip The Intertidal Zone that he originally drew in 1989 while studying at the California Institute of Arts. SpongeBob is a naïve and goofy sea sponge who works as a fry cook in the fictional underwater town of Bikini Bottom.

SpongeBob has achieved popularity with both children and adults, though he has been involved in public controversy. The character appeared in a We Are Family Foundation video promoting tolerance, which was criticized by James Dobson of Focus on the Family because of the foundation's link to homosexuality.

SpongeBob is a sea sponge, but he resembles a kitchen sponge. He has large blue eyes, many holes appearing all around his body and a mouth with prominent front buck teeth. He typically wears a white shirt with a red tie and brown square trousers, hence his family name "SquarePants".

SpongeBob is a fry cook at the Krusty Krab restaurant, at which he has won employee of the month many times (374 as mentioned in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie). He attends Mrs. Puff's Boating School, analogous to a driving school, but cannot pass the boating test until "Gone''. SpongeBob lives with his pet snail Gary in a large "pineapple-house" on 124 Conch Street in fictional Bikini Bottom, His neighbors are Squidward, who is a squid and SpongeBob's co-worker at the Krusty Krab,