Hillenburg was showrunner for ‘Spongebob Squarepants’ from 1999 to the 2004 film. He wanted to end the series there, but the studio demanded more episodes, so Hillenburg took a back seat and served as an advisor. It is during those first seasons of Spongebob that all the greatest and most memorable moments occur. When Hillenburg was at the helm, it was so much more than a kid’s cartoon. It honed in on the dynamic relationship between Spongebob and Squidward. Both of their lives sucked. They were both fry cooks for a greedy, crabby asshole. But Squidward stewed in his misery while Spongebob remained gratingly optimistic. Of course, this often made Squidward more miserable. But at the end of the day, they always had each other’s backs. Like when Squidward shoved the Krusty Krab Pizza down the throat of a customer who was mean to Spongebob, or when Spongebob saved the day by teaching Squidward’s band to perform a spot-on rendition of David Glen Eisley’s “Sweet Victory.”

I bring this up because therein lies the timelessness of Spongebob and Hillenburg’s legacy; when you were a kid, you identified with Spongebob, and when you grew up, you identified with Squidward. Those first seasons felt like they had so much soul, because they did — Hillenburg’s. His life was injected into that wacky, beautiful cartoon — from his stint as a fry cook to his passion for wildlife. And with every meme, every laugh, every nostalgic flashback to coming home from school and escaping to a far flung yet familiar world under the sea, Hillenburg lives on.

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