TRIBUNNEWS.COM - Sekitar satu dasawarsa yang lalu, SpongeBob SquarePants dan Bikinin Bottom-nya mulai mencuri perhatian khalayak.
Kabarnya, penghasilan SpongeBobs di seluruh dunia pada 2016 saja mencapai 140 juta dolar AS (lebih dari Rp2 triliun) dan merupakan adaptasi animasi film terlaris kelima yang pernah ada.
Para pencinta serial SpongeBob baru saja berduka cita. Stephen Hillenburg, sang pencipta, meninggal dunia di usia 57 tahun pada Selasa (27/11) di Amerika.
Hillenburg berlatar belakang pendidikan perencanaan sumber daya alam dengan fokus sumber daya laut.
Predikat itu pernah dia gunakan untuk mengajar Biologi Kelautan di Orange County Marine Institute. Tapi, Hillenburg juga suka menggambar.
Ia pernah menciptakan buku komik yang disebut Intertidial Zone—yang disebut sebagai versi awal SpongeBob.
Ketika dia bekerja sebagai direktur kreatif untuk serial animasi Nickelodeon, Rocko’s Modern Life, teman-temannya sesama animator melihat potensinya yang besar.
KOMPAS.com - Kreator Spongebob SquarePants, Stephen Hillenburg , meninggal dunia pada usia 57 tahun. Kematian Hillenburg diumumkan oleh Nickelodeon, Selasa (27/11/2018). Stephen Hillenburg mengembuskan napas terakhir pada Senin (26/11/2018). Menurut orang-orang terdekatnya, ia menderita ALS atau yang juga dikenal sebagai penyakit Lou Gehrig. "Dia teman yang penyayang dan partner kreatif bagi setiap orang di Nicklelodeon. Doa kami untuk keluarganya," kata Nickelodeon. "Steve menciptakan Spongebob SquarePants dengan selera humor yang unik dan kepolosan yang memberi kebahagiaan bagi anak-anak dan keluarga di mana pun," lanjut jaringan televisi tersebut. Stephen Hillenburg, yang berlatar belakang guru biologi, meluncurkan sosok kartun yang dicintai anak-anak itu di Nicklelodeon pada 1999. Kartun itu bercerita tentang petualangan spons kuning dan teman-temannya yang hidup di Bikini Bottom di kedalaman Samudera Pasifik. "Karakter-karakter karyanya yang sangat original itu dan jagat Bikini Bottom akan terus hidup untuk mengingatkan kita pada nilai-nilai optimisme, persahabatan, dan imajinasi yang tanpa batas," kata Nickelodeon. Dari layar televisi, cerita Spongebob SquarePants diadaptasi ke layar lebar pada 2014. Film ini melibatkan artis peran papan atas seperti Scarlett Johansson dan Alec Baldwin.
Baca juga: Hoaks Kartun SpongeBob Tamat Viral di Twitter
The creator of SpongeBob SquarePants, who has died aged 57, channelled the surrealism of 90s animation and his own childlike zest for life into a show that brought joy to millions
There are few creative acts that strike me again and again with such joy as SpongeBob SquarePants. Grinning out from a child’s backpack, or his goofy features cast in milk and sugar and stuck on a lolly stick, the cartoon character is so ubiquitous as to almost become unremarkable. But like all truly great art, its power renews itself: wait, yes, that really is a sponge, with arms and legs and a face, wearing short trousers and a shirt and tie and shiny black boots, and he wants to be everyone’s friend.
SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg dies at 57 Read more
The rediscovery is a jolt of sheer delight. The very fact SpongeBob exists at all feels almost like proof of the existence of God: the inspiration needed for something of such pure originality has to be divine.
Wherever the inspiration came from, it was made sponge by Stephen Hillenburg, the character’s creator who has died tragically young at 57 years old of motor neurone disease. Across 242 episodes, two movies (plus a third incoming), a Broadway musical, thousands of memes and your kid’s lunchbox, his creation has become a cultural titan.
Hillenburg, who I was fortunate enough to interview in 2016, was nuts about life under the sea ever since a childhood reared on scuba diving and Jacques Cousteau. He was essentially a failed marine biologist who went into cartooning because he was better at it, working first on the Nickelodeon show Rocko’s Modern Life. This was just one of the surrealistic, deadpan cartoons that populated 1990s American TV, a countercultural strain that SpongeBob was synthesised from and Hillenburg perfected.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Child-like ... Stephen Hillenburg. Photograph: Anacleto Rapping/Getty Images
There are echoes of the Ernst-like plasticity of Ren & Stimpy and the pop art brashness of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, with just the occasional parent-facing deadpan gag, the kind that peppered Rugrats, Dexter’s Laboratory and later, the Shrek movies. But brilliant as these creations often are, none had the radical naivety of SpongeBob – it was his eternal, reflexive positivity, gifted to him by Hillenburg, that made him truly exceptional.
As Tom Kenny, the voice of SpongeBob, told me, the show has “comedic archetypes that have worked for hundreds of years, further back than Shakespeare”. Hillenburg stripped our world back to literal cartoon versions of human behaviour. SpongeBob is the idealist, met with both cynicism (Squidward, Plankton and Mr Krabs, a triptych of venality) and chaos (best friend Patrick, a starfish of pure id). Off they go for 11 minutes at time, the oppositional energies colliding. It usually goes badly for SpongeBob to begin with, those eyes suddenly massive and brimming – but in the end he triumphs, often thanks to errors the others make due to their self-interest or negativity. So often children are told merely to “be yourself”, but what if that self is corrupted? SpongeBob evolves the message: fill your heart with kindness and then be yourself. The world will bend to you without you trying.
It’s this purity of intent that makes SpongeBob so globally popular, and such an absorbent medium for online memes. Hop on Twitter or Instagram and you are never far from an “evil Patrick”, used to illustrate amusing misdeeds, or SpongeBob himself, looking relieved, angry, stoned or indeed any other human mood. The memes work because we both see ourselves in SpongeBob and aspire to be him. He is flawed, vulnerable but endearing, while being quietly, mutably omnipotent.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Flawed, vulnerable but endearing ... Spongebob rejoices at the start of another day. Photograph: Allstar/NICKELODEON/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar
When I spoke to Hillenburg, I expected big energy, someone yakking like SpongeBob himself. But there was something careful and truly child-like about him: it was clear that SpongeBob’s very naivety was an extension of his personality. He was as reflexively, unwittingly comic as SpongeBob, too: “SpongeBob is just made of cellulose, but he has parents who are natural sponges – he got the square gene,” he told me straight. His description of the original pitch he made to Nickelodeon, meanwhile, is the kind of pitch SpongeBob would make for a show about himself:
When I pitched the show, I made this special seashell. You could pick it up and hear me singing: “Spongeboy, Spongeboy!” I also made an aquarium with Patrick planted on the side, SpongeBob sitting on a barrel and Squidward inside. I wore a Hawaiian shirt. I don’t know what they thought of it. Eventually we pitched with a storyboard. The executive, Albie Hecht, walked out – then walked straight back in and said: “Let’s make this.”
Thank God he did. SpongeBob has evolved into a paragon of hard work, tenacity and moral fibre; with his job as a short-order chef, he is one of the few working class heroes on US television; his friendship with Patrick is movingly pure. As Kenny told me: “Twentysomethings thank me for their childhood … SpongeBob lives at the bottom of the sea, but he brings a lot of great stuff to the surface.”
Hillenburg had wanted to call SpongeBob “Spongeboy”, but was foiled by a mop company. “I eventually thought of SpongeBob, but he needed a last name – SquarePants came to mind,” he said, with perfect blitheness, as if the name was as workaday as Smith or Jones. It was a reminder that true artistic genius is never aware of itself. Hillenburg has died too young, but his legacy as a loud surrealist and quiet moralist is unique, and shows that he lived as we all should: like a bright, confident sponge.
Death
Nickelodeon said in a statement that Stephen's death was due to motor neuron disease (also known as ALS) -- a condition he had been diagnosed with in March 2017.
SpongeBob SquarePants creator Stephen Hillenburg passed away on Monday at the age of 57. Nickelodeon, which has broadcasted the hugely popular cartoon series since 1999, has confirmed the news.
In a statement, the company said Hillenburg's death on Monday was due to motor neuron disease (also known as ALS) -- a condition he revealed he had been diagnosed with in March 2017, BBC reported.
He not only created the character, Hillenburg also directed the 2004 The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.
"We are sad to share the news of the passing of Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants," Nickelodeon tweeted from its official account.
The company's statement added: "Steve imbued SpongeBob SquarePants with a unique sense of humour and innocence that has brought joy to generations of kids and families everywhere.
We are sad to share the news of the passing of Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants. Today, we are observing a moment of silence to honor his life and work. — Nickelodeon (@Nickelodeon) November 27, 2018
"His utterly original characters and the world of Bikini Bottom will long stand as a reminder of the value of optimism, friendship and the limitless power of imagination."
SpongeBob is Nickelodeon's all-time biggest hit, and has aired for nearly two decades since its premiere on May 1, 1999, bringing characters SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, Mr Krabs, Sandy Cheeks, Plankton, Pearl Krabs, Mrs Puff and Larry the Lobster to life.
Hollywood actor David Hasselhoff, who starred as himself in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, remembered his time on set.
"Wow what a unique and fantastic character Steve created! It was my pleasure and honor to be in SpongeBob The Movie and to share some great laughs with this gentleman," the Baywatch alum tweeted. "To this day I am stopped and flattered by people and kids who have seen me in the film."
Following the news of Hillenburg's death, SpongeBob fans began posting tributes on social media, thanking him for his creation, which "enriched lives" and "stirred up laughter for years to come".
