He is a rather cheerful, spirited fellow who works as a short-order cook. SquarePants, if you prefer - is theoretically a sea sponge, but he presents as a yellow kitchen sponge who wears a shirt, tie and, as his surname suggests, rectangular brown pants. SpongeBob SquarePants, the sea creature at the heart of the animated television show that bears his name, is an absorbent, yellow and porous sponge. (Be sure to share this story on Facebook before closing the tab.) If you’re not in that generation, or if you’ve been living under a rock, you may have missed the continued cultural relevance of SpongeBob. The musical won for “Best Scenic Design of a Musical.” But in sharing the slate that year with “Mean Girls” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” it was almost as if one generation’s childhood had staged a friendly takeover. When a yellow sponge in rectangular pants came to children’s TV on May 1, 1999, who could have guessed that it would lead to “SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical,” which was nominated in 2018 for 12 Tony Awards? Or that so many would be mourning months later when his creator, Stephen Hillenburg, died at 57. This article was originally published in May 2018. “Spongebob Squarepants” debuted 20 years ago.
