title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The third Horseman rides a black horse and is popularly understood to be Famine, as the Horseman carries a pair of balances or weighing scales (Greek ζυγὸν, "zygon"), indicating the way that bread would have been weighed during a famine. Other authors interpret the third Horseman as the "Lord as a Law-Giver," holding Scales of Justice. In the passage, it is read that the indicated price of grain is about ten times normal (thus the famine interpretation popularity), with an entire day's wages (a denarius) buying enough wheat for only one person (one "choenix", about 1.1 litres), or enough of the less nutritious barley for three, so that workers would struggle to feed their families. In the Gospels, the denarius is repeatedly mentioned as a monetary unit; for example, the denarius was the pay of a soldier for one day, and the day labor of a seasonal worker in the harvesting of grapes is also valued at one denarius (). Thus, it is probably a fact that with the approach of the Apocalypse, the most necessary food will rise in price greatly and the wages earned per day will be enough only for the minimum subsistence for the same day and nothing more.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Of the Four Horsemen, the black horse and its rider are the only ones whose appearance is accompanied by vocalization. John hears a voice, unidentified but coming from among the four living creatures, that speaks of the prices of wheat and barley, saying, "and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine". This suggests that the black horse's famine is to drive up the price of grain but leave oil and wine supplies unaffected (though out of reach of the ordinary worker). One explanation is that grain crops would have been more naturally susceptible to famine years or locust plagues than olive trees and grapevines, which root more deeply.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The statement might also suggest a continuing abundance of luxuries for the wealthy, while staples, such as bread, are scarce, though not completely depleted; such selective scarcity may result from injustice and the deliberate production of luxury crops for the wealthy over grain, as would have happened during the time the Book of Revelation was written. Alternatively, the preservation of oil and wine could symbolize the preservation of the Christian faithful, who use oil and wine in their sacraments.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: According to Edward Bishop Elliott's interpretation, through this third seal, the black horse is unleashed, representing aggravated distress and mourning. The balance in the rider's hand is not associated with a man weighing out bits of bread in scanty measure for his family but with buying and selling corn and other grains. During the time of the apostle John's exile in Patmos, the balance was commonly a symbol of justice since it was used to weigh the grains for a set price. The balance of justice held in the hand of the rider of the black horse signified the aggravation of the other previous evil, with the bloodstained red of the Roman aspect morphing into the darker blackness of distress. The black horse rider is instructed not to harm the oil and the wine, which signifies that this scarcity should not fall upon the superfluities, such as oil and wine, which men can live without, but upon the necessities of life—bread.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: This interpretation also borrows from Edward Gibbon's "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire", which claims the Roman Empire suffered as a result of excessive taxation of its citizens, particularly during the reign of Emperor Caracalla, whom history has primarily remembered as a cruel tyrant and as among the worst of the Roman emperors. Under the necessity of gratifying the greed and excessive lifestyle which Caracalla had excited in the army, old as well as new taxes, were at the same time levied in the provinces. The land tax, taxes for services, and heavy contributions of corn, wine, oil, and meat were exacted from the provinces for court, army, and capital use. "This noxious weed not totally eradicated again sprang up with the most luxurious growth and going forward darkened the Roman world with its deadly shade"


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: According to Gibbon, this was exacerbated by the rise to power of Emperor Maximin, who "attacked the public property at length." Every city of the empire was destined to purchase corn for the multitudes, as well as supply expenses for the games. By the Emperor's authority, the whole mass of wealth was confiscated for use by the Imperial treasury—temples "stripped of their most valuable offerings of gold, silver [and statues] which were melted down and coined into money."


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The fourth and final Horseman is named Death. Known as Θάνατος (Thanatos), of all the riders, he is the only one to whom the text itself explicitly gives a name. Unlike the other three, he is not described as carrying a weapon or other object, instead, he is followed by Hades (the resting place of the dead). However, illustrations commonly depict him carrying a scythe, sword, or another implement. For there can be only one.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The color of Death's horse is written as "khlōros" (χλωρός) in the original Koine Greek, which can mean either green/greenish-yellow or pale/pallid. The color is often translated as "pale", though "ashen", "pale green", and "yellowish green" are other possible interpretations (the Greek word is the root of "chlorophyll" and "chlorine"). Based on the uses of the word in ancient Greek medical literature, several scholars suggest that the color reflects the sickly pallor of a corpse. In some modern artistic depictions, the horse is distinctly green.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The verse beginning with "they were given power over a fourth of the earth" is generally taken as referring to Death and Hades, although some commentators see it as applying to all four horsemen.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: This fourth, pale horse, was the personification of Death, with Hades following him, jaws open and receiving the victims slain by Death. Death's commission was to kill upon the Roman Earth with all of the four judgements of God—with sword, famine, pestilence and wild beasts. The deadly pale and livid appearance displays a hue symptomatic of approaching empire dissolution. According to Edward Bishop Elliott, an era in Roman history commencing within about 15 years after the death of Severus Alexander (in 235 AD<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica/Alexander Severus"></ref>) strongly marks every point of this terrible emblem.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Edward Gibbon speaks of a period from the celebration of the great secular games by the Emperor Philip to the death of Gallienus (in 268 AD<ref name="Encyclopædia Britannica/Gallienus"></ref>) as the 20 years of shame and misfortune, of confusion and calamity, as a time when the ruined empire approached the last and fatal moment of its dissolution. Every instant of time in every province of the Roman world was afflicted by military tyrants and barbarous invaders—the sword from within and without.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: According to Elliott, famine, the inevitable consequence of carnage and oppression, which demolished the present crop as well as the hope of future harvests, produced the environment for an epidemic of diseases, the effects of scanty and unwholesome food. That furious plague (the Plague of Cyprian), which raged from the year 250 to the year 265, continued without interruption in every province, city and almost every family in the empire. During a portion of this time, 5000 people died daily in Rome; and many towns that had escaped the attacks of barbarians were entirely depopulated.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: For a time in the late 260s, the strength of Aurelian crushed the enemies of Rome, yet after his assassination certain of them revived. While the Goths had been destroyed for almost a century and the Empire reunited, the Sassanid Persians were uncowed in the East and, during the following year, hosts of central Asian Alani spread themselves over Pontus, Cappadocia, Cilicia and Galatia, etching their course by the flames of cities and villages they pillaged.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: As for the wild beasts of the earth, according to Elliott, it is a well-known law of nature that they quickly occupy the scenes of waste and depopulation—where the reign of man fails and the reign of beasts begins. After the reign of Gallienus and 20 or 30 years had passed, the multiplication of the animals had risen to such an extent in parts of the empire that they made it a crying evil.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: One notable point of apparent difference between the prophecy and history might seem to be expressly limited to the fourth part of the Roman Earth, but in the history of the period the devastation of the pale horse extended over all. The fourth seal prophecy seems to mark the malignant climax of the evils of the two preceding seals, to which no such limitation is attached. Turning to a reading in Jerome's Latin Vulgate which reads "over the four parts of the earth," it requires that the Roman empire should have some kind of quadripartition. Dividing from the central or Italian fourth, three great divisions of the Empire separated into the West, East and Illyricum under Posthumus, Aureolus and Zenobia respectively—divisions that were later legitimized by Diocletian.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Diocletian ended this long period of anarchy, but the succession of civil wars and invasions caused much suffering, disorder and crime, which brought the empire into a state of moral lethargy from which it never recovered. After the plague had abated, the empire suffered from general distress, and its condition was very much like that which followed after the Black Death of the Middle Ages. Talent and art had become extinct in proportion to the desolation of the world.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Before the Reformation and the woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, the usual and more influential commentaries of the Book of Revelation thought there was only one horseman riding successively these four horses, who was the Christ himself. So did some medieval illuminations, and after that some modern commentators: Oecumenius, a Greek exegete writing in the sixth-century, Berengaudus a French Benedictine monk of Ferrières Abbey at the same period, Luis del Alcázar a Spanish Jesuit in 1612, Benito Arias Montano, a Spanish Orientalist, in 1622, Jacques de Bordes, a French capuchin in 1639, Emanuel Swedenborg a Swedish theologian in 1766


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Some Christians interpret the Horsemen as a prophecy of a future Tribulation, during which many on Earth will die as a result of multiple catastrophes. The Four Horsemen are the first in a series of "Seal" judgements. This is when God will judge the Earth, and is giving humans a chance to repent before they die. A new beautiful earth is created for all the people who are faithful to Him and accept him as their Savior.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: John Walvoord, a premillennialist, believed the Seals will be opened during the Great Tribulation and coincides with the arrival of the Antichrist as the first horseman, a global war as the second horseman, an economic collapse as the third horseman, and the general die-off of 1/4 of the World's population as the fourth horseman, which is followed by a global dictatorship under the Antichrist and the rest of the plagues.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: According to E.B. Elliott, the first seal, as revealed to John by the angel, was to signify what was to happen soon after John seeing the visions in Patmos, and that the second, third and fourth seals in like manner were to have commencing dates each in chronological sequence following the preceding seal. Its general subject is the decline and fall, after a previous prosperous era, of the Empire of Heathen Rome. The first four seals of Revelation, represented by four horses and horsemen, are fixed to events, or changes, within the Roman Earth.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Some modern scholars interpret Revelation from a preterist point of view, arguing that its prophecy and imagery apply only to the events of the first century of Christian history. In this school of thought, Conquest, the white horse's rider, is sometimes identified as a symbol of Parthian forces: Conquest carries a bow, and the Parthian Empire was at that time known for its mounted warriors and their skill with bow and arrow. Parthians were also particularly associated with white horses. Some scholars specifically point to Vologases I, a Parthian shah who clashed with the Roman Empire and won one significant battle in 62 AD.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Revelation's historical context may also influence the depiction of the black horse and its rider, Famine. In 92 AD, the Roman emperor Domitian attempted to curb excessive growth of grapevines and encourage grain cultivation instead, but there was major popular backlash against this effort, and it was abandoned. Famine's mission to make wheat and barley scarce but "hurt not the oil and the wine" could be an allusion to this episode. The red horse and its rider, who take peace from the earth, might represent the prevalence of civil strife at the time Revelation was written; internecine conflict ran rampant in the Roman Empire during and just prior to the 1st century AD.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe their first prophet, Joseph Smith, revealed that the book described by John "contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence" and that the seals describe these things for the seven thousand years of the Earth's temporal existence, each seal representing 1,000 years.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: About the first seal and the white horse, LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie taught, "The most transcendent happenings involved Enoch and his ministry. And it is interesting to note that what John saw was not the establishment of Zion and its removal to heavenly spheres, but the unparalleled wars in which Enoch, as a general over the armies of the saints, 'went forth conquering and to conquer' Revelation 6:2; see also Moses 7:13–18" The second seal and the red horse represent the period from approximately 3,000 B.C. to 2,000 B.C., including the wickedness and violence leading to the Great Flood.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The third seal and black horse describe the period of ancient Joseph, son of Israel, who was sold into Egypt, and the famines that swept that period (see Genesis 41–42; Abraham 1:29–30; 2:1, 17, 21). The fourth seal and the pale horse are interpreted to represent the thousand years leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ, both the physical death brought about by great warring empires and the spiritual death through apostasy among the Lord's chosen people.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Artwork which shows the Horsemen as a group, such as the famous woodcut by Albrecht Dürer, suggests an interpretation where all four horsemen represent different aspects of the same tribulation.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: American Protestant Evangelical interpreters regularly see ways in which the horsemen, and Revelation in general, speak to contemporary events. Some who believe Revelation applies to modern times can interpret the horses based on various ways their colors are used. Red, for example, often represents Communism, the white horse and rider with a crown representing Catholicism, Black has been used as a symbol of Capitalism, while Green represents the rise of Islam. Pastor Irvin Baxter Jr. of Endtime Ministries espoused such a belief.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Some equate the Four Horsemen with the angels of the four winds. "(See Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and Uriel, angels often associated with four cardinal directions)".


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Some speculate that when the imagery of the Six Seals is compared to other eschatological descriptions throughout the Bible, the themes of the horsemen draw remarkable similarity to the events of the Olivet Discourse. The signs of the approaching end of the world are likened to birth pains, indicating that they would occur more frequently and with greater intensity the nearer the event of Christ's return. With this perspective the horsemen represent the rise of false religions, false prophets and false messiahs; the increase of wars and rumours of wars; the escalation of natural disasters and famines; and the growth of persecution, martyrdom, betrayal and loss of faith.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: According to Anatoly Fomenko, the Book of Revelation is largely astrological in nature. The 'Four Horsemen' represent the planets Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: Sports writer Grantland Rice described the 1924 Notre Dame football backfield with the famous line: "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore their names are Death, Destruction, Pestilence, and Famine. But those are aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Crowley, Miller and Layden."


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The Book of Zechariah twice mentions colored horses; in the first passage there are three colors (red, speckled/brown, and white), and in the second there are four teams of horses (red, black, white, and finally dappled/"grisled and bay") pulling chariots. The second set of horses are referred to as "the four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world."


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: They are described as patrolling the earth, and keeping it peaceful. It may be assumed by some Christian interpretation that when the tribulation begins, the peace is taken away, so their job is to terrify the places in which they patrol.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: The four living creatures of Revelation 4:6-8 are written very similarly to the four living creatures in Ezekiel 1:5–12. In Revelation, each of the living creatures summons a horseman, where in Ezekiel the living creatures follow wherever the spirit leads, without turning.


title: Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

text: In Ezekiel 14:21, the Lord enumerates His "four disastrous acts of judgment" (ESV), sword, famine, wild beasts, and pestilence, against the idolatrous elders of Israel. A symbolic interpretation of the Four Horsemen links the riders to these judgments, or the similar judgments in 6:11–12.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Sacha Noam Baron Cohen (born 13 October 1971) is an English actor, comedian, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral General Aladeen. He adopts a variety of accents and guises for his characters and interacts with unsuspecting subjects who do not realise they have been set up. At the 2012 British Comedy Awards, he received the Outstanding Achievement Award and accepted the award in-character as Ali G. In 2013, he received the BAFTA Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy. In 2018, "The Times" named him among the 30 best living comedians.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen has produced and/or performed in comedic films such as "Ali G Indahouse" (2002), "Borat" (2006) and its sequel "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" (2020), "" (2006), "Brüno" (2009), and "The Dictator" (2012). He has also appeared in dramatic films including Tim Burton's "" (2007), Martin Scorsese's "Hugo" (2011), Tom Hooper's "Les Misérables" (2012), and Aaron Sorkin's "The Trial of the Chicago 7" (2020). He made a cameo as a BBC News anchor in "" (2013). In 2016, he appeared in the comedy film "Grimsby" and co-starred in the fantasy sequel "Alice Through the Looking Glass". His voice acting roles include King Julien XIII in the "Madagascar" film series (2005–2012) and Uncle Ugo in "Luca" (2021).


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Beginning his career in television, Baron Cohen was named Best Newcomer at the 1999 British Comedy Awards for "The 11 O'Clock Show". He created and starred in "Da Ali G Show" (2000–2004), receiving two BAFTA Awards. His next television project, "Who Is America?" (2018) for Showtime, saw him nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy. In 2019, he portrayed Eli Cohen in the limited series "The Spy" for OCS and Netflix, for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Miniseries or Television Film.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen has two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, three Golden Globe Award nominations, resulting in two wins for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his work in the feature film "Borat" and its sequel. In 2021, he received Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance as Abbot "Abbie" Hoffman in "The Trial of the Chicago 7". He has been a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in the Actors Branch since 2008. After the release of "Borat", Baron Cohen said he would retire Borat and Ali G because the public had become too familiar with the characters. After the release of "Brüno", he said he would retire that character. However, the character of Borat was brought back for the 2020 sequel "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm".


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Sacha Noam Baron Cohen was born in the Hammersmith area of London on 13 October 1971, the son of Jewish parents. His mother, photographer Daniella Naomi (née Weiser), was born in Palestine (modern-day Israel) in 1939 to a family of German Jews who had immigrated there. His father, editor-turned-clothing store owner Gerald Jerry Baron Cohen (1932–2016), was born in London to a family of Ashkenazi Belarusian Jews who had moved there and to Pontypridd in Wales, and was raised in Wales. Baron Cohen was raised Jewish in London and is fluent in Hebrew. His paternal grandfather, Morris Moses Cohen, added "Baron" to his surname. His maternal grandmother, Liesel (née Levi), lived in Haifa and trained as a ballet dancer in Germany before fleeing the Nazis in 1936. Baron Cohen has two older brothers: Erran, a composer with whom he has collaborated, and Amnon. His cousins include autism researcher Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, playwright Dan Baron Cohen, and filmmaker Ash Baron-Cohen.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen was first educated at the independent Catholic St Columba's College in St Albans, Hertfordshire, before moving on to attend the independent Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Elstree, Hertfordshire. He then studied History with a focus on anti-semitism at Christ's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1993 with upper-second-class honours. As an undergraduate, he said that he wrote his thesis on Jewish activists in the American civil rights movement. He was a member of the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, where he performed in shows such as "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Cyrano de Bergerac", as well as in Habonim Dror, a Labour Zionist youth movement.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Growing up, Baron Cohen played the cello and made his television debut on "Fanfare for Young Musicians". He was a fan of Monty Python and Peter Cook, but his greatest comedic influence was Peter Sellers. Known for portraying a wide range of comic characters using different accents and guises, Sellers was referred to by Baron Cohen as "the most seminal force in shaping [his] early ideas on comedy". After leaving university, Baron Cohen worked for a time as a fashion model. By the early 1990s, he was hosting a weekly programme on Windsor cable television's local broadcasts with Carol Kirkwood, who later became a BBC weather forecaster. In 1995, Channel 4 was planning a replacement for its series "The Word", and disseminated an open call for new television presenters. Baron Cohen sent in a tape of himself in the character of Kristo, an Albanian fictional television reporter (who developed into the Kazakh Borat Sagdiyev), which caught the attention of a producer. Baron Cohen hosted "Pump TV" from 1995 to 1996.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In 1996, Baron Cohen began presenting the youth chat programme "F2F" for Granada Talk TV and had a small role in an advertisement for McCain Microchips, as a chef in a commercial entitled "Ping Pong". He took clown training in Paris, at the École Philippe Gaulier, studying under master-clown Philippe Gaulier. Of his former pupil, Gaulier says: "He was a good clown, full of spirit" while Baron Cohen remarks of Gaulier, "Without him, I really do doubt whether I would have had any success in my field". Baron Cohen made his first feature film appearance in the British comedy "The Jolly Boys' Last Stand" (2000). Also in 2000, he played the part of Super Greg for a series of TV advertisements for Lee Jeans; the advertisements never aired, but the website for Super Greg created an internet sensation.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen appeared during two-minute sketches as his fashion reporter Brüno on the Paramount Comedy Channel during 1998. He shot to fame with his comic character Ali G, a fictional stereotype of a British suburban male "chav" who imitates urban black British hip hop culture and British Jamaican culture, as well as speaking in rude boy-style English with borrowed expressions from Jamaican Patois. Hailing from Staines (a suburban town in Surrey, to the west of London), Ali G started appearing on the British television show "The 11 O'Clock Show" on Channel 4, which first aired on 8 September 1998. A year after the première of the show, "GQ" named Baron Cohen comedian of the year. He won Best Newcomer at the 1999 British Comedy Awards, and at the British Academy Television Awards he was nominated for Best British Entertainment Performance.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: "Da Ali G Show" began in 2000, and won the BAFTA for Best Comedy in the following year. Also in 2000, Baron Cohen as Ali G appeared as the limousine driver in Madonna's 2000 video "Music", directed by Jonas Åkerlund, who was also responsible for directing the titles for "Da Ali G Show". Baron Cohen is a supporter of the UK charity telethon Comic Relief, which is broadcast on the BBC, and as Ali G interviewed David Beckham and wife Victoria in 2001.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In a 2001 Channel 4 poll Ali G was ranked eighth on their list of the 100 Greatest TV Characters. In 2002, Ali G was the central character in the feature film "Ali G Indahouse", in which he is elected to the British Parliament and foils a plot to bulldoze a community centre in his home town, Staines. His television show was exported to the United States in 2003, with new episodes set there, for HBO.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: At the 2012 British Comedy Awards, 13 years after winning Best Newcomer at the 1999 Comedy Awards, Baron Cohen accepted the Outstanding Achievement Award from Sir Ben Kingsley in the guise of Ali G, and stated: "I is grown up now. I ain't living in my nan's house any more. I is living in her garage." In 2013, he received the BAFTA Charlie Chaplin Britannia Award for Excellence in Comedy.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Ali G's interviews with celebrities (often politicians) gained notoriety partly because the subjects were not privy to the joke that Ali G, rather than being a real interviewer, was a comic character played by Baron Cohen. According to "Rolling Stone" magazine, Baron Cohen would always enter the interview area in character as Ali G, carrying equipment and appearing to be an inconspicuous crew member. He would arrive with a suited man, whom the interviewee naturally thought was the interviewer. Baron Cohen, as Ali G, would sit down to begin conducting the interview by asking the interviewee some preliminary questions. The interviewee, however, would remain under the impression that the smartly dressed director would be conducting the interview until short notice prior to cameras rolling: this would grant an advantage of surprise, whereby the interviewee would be less likely to opt out of the Ali interview prior to its start.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: The Kazakh journalist Borat Sagdiyev was first developed for short skits on "F2F" on Granada Television in the UK that Baron Cohen presented in 1996–1997, with the character at this time being known as Alexi Krickler. The character remained dormant while Baron Cohen concentrated on his Ali G persona, but with the subsequent success of Ali G, Baron Cohen revisited his Borat character. The character was featured in segments of "Da Ali G Show". Borat's sense of humour derives from his mocking of society through outrageous sociocultural viewpoints, his deadpan violation of social taboos and use of vulgar language and behaviour.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: "", a feature film with Borat Sagdiyev at the centre, was screened at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival and released in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2006, in the United States on 3 November 2006 and Australia 23 November 2006. The film follows Sagdiyev as he and his colleague Azamat Bagatov travel the US to produce a documentary about life in the country, as all the while Sagdiyev attempts to enter into marriage with celebrity Pamela Anderson. The film is a mockumentary which includes interviews with various Americans that poke fun at American culture, as well as sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and jingoism. It debuted at the No. 1 spot in the US, taking in an estimated $26.4 million in just 837 theatres averaging $31,600 per theatre.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen won the 2007 Golden Globe for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy, his sixth such award. Although Borat was up for "Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy", the film lost to "Dreamgirls". On 23 January 2007, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. He shared his nomination with the film's co-writers, Ant Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Aside from the comic elements of his characters, Baron Cohen's performances are interpreted by some as reflecting uncomfortable truths about his audience. He juxtaposes his own Jewish heritage with the anti-Semitism of his character Borat.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In 2007, Baron Cohen published a travel guide as Borat, with dual titles: "Borat: Touristic Guidings To Minor Nation of U.S. and A." and "Borat: Touristic Guidings To Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan". On 21 December 2007, Baron Cohen announced he was retiring the character of Borat.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: The character was brought back on a 2018 appearance on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and appears in the 2020 sequel "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm", for which he won another Golden Globe Award.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Another alter ego Sacha Baron Cohen performed as is 'Brüno', a flamboyantly gay Austrian fashion show presenter who often lures his unwitting subjects into making provocative statements and engaging in embarrassing behaviour, as well as leading them to contradict themselves, often in the same interview. Brüno's main comedic satire pertains to the vacuity and inanity of the fashion and clubbing world. Brüno asks the subjects to answer "yes or no" questions with either "Vassup" (what's up) or "Ich don't think so" (I don't think so); these are occasionally substituted with "Ach, ja!" (Ah yes!) or "Nicht, nicht" ("Nicht" means "no" or "not" in German). In one segment on "Da Ali G Show", he encouraged his guest to answer questions with either "Keep them in the ghetto" or "Train to Auschwitz".


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In May 2009, at the MTV Movie Awards, Baron Cohen appeared as Brüno wearing a white angel costume, a white jockstrap, white go-go boots, and white wings; and did an aerial stunt where he dropped from a height (using wires) onto Eminem. Baron Cohen landed with his face on Eminem's crotch and with his crotch in Eminem's face, prompting Eminem to exit the venue with fellow rappers D12. Eminem later admitted to staging the stunt with Baron Cohen.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: After an intense bidding war that included such Hollywood powerhouses as DreamWorks, Sony, and 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures won and paid a reported $42.5 million for the film rights to a collection of interviews Baron Cohen performed as the character Brüno. To create these interviews a number of shill companies and websites were created to draw potential interviewees by creating an illusion of legitimacy. The film was released in July 2009.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen's 2012 film, "The Dictator", was described by its press as "the heroic story of a dictator who risked his life to ensure that democracy would never come to the country he so lovingly oppressed". Baron Cohen played Admiral General Aladeen, a dictator from a fictional country called the Republic of Wadiya. "Borat" and "Brüno" film director Larry Charles directed the film. The main target of the film's satire was Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was still alive when the film was written. The producers of the film were concerned it would anger Gaddafi, possibly even resulting in a terrorist attack, so they released deliberate misinformation saying that the film was loosely based on a romance novel written by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: On 26 February 2012, Baron Cohen was allegedly banned from attending the 84th Academy Awards in his role as Admiral General Aladeen but the rumour was denied by the Academy, saying "we haven't banned him, he is lying" but made it clear that "Cohen is not welcome to use the red carpet as a platform for a promotional stunt". Baron Cohen eventually appeared at the awards' red carpet with a pair of uniformed female bodyguards, holding an urn which he claimed was filled with the ashes of Kim Jong-il. The "ashes", which Baron Cohen admitted to Howard Stern on the Tuesday, 8 May 2012 episode of "The Howard Stern Show" was flour, were "accidentally" spilt onto Ryan Seacrest.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen portrays various characters in "Who Is America?", the most prominent and controversial being Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terrorism expert. The character is referred to as a colonel (and later captain, general, major, sergeant, brigadier, sergeant corporal and lieutenant) in the Israeli military and a former agent of Mossad (or "not in the Mossad," as he often interjects). Before "Who Is America?" aired on Showtime, some conservative public figures made statements saying that Baron Cohen had deceived them while in character. Hours before the premiere, Showtime uploaded the "Kinderguardians" segment on their YouTube channel, in which Morad explains to Philip Van Cleave, the president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, of the proposal of a new program where children ages 3 to 16 are armed with guns. He also interviews other conservatives, such as Dana Rohrabacher, Joe Wilson, and Joe Walsh, who are openly supportive. Only Matt Gaetz expresses skepticism of Morad's proposal and declines to be in his video.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In the second episode, Morad teaches Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia, how to detect and repel terrorists by taking pictures up a woman's burqa with a selfie stick, walking backwards while baring his buttocks, and yelling racial epithets. After the airing of the episode, Spencer initially refused to step down, stating that he was exploited by the producers. In May 2018, Spencer lost his primary to a political novice, Steven Sainz, but was expected to serve the rest of his term until November. He eventually did step down on 31 July 2018, leaving the seat vacant.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen has denied "Who is America?" will return for a second season, noting the publicity surrounding the show and his interviews would make it harder for him to dupe guests.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen guest-starred in the fifth season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm", with Dustin Hoffman, as a guide to Heaven. He also provided the voice of the ring-tailed lemur king, King Julien, in DreamWorks Animation's film series, "Madagascar", and appeared as Will Ferrell's arch rival, the French Formula One speed demon Jean Girard, in the hit "" (2006). He also appeared alongside Johnny Depp in the film "" (2007) as Signor Adolfo Pirelli, co-starred in Martin Scorsese's adventure film "Hugo" (2011), and portrayed Thénardier in the 2012 film version of the musical "Les Misérables". He appeared as a BBC News Anchor in "" (2013).


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen has twice presented the MTV Europe Music Awards, first as Ali G on 8 November 2001, in Frankfurt, Germany, and then as Borat on 3 November 2005 in Lisbon, Portugal. Baron Cohen appeared out of character to accept an award at the British Comedy Awards in December 2006. He said at the time that Borat could not make it to the awards as "he's guest of honour at the Holocaust denial conference in Tehran", referring to the International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In September 2010, representatives for Baron Cohen confirmed that he was set to play Freddie Mercury in the "Bohemian Rhapsody" biopic about the rock singer. He dropped out of the project in July 2013, citing "creative differences" between him and the surviving members of Queen. Queen guitarist Brian May later said that even though the band and Baron Cohen were on good terms, they felt that his presence would be "distracting". The role was later played by Rami Malek. Baron Cohen shot a spread with supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio for "Marie Claire" magazine to promote the film "Brüno". In 2010, Baron Cohen guest-starred in "The Simpsons" episode, "The Greatest Story Ever D'ohed", as Jakob, a quick-tempered Israeli tour guide.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In 2012, Baron Cohen and his production company Four By Two Films signed a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures,


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In Baron Cohen's "Grimsby" (2016; "The Brothers Grimsby" in the US), he plays the football hooligan brother of a British MI6 spy. The film received mixed reviews from critics and was a failure at the box office.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen portrayed political activist/anarchist Abbie Hoffman in the drama "The Trial of the Chicago 7", with Aaron Sorkin writing and directing. The film was released in September 2020 to positive reviews.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In an interview with former Tory MP politician Neil Hamilton in 2000, Ali G offered Hamilton what was allegedly cannabis, which Hamilton accepted and smoked, creating some minor controversy in the British media.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, Borat introduced Gnarls Barkley's performance of "Crazy", where he made a comment about Jessica Simpson, saying that he liked her mouth and that he could see it clearly through her denim pants.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: At the 2006 UK premiere of "Borat", he arrived in Leicester Square in a cart pulled by a mule and a number of "Kazakh women," announcing: "Good evening, gentleman and prostitutes. After this, I stay in a hotel in Kings Cross. We will all drink, wrestle with no clothes on and shoot dogs from the window".


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen has been criticised for the racist or prejudiced comments his characters have made (see "Da Ali G Show"). HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has replied to criticism concerning Baron Cohen's characters, "Through his alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people's ignorance and prejudice in much the same way "All in the Family" did years ago". Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry", rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself. "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice", Baron Cohen explains. Addressing the same topic in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel, Baron Cohen said, "I think that's quite an interesting thing with Borat, which is people really let down their guard with him because they're in a room with somebody who seems to have these outrageous opinions. They sometimes feel much more relaxed about letting their own outrageous, politically incorrect, prejudiced opinions come out".


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic." Regarding the enthusiastic response to his song, "In My Country There Is Problem" (also known as "Throw the Jew Down the Well"), he says, "Did it reveal that they were anti-Semitic? Perhaps. But maybe it just revealed that they were indifferent to anti-Semitism."


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen walked onto the runway during the Ágatha Ruiz de la Prada fashion show in Milan on 26 September 2008. In the character of one of his alter-egos Brüno, he was wearing a costume made of velcro. He appeared on the stage with a blanket and items of clothing stuck to his velcro suit. Lights were turned off while security intervened and escorted him off the stage, and the fashion show resumed normally shortly thereafter. Baron Cohen and his team allegedly accessed the fashion show using fake IDs.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: The government of Kazakhstan threatened Baron Cohen with legal action following the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in Lisbon, and the authority in charge of the country's country-code top-level domain name removed the website that he had created for his character Borat (previously: <nowiki>http://www.borat.kz)</nowiki> for alleged violation of the law—specifically, registering for the domain under a false name. "The New York Times", among others, has reported that Baron Cohen (in character as Borat) replied: "I'd like to state that I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my government decision to sue this Jew". He was, however, defended by Dariga Nazarbayeva, a politician and the daughter of Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who stated, "We should not be afraid of humour and we shouldn't try to control everything..." The deputy foreign minister of Kazakhstan later invited Baron Cohen to visit the country, stating that he could learn that "women drive cars, wine is made of grapes, and Jews are free to go to synagogues". After the success of the "Borat" film, the Kazakh government, including the president, altered their stance on Baron Cohen's parody, tacitly recognising the invaluable press coverage the controversy created for their country.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen encountered another problem around his Borat character. Two of the three University of South Carolina students who appear in "Borat" sued the filmmakers, alleging that they were duped into signing release forms while drunk, and that false promises were made that the footage was for a documentary that would never be screened in the US. On 11 December 2006, a Los Angeles judge denied the pair a restraining order to remove them from the film. The lawsuit was dismissed in February 2007.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: On 22 May 2009, a charity worker at a seniors' bingo game sued Baron Cohen, claiming an incident shot for "Brüno" at a charity bingo tournament left her disabled. However, the worker later retracted her statement, saying the "actor never struck her", but that he "beat her down emotionally to the point she's now confined to a wheelchair". The scene did not make the final cut for the film. The case was dismissed in late November 2009 on Anti-SLAPP grounds, with all lawyer's fees to be paid by the charity worker. The dismissal was appealed and upheld on 12 September 2011.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: On 30 April 2010, Palestinian Christian grocer Ayman Abu Aita, of the West Bank and former member of Fatah, filed a lawsuit against Baron Cohen, alleging that he had been defamed by false accusations that he was a terrorist in the movie "Bruno". Aita included David Letterman in the suit based on comments made during a 7 July 2009 appearance by Baron Cohen on the "Late Show with David Letterman". Unlike the other lawsuits, Aita did not sign a release form, and his case centred around whether Baron Cohen's portrayal of Aita was false, not whether he was defrauded. In September 2012, the defamation claim was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, and the court case was dismissed.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In 2018, former Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama sued Baron Cohen for $95 million relating to a mock interview in "Who is America?" and allegations of paedophilia. On 13 July 2021, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed the lawsuit after finding that Moore had signed a consent agreement barring his claims. Moore has filed notice of his intent to appeal the decision. On 8 July 2022, Baron Cohen defeated the lawsuit.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: For much of the early part of his career, Baron Cohen tended to avoid doing interviews out of character. However, in 2004, he did the talk show circuit appearing as himself on "Late Show with David Letterman", "The Opie and Anthony Show", "The Howard Stern Show", and others to promote the forthcoming season of his show on HBO. He was also interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered" and did an interview with "Rolling Stone", published in November 2006, that the magazine labelled as "his only interview as himself". He also appeared in an interview out of character with Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" on 4 January 2007.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: "Borat" director Larry Charles explains that Baron Cohen generally appears in character partly to "protect his weakness", by focusing public interest on his characters rather than himself. His other reason, "Newsweek" claims, is that Baron Cohen is fiercely private: "...according to the UK press, his publicists denied that he attended a party for the London premiere of "Borat" and that a party even occurred".


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: "Sports Illustrated"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s 6 November 2006 issue contains a column called "Skater vs. Instigator", which illustrates various amusing "parallels" between Baron Cohen and figure skater Sasha Cohen, ranging from their mutually held personal significance of the number 4 to their shared romantic interests in redheads.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: On 28 December 2015, Baron Cohen and his wife, Australian actress Isla Fisher, donated £335,000 ($500,000) to Save the Children as part of a programme to vaccinate children in northern Syria against measles; they donated the same amount to the International Rescue Committee, also aimed at helping Syrian refugees.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In 2019, Baron Cohen was awarded the Anti-Defamation League's International Leadership Award for opposing bigotry and prejudice. In accepting the award, Baron Cohen gave an impassioned speech directing criticism at internet companies, singling out Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter as part of "the biggest propaganda machine in history" and claiming that their rules on hate speech meant "they would have let Hitler buy ads".


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: In June 2020, Baron Cohen crashed the right-wing "March for Our Rights 3" protest in Olympia, Washington, a counter-protest to the March for Our Lives demonstration as a result of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. Disguised under heavy make-up, Baron Cohen sang a song telling listeners to attack liberals, CNN, the World Health Organization, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates and "mask-wearers". The crowd, which initially sang along, realized they were being pranked when counter-protestors recognized Baron Cohen and began laughing. Baron Cohen's security stopped the organizers from taking him off stage and turning off the power, and Baron Cohen was forced to flee in a private ambulance from the now-violent crowd. The incident was later revealed to have been organized as part of filming for "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm", with Baron Cohen in-character as Borat in disguise.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen first met Australian actress Isla Fisher at a party in Sydney in 2001, and they became engaged in 2004. Subsequent to Fisher's conversion to Judaism, the pair married on 15 March 2010 in a Jewish ceremony in Paris. They have two daughters, born 2007 and 2010, and a son, born 2015. They previously divided their time between Marylebone in London and Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles, before moving to Sydney.


title: Sacha Baron Cohen

text: Baron Cohen has said, "I wouldn't say I am a religious Jew. I am proud of my Jewish identity and there are certain things I do and customs I keep." He tries to keep kosher and attends synagogue about twice a year. He first acted in theatrical productions with the Labour Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror. He spent a year in Israel as a kibbutz volunteer at Rosh HaNikra and Beit HaEmek as part of the Shnat Habonim Dror, as well as taking part in the programme Machon L'Madrichei Chutz La'Aretz for Jewish youth movement leaders.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: SpongeBob SquarePants (or simply SpongeBob) is an American animated comedy television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It chronicles the adventures of the title character and his aquatic friends in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom. The fifth-longest-running American animated series, its high popularity has made it a media franchise. It is the highest rated Nickelodeon series and the most profitable property for Paramount Consumer Products, generating over $13 billion in merchandising revenue as of 2019.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Many of the series's ideas originated in "The Intertidal Zone", an unpublished educational comic book Hillenburg created in 1989 to teach his students about undersea life. He began developing "SpongeBob SquarePants" into a television series in 1996, and in 1997, a seven-minute pilot was pitched to Nickelodeon. The network's executives wanted SpongeBob to be a child in school, but Hillenburg preferred SpongeBob to be an adult character. He was prepared to abandon the series, but compromised by creating Mrs. Puff and her boating school so SpongeBob could attend school as an adult.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Nickelodeon aired a preview for the series in the United States on May 1, 1999, after the airing of the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards. The series officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It gained enormous popularity by its second season, and has subsequently received worldwide critical acclaim. The thirteenth season began in October 2020, and the series was renewed for a fourteenth season on March 24, 2022. It has inspired three feature films: "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" (2004), "" (2015), and "" (2020). Two spin-off series, "" and "The Patrick Star Show", premiered in 2021. As of February 2022, four additional films are planned: three character spinoff films for Paramount+, and a new theatrical "SpongeBob" film.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: "SpongeBob SquarePants" has won a variety of awards including six Annie Awards, eight Golden Reel Awards, four Emmy Awards, 19 Kids' Choice Awards, and two BAFTA Children's Awards. A Broadway musical based on it opened in 2017 to critical acclaim.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: The series takes place primarily in the fictional benthic underwater city of Bikini Bottom located in the Pacific Ocean beneath the real-life coral reef known as Bikini Atoll. Its citizens are mostly multicolored fish who live in buildings made from ship funnels and use "boatmobiles", amalgamations of cars and boats, as a mode of transportation. Recurring locations within Bikini Bottom include the neighboring houses of SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward; two competing restaurants, the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket; Mrs. Puff's Boating School, which includes a driving course and a sunken lighthouse; the Treedome, an oxygenated glass enclosure where Sandy lives; Shady Shoals Rest Home; a seagrass meadow called Jellyfish Fields; and Goo Lagoon, a subaqueous brine pool that is a popular beach hangout.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: When the "SpongeBob" crew began production of the series' pilot episode, they were tasked with designing stock locations, to be used repeatedly, where most scenes would take place like the Krusty Krab and SpongeBob's pineapple house. The idea was "to keep everything nautical", so the crew used plenty of rope, wooden planks, ships' wheels, netting, anchors, boilerplates, and rivets to create the show's setting. Transitions between scenes are marked by bubbles filling the screen, accompanied by the sound of rushing water.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: The series features "sky flowers" as a main setting material. When series background designer Kenny Pittenger was asked what they were, he answered, "They function as clouds in a way, but since the show takes place underwater, they aren't really clouds. Because of the tiki influence on the show, the background painters use a lot of pattern." Pittenger said the sky flowers were meant to "evoke the look of a flower-print Hawaiian shirt".


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: The series revolves around the title character and an ensemble cast of his aquatic friends. SpongeBob SquarePants is an energetic and optimistic yellow sea sponge who lives in a submerged pineapple. SpongeBob has a childlike enthusiasm for life, which carries over to his job as a fry cook at a fast food restaurant called the Krusty Krab. One of his life's greatest goals is to obtain a boat-driving license from Mrs. Puff's Boating School, but he never succeeds. His favorite pastimes include "jellyfishing", which involves catching jellyfish with a net in a manner similar to butterfly catching, and blowing soap bubbles into elaborate shapes. He has a pet sea snail with a pink shell and a blue body named Gary, who meows like a cat.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Living two houses away from SpongeBob is his best friend Patrick Star, a dim-witted yet friendly pink starfish who resides under a rock. Despite his mental setbacks, Patrick sees himself as intelligent. Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob's next-door neighbor and co-worker at the Krusty Krab, is an arrogant, ill-tempered octopus who lives in an Easter Island moai. He enjoys playing the clarinet and painting self-portraits but hates his job as a cashier. He also dislikes living between SpongeBob and Patrick because of their childish nature. The owner of the Krusty Krab is a miserly, greedy red crab named Mr. Krabs who talks like a sailor and runs his restaurant as if it were a pirate ship. He is a single parent with a teenage daughter, a grey sperm whale with red lipstick and a yellow ponytail named Pearl, to whom he wants to bequeath his riches. Pearl does not want to continue the family business and would rather spend her time listening to music or working at the local shopping mall. Another of SpongeBob's friends is Sandy Cheeks, a thrill-seeking and athletic squirrel from Texas, who wears an air-filled diving suit to breathe underwater. She lives in a tree enclosed in a clear glass dome locked by an airtight, hand-turned seal and is an expert in karate, as well as a scientist.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Located across the street from the Krusty Krab is an unsuccessful rival restaurant called the Chum Bucket. It is run by a small, green, one-eyed copepod named Plankton and his computer wife, Karen. Plankton constantly tries to steal the secret recipe for Mr. Krabs's popular Krabby Patty burgers, hoping to gain the upper hand and put the Krusty Krab out of business. Karen supplies him with evil schemes to obtain the formula, but their efforts always fail and their restaurant rarely has any customers. When SpongeBob is not working at the Krusty Krab, he is often taking boating lessons from Mrs. Puff, a paranoid but patient pufferfish. SpongeBob is Mrs. Puff's most diligent student and knows every answer to the oral exams he takes, but he panics and crashes when he tries to drive a real boat. When Mrs. Puff endures one of SpongeBob's crashes or is otherwise frightened, she puffs up into a ball.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: An unseen figure called the French Narrator often introduces episodes and narrates the intertitles as if the series were a nature documentary about the ocean. His role and distinctive manner of speaking are references to the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Recurring guest characters appear throughout the series including: the retired superheroes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, who are idolized by SpongeBob and Patrick; a pirate specter known as the Flying Dutchman; the muscular lifeguard of Goo Lagoon, Larry the Lobster; and the merman god of the sea, King Neptune.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Special (generally half-hour or hour-long) episodes of the show are hosted by a live-action pirate named Patchy and his pet parrot Potty, whose segments are presented in a dual narrative with the animated stories. Patchy is portrayed as the president of a fictional "SpongeBob" fan club, and his greatest aspiration is to meet SpongeBob himself. Potty likes to make fun of Patchy's enthusiasm and causes trouble for him while he tries to host the show.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Series' creator Stephen Hillenburg first became fascinated with the ocean as a child and began developing his artistic abilities at a young age. Although these interests would not overlap for some time—the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him—Hillenburg pursued both during college, majoring in marine biology and minoring in art. After graduating in 1984, he joined the Ocean Institute, an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: While Hillenburg was there, his love of the ocean began to influence his artistry. He created a precursor to "SpongeBob SquarePants": a comic book titled "The Intertidal Zone" used by the institute to teach visiting students about the animal life of tide pools. The comic starred various anthropomorphic sea lifeforms, many of which would evolve into "SpongeBob SquarePants" characters. Hillenburg tried to get the comic professionally published, but none of the companies he sent it to were interested.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: A large inspiration to Hillenburg was Ween's 1997 album "The Mollusk", which had a nautical and underwater theme. Hillenburg contacted the band shortly after the album's release, explaining the baseline ideas for "SpongeBob SquarePants", and also requested a song from the band, which they sent on Christmas Eve. This song was "Loop de Loop", which was used in the episode "Your Shoe's Untied".


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: While working as a staff artist at the Ocean Institute, Hillenburg entertained plans to return eventually to college for a master's degree in art. Before this could materialize, he attended an animation festival, which inspired him to make a slight change in course. Instead of continuing his education with a traditional art program, Hillenburg chose to study experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts. His thesis film, "Wormholes", is about the theory of relativity. It was screened at festivals, and at one of these, Hillenburg met Joe Murray, creator of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, "Rocko's Modern Life". Murray was impressed by the style of the film and offered Hillenburg a job. Hillenburg joined the series as a director, and later, during the fourth season, he took on the roles of producer and creative director.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Martin Olson, one of the writers for "Rocko's Modern Life", read "The Intertidal Zone" and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, Hillenburg had not even considered creating his own series. However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach. He began to develop some of the characters from "The Intertidal Zone", including the comic's "announcer", Bob the Sponge. He wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time, which he felt were exemplified by buddy comedies like "The Ren & Stimpy Show". As a result, Hillenburg decided to focus on a single main character: the "weirdest" sea creature he could think of. This led him to the sponge. "The Intertidal Zone"s Bob the Sponge resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first, Hillenburg continued to use this design. In determining the new character's behavior, Hillenburg drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, and Pee-wee Herman. He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge and realized this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly. Patrick, Mr. Krabs, Pearl, and Squidward were the next characters Hillenburg created for the show.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: To voice the series' central character, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had started alongside Hillenburg's on "Rocko's Modern Life". Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed to develop the character further. Initially, Hillenburg wanted to use the name SpongeBoy—the character had no last name—and the series was to have been called "SpongeBoy Ahoy!" However, the Nickelodeon legal department discovered—after voice acting had been completed for the original seven-minute pilot episode—that the name "SpongeBoy" was already copyrighted. In choosing a replacement name, Hillenburg felt he still had to use the word "Sponge", so that viewers would not mistake the character for a "Cheese Man". He settled on the name "SpongeBob". "SquarePants" was chosen as a family name after Kenny saw a picture of the character and remarked, "Boy, look at this sponge in square pants, thinking he can get a job in a fast food place." When he heard Kenny say it Hillenburg loved the phrase and felt it would reinforce the character's nerdiness.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Derek Drymon, who served as creative director for the first three seasons, has said that Hillenburg wanted to surround himself with a "team of young and hungry people." Many of the major contributors to "SpongeBob SquarePants" had worked before with Hillenburg on "Rocko's Modern Life": this included: Drymon, art director Nick Jennings, supervising director Alan Smart, writer/voice actor Doug Lawrence (often credited as Mr. Lawrence), and Tim Hill, who helped develop the series bible.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Although Drymon would go on to have a significant influence on "SpongeBob SquarePants", he was not offered a role on the series initially. As a late recruit to "Rocko's Modern Life", he had not established much of a relationship with Hillenburg before "SpongeBob"s conception. Hillenburg first sought out Drymon's storyboard partner, Mark O'Hare—but he had just created the soon-to-be syndicated comic strip, "Citizen Dog". While he would later join "SpongeBob" as a writer, he lacked the time to get involved with both projects from the outset. Drymon has said, "I remember Hillenburg's bringing it up to Mark in our office and asking him if he'd be interested in working on it ... I was all ready to say yes to the offer, but Steve didn't ask; he just left the room. I was pretty desperate ... so I ran into the hall after him and basically begged him for the job. He didn't jump at the chance." Once Hillenburg had given it some thought and decided to bring Drymon on as creative director, the two began meeting at Hillenburg's house several times a week to develop the series. Drymon has identified this period as having begun in 1996, shortly after the end of "Rocko's Modern Life".


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Jennings was also instrumental in "SpongeBob"s genesis. Kenny has called him "one of SpongeBob's early graphics mentors". On weekends, Kenny joined Hillenburg, Jennings, and Drymon for creative sessions where they recorded ideas on a tape recorder. Kenny performed audio tests as SpongeBob during these sessions, while Hillenburg voice acted the other characters.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Hill contributed scripts for several first-season episodes (including the pilot) and was offered the role of story editor, but turned it down—he would go on to pursue a career as a family film director. In his stead, Pete Burns was brought in for the job. Burns hailed from Chicago and had never met any of the principal players on "SpongeBob" before joining the team.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: While pitching the cartoon to Nickelodeon executives, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. The setup was described by Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman as "pretty amazing". They were given money and two weeks to write the pilot episode "Help Wanted". Drymon, Hillenburg, and Jennings returned with what was described by Nickelodeon official Albie Hecht as, "a performance [he] wished [he] had on tape". Although executive producer Derek Drymon described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well". Kevin Kay and Hecht had to step outside because they were "exhausted from laughing", which worried the cartoonists.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: In an interview, Cyma Zarghami, then-president of Nickelodeon, said, "their [Nickelodeon executives'] immediate reaction was to see it again, both because they liked it and it was unlike anything they'd ever seen before". Zarghami was one of four executives in the room when "SpongeBob SquarePants" was screened for the first time.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Before commissioning the full series, Nickelodeon executives insisted that it would not be popular unless SpongeBob was a child who went to school, with his teacher as a main character. Hillenburg recalled in 2012 that Nickelodeon told him, "Our winning formula is animation about kids in school... We want you to put SpongeBob in school." Hillenburg was ready to "walk out" on Nickelodeon and abandon the series, since he wanted SpongeBob to be an adult character. He eventually compromised by adding a new character to the main cast, Mrs. Puff, who is a boat-driving teacher. Hillenburg was happy with the compromise and said, "A positive thing for me that came out of it was [how it brought] in a new character, Mrs. Puff, who I love."


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Until his death in 2018, Hillenburg had served as the executive producer over the course of the series' entire history and functioned as its showrunner from its debut in 1999 until 2004. The series went on hiatus in 2002, after Hillenburg halted production on the show itself to work on the feature film "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie". Once the film was finalized and the third season finished, Hillenburg resigned as the series' showrunner. Although he no longer had a direct role in the series' production, he maintained an advisory role and reviewed each episode.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: When the film was completed, Hillenburg intended it to be the series finale, "so [the show] wouldn't jump the shark." However, Nickelodeon wanted more episodes. Hillenburg appointed Paul Tibbitt, who had previously served on the show as a writer, director, and storyboard artist, to take over his role as showrunner to produce additional seasons. Hillenburg considered Tibbitt one of his favorite members of the show's crew, and "totally trusted him".


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: On December 13, 2014, it was announced that Hillenburg would return to the series in an unspecified position. On November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, Hillenburg died from complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which he had been diagnosed with in March 2017. Nickelodeon confirmed via Twitter the series would continue after his death. In February 2019, incoming president Brian Robbins vowed Nickelodeon would keep the show in production for as long as the network exists.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: As of the ninth season, former writers and storyboard directors Vincent Waller and Marc Ceccarelli act as showrunners.


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text: According to writer and storyboard artist Luke Brookshier, ""SpongeBob" is written differently to many television shows." Unlike most of its contemporaries, "SpongeBob SquarePants" does not use written scripts. Instead, storylines are developed by a team of five outline and premise writers. A two-page outline is then assigned to a team of storyboard directors, who produce a complete rough draft of the storyboard. One of the methods used to assemble storyboards was to use Post-it notes. Most of the dialogue and jokes are added during this stage. Brookshier has likened this process to how cartoons were made "in the early days of animation."


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text: The decision to eschew scripts for storyboards is one that Hillenburg made early in the series' development. "Rocko's Modern Life" had also used storyboarding derived from short outlines, and having worked on that series, Hillenburg felt strongly about adopting the process for "SpongeBob SquarePants"—even though Nickelodeon was beginning to show a greater preference for script-driven cartoons. Another series' writer, Merriwether Williams, explained in an interview that she and Mr. Lawrence would write a draft for an episode in an afternoon and be done at 4:00 pm.


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text: The writing staff often used their personal experiences as inspiration for the storylines of the series' episodes. For example, the episode "Sailor Mouth", where SpongeBob and Patrick learn profanity, was inspired by creative director Derek Drymon's experience as a child of getting into trouble for using the f-word in front of his mother. Drymon said, "The scene where Patrick is running to Mr. Krabs to tattle, with SpongeBob chasing him, is pretty much how it happened in real life". The end of the episode when Mr. Krabs uses even more profanity than SpongeBob and Patrick, was inspired "by the fact that my [Drymon's] mother has a sailor mouth herself". The idea for the episode "The Secret Box" also came from one of Drymon's childhood experiences. Hillenburg explained, "Drymon had a secret box [as a kid] and started telling us about it. We wanted to make fun of him "and" use it."


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text: Almost every episode is divided into two 11-minute segments. Hillenburg explained: "[I] never really wanted to deliberately try to write a half-hour show". He added, "I wrote the shows to where they felt right".


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text: "SpongeBob SquarePants" features the voices of: Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Jill Talley, Carolyn Lawrence, Mary Jo Catlett, and Lori Alan. Most one-off and background characters are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, Sirena Irwin, Bob Joles, Mark Fite and Thomas F. Wilson.


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text: Kenny voices SpongeBob and a number of other characters, including SpongeBob's pet snail Gary and the French narrator. He also physically portrays Patchy the Pirate in live-action segments of most special episodes. Kenny previously worked with Stephen Hillenburg on "Rocko's Modern Life". When Hillenburg created "SpongeBob SquarePants", he approached Kenny to voice the main character. Kenny originally used the voice of SpongeBob for a minor character on "Rocko". He forgot how to perform the voice initially and did not intend to use it afterward. Hillenburg, however, used a video clip of the episode to remind Kenny of the voice. When Hillenburg heard Kenny perform the voice, he knew immediately he wanted it for his character. He said to Nickelodeon executives, "That's it—I don't want to hear anybody else do the voice. We've got SpongeBob." The network insisted on auditioning more actors, but Hillenburg turned them down; in the words of Tom Kenny, "one of the advantages of having a strong creator is that the creator can say, 'No, I like that—I don't care about celebrities.'" While Kenny was developing SpongeBob's voice, the show's casting crew wanted him to have a unique, high-pitched laugh in the tradition of Popeye and Woody Woodpecker.


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text: Fagerbakke voices Patrick Star and other miscellaneous characters. At the same time when Hillenburg, Derek Drymon and Tim Hill were writing the pilot "Help Wanted", Hillenburg was also conducting auditions to find voices for the characters. Fagerbakke auditioned for the role of Patrick after Kenny had been cast. Fagerbakke recalled that during this audition, "Hillenburg actually played for me a portion of Tom [Kenny]'s performance [as SpongeBob], and they were looking for a counterpoint." In an interview, Fagerbakke compared himself to the character and said, "It's extremely gratifying". Whenever Patrick is angry Fagerbakke models his performance after American actress Shelley Winters.


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text: Squidward Tentacles is voiced by Rodger Bumpass, who describes him as "a very nasally, monotone kind of guy." He said the character "became a very interesting character to do" because of "his sarcasm, and then his frustration, and then his apoplexy, and so he became a wide spectrum of emotions". Arthur Brown, author of "Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Cartoons!", has compared Squidward's voice to that of Jack Benny's, a similarity Bumpass says is mostly unintentional. Voice acting veteran Clancy Brown voices Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob's boss at the Krusty Krab. Hillenburg modeled Mr. Krabs after his former manager at a seafood restaurant, whose strong Maine accent reminded Hillenburg of a pirate. Brown decided to use a "piratey" voice for the character with "a little Scottish brogue" after hearing Hillenburg's description of his boss. According to Brown, his Mr. Krabs voice was mostly improvised during his audition and it was not challenging for him to find the correct voice.


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text: Mr. Lawrence had met Hillenburg before on "Rocko's Modern Life". While working on the pilot episode of "SpongeBob", Hillenburg invited him to audition for all the characters. Since other voices had been found for the main cast already, Lawrence began by voicing a variety of minor characters. This included Plankton, who was initially only set to appear in one episode. Mr. Lawrence recalls that Nickelodeon executives told Hillenburg, "'we could stunt-cast this. You know, we could have Bruce Willis do this voice.' And Steve was just like, 'it's Doug [Lawrence], don't you hear it? This is the character! This is the guy!'" Jill Talley, Tom Kenny's wife, voices Karen Plankton. Being a Chicago native, she uses a Midwestern accent for the character. Electronic sound effects are underlaid by the series' audio engineers to create a robotic sound when she speaks. Talley and Mr. Lawrence often improvise Plankton and Karen's dialogue. Lawrence called improvisation his "favorite part of the voice over" in 2009. He elaborated in a 2012 interview, saying, "I always enjoy the back-and-forth. [Talley and I] start to actually overlap so much talking to each other that [the voice directors] have to tell us, 'hey, stop doing that, separate what you're saying!'"


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text: Carolyn Lawrence voices Sandy Cheeks. She was in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, with a friend who knew "SpongeBob SquarePants" casting director Donna Grillo. Her friend said to Grillo that Lawrence had "an interesting voice". Grillo invited her to audition and she got the role. American actress Mary Jo Catlett, who is known for her live-action roles on television programs from the 1970s such as "Diff'rent Strokes" and "M*A*S*H" provides Mrs. Puff's voice. As of 2017, voicing Mrs. Puff has become her only regular television role; Catlett described herself as "basically retired" in 2013, since she feels that voicing Mrs. Puff requires less preparation than her performances in person. Lori Alan voices Pearl Krabs. During her audition for the role, Alan was shown an early drawing of the characters and noted that Pearl was much larger than the rest of the cast. She decided to reflect the character's size in her voice by making it deep and full in tone. She aimed to make it invoke the sound of whales' low vocalizations while also sounding "spoiled and lovable." In an interview with AfterBuzz TV, Alan said she knew Pearl "had to sound somewhat like a child," but needed "an abnormally large voice."


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text: In addition to the regular cast, episodes feature guest voices from many professions, including actors, athletes, authors, musicians, and artists. Recurring guest voices include: Ernest Borgnine, who voiced Mermaid Man from 1999 until his death in 2012; Tim Conway as the voice of Barnacle Boy from 1999 until his death in 2019; Brian Doyle-Murray as the Flying Dutchman; and Marion Ross as Grandma SquarePants. Notable guests who have provided vocal cameo appearances include: David Bowie as Lord Royal Highness in the television film "Atlantis SquarePantis"; John Goodman as the voice of Santa in the episode "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!"; Johnny Depp as the voice of the surf guru, Jack Kahuna Laguna, in the episode "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One"; and Victoria Beckham as the voice of Queen Amphitrite in the episode "The Clash of Triton".


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text: Voice recording sessions always include a full cast of actors, which Kenny describes as "getting more unusual". Kenny said, "That's another thing that's given "SpongeBob" its special feel. Everybody's in the same room, doing it old radio-show style. It's how the stuff we like was recorded". Series writer Jay Lender said, "The recording sessions were always fun ..." For the first three seasons, Hillenburg and Drymon sat in the recording studio and directed the actors. Andrea Romano became the voice director in the fourth season, and Tom Kenny took over the role during the ninth. Wednesday is recording day, the same schedule followed by the crew since 1999. Casting supervisor Jennie Monica Hammond said, "I loved Wednesdays".


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text: Approximately 50 people work together to animate and produce an episode of "SpongeBob SquarePants". Throughout its run, the series' production has been handled domestically at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California. The finished animation has been created overseas at Rough Draft Studios in South Korea. The California crew storyboard each episode. These are then used as templates by the crew in Korea, who animate each scene by hand, color each cel on computers, and paint backgrounds. Episodes are finished in California, where they are edited and have music added.


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text: During the first season, the series used cel animation. A shift was made the following year to digital ink and paint animation. In 2009, executive producer Paul Tibbitt said: "The first season of "SpongeBob" was done the old-fashioned way on cells "[sic]", and every cell "sic" had to be part-painted, left to dry, paint some other colors. It's still a time-consuming aspect of the process now, but the digital way of doing things means it doesn't take long to correct".


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text: In 2008, the crew began using Wacom Cintiqs for the drawings instead of pencils. The fifth season episode "Pest of the West", one of the half-hour specials, was the first episode where the crew applied this method. Series' background designer Kenny Pittenger said, "The only real difference between the way we draw now and the way we drew then is that we abandoned pencil and paper during the fifth season". The shift to Wacom Cintiqs let the designers and animators draw on computer screens and make immediate changes or undo mistakes. Pittenger said, "Many neo-Luddites—er ... I mean, many of my cohorts—don't like working on them, but I find them useful. There's no substitute for the immediacy of drawing on a piece of paper, of course, but digital nautical nonsense is still pretty fun".


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text: Since 2004, the "SpongeBob" crew has periodically collaborated with the LA-based animation studio Screen Novelties to create stop-motion sequences for special episodes. The studio produced a brief claymation scene for the climax of the first theatrical film. It was re-enlisted in 2009 to create an exclusive opening for the series' tenth anniversary special. The abominable snow mollusk, an octopus-like creature made of clay who acts as the antagonist of the double-length episode "Frozen Face-Off", was also animated by the company. "Animation World Network" reported that "within the "SpongeBob" creative team, there was always talk of doing a more involved project together" with Screen Novelties. As a result, the group was asked to create an episode animated entirely in stop motion in 2011. This project became "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!", which reimagined the show's characters as if they were part of a Rankin/Bass holiday film. Tom Kenny, who is normally uninvolved in the writing process, contributed to the episode's plot; he said in 2012 that he and Nickelodeon "wanted to do something just like those old school, stop-motion Rankin-Bass holiday specials ... which I watched over and over again when I was a kid growing up in Syracuse." Unconventional materials such as baking soda, glitter, wood chips and breakfast cereal were used in mass quantities to create the special's sets. Members of the Screen Novelties crew received one win and two nominations at the 30th Annie Awards, a nomination at the 2013 Golden Reel Awards, and a nomination at the 2013 Annecy International Animated Film Festival for animating the episode. The team built a dolphin puppet named Bubbles, voiced by Matt Berry, for "". Sequences involving Bubbles included a blend of stop motion and traditional animation. A second special animated in stop motion, themed around Halloween and using the same Rankin/Bass-inspired character models, was produced for season 11.


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text: Mark Harrison and Blaise Smith composed the "SpongeBob SquarePants" theme song. Its lyrics were written by Stephen Hillenburg and the series' original creative director Derek Drymon. The melody was inspired by the sea shanty "Blow the Man Down". An old oil painting of a pirate is used in the opening sequence. Dubbed "Painty the Pirate", according to Tom Kenny, Hillenburg found it in a thrift shop "years ago". Patrick Pinney voices Painty the Pirate, singing the theme song as the character. Hillenburg's lips were imposed onto the painting and move along with the lyrics. Kenny joked this is "about as close of a glimpse as most "SpongeBob" fans are ever going to get of Steve Hillenburg", because of his private nature.


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text: A cover of the song by Avril Lavigne can be found on the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack. Another cover by the Violent Femmes aired on Nickelodeon as a promotion when the series moved to prime time.


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text: Steve Belfer, one of Hillenburg's friends from CalArts, wrote and performed the music heard over the end credits. This theme includes ukulele music at Hillenburg's request. Drymon said, "It's so long ago, it's hard to be sure, but I remember Hillenburg having the Belfer music early on, maybe before the pilot".


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text: The series' music editor and main composer is Nicolas Carr. After working with Hillenburg on "Rocko's Modern Life", he struggled to find a new job in his field. He had considered a career change before Hillenburg offered him the job. The first season's score primarily featured selections from the Associated Production Music Library, which Carr has said includes "lots of great old corny Hawaiian music and big, full, dramatic orchestral scores." "Rocko's Modern Life" also used music from this library. It was Hillenburg's decision to adopt this approach. Carr has described the selections for "SpongeBob SquarePants" as being "more over-the-top" than those for "Rocko's Modern Life".


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text: Hillenburg felt it was important for the series to develop its own music library, consisting of scores that could be reused and re-edited throughout the years. He wanted these scores to be composed by unknowns, and a group of twelve was assembled. They formed "The Sponge Divers Orchestra", which includes Carr and Belfer. The group went on to provide most of the music for later seasons, although Carr still draws from the Associated Production Music Library, as well as another library that he founded himself—Animation Music Inc.


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text: Nickelodeon began celebrating the series' 10th anniversary on January 18, 2009, with a live cast reading of the episode "SpongeBob vs. The Big One". The reading—a first for the series—was held at that year's Sundance Film Festival. The episode, which premiered on TV on April 17, 2009, features Johnny Depp as a guest star. Other celebratory actions taken by the network included the launching of a new website for the series (spongebob.com) and the introduction of new merchandise. A "SpongeBob and water conservation-themed element" was also added to Nickelodeon's pro-social campaign "The Big Green Help". In an interview, Tom Kenny said, "What I'm most proud of is that kids still really like ["SpongeBob SquarePants"] and care about it ... They eagerly await new episodes. People who were young children when it started 10 years ago are still watching it and digging it and think it's funny. That's the loving cup for me."


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text: Three nights before the official anniversary date, an hour-long documentary on the series, "", premiered on VH1. Critically acclaimed duo Patrick Creadon and Christine O'Malley created the film as a followup to "I.O.U.S.A."—a documentary on America's financial situation. Creadon remarked, "After spending two years examining the financial health of the United States, Christine and I were ready to tackle something a little more upbeat. Telling the SpongeBob story feels like the perfect fit." On Friday, July 17, Nickelodeon marked the official anniversary of the series, with a 50-hour television marathon titled "The Ultimate SpongeBob SpongeBash Weekend". It began with a new episode, "To SquarePants or Not to SquarePants". Saturday saw a countdown of the top ten episodes as picked by fans, as well as an airing of "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie". The marathon finished on Sunday, with a countdown of episodes picked by celebrities and the premiere of ten new episodes.


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text: Nickelodeon continued celebrating the anniversary through the rest of the year. An eight-episode DVD set featuring "To SquarePants or Not to SquarePants" was released shortly after the marathon on July 21. Next a 2,200 minute, 14-disc DVD set titled "The First 100 Episodes" was released on September 22. Finally, on November 6, an hour-long television film, titled "Truth or Square", debuted on Nickelodeon. The film is narrated by Ricky Gervais and features live action cameo appearances by: Rosario Dawson, Craig Ferguson, Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, LeBron James, P!nk, Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, and Robin Williams. It was released as part of a five-episode DVD set on November 10, 2009.


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text: On February 11, 2019, Nickelodeon announced it would recognize the twentieth anniversary of "SpongeBob SquarePants" with a series of celebrations known as the "Best Year Ever". In honor of the anniversary, Pantone created color shades known as "SpongeBob SquarePants Yellow" and "Patrick Star Pink" to be used by Nickelodeon's licensing partners. Romero Britto, Jon Burgerman, and the Filipino art collective Secret Fresh were commissioned by Nickelodeon to create art pieces devoted to "SpongeBob SquarePants". Some of these pieces were to be adapted into commercial products. On February 12, in conjunction with Nickelodeon's announcement of the "Best Year Ever", Cynthia Rowley presented a "SpongeBob SquarePants"-themed wetsuit during New York Fashion Week. A month later, Marlou Breuls presented the "SpongeBob SquarePants"-themed "Icon Collection" during Amsterdam Fashion Week. That summer, Nike, in collaboration with Kyrie Irving, released a "SpongeBob SquarePants" series of shoes, accessories, and apparel. In July, for the first time ever, "SpongeBob SquarePants" became the theme of a cosmetics line, which was released as a limited time offering by HipDot Studios. The "Best Year Ever" also introduced an official "SpongeBob SquarePants" YouTube channel and a new mobile game based on the series, along with new toy lines.


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text: The "Best Year Ever" formally began on July 12, 2019, with the premiere of the one-hour, live-action/animated TV special "SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout". It continued that month at San Diego Comic Con, with two panels, a booth, and various activities devoted to the series. The "Best Year Ever" was recognized on Amazon Prime Day with an exclusive early release of "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Best 200 Episodes Ever!", a 30-disc DVD compilation of two box sets, "SpongeBob SquarePants: The First 100 Episodes" and "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Next 100 Episodes". The collections received a standard nationwide release on August 27. The "Best Year Ever" continued into 2020 culminating with the August 14 release of "".


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: Within its first month on air, "SpongeBob SquarePants" overtook "Pokémon" as the highest rated Saturday-morning children's series on television. It held an average national Nielsen rating of 4.9 among children aged two through eleven, denoting 1.9 million viewers. Two years later, the series had firmly established itself as Nickelodeon's second highest-rated children's program, after "Rugrats". "SpongeBob SquarePants" was credited with helping Nickelodeon take the "Saturday-morning ratings crown" for the fourth straight season in 2001. The series had gained a significant adult audience by that point—nearly 40 percent of its 2.2 million viewers were aged 18 to 34. In response to its weekend success, Nickelodeon gave "SpongeBob SquarePants" time slots at 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM, Monday through Thursday, to increase the series' exposure. By the end of 2001, "SpongeBob SquarePants" boasted the highest ratings for any children's series, on all of television. Weekly viewership of the series had reached around fifteen million, at least five million of whom were adults.


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text: In October 2002, another Nickelodeon series, "The Fairly OddParents", ranked as the number two program for children between two and eleven years old. Its ratings at that time were almost equal to "SpongeBob SquarePants" then-average of 2.2 million viewers per episode. "The Fairly OddParents" even briefly surpassed "SpongeBob SquarePants", causing it to drop into second place. At this time, "The Fairly OddParents" had a 6.2 rating and nearly 2.5 million child viewers, while "SpongeBob SquarePants" had a 6.0 rating and 2.4 million child viewers aged two to eleven. Nickelodeon "recognized" "The Fairly OddParents" for its climbing ratings and installed it in a new 8:00 PM time slot, previously occupied by "SpongeBob SquarePants". In an interview, Cyma Zarghami, then-general manager and executive vice president of Nickelodeon, said, "Are we banking on the fact that "Fairly OddParents" will be the next "SpongeBob"? ... We are hoping. But "SpongeBob" is so unique, it's hard to say if it will ever be repeated."


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text: In 2012, however, the series' ratings were declining. The average number of viewers aged two to eleven watching "SpongeBob" at any given time dropped 29% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Nielsen. "Wall Street Journal" business writer John Jannarone suggested the series' age and oversaturation might be contributing to its ratings' decline and might also be directly responsible for the decline in Nickelodeon's overall ratings. Media analyst Todd Juenger attributed the decline in Nickelodeon's ratings directly to the availability of streaming video content on services like Netflix, a provider of on-demand Internet streaming media.


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text: Philippe Dauman, the president and CEO of Viacom, contradicted that notion, saying: "We are getting nice revenues through these subscription VOD deals", adding Netflix only has "some library content" on its service. A Nickelodeon spokesman said, ""SpongeBob" is performing consistently well and remains the number one rated animated series in all of children's television." He added, "There is nothing that we have seen that points to "SpongeBob" as a problem." Dauman blamed the drop on "some ratings systemic issues" at Nielsen, citing extensive set-top-box data that "does in no way reflect" the Nielsen data.


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text: Juenger noted "SpongeBob" could affect the ratings of other Nickelodeon programming because children often change channels to find their favorite programs, then stay tuned to that network. Nickelodeon reduced its exposure on television. In the first quarter of 2012, the network cut back on the number of episodes it aired by 16% compared to a year earlier.


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text: On April 22, 2013, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced their intentions not to renew their existing deal with Viacom. Viacom's deal with Netflix expired, and shows such as "SpongeBob" and "Dora the Explorer" were removed. However, seasons five through eight of "SpongeBob" are still available to stream on Netflix in Canada. On June 4, 2013, Viacom announced a multi-year licensing agreement which would move its programs, such as "SpongeBob" and "Dora the Explorer", to Amazon.com, Netflix's top competitor. Amazon agreed to pay more than $200 million to Viacom for the license, its largest subscription streaming transaction ever.


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: "SpongeBob SquarePants" is one of the longest-running series on Nickelodeon. It became the network's series with the most episodes during its eighth season, surpassing the 172 episodes of "Rugrats". In the ninth season, its 26 episodes brought the number of episodes produced to 204. In a statement, Brown Johnson, Nickelodeon's animation president said, ""SpongeBob" success in reaching over 200 episodes is a testament to creator Stephen Hillenburg's vision, comedic sensibility and his dynamic, lovable characters. The series now joins the club of contemporary classic Nicktoons that have hit this benchmark, so we're incredibly proud."


title: SpongeBob SquarePants

text: "SpongeBob SquarePants" has been widely praised particularly for its appeal to different age groups, and the show has earned numerous awards and accolades throughout its run. James Poniewozik of "Time" magazine described the title character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to match—conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him." According to Laura Fries of "Variety" magazine, the series is "a thoughtful and inventive cartoon about a hopelessly optimistic and resilient sea sponge ... Devoid of the double entendres rife in today's animated TV shows, this is purely kid's stuff. ... However, that's not to say that "SpongeBob" is simplistic or even juvenile. It's charming and whimsical, but clever enough to appeal to teens and college-aged kids, as well." "The New York Times" critic Joyce Millman said "SpongeBob" "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest. And it's also good, clean fun, which makes sense because it is, after all, about a sponge." Millman wrote, "His relentless good cheer would be irritating if he weren't so darned lovable and his world so excellently strange. ... Like "Pee-wee's Playhouse", SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."