title: El (deity)

text: Philo of Byblos (c. 64–141 AD) was a Greek writer whose account "Sanchuniathon" survives in quotation by Eusebius and may contain the major surviving traces of Phoenician mythology. ʼĒl (rendered "Elus" or called by his standard Greek counterpart Cronus) is not the creator god or first god. ʼĒl is rather the son of Sky (Uranus) and Earth (Ge). Sky and Earth are themselves children of 'Elyôn 'Most High'. ʼĒl is brother to the God Bethel, to Dagon and to an unknown god, equated with the Greek Atlas and to the goddesses Aphrodite/'Ashtart, Rhea (presumably Asherah), and Dione (equated with Ba'alat Gebal). ʼĒl is the father of Persephone and of Athena (presumably the goddess 'Anat).


title: El (deity)

text: Sky and Earth have separated from one another in hostility, but Sky insists on continuing to force himself on Earth and attempts to destroy the children born of such unions. At last, with the advice of his daughter Athena and the god Hermes Trismegistus (perhaps Thoth), ʼĒl successfully attacks his father Sky with a sickle and spear of iron. He and his military allies the "Eloim" gain Sky's kingdom.


title: El (deity)

text: In a later passage it is explained that ʼĒl castrated Sky. One of Sky's concubines (who was given to ʼĒl's brother Dagon) was already pregnant by Sky. The son who is born of the union, called Demarûs or Zeus, but once called Adodus, is obviously Hadad, the Ba'al of the Ugaritic texts who now becomes an ally of his grandfather Sky and begins to make war on ʼĒl.


title: El (deity)

text: ʼĒl has three wives, his sisters or half-sisters Aphrodite/Astarte ('Ashtart), Rhea (presumably Asherah), and Dione (identified by Sanchuniathon with Ba'alat Gebal the tutelary goddess of Byblos, a city which Sanchuniathon says that ʼĒl founded).


title: El (deity)

text: El is depicted primarily as a warrior; in Ugaritic sources Baal has the warrior role and El is peaceful, and it may be that the "Sanchuniathon" depicts an earlier tradition that was more preserved in the southern regions of Canaan.


title: El (deity)

text: Eusebius, through whom the "Sanchuniathon" is preserved, is not interested in setting the work forth completely or in order. But we are told that ʼĒl slew his own son Sadidus (a name that some commentators think might be a corruption of "Shaddai", one of the epithets of the Biblical ʼĒl) and that ʼĒl also beheaded one of his daughters. Later, perhaps referring to this same death of Sadidus we are told:


title: El (deity)

text: This is the form under which ʼĒl/Cronus appears on coins from Byblos from the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BCE) four spread wings and two folded wings, leaning on a staff. Such images continued to appear on coins until after the time of Augustus.


title: El (deity)

text: A bilingual inscription from Palmyra dated to the 1st century equates "ʼĒl-Creator-of-the-Earth" with the Greek god Poseidon. Going back to the 8th century BCE, the bilingual inscription at Karatepe in the Taurus Mountains equates "ʼĒl-Creator-of-the-Earth" to Luwian hieroglyphs read as "a-a-ś", this being the Luwian form of the name of the Babylonian water god Ea, lord of the abyss of water under the earth. (This inscription lists ʼĒl in second place in the local pantheon, following Ba'al Shamîm and preceding the "Eternal Sun".)


title: El (deity)

text: Poseidon is known to have been worshipped in Beirut, his image appearing on coins from that city. Poseidon of Beirut was also worshipped at Delos where there was an association of merchants, shipmasters, and warehousemen called the Poseidoniastae of Berytus founded in 110 or 109 BCE. Three of the four chapels at its headquarters on the hill northwest of the Sacred Lake were dedicated to Poseidon, the Tyche of the city equated with Astarte (that is 'Ashtart), and to Eshmun.


title: El (deity)

text: Also at Delos, that association of Tyrians, though mostly devoted to Heracles-Melqart, elected a member to bear a crown every year when sacrifices to Poseidon took place. A banker named Philostratus donated two altars, one to Palaistine Aphrodite Urania ('Ashtart) and one to Poseidon "of Ascalon".


title: El (deity)

text: Though Sanchuniathon distinguishes Poseidon from his Elus/Cronus, this might be a splitting off of a particular aspect of ʼĒl in a euhemeristic account. Identification of an aspect of ʼĒl with Poseidon rather than with Cronus might have been felt to better fit with Hellenistic religious practice, if indeed this Phoenician Poseidon really is the ʼĒl who dwells at the source of the two deeps in Ugaritic texts. More information is needed to be certain.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Adnan Khashoggi (; 25 July 1935 – 6 June 2017) was a Saudi businessman and arms dealer known for his lavish business deals and lifestyle. He was estimated to have had a peak net worth of around US$4 billion in the early 1980s.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi was born in Mecca, to Mohammad Khashoggi, who was King Abdul Aziz Al Saud's personal doctor, and Samiha Ahmed. Khashoggi's sister was author Samira Khashoggi who married businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed and was the mother of Dodi Fayed. Another sister, Soheir Khashoggi, is a well-known Arab novelist ("Mirage", "Nadia's Song", "Mosaic"). He was a paternal uncle of murdered journalist, Jamal Khashoggi.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, Egypt, and the American universities California State University, Chico, Ohio State University, and Stanford University. Adnan Khashoggi left his studies in order to seek his fortune in business.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi's early years were spent among some of Saudi Arabia's most influential figures. "While attending school he met Hussein bin Talal, the future King of Jordan. It was at school that Khashoggi first learned the commercial value of facilitating a deal, bringing together a Libyan classmate whose father wanted to import towels with an Egyptian classmate whose father manufactured towels, earning US$1,000 for the introduction. Khashoggi's subsequent education at university would serve as a launchpad for his commercial career."


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In one of his first big deals, a large construction company was experiencing difficulties with the trucks that it used on the shifting desert sands. Khashoggi, using money given to him by his father for a car, bought a number of Kenworth trucks, whose wide wheels made traversing the desert considerably easier. Khashoggi made his first US$250,000 leasing the trucks to the construction company, and became the Saudi Arabia-based agent for Kenworth.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In the 1960s and 1970s, Khashoggi helped bring together Western companies and the Saudi Arabian government, to satisfy its infrastructure and defense needs. Between 1970 and 1975, Lockheed paid Khashoggi $106 million in commissions. His commissions started at 2.5% and eventually rose to as much as 15%. Khashoggi "became for all practical purposes a marketing arm of Lockheed. Khashoggi would provide not only an entrée but strategy, constant advice, and analysis", according to Max Helzel, then vice president of Lockheed's international marketing.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: A commercial pioneer, he established companies in Switzerland and Liechtenstein to handle his commissions as well as developing contacts with notables such as CIA officers James H. Critchfield and Kim Roosevelt and United States businessman Bebe Rebozo, a close associate of U.S. President Richard Nixon. His yacht, the "Nabila", was the largest in the world at the time and was used in the James Bond film "Never Say Never Again". After Khashoggi ran into financial problems he sold the yacht to the Sultan of Brunei, who in turn sold it for US$29 million to Donald Trump, who sold it for US$20 million to Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal as part of a deal to keep his Taj Mahal casino out of bankruptcy. Khashoggi gained influence with U.S. President Richard Nixon by donating US$200 million to his 1972 political campaign, through a friendly bank circumventing existing laws that prohibited such large sums from American corporations to political campaigns. Similar arrangements allowed Khashoggi to gain influence with important people throughout the World.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi headed a company called Triad International Holding Company which among other things built the Triad Center in Salt Lake City, which later went bankrupt. He was famed as an arms dealer, brokering deals between US firms and the Saudi government, most actively in the 1960s and 1970s. In the documentary series "The Mayfair Set", Saudi author Said Aburish states that one of Khashoggi's first deals was providing David Stirling with weapons for a covert mission in Yemen during the Aden Emergency in 1963. Among his overseas clients were defense contractors Lockheed Corporation (now Lockheed Martin Corporation), Raytheon, Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Northrop Corporation (the last two of which have now merged into Northrop Grumman).


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Triad International is a multi-national private investment corporation that was owned by Khashoggi. Its investments include many notable properties and businesses throughout the world. The company consisted of subsidiary companies, including Triad Management, Triad Properties, Triad Energy, Triad Technology, and Triad Financial resources.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: The global span of the businesses prompted the creation, by the Khashoggi family, of a board-game called "Triopoly" which was modeled after the classic game of "Monopoly". The various game tiles represented properties and companies owned by Khashoggi and his Triad corporation. The game was manufactured and given to family and friends.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Triad International was formed in the early 1960s and as it grew spanned five continents. The company holdings included hotels, shopping centers, banks, oil refineries, a computer manufacturer, a gold mine, construction companies, car and truck franchises, and the Utah Jazz, a professional basketball team.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: The company was headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with its subsidiary companies located in the United States, Canada and Saudi Arabia.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi, through Triad, owned the Mount Kenya Safari Club, known as Ol Pejeta Conservancy, a several hundred acre reserve at the foot of Mount Kenya, San Francisco Town Center East, US; a US$250 million property; Long Beach Edgington Oil a US$250 million per year oil refinery in the US; ATV computer systems, Santa Ana, Arizona, US; Colorado Land & Cattle company, Security National bank in Walnut Creek, California, US, Barrick gold mine in Toronto, Canada; Saudi Arabian Kenworth, Chrysler and Fiat car and truck dealerships; the National Gypsum company in Saudi Arabia, and Sahuaro Petroleum in Phoenix, Arizona, US.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: The company also had major financial interests in Lloyd's of London; the Manera company; Las Brisas Resort in Acapulco, Mexico; the Houston Galleria; National car rental company; Pyramid Oasis in Cairo, Egypt; Travel Lodge Australia; Pacific Harbor hotel in Fiji; Beirut Riyadh bank; and the bank of Contra Costa.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi's Triad real estate holdings included private residences in Beirut; Jeddah; Riyadh; Geneva; Cairo; Salt Lake City, Utah; Cone Ranch, Florida; Rome; Paris; Cannes; London; and a multi-floor penthouse in Olympic Tower in New York.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi also owned several private jets, and super-yachts through Triad, including a McDonnell Douglas DC-8 and DC-9, three Boeing 727s, and several smaller business jets and helicopters. His three super-yachts, the "Nabila", the "Mohammadia", and the "Khalidia", were named after his children, Nabila, Mohammed, and Khalid.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi was directly involved in helping to organize and fund the top-secret Operation Moses in 1984 to airlift to safety 14,000 Ethiopian Jews from Sudan to Israel during a famine caused by the Ethiopian Civil War.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi was implicated in the Iran–Contra affair as a key middleman in the arms-for-hostages exchange along with Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar and, in a complex series of events, was found to have borrowed money for these arms purchases from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) with Saudi and United States backing. His role in the affair created a related controversy when Khashoggi donated millions to the American University in Washington DC, to build a sports arena which would bear his name. Khashoggi was a member of the university's board of trustees from 1983 until his indictment on fraud and other charges in May 1989. Khashoggi was "principal foreign agent" of the United States and helped establish the supranational intelligence partnership known as the Safari Club.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In 1988, Khashoggi was arrested in Switzerland, accused of concealing funds, and held for three months. Khashoggi stopped fighting extradition when the U.S. prosecutors reduced the charges to obstruction of justice and mail fraud and dropped the more serious charges of racketeering and conspiracy. In 1990, a United States federal jury in Manhattan acquitted Khashoggi and Imelda Marcos, widow of the exiled Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, of racketeering and fraud.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In 1991 Khashoggi made an extended appearance on the British television programme "After Dark", discussing the Middle East alongside, among others, former Prime Minister Edward Heath and Lord Weidenfeld.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi also appeared in "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" in 1985 with host Robin Leach which showcased Khashoggi's extravagant lifestyle.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: During his peak, Khashoggi was a well-known figure who frequently appeared in the press and media. He also appeared in various television shows, newspapers, and notable magazine covers such as "Time" and "The Washington Post".


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi was a financier behind Genesis Intermedia, Inc. (formerly NASDAQ: GENI), a publicly traded Internet company based in the US. In 2006, Khashoggi was sued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for securities fraud. The case was dismissed in 2008 and Khashoggi did not admit or deny the allegations.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In January 2003, Seymour Hersh reported in "The New Yorker" magazine that former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle had a meeting with Khashoggi in Marseille in order to use him as a conduit between Trireme Partners, a private venture capital company of which he was one of three principals, and the Saudi government. At the time, Perle was chair of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, a Defense Department advisory group, which provided him with access to classified information and a position to influence defense policy.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi told Hersh that Perle talked to him about the economic costs regarding a proposed invasion of Iraq. If there is no war,' he told me, 'why is there a need for security? If there is a war, of course, billions of dollars will have to be spent.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In 1961, Khashoggi married 20-year-old Englishwoman Sandra Daly who converted to Islam and took the name Soraya Khashoggi. They raised one daughter (Nabila) and four sons together (Mohamed, Khalid, Hussein, and Omar). They divorced in 1974.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi's second wife, the Italian Laura Biancolini, (m. 1978) also converted to Islam and changed her name to Lamia Khashoggi. She was seventeen when she met Adnan; together they had a son, Ali. Khashoggi remained married to Lamia Khashoggi at his death. Adnan's third legal wife was Shahpari Azam Zanganeh (m. 1991-2014).


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: In the 1980s, the Khashoggi family occupied one of the largest villa estates in Marbella, Spain, called "Baraka", hosting lavish parties. Guests at these parties included film stars, pop celebrities and politicians. In 1985, celebrity reporter Robin Leach reported Khashoggi threw a five-day birthday party in Vienna for his eldest son, and in his heyday, Khashoggi spent $250,000 a day to maintain his lifestyle. He continued to spend lavishly even when he encountered financial problems. His net worth was said to have been down to about $8 million in 1990. Due to his extravagant lifestyle, he was called the Great Gatsby of the Middle East.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi also owned Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in Laikipia County, Kenya known at the time as the Mount Kenya Safari Club. His house has since been converted into a hotel which is run by Serena Hotels.


title: Adnan Khashoggi

text: Khashoggi died on 6 June 2017 while being treated for Parkinson's disease at the St Thomas' Hospital in London. He was 81.


title: 2022 Wisconsin gubernatorial election

text: The 2022 Wisconsin gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Wisconsin. Incumbent Democratic Governor Tony Evers won re-election to a second term, defeating Republican businessman Tim Michels, while improving on his margin of victory from his initial election four years earlier.


title: 2022 Wisconsin gubernatorial election

text: As Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes ran for the U.S. Senate in the concurrent election, a new Democratic running mate, state assemblywoman Sara Rodriguez, was nominated in the partisan primary. Barnes was the second lieutenant governor not to run with the incumbent governor since the state constitution was amended in 1967. The partisan primary was held on August 9, 2022, with businessman Tim Michels defeating former Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in the Republican primary. State senator Roger Roth received the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.


title: 2022 Wisconsin gubernatorial election

text: This was the first gubernatorial election in Wisconsin since 2006 in which a Democrat won with an outright majority of the vote, the first since 1990 in which the winner was from the same party as the incumbent president, and the first since 1962 in which Wisconsin voted for a Democratic governor at the same time the party held the presidency. This was also the first gubernatorial election in the state since 1998 in which the winning candidate was of a different party than the winner of the concurrent U.S. Senate election.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI; ) is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. It is responsible for gathering, processing, and analyzing any information from around the world that is deemed relevant to Pakistan's national security. As one of the principal members of the Pakistani intelligence community, the ISI reports to its Director-General and is primarily focused on providing intelligence to the Pakistani government.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI primarily consists of serving military officers drawn on secondment from the three service branches of the Pakistan Armed Forces (i.e. the Pakistan Army, Pakistan Navy, and Pakistan Air Force), hence the name "Inter-Services"; however, the agency also recruits many civilians. Since 1971, it has been formally headed by a serving three-star general of the Pakistan Army, who is appointed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan on the recommendation of the Chief of Army Staff, who recommends three officers for the position. , the ISI is currently headed by Lieutenant-General Nadeem Anjum. The ISI director-general reports directly to both the Prime Minister and the Chief of Army Staff.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The agency gained global recognition and fame in the 1980s, when it backed the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet Union during the Soviet–Afghan War in the former Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Over the course of the conflict, the ISI worked in close coordination with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States and the Secret Intelligence Service of the United Kingdom to run Operation Cyclone, a program to train and fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan with support from China, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and other Muslim nations.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Following the dissolution of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1992, the ISI provided strategic support and intelligence to the Afghan Taliban against the Northern Alliance during the Afghan Civil War in the 1990s.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), in their first ever open acknowledgement in 2011 in US Court, said that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sponsors and oversees militant separatist groups in Kashmir.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The Inter-Services Intelligence was created in 1948 following the first Kashmir war, which had exposed weaknesses in intelligence gathering, sharing, and coordination between the army, air force, navy, Intelligence Bureau (IB), and Military Intelligence (MI). The ISI was structured to be operated by officers from the three main military services and to specialize in the collection, analysis, and assessment of external military and non-military intelligence. The ISI was the brainchild of the former British Indian Army major general Sir Robert Cawthome, then Deputy Chief of Staff of the Pakistan Army, and selected Colonel Shahid Hamid to set up the agency. Initially, the ISI had no role in the collection of internal intelligence, except for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Pakistan Administered Kashmir.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Naval Commander Syed Mohammad Ahsan, who was tenuring as deputy director of Naval Intelligence and played a pivotal role in formulating the procedures of the ISI, undertook and managed the recruitment and expansion of the ISI. Following the 1958 coup d'état, all national intelligence agencies came under the direct control of the president and Chief Martial Law Administrator. The maintenance of national security, which was the principal function of these agencies, came to mean the consolidation of the Ayub regime. Any criticism of the regime was seen as a threat to national security.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: After Chief of Army Staff General Zia-ul-Haq had seized power on 5 July 1977, and became the Chief Martial Law Administrator, the ISI was expanded to collecting intelligence on the Pakistan Communist Party and Pakistan Peoples Party. The Soviet–Afghan War in the 1980s saw the enhancement of the ISI's covert operations. A special Afghanistan section (called the SS Directorate) was created under the command of Brigadier Mohammed Yousaf to oversee day-to-day operations in Afghanistan. A number of officers from the ISI's Covert Action Division received training in the United States, and "many covert action experts of the CIA were attached to the ISI to guide it in its operations against Soviet troops by using the Afghan Mujahideen."


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Many analysts (mainly Indian and American) believe that ISI provides support to militant groups, though according to other analysts, these allegations remain unsubstantiated with evidence.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI has often been accused of playing a role in major terrorist attacks across India including militancy in Kashmir, the July 2006 Mumbai Train Bombings, the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2006 Varanasi bombings, the August 2007 Hyderabad bombings, and the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI has been accused of supporting Taliban forces and recruiting and training mujahideen to fight in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Based on communication intercepts, US intelligence agencies concluded Pakistan's ISI was behind the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on 7 July 2008, a charge that the governments of India and Afghanistan had laid previously.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI is believed to be aiding these organisations in eradicating perceived enemies or those opposed to their cause, including India, Russia, China, Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and other members of NATO. Satellite imagery from the FBI suggest the existence of several terrorist camps in Pakistan, with at least one militant admitting to being trained in the country as part of the ongoing Kashmir Dispute, Pakistan is alleged to be backing separatist militias. Many nonpartisan sources believe that officials within Pakistan's military and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) sympathise with and aid Islamic terrorists, saying that the "ISI has provided covert but well-documented support to terrorist groups active in Kashmir, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jaish-e-Mohammed".


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: General Javed Nasir confessed to assisting the besieged Bosnian Muslims, despite a UN arms embargo supporting Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang, rebel Muslim groups in the Philippines, and some religious groups in Central Asia. The National Intelligence Directorate (NID) was formed in 2014 to pool and share intelligence gathered by over 30 of Pakistan's intelligence agencies to combat terrorism in Pakistan effectively.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: A director general, who is traditionally a serving lieutenant general in the Pakistan Army, heads the ISI. Three deputy director generals, who are serving two-star military officers, report directly to the director general with each deputy heading three wings respectively:


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The wing is particularly significant because the port at Gwadar is slated to be a linchpin for the major trade corridor linking northwestern China to the Persian Gulf.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Military officers of the armed forces as well as civilian officers from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Pakistan Customs, police, and judiciary make up ISI's general staff.. They are recruited on deputations for three to four years and enhance the ISI's professional competence. Experienced army officers who perform well are given repeated extensions in their service. According to some experts, the ISI is the largest intelligence agency in the world in terms of total staff. While the total number has never been made public, experts estimate around 10,000 officers and staff, which does not include informants or assets.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: According to Syed Irfan Raza, the Director-General of ISI is among the most powerful posts in Pakistan. For example, according to Mohammad Sohail, shares at the Pakistan Stock Exchange went down in October 2021 over concerns regarding the appointment of the Inter-Services Intelligence chief. The benchmark KSE-100 index fell 1.51%. According to retired air marshal Shahzad Chaudhry, three to four names are provided by the Chief of Army Staff, and the prime minister selects the Director-General from that list. The ISI chief serves for two to three years. According to Ansar Abbasi, before 2021, the appointment process of the Director-General followed no formal protocol other than verbal discussion between the prime minister and the head of the army.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Syed Shahid Hamid was the first head of the ISI. Hamid is said to have supported Field Marshal Ayub Khan's rise to power. After his retirement, Hamid helped President Zia Ul Haq.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Pakistan's army has ruled Pakistan for more than half of its history and has been always unwilling to see its influence being compromised by any civilian leaders. In the 1990s, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto appointed retired army officer Shamsur Rahman Kallu as Director-General, but army leaders refused to cooperate with Kallu, as he had refused to engage in martial-law duties under the previous dictator. In October 1998, Ziauddin Butt was chosen as Director-General. Though Butt was not the preferred choice of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, he grew close with Sharif, and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Pervez Musharraf took over important ISI files. During a military coup a year later, Musharraf arrested Butt, who had been promoted to Chief of Army Staff by Sharif.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: On October 6, 2016, the English daily "Dawn" published a report about a government meeting allegedly arranged by Sharif. The article detailed a presentation by Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry about international pressure to crack down on Pakistan's extremist segments such as Masood Azhar, the Jaish-i-Mohmmad, Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, and the Haqqani network. According to Ghazi Salahuddin of "The News International," controversy ensued after the October meeting and the "Dawn" report, which lingered until May 2016. During the October 2016 meeting, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif allegedly revealed that, whenever action had been taken against certain extremist groups by civilian authorities, the security agency had worked secretly to free the arrested parties. According to Salahuddin Ghazi, information minister Pervaiz Rashid lost his portfolio over the "Dawn" news leak, and a government notification was released about the civilian government's decision after the meeting. On April 29, 2017, the Director-General released a tweet that said: "Notification on Dawn Leak is incomplete and not in line with recommendations by the Inquiry Board. Notification is rejected." Ghazi stated that a meeting was eventually held between the prime minister and the Chief of Army Staff, and a press conference was held to announce the decision to withdraw the tweet.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The mainstream media of Pakistan broke the news about the ongoing (October 2021) constitutional rift between civil and armed wings over the appointment of the D.G. post only after ministers spoke on the matter. In the first week, October 6, 2021, the Pakistan military's media affairs wing announced the replacement of Faiz Hameed with Nadeem Anjum. After 2 days, it first came to light in social media that the federal government of Pakistan had yet to issue any formal notification for the appointment of the new DG ISI. Rumors got credence further when Gen. Faiz attended the National Security Committee meeting instead of the expected new DG ISI.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: A week later on 13 October 2021 Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry informed media that the process of a fresh appointment of DG ISI is still underway and that the selection is Prime Minister Imran Khan's prerogative. He also noted that the Army chief and the Prime Minister are in agreement about following correct procedures of appointment according to the Constitution.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Malik Dogar, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Political Affairs, later said in a talk show that PM Imran Khan wanted General Faiz to continue as DG ISI for some more months after taking into consideration the expertise of General Faiz on the situation in Afghanistan. Dogar further stated that during the cabinet meeting, the prime minister stressed that, if the army is a respected institution then the PM Office is also a respected one.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI is headquartered in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. The complex consists of various low-rise buildings separated by lawns and fountains. The entrance to the complex is next to a private hospital. Declan Walsh of "The Guardian" said that the entrance is "suitably discreet: no sign, just a plainclothes officer packing a pistol who directs visitors through a chicane of barriers, soldiers, and sniffer dogs". Walsh said that the complex "resembles a well-funded private university" and that the buildings are "neatly tended," the lawns are "smooth," and the fountains are "tinkling." He described the central building, which houses the director general's office on the top floor, as "a modern structure with a round, echoing lobby".


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Both civilians and members of the armed forces can join the ISI. For civilians, recruitment is advertised and is jointly handled by the Federal Public Services Commission (FPSC) and civilian ISI agents are considered employees of the Ministry of Defence. The FPSC conducts various examinations testing the candidate's knowledge of current affairs, English, and various analytical abilities. Based on the results, the FPSC shortlists the candidates and sends the list to the ISI who conduct the initial background checks. Selected candidates are then invited for an interview which is conducted by a joint committee comprising both ISI and FPSC officials. The selected persons are then sent to the Defence Services Intelligence Academy (DSIA) for six months of training. Later, these officers are transferred to different sections for open source information where they serve for five years. After five years of basic service, officers are entrusted with sensitive jobs and declared the core team of ISI.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Indian intelligence agencies have claimed they have proof of ISI involvement with the Naxalites. A classified report accessed by the Indian newspaper "Asian Age" said "the ISI in particular wants Naxals to cause large-scale damage to infrastructure projects and industrial units operating in the interior parts of the country where ISI's own terror network is non-existent".


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI was accused of being involved in the Mehran bank scandal dubbed "Mehrangate", where top ISI and Army brass were allegedly given large sums of money by Yunus Habib (the owner of the Mehran Bank) to deposit ISI's foreign exchange reserves in his bank.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Critics of the ISI say that it has become a state within a state and not accountable enough. Some analysts say that this is because intelligence agencies around the world remain secretive. Critics argue the institution should be more accountable to the president or the prime minister. After discovering it, the Pakistani Government disbanded the ISI 'Political Wing' in 2008.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: During the Cold War, the ISI and the CIA worked together to send spy planes over the Soviet Union. The ISI and CIA also worked closely during the Soviet–Afghan War supporting groups such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i Islami and Jalaluddin Haqqani, leader of the Haqqani network.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Some report the ISI and CIA stepped up cooperation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to kill and capture senior Al Qaeda leaders such as Sheikh Younis Al Mauritan and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the planner of the 9/11 attacks who was residing in Pakistan. Pakistan claims that, in total, around 100 top level al-Qaeda leaders/operators were killed/arrested by ISI. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Pakistan is paying a "big price for supporting the U.S. war against terror groups. ... I think it is important to note that as they have made these adjustments in their own assessment of their national interests, they're paying a big price for it."


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Other senior international officials, however, maintain that senior Al Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden have been hidden by the ISI in major settled areas of Pakistan with the full knowledge of the Pakistani military leadership. A December 2011 analysis report by the Jamestown Foundation came to the conclusion that


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Pakistani General Ziauddin Butt said Bin Laden had been hidden in Abbottabad by the ISI "with the full knowledge" of General Pervez Musharraf but later denied making any such statement, saying his words were altered by the media, he said: "It is the hobby of the Western media to distort the facts for their own purposes." U.S. military officials have increasingly said they do not notify Pakistani officials before conducting operations against the Afghan Taliban or Al Qaeda, because they fear Pakistani officials may tip them off.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: International officials have accused the ISI of continuing to support and even lead the Taliban during the 2001-2021 War in Afghanistan. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen stated:


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The Associated Press reported that "the president said Mullen's statement 'expressed frustration' over the insurgent safe havens in Pakistan. But Obama said 'the intelligence is not as clear as we might like in terms of what exactly that relationship is.' Obama added that whether Pakistan's ties with the Haqqani network are active or passive, Pakistan has to deal with it."


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The Guantanamo Bay files leak, however, showed that the US authorities unofficially consider the ISI a terrorist organization that was equally as dangerous as Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and many allegations of it supporting terrorist activities have been made.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: In 2017, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused the ISI of having ties to terror groups. In a Senate hearing, Dunford told members of the U.S. Senate: "It is clear to me that the ISI has connections with terrorist groups."


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: India has accused the ISI of plotting the 1993 Bombay bombings and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. According to the United States diplomatic cables leak, the ISI had previously shared intelligence information with Israel regarding possible terrorist attacks against Jewish and Israeli sites in India in late 2008. ISI is also accused of supporting pro independence militias in Jammu and Kashmir while Pakistan denies all such claims, or says it gives them moral support only.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI has long been accused of using designated terrorist groups and militants to conduct proxy wars against its neighbors. According to Grant Holt and David H. Gray, "The agency specializes in utilizing terrorist organizations as proxies for Pakistani foreign policy, covert action abroad, and controlling domestic politics." James Forest says, "There has been increasing proof from counter-terrorism organizations that militants and the Taliban continue to receive assistance from the ISI, as well as the establishment of camps to train terrorists on Pakistani territory." All external operations are carried out under the supervision of the ISI's S Wing. The agency is divided into eight divisions. Joint Intelligence/North(JIN) is responsible for conducting operations in Jammu and Kashmir and Afghanistan. The Joint Signal Intelligence Bureau (JSIB) provides support with communications to groups in Jammu and Kashmir. According to Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, both former members of the National Security Council, the ISI acted as a "kind of terrorist conveyor belt" radicalizing young men in the Madrassas in Pakistan and delivering them to training camps affiliated with or run by Al-Qaeda and from there moving them into Jammu and Kashmir to launch attacks.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: From the 1990s, the ISI began courting the Jihadists who had emerged from the conflict against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and by 2000 the majority of militant groups operating in Kashmir were based in Pakistan or were pro-Pakistan. These groups are used to conduct a low-intensity conflict against India. According to Stephen P. Cohen and John Wilson, the ISI's aid to and creation of designated terrorist groups and religious extremist groups is well-documented. The ISI have been accused of having close ties to Lashkar-e-Taiba who carried out the attacks in Mumbai in 2008. The ISI have also given aid to Hizbul Mujahideen. Terrorism expert Gus Martin has said, "The ISI has a long history of supporting designated terrorist groups and pro-Independence groups operating in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir which fight against Indian interests." The ISI also helped with the founding of the group Jaish-e-Mohammed.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The group, Hizbul Mujahideen, was created as the Kashmiri branch of Jamaat-i-Islami. It has been reported that JI founded Hizbul Mujahideen at the request of the ISI to counter the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) who are advocates for the independence of Kashmir. The failure of 1987 elections in Kashmir, and afterwards the arrest of Muhammad Yusuf, a.k.a. Syed Salahuddin, led to the events that created armed struggle in the valley.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: There have been three incarnations of the group Al-Badr. According to Peter Tomsen, the ISI, in conjunction with Jamaat-e-Islami, formed the first Al-Badr, who resisted the Indian-trained influx of Mukti Bahini in Bangladesh in the 1970s.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI supported Al-Qaeda during the war along with the CIA against the Soviet government, through the Taliban, and it is believed by some that there is still contact between Al-Qaeda and the ISI. An assessment by British Intelligence in 2000 into Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan showed the ISI were playing an active role in some of them. In 2002, it was alleged that when the Egyptian investigators tracked down Al-Qaeda member Ahmed Said Khadr in Pakistan, the Egyptian authorities informed Pakistani authorities of his location. However, the Afghan Taliban at night came in a car and took Khadir along with them to Afghanistan. The next day, Pakistani authorities claimed they were unable to capture Khadir. The leak in 2012 of e-mails from Stratfor claimed papers captured during all the compounds during the raid in Abbotabad on Osama bin Laden's compound showed up to 12 ISI officials knew where he was and that Bin Laden had been in regular contact with the ISI.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Despite such allegations, Steve Coll states that as of 2019 there is no direct evidence showing Pakistani knowledge of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad, even by a rogue or compartmented faction within the government, other than the circumstantial fact of bin Laden's compound being located near (albeit not directly visible from) the Pakistan Military Academy. Documents captured from the Abbottabad compound generally show that bin Laden was wary of contact with ISI and Pakistani police, especially in light of Pakistan's role in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; it has also been suggested that the $25 million U.S. reward for information leading to bin Laden would have been enticing to Pakistani officers given their reputation for corruption. The compound itself, although unusually tall, was less conspicuous than sometimes envisaged by Americans, given the common local habit of walling off homes for protection against violence or to ensure the privacy of female family members.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Al-Qaeda has repeatedly labelled ISI their enemy. Al-Qaeda claimed the Pakistani military and intelligence are their main targets in Pakistan. In 2019, Ayman al-Zawahari in a video message labelled ISI and the Pakistani military a "puppet" of the United States.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: in 1984, under the orders of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, the ISI prepared a plan for a rebellion, which was to be set in motion in 1991.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: The ISI have close links to the Haqqani network and contribute heavily to their funding. It is widely believed the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008 was planned with the help of the ISI. A report in 2008 from the US director of National Intelligence stated that the ISI provides intelligence and funding to help with attacks against the International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan government, and Indian targets. However, on 5 November 2014, Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, a senior commander for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a Pentagon-hosted video briefing from Afghanistan that the Haqqani network is now "fractured" like the Taliban. "They are fractured. They are fractured like the Taliban is. That's based pretty much on Pakistan's operations in North Waziristan this entire summer-fall," he said, acknowledging the effectiveness of Pakistan's military offensive in North Waziristan. "That has very much disrupted their efforts in Afghanistan and has caused them to be less effective in terms of their ability to pull off an attack in Kabul," Anderson added.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Amnesty International published a document concerning the investigation of ISI over the murder of Saleem Shahzad.


title: Inter-Services Intelligence

text: Since Pakistan launched its war on Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other jihadist groups, the country's armed forces, intelligence services (particularly the ISI), military industrial complexes, paramilitary forces, and police forces have come under intense attacks. The ISI has played a major role in targeting these groups, therefore, it has faced retaliatory strikes as well. , more than 300 ISI officials have been killed. Below are some major incidents when attempts were made to target the ISI.


title: Sex organ

text: A sex organ (or reproductive organ) is any part of an animal or plant that is involved in sexual reproduction. The reproductive organs together constitute the reproductive system. In animals, the testis in the male, and the ovary in the female, are called the "primary sex organs". All others are called "secondary sex organs", divided between the external sex organs—the genitals or external genitalia, visible at birth in both sexes—and the internal sex organs.


title: Sex organ

text: Mosses, ferns, and some similar plants have gametangia for reproductive organs, which are part of the gametophyte. The flowers of flowering plants produce pollen and egg cells, but the sex organs themselves are inside the gametophytes within the pollen and the ovule. Coniferous plants likewise produce their sexually reproductive structures within the gametophytes contained within the cones and pollen. The cones and pollen are not themselves sexual organs.


title: Sex organ

text: The "primary sex organs" are the gonads, a pair of sex organs, which diverge into testes following male development or into ovaries following female development. As primary sex organs, gonads generate reproductive gametes containing inheritable DNA. They also produce most of the primary hormones that affect sexual development, and regulate other sexual organs and sexually differentiated behaviors.


title: Sex organ

text: "Secondary sex organs" are the rest of the reproductive system, whether internal or external. The Latin term "genitalia", sometimes anglicized as "genitals", is used to describe the externally visible sex organs: in male mammals, the penis and scrotum; and in female mammals, the vulva and its organs.


title: Sex organ

text: In general zoology, given the great variety in organs, physiologies, and behaviors involved in copulation, male genitalia are more strictly defined as "all male structures that are inserted in the female or that hold her near her gonopore during sperm transfer"; female genitalia are defined as "those parts of the female reproductive tract that make direct contact with male genitalia or male products (sperm, spermatophores) during or immediately after copulation".


title: Sex organ

text: It is hard to find a common origin for gonads but, gonads most likely evolved independently several times. At first testes and ovaries evolved due to natural selection.


title: Sex organ

text: A consensus has emerged that sexual selection represents a primary factor for genital evolution. Male genitalia show traits of divergent evolution that are driven by sexual selection.


title: Sex organ

text: The visible portion of the mammalian genitals for males consists of the scrotum and penis; for females, it consists of the vulva (labia, clitoris, etc.) and vagina.


title: Sex organ

text: In placental mammals, females have two genital orifices, the vagina and urethra, while males have only one, the urethra. Male and female genitals have many nerve endings, resulting in pleasurable and highly sensitive touch. In most human societies, particularly in conservative ones, exposure of the genitals is considered a public indecency.


title: Sex organ

text: In typical prenatal development, sex organs originate from a common primordium during early gestation and differentiate into male or female sexes. The SRY gene, usually located on the Y chromosome and encoding the testis determining factor, determines the direction of the differentiation. The absence of it allows the gonads to continue to develop into ovaries.


title: Sex organ

text: The development of the internal, and external reproductive organs is determined by hormones produced by certain fetal gonads (ovaries or testes) and the cells' response to them. The initial appearance of the fetal genitalia looks female-like: a pair of urogenital folds with a small protuberance in the middle, and the urethra behind the protuberance. If the fetus has testes and the testes produce testosterone, and if the cells of the genitals respond to the testosterone, the outer urogenital folds swell and fuse in the midline to produce the scrotum; the protuberance grows larger and straighter to form the penis; the inner urogenital swellings grow, wrap around the penis, and fuse in the midline to form the penile urethra. Each sex organ in one sex has a homologous counterpart.


title: Sex organ

text: The process of sexual differentiation includes the development of secondary sexual characteristics, such as patterns of pubic and facial hair and female breasts that emerge at puberty.


title: Sex organ

text: In many other animals a single posterior orifice, called the cloaca, serves as the only opening for the reproductive, digestive, and urinary tracts (if present). All amphibians, birds, reptiles, some fish, and a few mammals (monotremes, tenrecs, golden moles, and marsupial moles) have this orifice, from which they excrete both urine and feces in addition to serving reproductive functions. Excretory systems with analogous purpose in certain invertebrates are also sometimes referred to as cloacae.


title: Sex organ

text: The organs concerned with insect mating and the deposition of eggs are known collectively as the external genitalia, although they may be largely internal; their components are very diverse in form.


title: Sex organ

text: Planaria are flat worms widely used in biological research. There are sexual and asexual planaria. Sexual planaria are hermaphrodites, possessing both testicles and ovaries. Each planarian transports its excretion to the other planarian, giving and receiving sperm.


title: Sex organ

text: The life cycle of land plants involves alternation of generations between a sporophyte and a haploid gametophyte. The gametophyte produces sperm or egg cells by mitosis. The sporophyte produces spores by meiosis which in turn develop into gametophytes. Any sex organs that are produced by the plant will develop on the gametophyte. The seed plants, which include conifers and flowering plants have small gametophytes that develop inside the pollen grains (male) and the ovule (female).


title: Sex organ

text: Sexual reproduction in flowering plants involves the union of the male and female germ cells, sperm and egg cells respectively. Pollen is produced in stamens, and is carried to the pistil, which has the ovary at its base where fertilization can take place. Within each pollen grain is a male gametophyte which consists of only three cells. In most flowering plants the female gametophyte within the ovule consists of only seven cells. Thus there are no sex organs as such.


title: Sex organ

text: The sex organs in fungi are called gametangia. In some fungi the sex organs are indistinguishable from each other but in other cases male and female sex organs are clearly different.


title: Sex organ

text: Similar gametangia that are similar are called isogametangia. While male and female gametangia are called heterogametangia, which occurs in the majority of fungi.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie is a 2004 American live-action/animated adventure comedy film based on the Nickelodeon animated television series "SpongeBob SquarePants". The film was directed, co-written, and produced by series creator Stephen Hillenburg, with live-action sequences directed by Mark Osborne. It features the series' regular voice cast with Alec Baldwin, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeffrey Tambor voicing new characters and David Hasselhoff appearing as himself. It is the first film in the "SpongeBob SquarePants" film series. In this film, Plankton enacts a plan to discredit his business nemesis Mr. Krabs, steal the Krabby Patty secret formula and take over the world by stealing King Neptune's crown and framing Mr. Krabs for the crime. SpongeBob and Patrick team up to retrieve the crown from Shell City to save Mr. Krabs from Neptune's wrath and their world from Plankton's rule.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Hillenburg accepted an offer for a film adaptation of "SpongeBob SquarePants" from Paramount Pictures in 2002, after having turned it down multiple times the previous year. He assembled a team from the show's writing staff, including himself, Derek Drymon, Tim Hill, Kent Osborne, Aaron Springer, and Paul Tibbitt, and they structured the film as a mythical hero's journey that would bring SpongeBob and Patrick to the surface. The film was originally intended to serve as the series finale, but Nickelodeon ordered more episodes of the series as it had become increasingly profitable, so Hillenburg resigned as showrunner, with Tibbitt taking his place.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" premiered in Los Angeles on November 14, 2004, and was released in the United States on November 19. It received generally positive reviews and grossed $141 million worldwide, becoming the sixth highest-grossing animated film of 2004. Two standalone sequels have been released: "" (2015) and "" (2020), with a fourth film currently in development.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In Bikini Bottom, SpongeBob SquarePants prepares for the opening ceremony of the Krusty Krab 2 (located next to the original Krusty Krab), believing that his boss Mr. Krabs will promote him as manager. At the ceremony, the title is instead given to his co-worker Squidward Tentacles. Krabs explains to SpongeBob that Squidward is more mature and that he is "just a kid" who would be unable to handle the task, upsetting SpongeBob.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Meanwhile, Plankton laments over his futile attempts to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula and take over the world, until his computer wife Karen reminds him of "Plan Z". At night, Plankton carries out the plan by stealing King Neptune's crown and sending it to Shell City, leaving false evidence behind to frame Krabs for the crime. That same night, SpongeBob heads to his favorite restaurant, Goofy Goober's, where he drowns his sorrows in ice cream with his best friend Patrick Star, and wakes up the next morning with a hangover. King Neptune goes to the Krusty Krab 2 to confront Krabs about his stolen crown. The still-hungover SpongeBob also arrives and bad-mouths Krabs, but afterwards promises Neptune that he will retrieve the crown from Shell City. Neptune freezes Krabs and orders SpongeBob to return with the crown within six days in order to spare Krabs's life. Neptune's daughter Mindy warns SpongeBob and Patrick of the dangers of Shell City, including "the Cyclops", a monster who kidnaps innocent sea creatures. SpongeBob and Patrick head off for Shell City in the Patty Wagon, a Krabby Patty-shaped car stored underneath the restaurant.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Back in Bikini Bottom, Plankton steals the Krabby Patty formula from the frozen Krabs and uses it to sell Krabby Patties. When Karen informs him that SpongeBob and Patrick are attempting to reclaim Neptune's crown, Plankton reveals he has hired a hitman named Dennis to eliminate the duo. Squidward discovers the truth about Plankton stealing Neptune's crown, and confronts him at his restaurant, the Chum Bucket. Before Squidward can leave and alert Neptune, Plankton activates his mind-controlling bucket helmets to enslave the residents of Bikini Bottom, enslaving Squidward as well. Meanwhile, SpongeBob and Patrick come across a hazardous trench and lose the Patty Wagon. On the verge of giving up, Mindy appears and gives them encouragement by using her "mermaid magic" to bestow seaweed mustaches on them, fooling them that they have matured from boys into men. The two then successfully pass the trench.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: SpongeBob and Patrick meet Dennis, who reveals that the mustaches are fake. He tries to crush them with his giant boot, but is abruptly stomped on by a larger boot - which belongs to the Cyclops (a diver). The Cyclops captures SpongeBob and Patrick and takes them to his store by the beach where dried sea creatures are sold as souvenirs, which is in fact "Shell City" itself. SpongeBob and Patrick find the crown, only to dry out and die from the intensity of the Cyclops' heat lamp. However, the tears they shed short-circuit the lamp, activating the emergency sprinkler system and reviving all the dried sea creatures. While the vengeful sea creatures attack the Cyclops, SpongeBob and Patrick take the crown and head to the beach. After accidentally losing their way home, David Hasselhoff appears and offers them a ride. On the way, Dennis catches up to them, but gets knocked off Hasselhoff's back into the sea when he passes underneath a catamaran.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Back at the Krusty Krab 2, Neptune arrives to execute Krabs, but SpongeBob and Patrick return with the crown just in time. Plankton drops a mind-control bucket on Neptune and surrounds SpongeBob, Patrick and Mindy with his army of slaves. SpongeBob, embracing the fact that he's accomplished so much despite being a kid, uses the power of rock and roll to play "Goofy Goober Rock", freeing Neptune and the citizens of Bikini Bottom from the buckets with his magic guitar. Plankton is arrested by the police, and King Neptune rewards SpongeBob for his bravery by unfreezing Krabs. A jubilant Krabs gives SpongeBob the job as manager of the Krusty Krab 2.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Other characters from the television series also appear in the film. Carlos Alazraqui, director Stephen Hillenburg, and Neil Ross voice King Neptune's squire, a parrot, and the Cyclops, respectively. In a post-credits scene, Mageina Tovah portrays a theater usher.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" was long-planned; Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures had approached series creator Stephen Hillenburg for a film based on the show, but he refused for more than a year. Hillenburg was concerned, after watching "The Iron Giant" (1999) and "Toy Story" (1995) with his son, about the challenge of SpongeBob and Patrick doing something more cinematically-consequential and inspiring without losing what he called the SpongeBob "cadence". While on a break from season four post-production, "To do a 75-minute movie about SpongeBob wanting to make some jellyfish jelly would be a mistake, I think this had to be SpongeBob in a great adventure. That's where the comedy's coming from, having these two naïve characters, SpongeBob and Patrick, a doofus and an idiot, on this incredibly dangerous heroic odyssey with all the odds against them."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In 2002, Hillenburg and the show's staff stopped making episodes to work on the film after the show's third season. The film's plot originally had SpongeBob rescue Patrick from a fisherman in Florida; an obvious reference to the 2003 film, "Finding Nemo" (2003), this was later said by Tom Kenny (the voice of SpongeBob) to be a "joke" plot to keep fans busy. Hillenburg directed and produced the film, and also co-wrote it with five other writer-animators from the show (Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill) over a three-month period in a room of a former Glendale, California bank. Osborne said, "It was hugely fun although it did get kind of gamy in there." At the beginning of the series, Hillenburg screened a number of silent shorts (from Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster Keaton) and work by two modern comic actors: Jerry Lewis and Pee-wee Herman, both obvious inspirations for SpongeBob. For the film, the writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and Patrick to the surface. Bill Fagerbakke (the voice of Patrick) said about the plot, "It's just nuts. I'm continually dazzled and delighted with what these guys came up with."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: When the film was completed, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so it wouldn't jump the shark". However, Nickelodeon desired more episodes; Hillenburg stated: "Well, there was concern when we did the movie [in 2004] that the show had peaked. There were concerns among executives at Nickelodeon." As a result, Hillenburg resigned as the series' showrunner, appointing writer, director, and storyboard artist Paul Tibbitt to succeed him. Tibbitt was one of Hillenburg's favorite crew members: "[I] totally trusted him." Tibbitt would remain showrunner until he was succeeded in 2015 by the show's creative director Vincent Waller and staff writer Marc Ceccarelli. He also acted as an executive producer from 2008 to 2018. While Hillenburg no longer wrote or directly ran the show on a day-to-day basis, he reviewed each episode and submitted suggestions: "I figure when I'm pretty old I can still paint I don't know about running shows." Kenny, Fagerbakke, and the crew confirmed that they had completed four episodes for broadcast on Nickelodeon in early 2005, and planned to finish a total of about 20 for the fourth season. In 2015, Hillenburg returned to the show following the completion of the as an executive producer, having greater creative input and attending crew meetings until his death on November 26, 2018.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In September 2003, Jules Engel, Hillenburg's mentor when he studied experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts, died. Hillenburg dedicated the film to him: "He truly was the most influential artistic person in my life. I consider him my 'Art Dad.'"


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The film stars the series' main cast members: Tom Kenny as SpongeBob SquarePants, Gary the Snail, and the French Narrator, Bill Fagerbakke as Patrick Star, Rodger Bumpass as Squidward Tentacles, Clancy Brown as Mr. Krabs, Mr. Lawrence as Plankton, Jill Talley as Karen, Carolyn Lawrence as Sandy Cheeks, Mary Jo Catlett as Mrs. Puff, and Lori Alan as Pearl Krabs. It also features Dee Bradley Baker as Perch Perkins, Carlos Alazraqui as King Neptune's squire, Aaron Hendry as the Cyclops, and Neil Ross as the voice of the Cyclops. In addition to the series' cast, it was reported on March 23, 2004, that Scarlett Johansson, Jeffrey Tambor, and Alec Baldwin would play new characters Princess Mindy, King Neptune, and Dennis, respectively, and David Hasselhoff would appear as himself.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Johansson accepted the role because she liked cartoons and was a fan of "The Ren & Stimpy Show". When Jeffrey Tambor signed for his voice cameo, he saw his character (King Neptune) and joked, "This is me." He remembered the first cartoon he saw, "Bambi" (1942): "My first cartoon, I had to be carried out crying It was "Bambi". It's like the great American wound: the death of Bambi's mother. 'Run, Bambi, run!'" Another guest voice was Alec Baldwin; Stephen Hillenburg said that the actor recorded his character Dennis on a "phone": "I wouldn't say that about his performance. He might be mad if we said that. Technically, it was like he was in another booth in the studio."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: David Hasselhoff accepted the role when his daughters, Taylor-Ann and Hayley, urged him: "I got an offer to do a cameo in the "SpongeBob Movie" and I turned to my girls, who were like 16 and 14, and I said, 'Who's SpongeBob?' and they said, 'Oh my God, Dad, it's the number one cartoon in the world, you gotta do it.'" Hasselhoff enjoyed his cameo: "It was great fun and to this day around the world kids stop me and say, 'Are you David Hasselhoff?' because I was the only human in the picture." Hasselhoff said that the film gained him new fans: "It's amazing - so many of the kids were so young and didn't see "Baywatch" and "Knight Rider" so I got a whole new legion of fans."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: There were a number of stages involved in the making of the film, beginning with a rough animation process of ideas drawn on Post-it notes. The writers drew, working from rough outlines rather than scripts (which made the humor more visual than verbal). The storyboard artists, including Sherm Cohen, then illustrated ideas conceived by the writers. In the series Tom Yasumi and Andrew Overtoom do the animatics, but Hillenburg and Drymon did the animatics for the film. Yasumi and Overtoom were the film's animation-timing directors, concentrating on the sheets. "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie", like the series, was animated at Rough Draft Studios in South Korea. The animators worked semi-digitally with pencil-drawn poses that would be composited into layouts in Photoshop.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Series writer and storyboard artist Erik Wiese left the show for a year to work on "Samurai Jack" and "Danny Phantom", but returned to do storyboards and character layout for the film. He "always wanted to be a feature animator, and the movie felt like I was on the character animation end", describing the experience as "a blast it felt like coming home."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Hillenburg enjoyed the process of making the film: "The TV schedule is tight, and you don't always have a lot of time to work on your drawings." He appreciated the film's hand-drawn animation: "I think the movie's drawings are much superior than the TV show", although CGI animation was flourishing at the time of the film's release. "There's a lot of talk about 2-D being dead, and I hope people don't think that. Even Brad Bird is a proponent of 2-D. He would agree with me that it's all about what you're trying to say. There are many ways to tell a story, and what's unique about animation is that there are many styles with which to tell a story." The clay animation scenes were shot by Mark Caballero, Seamus Walsh and Chris Finnegan at Screen Novelties in Los Angeles.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The film features live-action scenes directed by Mark Osborne in Santa Monica, California. The ship used during the 30-second opening featuring the pirates singing the theme song was the "Bounty", a -long, enlarged reconstruction of the 1787 Royal Navy sailing ship HMS "Bounty" built for "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1962). The ship appeared in a number of other films, including "Treasure Island" (1999), "" (2006), and "" (2007). In film trailers, live-action scenes were taken from "Das Boot" (1981), "The Hunt for Red October" (1990), and "U-571" (2000).


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: David Hasselhoff made a cameo in the live-action scenes, offering SpongeBob and Patrick a ride to Bikini Bottom. The scene was originally written before consulting Hasselhoff. Hillenburg was pleased with the storyboards; Lead storyboard artist Sherm Cohen said, "He had been wrestling with the ending for quite a while, and finally he was ready to pitch his ideas to some of the other board artists." Hillenburg was counting on casting Hasselhoff, and the first question he asked him was "So, do we have Hasselhoff?" He replied "No", with a grin. Hasselhoff eventually agreed, before seeing the script. Hillenburg said about the actor, "He's a great guy. ... He was great at making fun of himself."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The crew built a , replica of Hasselhoff. The $100,000 replica was kept at Hasselhoff's home; he has said, "It freaked me out because it was so lifelike, with teeth, when you touch it it feels like real skin. It's soft, like your skin." At the completion of filming, Hasselhoff said, "That's ridiculously awesome. What are you gonna do with it?" Asked by the crew if he wanted to keep it, he answered, "Uh, yeah. Okay." Hasselhoff filmed in cold water, where he was pulled by a sled nine yards across the sea; he described the experience as "cold but a lot of fun."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In late March 2014, Hasselhoff offered the replica up for auction with other memorabilia collected during his career. Julien's Auctions handled the item's sale, which were expected to bring in between $20,000 and $30,000. Ultimately, Hasselhoff pulled the item, just a few days before the auction.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The DVD and Blu-ray releases include animatics of deleted scenes from the film, including SpongeBob and Patrick's meeting with Sandy Cheeks (a squirrel) on the surface after their escape from Shell City. Patrick repeatedly vomits, upset by Sandy's unusual appearance. The squirrel is pursued by black-suited exterminators, and defends herself with acorns. She informs SpongeBob and Patrick that they can return to Bikini Bottom by taking a bus at the beach. This idea was later used for the second film "" (2015), where Sandy became a giant realistic squirrel.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In 2013, the film's lead storyboard artist, Sherm Cohen, released a storyboard panel of a deleted scene from the film with SpongeBob awakening from his dream saying "WEEEEE!" and Mr. Krabs holding a manager's hat.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Gregor Narholz composed the score for the film, conducting the recording sessions (in 5.1 surround sound) with the London Metropolitan Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London. Narholz was signed when series music editor Nick Carr recommended him to Hillenburg after they worked together at the Associated Production Music library. Narholz was honored at the 2005 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards for his work on the film, and received a nomination for Music in an Animated Feature Production at the 32nd Annie Awards.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: American rock band The Flaming Lips recorded "SpongeBob And Patrick Confront the Psychic Wall of Energy". They shot the song's music video, directed by band member Wayne Coyne and filmmaker Bradley Beesley, in Austin, Texas. Coyne said, "Stephen Hillenburg seems to be a fan of the weirder music of the late '80s and early '90s. He wanted to evoke the music he got turned onto back then." Coyne suggested a duet with Justin Timberlake, but Hillenburg refused, saying "I don't want any of those sort of commercial weirdos on there. I don't like those commercial people. I like you guys, and Wilco and Ween." American band Wilco wrote and recorded "Just a Kid". One of the film's producers contacted frontman Jeff Tweedy after seeing a SpongeBob air freshener hanging from Tweedy's rearview mirror in "" (2002). Tweedy said, "I fell in love with SpongeBob when I heard him describe the darkness at the bottom of the sea as 'advanced darkness'. How could I not write a song for this film? It automatically makes me the coolest dad on the block." Avril Lavigne recorded the series' theme for the soundtrack. Other artists contributing to the soundtrack were Motörhead, singing "You Better Swim" (a derivative of their 1992 song "You Better Run"); Prince Paul ("Prince Paul's Bubble Party"); Ween ("Ocean Man"), and the Shins ("They'll Soon Discover", partially written in 2001).


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: "The Best Day Ever", written by Tom Kenny (SpongeBob's voice actor) and Andy Paley, was featured in the film and on its soundtrack. Kenny and Paley were working on what would become the album "The Best Day Ever", writing "The Best Day Ever" and "Under My Rock". The film's production team needed two more tracks for the soundtrack; Hillenburg heard the songs, and decided to include them. "The Best Day Ever" ended up being played during the film's closing credits.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Julia Pistor, the film's co-producer, said that although Nickelodeon (which owns the "SpongeBob" trademark) wanted to sell character-themed backpacks, lunch boxes, and wristwatches it respected Hillenburg's integrity and gave him control of merchandising. Hillenburg had no problem with candy and ice cream tie-ins, Pistor said (because of the treats' simplicity), but he had issues with fast food tie-ins; according to him, the latter was "full of hidden additives." Pistor said, "The trouble is that you can't go out with animated films without a fast-food tie-in. People don't take you seriously." Hillenburg replied, "Yeah, well, my take on that is that we shouldn't do that. We didn't want to suddenly become the people serving up food that's not that good for you especially kids. We work with Burger King, and they make toys and watches. But to actually take the step of pushing the food, that's crossing the line. I don't want to be the Pied Piper of fast food." "Variety" estimated the media value was $150 million.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The film was promoted across the United States. Nickelodeon joined Burger King for a 12-figure toy line based on the film, and about 4,700 Burger King stores perched , inflatable SpongeBob figures on their roofs as part of the promotion (one of the largest in fast food history). Customers could also purchase one of five different SpongeBob-themed watches for $1.99 with the purchase of a value meal.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: On November 11, 2004, it was reported that a number of the inflatables had been stolen from Burger King roofs nationwide. Burger King chief marketing officer Russ Klein said, "As to the motives behind these apparent 'spongenappings', we can only speculate. We did receive one ransom note related to an inflatable SpongeBob disappearance in Minnesota." The chain offered a year's supply of Whopper sandwiches as a reward for information leading to the return of inflatables stolen in November. One was found attached to a railing at the football-field 50-yard line at an Iowa college, and another under a bed in Virginia. A ransom note was found for a third: "We have SpongeBob. Give us 10 Krabby Patties, fries, and milkshakes." Steven Simon and Conrad (C.J.) Mercure Jr. were arrested after stealing an inflatable from a Burger King in St. Mary's County, Maryland. While facing up to 18 months in jail and a $500 fine, Simon and Mercure said they were proud of what they did; Simon said, "Once we got caught by the police, we were like, now we can tell everybody." The following year, Burger King took "extra security precautions" in response to the SpongeBob incident, when Stormtroopers from George Lucas' "Star Wars" guarded the delivery of "Star Wars" toys to a Burger King in North Hollywood as part of a promotion for "" (2005).


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The Cayman Islands joined with Nickelodeon to create the first Cayman Islands Sea School with SpongeBob for the film. The partnership was announced by Pilar Bush, Deputy Director of Tourism for Cayman Islands, on March 10, 2004. As part of the agreement the Cayman partnership was seen on Nickelodeon's global multimedia platforms, including on-air, online, and in magazines. Other promotional partners included Mitsubishi, Holiday Inn, Kellogg's, and Perfetti Van Melle.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In 2005, Nickelodeon and Simon Spotlight released a book, "Ice-Cream Dreams", as a tie-in to the film. It was written by Nancy E. Krulik and illustrated by Heather Martinez, with Krulik and Derek Drymon as contributors.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: On October 15, 2004, the film was the first to sponsor a NASCAR race: the , Busch Series "SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" 300 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. It was the first race of its kind where children at the track could listen to a special, "kid-friendly" radio broadcast of the event.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson debuted a pair of "SpongeBob SquarePants"-themed Chevrolet race cars in the race. Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet included an image of SpongeBob across the hood, and Busch's No. 5 Chevrolet featured Patrick Star. Johnson said, "This sounds so cool I know there are a lot of families who will be excited that Lowe's is doing this. The great thing is there will be something for every type of race fan. Plus how can we go wrong with SpongeBob helping us out on the car?"


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" premiered on November 14, 2004, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. It was released in the United States on November 19. Among celebrities who saw the premiere with their children were Ray Romano, Larry King, Ice Cube, Gary Dourdan, and Lisa Kudrow. The carpet was a reminder of home for Tom Kenny, SpongeBob's voice actor; he said, "I have a 15-month-old daughter, so I'm no stranger to yellow carpets."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The film was released on VHS and DVD on March 1, 2005, in wide- and full-screen editions, by Paramount Home Entertainment. The VHS release is known for being the last animated film by Nickelodeon Movies to be released on the platform. The DVD special features include an 18-minute featurette, "The Absorbing Tale Behind The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie", featuring interviews with most of the principal cast and crew; a 15-minute featurette, "Case of the Sponge "Bob"", hosted by Jean-Michel Cousteau; a 20-minute animatic segment featuring scenes from the film with dialogue by the original artists, and the film's trailer. As a tie-in to the film's DVD release, 7-Eleven served a limited-edition Under-the-Sea Pineapple Slurpee in March 2005. The film was released as a Blu-ray-plus-DVD combination pack on March 29, 2011, alongside "Charlotte's Web". It was re-released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 30, 2014.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" earned $9,559,752 on its opening day in the United States, second behind "National Treasure" (2004) (which earned $11 million). It grossed a combined total of $32,018,216 during its opening weekend, on 4,300 screens at 3,212 theaters, averaging $9,968 per venue (or $7,446 per screen, again second to "National Treasure"). The film dropped an unexpected 44 percent over the Thanksgiving weekend, and 57 percent the weekend after that. The opening weekend earned 37.48 percent of the film's final gross. It closed on March 24, 2005, failing to out-gross holiday animated competitors "The Incredibles" (2004) ($261,441,092) and "The Polar Express" (2004) ($183,373,735). It was still profitable for distributor Paramount Pictures and producer Nickelodeon Movies, earning $85,417,988 in the United States and $140,161,792 worldwide on a budget of $30 million.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . Its critical consensus reads, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents." Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" a score of 66 out of 100 based on 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Roger Ebert of the "Chicago Sun-Times" gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "the 'Good Burger' of animation plopping us down inside a fast-food war being fought by sponges, starfish, crabs, tiny plankton and mighty King Neptune." Ed Park of "The Village Voice" wrote, "No Pixar? No problem! An unstoppable good-mood generator, the resolutely 2-D ["The"] "SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" has more yuks than "Shark Tale" (2004) and enough soul to swallow "The Polar Express" whole." Michael Rechtshaffen of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a positive review, calling it "an animated adventure that's funnier than "Shark Tale" and more charming than "The Polar Express"." Randy Cordova of "The Arizona Republic" said, "Like the TV show it's based on, it's a daffy, enjoyable creation." Jami Bernard of the "New York Daily News" gave the feature a score of three out of four: "It's not "The Incredibles", or one of those animated features that spent zillions on character design, pedigree and verisimilitude. But SpongeBob is a sweet, silly thing with a child-friendly esthetic all its own." Will Lawrence of "Empire" gave the film four out of five stars, calling it "a film for kids, students, stoners, anyone who enjoys a break from reality." Lisa Schwarzbaum of "Entertainment Weekly" gave it a B-minus grade: "The best moments in his [SpongeBob SquarePants] first movie outing are those that feel most TV-like, just another day in the eternally optimistic undersea society created with such contagious silliness by Stephen Hillenburg." Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post" enjoyed the film: "You gotta love SpongeBob. Coolest sponge in the sea, although this one has a suspiciously manufactured look."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Carla Meyer of the "San Francisco Chronicle" wrote that ""The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie" retains the 2-D charm of the hugely popular Nickelodeon cartoon but adds a few tricks a little 3-D here, a little David Hasselhoff there. The series' appeal never lay in its visuals, however. 'SpongeBob' endeared itself to kids and adults through sweetness and cleverness, also abundant here." A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" gave it a score of four out of five: "If you're tired of bluster and swagger, SpongeBob is your man." Tom Maurstad of "The Dallas Morning News" also gave the film a B-minus grade: "Being so good is what led to making the movie, and it's also the reason that many small-screen episodes are better than this big-screen venture."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: Some reviews praised David Hasselhoff's appearance in the film. Jennifer Frey of "The Washington Post" wrote, "Getting to see the hairs on Hasselhoff's back (and thighs, and calves) magnified exponentially is perhaps a bit creepy. Like the movie, it's all in good fun." Cinema Blend founder Joshua Tyler called Hasselhoff's role "the best movie cameo I've seen since Fred Savage stuck a joint in his crotch and played a clarinet to charm the resulting smoke like a snake."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: David Edelstein of "Slate" criticized the film's plot, calling it a "big, heavy anchor of a story structure to weigh him down." Mike Clark of "USA Today" called it "harmlessly off-the-cuff but facing far more pedigreed multiplex competition SpongeBob barely rates as OK when compared with "The Incredibles"." A reviewer noted in "Time Out London", "Anyone expecting anything more risky will be sadly disappointed." In his "Variety" review, Todd McCarthy said the film "takes on rather too much water during its extended feature-length submersion."


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: While the film received mostly positive reviews by critics and by fans of the show, it is considered a turning point in the show's history; many fans believe that the television series has declined in quality since the film's release. While episodes aired before the film were praised for their "uncanny brilliance", those aired after the film have been called "kid-pandering attention-waster[s]", "tedious", "boring", "dreck", a "depressing plateau of mediocrity" and "laugh-skimpy." After the film's release, fans "began to turn away from the show," causing fansites to "bec[ome] deserted." Some fans believe that the show's 2012 ratings decline correlates with a decline in quality, and "whatever fan support [the show] enjoys is not enough" to save it from its slide in ratings. This was due to the fact that Stephen Hillenburg and many writers left the show.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: In honor of Stephen Hillenburg, a non-profit re-animated collaboration project, titled "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie Rehydrated", was released online on May 1, 2022. Similarly to 3GI's "Shrek Retold" collaboration, the video consists of over 300 artists recreating the film's animation and audio in their own artistic styles. Amid the YouTube premiere, the video was taken down by Paramount Global due to copyright laws. As a result, the hashtag #JusticeForSpongeBob became trending on Twitter against Paramount's action. The video was restored the following day.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: A video game based on the film was released for PlayStation 2 PC, Game Boy Advance, Xbox, and GameCube on October 27, 2004 for Mac OS X in 2005 and PlayStation 3 on February 7, 2012. The home-console version was developed by Heavy Iron Studios; the Game Boy Advance version was developed by WayForward Technologies and published by THQ.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: It was created on the same engine as "". Game developer Heavy Iron Studios tweaked the graphics to give the game a sharper and more-imaginative look than "Battle for Bikini Bottom". It increased the polygon count, added several racing levels and incorporated many creatures from the film. The game's plot was based on the film, with SpongeBob and Patrick on a mission taking them outside Bikini Bottom to retrieve Neptune's crown. On October 4, 2004, THQ announced the game's mobile release. Nickelodeon vice-president for new-media business development Paul Jelinek said, "As one of the leading publishers of wireless entertainment content, THQ Wireless is introducing the SpongeBob SquarePants license to a whole new audience of gamers THQ has been a great partner to Nickelodeon over the years and we look forward to the same standard of excellence with these upcoming SpongeBob SquarePants games for wireless devices." The mobile console was developed by Amplified Games.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: A second film, which was announced in February 2012, was directed by Paul Tibbitt, written by Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, and executive-produced by Stephen Hillenburg, who co-wrote the story with Tibbit. Paramount stated in early June 2014 that the film would be released on February 6, 2015. The film involves SpongeBob, Patrick, Squidward, Mr. Krabs, Plankton and Sandy taking back the Krabby Patty secret formula from a pirate that stole it, resulting in them making it to land.


title: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

text: The third film, "The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run", was announced in late 2019 and was released on August 14, 2020, in Canada and on March 4, 2021, on Paramount+ in the United States. Tim Hill served as the director and the screenplay was written by Aaron Springer with Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger. The film follows SpongeBob and Patrick on a rescue mission to save Gary, and reveals how SpongeBob and Gary met at Kamp Koral.


title: Skip Bayless

text: Skip Bayless (born John Edward Bayless II) is an American sports columnist, commentator, and television personality. He is well-known for his work as a commentator on the ESPN2 show "First Take" with Stephen A. Smith, a show which he left in June 2016. Bayless debuted his new show "" with Shannon Sharpe on Fox Sports 1 on September 6, 2016.


title: Skip Bayless

text: John Edward Bayless II was born in Oklahoma and was raised in Oklahoma City. His father, John Sr., immediately began calling him Skip—his father also had called his mother "Skip", as in "skipper of the ship". The name instantly stuck, and Bayless was never called John by his parents, to the point that he eventually had his name legally changed to Skip. His parents owned and operated the Hickory House restaurant in Oklahoma City, which specialized in barbecue. Bayless worked in the restaurant in his youth, but never considered it as a career path. His younger brother Rick Bayless carried on the family tradition and became a chef, restaurateur and television personality. He also has a younger sister.


title: Skip Bayless

text: Bayless's interest in sports began at an early age. He played baseball and basketball. Bayless was the salutatorian of Northwest Classen's graduating class of 1970. He was a two-year member of the National Honor Society and president of the school's Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter. He was also an officer in the letterman's club. At the urging of one of his English teachers, Bayless became the primary sports columnist for the school newspaper his junior and senior years. Prior to his senior year, Bayless represented Northwest Classen at Oklahoma Boys State. Upon graduation, he was awarded the Grantland Rice Scholarship (named for the sportswriter of the same name) to attend Vanderbilt University (Rice's alma mater). While at Vanderbilt, he majored in English and history, and graduated "cum laude" in 1974. He was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity, serving two years as the chapter's "rho" (sports director). He was also the sports editor of "The Hustler", the university's student newspaper, and spent the summer of 1969 interning under sports editor Frank Boggs at "The Daily Oklahoman".


title: Skip Bayless

text: Bayless went directly from Vanderbilt to "The Miami Herald", where he wrote sports features for a little more than two years. He then took a position at the "Los Angeles Times" in August 1976. There, he was best known for investigative stories on the Los Angeles Dodgers' clubhouse resentment of "golden boy" Steve Garvey and his celebrity wife Cyndy, and on Rams owner Carroll Rosenbloom's behind-the-scenes decisions to start different quarterbacks each week. Bayless won the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Newspaper Writing in 1977 for his coverage of Seattle Slew's Triple Crown victory.


title: Skip Bayless

text: At 26, Bayless was hired by "The Dallas Morning News" to write its lead sports column, and three years later, joined the "Dallas Times Herald". This caught the attention of "The Wall Street Journal", prompting the paper to do a story on the development. Bayless was voted Texas sportswriter of the year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association three times (1979, 1984 and 1986).


title: Skip Bayless

text: In 1989, Bayless wrote his first book, "God's Coach: The Hymns, Hype and Hypocrisy of Tom Landry's Cowboys", about the rise and fall of Tom Landry's Dallas Cowboys. Following the Cowboys' Super Bowl victory in 1993, Bayless wrote "The Boys: The Untold Story of the Dallas Cowboys' Season on the Edge", and following the third Cowboys Super Bowl win in four seasons, Bayless wrote a third book about the Cowboys, "Hell-Bent: The Crazy Truth About the "Win or Else" Dallas Cowboys". "Hell-Bent" caused a stir, in part, because in the course of writing about the conflict between Cowboys coach Barry Switzer and star quarterback Troy Aikman, Bayless reported on speculation by Switzer and people close to him within the Dallas organization that Aikman was gay.


title: Skip Bayless

text: In 1998, Bayless left Dallas after 17 years and become the lead sports columnist for the "Chicago Tribune". In his first year there, Bayless won the Lisagor Award for excellence in sports column writing, presented by the Chicago Headline Club (the Chicago chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists). In 2000, he was voted Illinois sportswriter of the year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association. Bayless left the "Chicago Tribune" in July 2001.


title: Skip Bayless

text: Bayless's work has also appeared in various national sports publications, including "Sports Illustrated".


title: Skip Bayless

text: In 1991, Bayless began a two-year stint hosting a sports talk radio show from 6–8 p.m. Monday through Friday for Dallas radio station KLIF. In 1994, he became one of the original investors in the Fort Worth radio station KTCK ("the Ticket"), and hosted "The Skip Bayless Show" from 6–9 a.m. weekdays from 1994–96. In 1996, the original owners sold the station to Cumulus Media, which bought out Bayless's contract. Also in the mid-1990s, he was a frequent guest on ESPN Radio's first national weekday show, "The Fabulous Sports Babe". After moving to Chicago, he began making regular appearances on Chet Coppock's show on the Sporting News Radio network, "Coppock On Sports". In 2001, he became the primary guest host of the syndicated radio program, "The Jim Rome Show". Soon thereafter, Bayless began co-hosting a weekend show on ESPN Radio with former "SportsCenter" anchor Larry Beil, which aired until 2004, when he moved full-time into television.


title: Skip Bayless

text: In 1989, Bayless joined host Dick Schaap as a panelist on ESPN's "The Sports Reporters", and over the next decade, he was a regular on the Sunday morning show. In 1992, Bayless became a member of the original debate team on "NFL Prime Monday"s "Knights of the Roundtable" segments with Mitch Albom and Michael Wilbon.


title: Skip Bayless

text: In 2001 and 2002, Bayless appeared regularly on Jim Rome's show on Fox Sports Net, "The Last Word". He also made frequent appearances during the same period of time on Fox's "The Best Damn Sports Show Period". When Rome moved to ESPN in 2003, Bayless became a fixture on "Rome is Burning". He was also featured in a weekly Sunday morning "SportsCenter" debate segment with Stephen A. Smith, "Old School/Nu Skool".


title: Skip Bayless

text: ESPN hired Bayless full-time in 2004 to team up with Woody Paige of "The Denver Post" in daily debate segments called "1st and 10" on ESPN2's "Cold Pizza", and to write columns for ESPN.com. In May 2007, the show, which had been produced in the network's New York studios, was rebranded as "First Take", and production was moved to the network's headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. Around this time, Bayless stopped writing for ESPN.com; he resumed writing columns for the website in August 2012.


title: Skip Bayless

text: On April 26, 2016, it was reported that Bayless had parted ways with ESPN, and would be moving to Fox Sports after his contract expired in August. His final appearance on "First Take" was on June 21, 2016.


title: Skip Bayless

text: Bayless is known for criticizing LeBron James and Aaron Rodgers in both "First Take" and "Skip and Shannon: Undisputed".


title: Skip Bayless

text: Bayless was criticized for remarks he made on September 10, 2020, about Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott, such as saying that Prescott's statements about suffering from depression were a sign of "weakness".


title: Skip Bayless

text: Along with ESPN colleagues Woody Paige and Jay Crawford, Bayless had a cameo role in the 2006 film "Rocky Balboa". The three are seen on their "First and 10" segment discussing a possible fight between a retired Balboa and current heavyweight champion Mason Dixon. Bayless opines that Balboa "was completely overrated" and mocks his age.


title: Skip Bayless

text: He appeared in the 2010 ESPN 30 for 30 film, "Pony Excess", about the Southern Methodist University football scandal involving gross violations of NCAA rules and regulations. Bayless covered the Mustangs while writing for both "The Dallas Morning News" and the "Dallas Times Herald". He also appeared in the 2011 ESPNU documentary, "Herschel", about University of Georgia running back Herschel Walker.


title: Skip Bayless

text: In 2008, Bayless was selected to the Oklahoma City Wall of Fame recognizing outstanding alumni of Oklahoma City public schools. In 2009, he was inducted as one of the five members of the inaugural class of the Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame. In 2012, he received two honors: he was nominated for a Sports Emmy Award in the category of Outstanding Sports Personality, Studio Analyst, and was the co-recipient with DJ Steve Porter of a Webby People's Voice Award in the category of Video Remixes/Mashups for "All He Does Is Win", Porter's mashup of clips of Bayless passionately defending oft-maligned quarterback Tim Tebow.


title: John Donne

text: John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). He is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His poetical works are noted for their metaphorical and sensual style and include sonnets, love poems, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs and satires. He is also known for his sermons.


title: John Donne

text: Donne's style is characterised by abrupt openings and various paradoxes, ironies and dislocations. These features, along with his frequent dramatic or everyday speech rhythms, his tense syntax and his tough eloquence, were both a reaction against the smoothness of conventional Elizabethan poetry and an adaptation into English of European baroque and mannerist techniques. His early career was marked by poetry that bore immense knowledge of English society. Another important theme in Donne's poetry is the idea of true religion, something that he spent much time considering and about which he often theorised. He wrote secular poems as well as erotic and love poems. He is particularly famous for his mastery of metaphysical conceits.


title: John Donne

text: Despite his great education and poetic talents, Donne lived in poverty for several years, relying heavily on wealthy friends. He spent much of the money he inherited during and after his education on womanising, literature, pastimes and travel. In 1601, Donne secretly married Anne More, with whom he had twelve children. In 1615 he was ordained Anglican deacon and then priest, although he did not want to take holy orders and only did so because the king ordered it. He also served as a member of Parliament in 1601 and in 1614.