SpongeBob is a complete innocent - not an idiot. SpongeBob never fully realizes how stupid Patrick is. They're whipping themselves up into situations - that's always where the humor comes from.

I do think that the attitude of the show is about tolerance. Everybody is different, and the show embraces that. The character SpongeBob is an oddball. He's kind of weird, but he's kind of special.

Most sponges in the ocean are sedentary: They attach themselves to a rock and sit and filter-feed the rest of their lives and reproduce, and that's about it. Not that they are not interesting, but they are not that kinetic. They are not mobile. They don't cook Krabbie Patties!

I thought, well, what about a show that stars undersea creatures, and some of the ones you rarely see animated. So, from there, I just started drawing different animals in a kind of a setting that was this nautical world. It's not realistic but sort of a fantastic environment.

Anyone who knows me knows that I will continue to work on 'SpongeBob SquarePants' and my other passions for as long as I am able.

On TV, it is more efficient to use voice-over people because it is really hard to get celebrity voices to recur in a series.

To be honest, there is a special gift for doing voice-overs, and the people who did the voices in the 'SpongeBob' cast are excellent at cartoon voice-overs, and they bring something extra to the reads.

I knew I wanted to create a character who was nerdy and kind of square, so when I drew a square sponge, everything came together. And originally his name was SpongeBoy, but there we couldn't use that for trademark reasons.

I was just looking at a packet that had SpongeBob thong underwear, so it goes farther than I would imagine.

I never really imagined a show about a sponge going past our first season. I thought maybe we'd have a cult following, and we'd be gone after one season.