SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by marine biologist and animator Stephen Hillenburg that premiered on Nickelodeon on May 1, 1999. The series is set in the fictional underwater city of Bikini Bottom, and centers on the adventures and endeavors of SpongeBob SquarePants, an enthusiastic and optimistic sea sponge. Many of the ideas for the show originated in an unpublished, educational comic book titled The Intertidal Zone, which Hillenburg created in the mid-1980s. He began developing SpongeBob SquarePants into a television series in 1996 after the cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life, another Nickelodeon television series that Hillenburg previously directed.

The seventeenth season premiered on June 12, 2026. On June 9, 2026, the series was renewed for an eighteenth and nineteenth season.

Six theatrical and streaming films have been released , including The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020), Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie (2024), Plankton: The Movie (2025), and The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants (2025).

Atlantis SquarePantis, a television film guest starring David Bowie, debuted as part of the fifth season. In 2009, Nickelodeon celebrated the show's tenth anniversary with Square Roots: The Story of SpongeBob SquarePants and SpongeBob's Truth or Square. In 2019, Nickelodeon celebrated the show's twentieth anniversary with SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout, a television film.

Episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants have been nominated for a variety of different awards, including 17 Annie Awards (with six wins), 17 Golden Reel Awards (with eight wins), 15 Emmy Awards (with one win), 23 Kids' Choice Awards (with 22 wins), and four BAFTA Children's Awards (with two wins). Several compilation DVDs have been released. In addition, the first fifteen seasons have been released on DVD, and are available for Regions 1, 2 and 4 as of .

Series overview

Episodes Seasons 1–10 (1999–2017)

Seasons 11–present (2017–present)

Films

Notes

References Award wins include:

Award wins include: — via Internet Movie Database. — via Internet Movie Database. — via Internet Movie Database. — via Internet Movie Database. — via Internet Movie Database.

Award wins include:

Award wins include:

Works cited

External links

at the Big Cartoon DataBase