The creator of SpongeBob lost his battle with ALS and has passed away. SpongeBob premiered in the late 90s and has held on for almost 20 years. I remember watching the first episode on TV as a kid. 

A big shocker to me. I never knew he had bad health.

i've been meandering around some facebook posts and it's sad to see people bashing him about the modern seasons. for those of you who don't know, stephen left the show by season 4 because he wanted to go back into his old hobby of interacting with sea life, and some of the old writers left following that. stephen actually wanted to end the cartoon after the third season episode "the sponge who could fly" but nickelodeon wanted to take advantage of the show's success and turned it into the cash cow it is today. what i'm getting at is, people shouldn't drag his name in the mud over the later seasons when he had nothing to do with them.

Benjanime wrote :

what i'm getting at is, people shouldn't drag his name in the mud over the later seasons when he had nothing to do with them. -end quote

Wait a sad day for animation. This man helped create one of the biggest cartoon franchises of the past twenty-years. It's also worth pointing out that he worked on other cartoons such as Rocko's Modern Life.

Benjanime wrote :

i've been meandering around some facebook posts and it's sad to see people bashing him about the modern seasons.  -end quote

So, even with him dead, they're still badmouthing the modern seasons? The ones he had nothing to do with?

Mr Magic wrote :

So, even with him dead, they're still badmouthing the modern seasons? The ones he had nothing to do with?

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That's actually an interesting point. Why are people bashing him for seasons that he openly had nothing to do with?

Not to mention to that when Hillenburg came back as executive producer, Spongebob actually started to improve again. Granted, it's still not up to Seasons 1-3 level of quality, and there are still a few stinkers here and there (Ink Lemonade is probably the worst out of all of them). But overall, there's a lot of episodes that's made recently that were pretty damn good. The Krabby Patty Creature Feature, Man Ray Returns, and Mimic Madness are examples of modern Spongebob episodes I recommend. 

blueluigi wrote :

A lot of Spongebob's decline really has more to do with the lack of writers that the show was getting, and a lot of the times, the writers they do hire end up doing a terrible job at writing the show. Hillenburg's management helped bring back some of the original writers as well as younger, and talented writers, which helped with it's improvement in quality.

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I think another reason for the show going downhill the way it did was due to how the fanbase itself was changing. You have to remember how long the show was on for before Hillenburg left. I was apart of the original intended audience for it. I wasn't even five yet when the show first premiered, but was turning ten when the film was released. The original fanbase for the show was getting older and had reached the point that they were moving on from Spongebob just for maturity reasons. The show had to appeal to new audience members just to stay on air.

I didn't even know he was sick.

i think he left on good timing though, it sounds stressful having to make all those deadlines and such with the networks and taking time out of your personal life. that and when the writers left they began writing for other shows like chowder and the marvelous misadventures of flapjack.