How the Zany Animated TV Series ‘SpongeBob SquarePants’ Made It to Air on Nickelodeon

In an adventurous episode of Today I Found Out, host Simon Whistler tells the story of how Stephen Hillenburg‘s zany animated television series, SpongeBob SquarePants, made it to air on Nickelodeon.

As of 2014, the SpongeBob SquarePants brand has generated in excess of $13 billion since the pilot episode was released about a decade and a half ago. But have you ever stopped to wonder how on Earth a cartoon about an anthropomorphic kitchen sponge came to exist in the first place and how networks were convinced that it could not only work, but be a worldwide phenomenon? Well the answer is that it took years of planning, being rejected for publication in comic book form, a Hawaiian shirt, and a fish tank.