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A delightful, tinsel covered SpongeBob Christmas decoration

2012 SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS SANTA 18" PRE-LIT YARD ART

DETAILS:

It's a SpongeBob Christmas!

This adorable Christmas decoration features everyone's favorite lovable, pineapple-dwelling sponge in Santa Claus garb complete with a cheerful Santa hat. The 3D light-up holiday decoration is comprised of a metal rod framework that is wrapped in a fabric exterior that has been covered in shiny tinsel. The tinsel exterior creates a wonderful light reflecting effect, especially when in the presence of more colorful holiday lights. Lining the frame inside are warm colored mini T5 incandescent bulbs that emit a cozy and inviting glow, making SpongeBob shine even brighter. The SpongeBob SquarePants 3D 18" lighted tinsel decor was made available, at select stores, for the 2011 and 2012 holiday seasons but has since been retired - making it hard to find and a must-have SpongeBob rare collectible. Cord is approximately 3.5 ft. and plug has a socket for linking lights.

Retired and rare!

Includes yard stakes and replacement bulbs and fuses!

For indoor or outdoor use!
If using outside we recommend placing under cover, i.e., covered porch area.

Dimensions:

Height: 18"

Length: 13-1/2"

Width: 6"

CONDITION:

In good, pre-owned and working condition. SpongeBob's right thumb got chopped off and has been reattached with adhesive and sticker pieces. The pom ball of his hat covers his right hand from view so the the damage is inconspicuous. His left hand has a couple bent fingers. Please see photos.

To ensure safe delivery all items are carefully packaged before shipping out.

THANK YOU FOR LOOKING. QUESTIONS? JUST ASK.

*ALL PHOTOS AND TEXT ARE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF SIDEWAYS STAIRS CO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.*

"SpongeBob SquarePants is an American fictional character and the protagonist of Nickelodeon's eponymous American animated television series. Voiced by Tom Kenny, he is characterized by his optimism and childlike attitude. SpongeBob is a denizen of Bikini Bottom, where he regularly gets into absurd and humorous scenarios.

SpongeBob was created and designed by Stephen Hillenburg, an artist and marine science educator. The character's name is derived from "Bob the Sponge", the host of Hillenburg's unpublished educational book The Intertidal Zone. He drew the book while teaching marine biology to visitors of the Ocean Institute during the 1980s. Hillenburg began developing a show based on the premise shortly after the 1996 cancellation of Rocko's Modern Life, which Hillenburg served as creative director. SpongeBob's first appearance was in the pilot, "Help Wanted", which premiered on May 1, 1999.

SpongeBob SquarePants has become popular among children and adults. The character has garnered a positive response from media critics and is frequently named as one of the greatest cartoon characters of all time.
Development
Conception
Stephen Hillenburg stands holding a book looking off to his right
Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Stephen Hillenburg first became fascinated with the ocean as a child. He began developing his artistic abilities at a young age. During college, he studied marine biology and minored in art. He planned to return to graduate school and eventually to pursue a master's degree in art. After graduating in 1984 from Humboldt State University, he joined the Ocean Institute, an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history.[1] While he was there, he had the initial idea that would lead to the creation of SpongeBob SquarePants—a comic book titled The Intertidal Zone. The host of the comic was "Bob the Sponge" who, unlike SpongeBob, resembled an actual sea sponge.[2] In 1987, Hillenburg left the institute to pursue an animation career.[2][3]

A few years after studying experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts,[3] Hillenburg met Joe Murray, the creator of Rocko's Modern Life, at an animation festival, and was offered a job as a director of the series.[2][4][5][6] While working on the series, Hillenburg met writer Martin Olson, who saw his previous comic The Intertidal Zone.[7] Olson liked the idea and suggested Hillenburg create a series of marine animals, which spurred his decision to create SpongeBob SquarePants. Hillenburg did not think of making a series based on The Intertidal Zone at the time, later telling Thomas F. Wilson in an interview, "a show... I hadn't even thought about making a show... and it wasn't my show". Hillenburg later claimed it was "the inspiration for the show".[8]

Rocko's Modern Life ended in 1996.[9] Shortly afterwards, Hillenburg began working on SpongeBob SquarePants. He began drawing and took some of the show's characters from his comic—like starfish, crab, and sponge.[8] At the time, Hillenburg knew that "everybody was doing buddy shows"—like The Ren & Stimpy Show. He stated, "I can't do a buddy show", so he decided to do a "one character" show instead.[8] He conceived a sponge as the title character because he liked its "versatility... as an animal".[10] Hillenburg derived the character's name from Bob the Sponge, the host of his comic strip The Intertidal Zone, after changing it from SpongeBoy because of trademark issues.[2][11]
Creation and design
A black and white drawing of SpongeBoy with arms and feet wearing a hat. He wears a goofy grin in with a light grey shirt and darker grey pants.
An early drawing of the character by Hillenburg with the original name

Hillenburg had made several "horrible impersonations" before he finally conceived of his character.[12] He compared the concept to Laurel and Hardy and Pee-wee Herman[2] saying, "I think SpongeBob [was] born out of my love of Laurel and Hardy shorts. You've got that kind of idiot-buddy situation – that was a huge influence. SpongeBob was inspired by that kind of character: the Innocent – à la Stan Laurel."[12]

The first concept sketch portrayed the character wearing a red hat with a green base and a white business shirt with a tie. SpongeBob's look gradually changed. He also wore brown pants used in the final design.[11] SpongeBob was designed to be a childlike character who was goofy and optimistic in a style similar to that made famous by Jerry Lewis.[13]

Originally, the character was to be named SpongeBoy (and the series named SpongeBoy Ahoy!),[14] but this name was already in use for another product.[15] This was discovered after voice acting for the original seven-minute pilot was recorded.[16] Upon learning this, Hillenburg knew that the character's name still had to contain "Sponge" so viewers would not mistake him for a "Cheese Man". In 1997, he decided to use the name "SpongeBob" with "SquarePants" as a family name, with the latter referring to the character's square shape and having a "nice ring to it".[5]

Before commissioning SpongeBob as a full series, Nickelodeon executives insisted that it would not be popular unless the main character was a child who went to school.[17] Stephen Hillenburg recalled in 2012 that Nickelodeon told him, "Our winning formula is animation about kids in school... We want you to put SpongeBob in school."[8] Hillenburg was ready to "walk out" on Nickelodeon and abandon the series since he wanted SpongeBob to be an adult character. He eventually compromised by adding a new character to the main cast, Mrs. Puff, whose occupation as a driving instructor allowed SpongeBob to both appear as an adult and go to school, satisfying both Hillenburg and Nickelodeon. Hillenburg was happy with the compromise and said, "A positive thing for me that came out of it was [how it brought] in a new character, Mrs. Puff, who I love."[8]

Episodes from 2000 and 2001 have given SpongeBob's birthdate as July 14, 1986,[18] although his age is left unclear throughout the series.[19]

SpongeBob has demonstrated an ability to shapeshift, for example into the shape of Texas[20] or his friends' faces to humor himself.

Voice
Tom Kenny, a tall White man with brown, curly hair and glasses, seats at a microphone looking off to his left
Tom Kenny provides the voice of SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob is voiced by veteran voice actor Tom Kenny who had worked previously with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life. When Hillenburg created SpongeBob SquarePants, he approached Kenny to voice the character.[22] Hillenburg used Kenny's and other people's personalities while creating SpongeBob's.[16]

Kenny said in an episode of WTF with Marc Maron that the voice was based on a bitter dwarf actor he encountered while auditioning for a television commercial.[23] Kenny had originally used SpongeBob's voice for a minor background character in Rocko's Modern Life. At first, Kenny forgot the voice because he had used it only on that occasion. Hillenburg remembered it when he was coming up with SpongeBob, however, and played a video clip of the Rocko episode to remind Kenny of the voice.[16][23] When Hillenburg heard Kenny do the voice, he said, "That's it—I don't want to hear anybody else do the voice. We've got SpongeBob."[24] Kenny recalled that Nickelodeon was unsure of his casting and said, "Well, let's just listen to 100 more people."[24] The network hoped to find a celebrity for the part. Kenny noted: "But one of the advantages of having a strong creator is that the creator can say, 'No, I like that—I don't care about celebrities'." Kenny recalls Hillenburg "let them know that in no uncertain terms."[24] SpongeBob's high-pitched laugh was specifically designed to be unique according to Kenny. They wanted an annoying laugh in the tradition of Popeye and Woody Woodpecker.[25]

Throughout the series, SpongeBob's voice evolved from "low-key" to high-pitched. Kenny said, "I hear the change... It's mostly a question of the pitch."[24] He said that, "It's unconscious on my part" because "I don't wake up and think, 'Hmm, I'm going to change SpongeBob's voice today, just for the hell of it'." He described it as "like erosion: a very slow process. As time goes on, you need to bring him to different places and more places, the more stories and scripts you do."[24] Contrasting first-season episodes to those of the seventh season, Kenny said that "there's a bit of a change [in the voice], but I don't think it's that extreme at all."[24]

When SpongeBob SquarePants was prepared for broadcast in languages other than English, the voice actors dubbing SpongeBob's voice used Tom Kenny's rendition of the character as a starting point but added unique elements. For example, in the French version of the series, SpongeBob speaks with a slight Daffy Duck-style lisp.[16]
Role in SpongeBob SquarePants

SpongeBob is a good-natured, naive, and enthusiastic sea sponge. In The SpongeBob Musical, his exact species of animal is identified: Aplysina fistularis, a yellow tube sponge that is common in open waters.[26] He resides in the undersea city of Bikini Bottom with other anthropomorphic aquatic creatures. He works as a fry cook at a local fast food restaurant, the Krusty Krab, to which he is obsessively attached, showing devotion to it above other restaurants.[27] His boss is Eugene Krabs, a greedy crab who nonetheless becomes a father figure to SpongeBob.[28] Squidward Tentacles, an octopus,[29] and SpongeBob's ill-tempered, snobbish neighbor, works as the restaurant's cashier. SpongeBob's hobbies include fishing for jellyfish, practicing karate with his friend Sandy Cheeks (a squirrel from Texas),[30] and blowing bubbles.[31]

SpongeBob is often seen hanging around with his best friend, starfish Patrick Star, one of his neighbors. SpongeBob SquarePants lives in a submerged pineapple with his pet snail, Gary. His often-overt optimistic attitude makes him ignorant to negativity from others. He believes, for instance, that Squidward Tentacles enjoys his company even though he was clearly annoyed by SpongeBob's behavior in most scenarios.[32] SpongeBob's greatest goal in life is to obtain his driver's license from Mrs. Puff's boating school, but he often panics and crashes when driving a boat, failing the course multiple times.[33]
Reception
Critical reception

Throughout SpongeBob SquarePants' first run, the SpongeBob character became instantly popular with both children and adults. In June 2010, Entertainment Weekly named him one of the "100 Greatest Characters of the Last 20 Years".[34] TV Guide listed SpongeBob SquarePants at number nine on its "50 Greatest Cartoon Characters of All Time" list.[35]

James Poniewozik of Time magazine considered the character "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to match–conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him."[36] The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said, "His relentless good cheer would be irritating if he weren't so darned lovable and his world so excellently strange... Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."[37] Robert Thompson, a professor of communications and director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, told The New York Times:

    There is something kind of unique about [SpongeBob]. It seems to be a refreshing breath from the pre-irony era. There's no sense of the elbow-in-rib, a tongue-in-cheek aesthetic that so permeates the rest of American culture–including kids' shows like the Rugrats. I think what's subversive about it is it's so incredibly naive–deliberately. Because there's nothing in it that's trying to be hip or cool or anything else, hipness can be grafted onto it.[38]

In a 2007 interview with TV Guide, Barack Obama named SpongeBob his favorite TV character, saying that he watched SpongeBob SquarePants with his daughters....Cultural impact and legacy
SpongeBob SquarePants wax statue with its left arm raised and a big smile on its face
SpongeBob SquarePants wax statue in the National Wax Museum Plus,
in Dublin, Ireland

Throughout SpongeBob SquarePants' run, the SpongeBob character became very popular with viewers of all ages. His popularity spread from Nickelodeon's original demographic of two- to eleven-year-olds, to teenagers and adults,[58] was popular on college campuses and with celebrities such as Sigourney Weaver and Bruce Willis.[59] Salon Stephanie Zacharek feels that the unadulterated innocence of SpongeBob is what makes him so appealing.[60] Since at least 2002, SpongeBob became popular with gay men due to his "flamboyant lifestyle and tolerant attitude", despite Stephen Hillenburg asserting he is asexual.

In July 2009, the Madame Tussauds wax museum in New York unveiled a wax sculpture of SpongeBob,[63] the first fictional character to be featured there.[63] In May 2011, a new species of mushroom, Spongiforma squarepantsii, named after SpongeBob, was described in the journal Mycologia.[64] The authors note that the hymenium, when viewed using scanning electron microscopy, somewhat resembles a "seafloor covered with tube sponges, reminiscent of the fictitious home of SpongeBob."[64] Although the epithet was originally rejected by Mycologia's editors as "too frivolous", the authors insisted that "we could name it whatever we liked."[65] Since 2004, SpongeBob has appeared as a balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade....During a panel at a fan convention in 2024, Kenny recounted a moment from a previous convention when he was asked by a neurodivergent fan whether "SpongeBob himself [is] autistic as a character", to which he responded "Yes, of course he is. [...] That's his superpower, the same way that's your superpower."[78][79] Video footage of this account went viral, prompting Kenny to clarify during an interview with Entertainment Weekly at the convention three days later that he did not intend for this to be an official public statement about the character, and called it a "private moment that I had with a fan, but it seems like it's been empowering and helpful to people out there."[80] A decade prior, on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Kenny described SpongeBob as being "a little autistic. Obsessed with his job, very hardworking, gets really really deep into something."[78] Fans on online forums have noted other behavior exhibited by SpongeBob can be interpreted as signs of neurodivergence, such as "meltdowns, blindness to sarcasm and inability to read social cues".[78] Other SpongeBob voice actors, including Mr. Lawrence and Clancy Brown, have agreed that the character of SpongeBob connects with autistic children and adults "at every level of the spectrum"." (wikipedia)

"SpongeBob SquarePants is an American animated television series created by marine science educator and animator Stephen Hillenburg for Nickelodeon. It was revealed as a sneak peek after the 1999 Kids' Choice Awards on May 1, 1999, and officially premiered on July 17, 1999. It chronicles the adventures of the titular character and his aquatic friends in the underwater city of Bikini Bottom.

Many of the series' ideas originated in The Intertidal Zone, an unpublished educational comic book Hillenburg created in 1989 to teach his students about undersea life.[4] Hillenburg joined Nickelodeon in 1992 as an artist on Rocko's Modern Life.[5] After Rocko was cancelled in 1996, he began developing SpongeBob SquarePants into a television series that same year, and in 1997, a seven-minute pilot was pitched to Nickelodeon. The network's executives wanted SpongeBob to be a child in school, but Hillenburg preferred SpongeBob to be an adult character.[6] He was prepared to abandon the series, but compromised by creating Mrs. Puff and her boating school so SpongeBob could attend school as an adult.[7]

In only a month after its premiere in 1999, the show became the highest-rated and most viewed animated Saturday morning program that year, beating Pokémon.[8] The series received worldwide critical acclaim, and had gained more popularity by its second season. As of 2019, the series is the fifth-longest-running American animated series. Its popularity made it a multimedia franchise, the highest rated Nickelodeon series, and the most profitable intellectual property for Paramount Consumer Products. By 2019, it had generated over $13 billion in merchandising revenue.[9] The series has run for a total of fourteen seasons, and has inspired three feature films: The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), Sponge Out of Water (2015), and Sponge on the Run (2020). Two spin-off series, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years and The Patrick Star Show, premiered in 2021. As of February 2022, four additional films are planned: three character spinoff films for Paramount+ and Netflix, and a theatrical SpongeBob film. The fourteenth season of the main series was announced in March 2022,[10] and premiered in November 2023. In September 2023, the show was renewed for a fifteenth season,[11] which premiered in July 2024.

SpongeBob SquarePants has won a variety of awards including six Annie Awards, eight Golden Reel Awards, four Emmy Awards, two BAFTA Children's Awards, and a record-breaking twenty-one Kids' Choice Awards. A Broadway musical based on the series opened in 2017 to critical acclaim.[12] The series is also noted as a cultural touchstone of Millennials and Generation Z.[13][14]
Premise
Characters
Main article: List of SpongeBob SquarePants characters
Illustration of the series' ten main characters.
The series' main characters. Top row, from left to right: Pearl, Plankton, and Karen. Bottom row: Sandy, Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob, Squidward, Gary, Patrick, and Mrs. Puff.

The series revolves around the title character and an ensemble cast of his aquatic friends. SpongeBob SquarePants is an energetic and optimistic yellow sea sponge who lives in a submerged pineapple. SpongeBob has a childlike enthusiasm for life, which carries over to his job as a fry cook at a fast food restaurant called the Krusty Krab. One of his life's greatest goals is to obtain a boat-driving license from Mrs. Puff's Boating School, but he never succeeds. His favorite pastimes include "jellyfishing", which involves catching jellyfish with a net in a manner similar to butterfly catching, and blowing soap bubbles into elaborate shapes. He has a pet sea snail with a pink shell and a blue body named Gary, who meows like a cat.

Living two houses away from SpongeBob is his best friend Patrick Star, a dimwitted yet friendly pink starfish who resides under a rock. Patrick considers himself to intelligent, with his ignorance of his stupidity being a key trait of his.[15] Squidward Tentacles, SpongeBob's next-door neighbor and co-worker at the Krusty Krab, is a grumpy and bitter octopus who lives in an Easter Island moai. He despises his job as a cashier and enjoys playing the clarinet and painting self-portraits. He is constantly annoyed by SpongeBob and Patrick's antics, who are unaware of Squidward's animosity towards them, though they get along well when the situation calls for it. Mr. Krabs, a greedy red crab, is the owner of the Krusty Krab. serves as a father figure to SpongeBob. He is a single parent with an adopted teenage daughter, a grey sperm whale named Pearl, who has no interest in taking over the family business.[16] Another of SpongeBob's friends is Sandy Cheeks, a thrill-seeking and athletic squirrel from Texas, who wears an air-filled diving suit to breathe underwater.[17] She lives in a tree enclosed in a clear glass dome locked by an airtight, hand-turned seal and is an expert in karate.

Located across the street from the Krusty Krab is an unsuccessful rival restaurant called the Chum Bucket.[18] It rarely has any customers due to its sale of chum-based food constituting as cannibalism by the majority of the fish population. It is run by a small, green, one-eyed copepod[19] named Plankton and his computer wife, Karen.[20] Plankton, being a childhood friend and eventual rival of Mr. Krabs, constantly tries to steal the secret recipe for Mr. Krabs's popular Krabby Patty burgers, hoping to gain the upper hand and put the Krusty Krab out of business.[21] Karen supplies him with evil schemes to obtain the formula, but their efforts always fail and their restaurant rarely has any customers.[22] When SpongeBob is not working at the Krusty Krab, he is often taking boating lessons from Mrs. Puff, a paranoid but patient pufferfish. SpongeBob is Mrs. Puff's most diligent student and knows every answer to the oral exams he takes, but he panics and crashes when he tries to drive a real boat, hence failing the course multiple times.[23] When Mrs. Puff endures one of SpongeBob's crashes or is otherwise frightened, she puffs up into a ball.[24]

An unseen figure called the French Narrator often introduces episodes and narrates the intertitles as if the series were a nature documentary about the ocean. His role and distinctive manner of speaking are references to the oceanographer Jacques Cousteau.[25]

Recurring guest characters appear throughout the series including: the retired superheroes Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, who are idolized by SpongeBob and Patrick; a pirate specter known as the Flying Dutchman; the muscular lifeguard of Goo Lagoon, Larry the Lobster; and the merman god of the sea, King Neptune. There is also a large variety of characters who serve as the main background characters for the show and are featured in almost every episode. They are each referred as "Incidental" followed by their given model number. Their names, jobs, personalities, relationships, voices, ages, and sometimes gender are inconsistent and tend to differ from each episode. There are 222 of these characters.[citation needed]

Special (generally half-hour or hour-long) episodes of the show are hosted by a live-action pirate named Patchy and his pet parrot Potty, whose segments are presented in a dual narrative with the animated stories.[26] Patchy is portrayed as the president of a fictional SpongeBob fan club, and his greatest aspiration is to meet SpongeBob himself. He gets into absurd escapades in a similar matter to the actual show, with Potty constantly making fun of Patchy's nonsensical aspirations and causes trouble for him while he tries to host the show.

Setting
"Bikini Bottom" redirects here. For other uses, see Bikini Bottom (disambiguation).
A blue colored image of an atoll.

The series takes place primarily in the benthic underwater city of Bikini Bottom located in the Pacific Ocean beneath the real-life coral reef known as Bikini Atoll.[27][28][29][b] Its citizens are mostly multicolored fish who live in buildings made from ship funnels and use "boatmobiles", amalgamations of cars and boats, as a mode of transportation. Recurring locations within Bikini Bottom include the neighboring houses of SpongeBob, Patrick, and Squidward; two competing restaurants, the Krusty Krab and the Chum Bucket; Mrs. Puff's Boating School, which includes a driving course and a sunken lighthouse; the Treedome, an oxygenated glass enclosure where Sandy lives; Shady Shoals Rest Home; a seagrass meadow called Jellyfish Fields; and Goo Lagoon, a subaqueous brine pool that is a popular beach hangout.

When the SpongeBob crew began production of the series' pilot episode, they were tasked with designing stock locations, to be used repeatedly, where most scenes would take place like the Krusty Krab and SpongeBob's pineapple house.[32] The idea was "to keep everything nautical", so the crew used plenty of rope, wooden planks, ships' wheels, netting, anchors, boilerplates, and rivets to create the show's setting. Transitions between scenes are marked by bubbles filling the screen, accompanied by the sound of rushing water.[32]

The series features "sky flowers" as a main setting material.[32] When series background designer Kenny Pittenger was asked what they were, he answered, "They function as clouds in a way, but since the show takes place underwater, they aren't really clouds. Because of the Tiki influence on the show, the background painters use a lot of pattern."[32] Pittenger said the sky flowers were meant to "evoke the look of a flower-print Hawaiian shirt".[32]
Production
Development
Early inspirations
Aerial photograph of the Ocean Institute at Dana Point, California

Series creator Stephen Hillenburg first became fascinated with the ocean as a child and began developing his artistic abilities at a young age. Although these interests would not overlap for some time—the idea of drawing fish seemed boring to him—Hillenburg pursued both during college, majoring in marine biology and minoring in art. After graduating in 1984, he joined the Ocean Institute, an organization in Dana Point, California, dedicated to educating the public about marine science and maritime history.

While Hillenburg was there, his love of the ocean began to influence his artistry. He created a precursor to SpongeBob SquarePants: a comic book titled The Intertidal Zone used by the institute to teach visiting students about the animal life of tide pools.[34] The comic starred various anthropomorphic sea lifeforms, many of which would evolve into SpongeBob SquarePants characters.[35] Hillenburg tried to get the comic professionally published, but none of the companies he sent it to were interested.[34]

A large inspiration to Hillenburg was Ween's 1997 album The Mollusk, which had a nautical and underwater theme. Hillenburg contacted the band shortly after the album's release, explaining the baseline ideas for SpongeBob SquarePants, and also requested a song from the band, which they sent on Christmas Eve. This song was "Loop de Loop", which was used in the episode "Your Shoe's Untied".[36][37][38]
Conception

While working as a staff artist at the Ocean Institute, Hillenburg entertained plans to return eventually to college for a master's degree in art. Before this could materialize, he attended an animation festival, which inspired him to make a slight change in course. Instead of continuing his education with a traditional art program, Hillenburg chose to study experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts.[34] His thesis film, Wormholes, is about the theory of relativity.[39] It was screened at festivals, and at one of these, Hillenburg met Joe Murray, creator of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, Rocko's Modern Life. Murray was impressed by the style of the film and offered Hillenburg a job.[39][40] Hillenburg joined the series as a director, and later, during the fourth season, he took on the roles of producer and creative director.[35][39][40][41]

Martin Olson, one of the writers for Rocko's Modern Life, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, Hillenburg had not even considered creating his own series. However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach.[34][39][42] He began to develop some of the characters from The Intertidal Zone, including the comic's "announcer", Bob the Sponge.[34] He wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time, which he felt were exemplified by buddy comedies like The Ren & Stimpy Show. As a result, Hillenburg decided to focus on a single main character: the "weirdest" sea creature he could think of. This led him to the sponge.[34] The Intertidal Zone's Bob the Sponge resembles an actual sea sponge, and at first, Hillenburg continued to use this design.[34][39][40][43] In determining the new character's behavior, Hillenburg drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, and Pee-wee Herman.[34][40][44][45][46] He then considered modeling the character after a kitchen sponge and realized this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly.[34][39][40] Patrick, Mr. Krabs, Pearl, and Squidward were the next characters Hillenburg created for the show.[47]

To voice the series' central character, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had started alongside Hillenburg's on Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed to develop the character further.[48] Initially, Hillenburg wanted to use the name SpongeBoy—the character had no last name—and the series was to have been named SpongeBoy Ahoy![43][48] However, the Nickelodeon legal department discovered—after voice acting had been completed for the original seven-minute pilot episode—that the name "SpongeBoy" was already copyrighted.[49][48] In choosing a replacement name, Hillenburg felt he still had to use the word "Sponge", so that viewers would not mistake the character for a "Cheese Man". He settled on the name "SpongeBob". "SquarePants" was chosen as a family name after Kenny saw a picture of the character and remarked, "Boy, look at this sponge in square pants, thinking he can get a job in a fast food place."[44] When he heard Kenny say it, Hillenburg loved the phrase and felt it would reinforce the character's nerdiness.[44][50]
Assembling the crew

Derek Drymon, who served as creative director for the first three seasons, has said that Hillenburg wanted to surround himself with a "team of young and hungry people."[45] Many of the major contributors to SpongeBob SquarePants had worked before with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, including: Drymon, art director Nick Jennings, supervising director Alan Smart, writer/voice actor Doug Lawrence (often credited as Mr. Lawrence), and Tim Hill, who helped develop the series bible.[45][46]

Although Drymon would go on to have a significant influence on SpongeBob SquarePants, he was not offered a role on the series initially. As a late recruit to Rocko's Modern Life, he had not established much of a relationship with Hillenburg before SpongeBob's conception. Hillenburg first sought out Drymon's storyboard partner, Mark O'Hare—but he had just created the soon-to-be syndicated comic strip, Citizen Dog.[45] While he would later join SpongeBob as a writer,[51] he lacked the time to get involved with both projects from the outset.[45] Drymon has said, "I remember Hillenburg's bringing it up to Mark in our office and asking him if he'd be interested in working on it ... I was all ready to say yes to the offer, but Steve didn't ask; he just left the room. I was pretty desperate ... so I ran into the hall after him and basically begged him for the job. He didn't jump at the chance."[45] Once Hillenburg had given it some thought and decided to bring Drymon on as creative director, the two began meeting at Hillenburg's house several times a week to develop the series. Drymon has identified this period as having begun in 1996, shortly after the end of Rocko's Modern Life.[45]

Jennings was also instrumental in SpongeBob's genesis.[52] Kenny has called him "one of SpongeBob's early graphics mentors".[46] On weekends, Kenny joined Hillenburg, Jennings, and Drymon for creative sessions where they recorded ideas on a tape recorder.[46] Kenny performed audio tests as SpongeBob during these sessions, while Hillenburg voice acted the other characters.[43][46]

Hill contributed scripts for several first-season episodes (including the pilot)[53][54][55][56] and was offered the role of story editor, but turned it down—he would go on to pursue a career as a family film director.[57][58] In his stead, Pete Burns was brought in for the job. Burns hailed from Chicago and had never met any of the principal players on SpongeBob before joining the team.[45]
Pitching

While pitching the cartoon to Nickelodeon executives, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. The setup was described by Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman as "pretty amazing".[39] They were given money and two weeks to write the pilot episode "Help Wanted".[39] Drymon, Hillenburg, and Jennings returned with what was described by Nickelodeon official Albie Hecht as, "a performance [he] wished [he] had on tape".[39] Although executive producer Derek Drymon described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well".[39] Kevin Kay and Hecht had to step outside because they were "exhausted from laughing", which worried the cartoonists.

In an interview, Cyma Zarghami, then-president of Nickelodeon, said, "their [Nickelodeon executives'] immediate reaction was to see it again, both because they liked it and it was unlike anything they'd ever seen before".[59] Zarghami was one of four executives in the room when SpongeBob SquarePants was screened for the first time.[59]

Before commissioning the full series, Nickelodeon executives insisted that it would not be popular unless SpongeBob was a child who went to school, with his teacher as a main character.[6] Hillenburg recalled in 2012 that Nickelodeon told him, "Our winning formula is animation about kids in school... We want you to put SpongeBob in school."[34] Hillenburg was ready to "walk out" on Nickelodeon and abandon the series, since he wanted SpongeBob to be an adult character.[34] He eventually compromised by adding a new character to the main cast, Mrs. Puff, who is a boat-driving teacher. Hillenburg was happy with the compromise and said, "A positive thing for me that came out of it was [how it brought] in a new character, Mrs. Puff, who I love."[34]
Executive producers and showrunners
Photograph of Stephen Hillenburg standing holding a book with the title SpongeBob SquarePants looking to his right
Stephen Hillenburg, creator of SpongeBob SquarePants

Until his death in 2018, Hillenburg had served as the executive producer over the course of the series' entire history and functioned as its showrunner from its debut in 1999 until 2004. The series went on hiatus in 2002, after Hillenburg halted production on the show itself to work on the feature film The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.[49] Once the film was finalized and the third season finished, Hillenburg resigned as the series' showrunner. Although he no longer had a direct role in the series' production, he maintained an advisory role and reviewed each episode.[59][60]

When the film was completed, Hillenburg intended it to be the series finale, "so [the show] wouldn't jump the shark." However, Nickelodeon wanted more episodes.[62] Hillenburg appointed Paul Tibbitt, who had previously served on the show as a writer, director, and storyboard artist, to take over his role as showrunner to produce additional seasons.[63] Hillenburg considered Tibbitt one of his favorite members of the show's crew,[64] and "totally trusted him".[61]

On December 13, 2014, it was announced that Hillenburg would return to the series in an unspecified position.[65] On November 26, 2018, at the age of 57, Hillenburg died from complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), with which he had been diagnosed in March 2017.[66][67] Nickelodeon confirmed via Twitter the series would continue after his death.[68] In February 2019, incoming president Brian Robbins vowed Nickelodeon would keep the show in production for as long as the network exists.

As of the ninth season, former writers and storyboard directors Vincent Waller and Marc Ceccarelli act as showrunners. Hillenburg is still posthumously credited as executive producer in episodes as of 2024.
Writing

According to writer and storyboard artist Luke Brookshier, "SpongeBob is written differently to many television shows."[70] Unlike most of its contemporaries, SpongeBob SquarePants does not use written scripts.[70][71] Instead, storylines are developed by a team of five outline and premise writers. A two-page outline is then assigned to a team of storyboard directors, who produce a complete rough draft of the storyboard. One of the methods used to assemble storyboards was to use Post-it notes. Most of the dialogue and jokes are added during this stage.[49][70] Brookshier has likened this process to how cartoons were made "in the early days of animation".[70]

The decision to eschew scripts for storyboards is one that Hillenburg made early in the series' development.[49] Rocko's Modern Life had also used storyboarding derived from short outlines, and having worked on that series, Hillenburg felt strongly about adopting the process for SpongeBob SquarePants—even though Nickelodeon was beginning to show a greater preference for script-driven cartoons.[45][72] Another series' writer, Merriwether Williams, explained in an interview that she and Mr. Lawrence would write a draft for an episode in an afternoon and be done at 4:00 pm.[73]

The writing staff often used their personal experiences as inspiration for the storylines of the series' episodes.[45][61] For example, the episode "Sailor Mouth", where SpongeBob and Patrick learn profanity,[61] was inspired by creative director Derek Drymon's experience as a child of getting into trouble for using the f-word in front of his mother.[45] Drymon said, "The scene where Patrick is running to Mr. Krabs to tattle, with SpongeBob chasing him, is pretty much how it happened in real life".[45] The end of the episode when Mr. Krabs uses even more profanity than SpongeBob and Patrick was inspired "by the fact that my [Drymon's] mother has a sailor mouth herself".[45] The idea for the episode "The Secret Box" also came from one of Drymon's childhood experiences.[61][73] Hillenburg explained, "Drymon had a secret box [as a kid] and started telling us about it. We wanted to make fun of him and use it."[61]

Almost every episode is divided into two 11-minute segments. Hillenburg explained: "[I] never really wanted to deliberately try to write a half-hour show".[61] He added, "I wrote the shows to where they felt right"....SpongeBob SquarePants features the voices of Tom Kenny, Bill Fagerbakke, Rodger Bumpass, Clancy Brown, Mr. Lawrence, Jill Talley, Carolyn Lawrence, Mary Jo Catlett, and Lori Alan. Most one-off and background characters are voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, Sirena Irwin, Bob Joles, Mark Fite and Thomas F. Wilson.

Kenny voices SpongeBob and a number of other characters, including SpongeBob's pet snail Gary and the French narrator. He also physically portrays Patchy the Pirate in live-action segments of most special episodes. Kenny previously worked with Stephen Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life. When Hillenburg created SpongeBob SquarePants, he approached Kenny to voice the main character.[74] Kenny originally used the voice of SpongeBob for a minor character on Rocko.[48] He forgot how to perform the voice initially and did not intend to use it afterward. Hillenburg, however, used a video clip of the episode to remind Kenny of the voice.[48] When Hillenburg heard Kenny perform the voice, he knew immediately he wanted it for his character. He said to Nickelodeon executives, "That's it—I don't want to hear anybody else do the voice. We've got SpongeBob."[46] The network insisted on auditioning more actors, but Hillenburg turned them down; in the words of Tom Kenny, "one of the advantages of having a strong creator is that the creator can say, 'No, I like that—I don't care about celebrities.'"[46] While Kenny was developing SpongeBob's voice, the show's casting crew wanted him to have a unique, high-pitched laugh in the tradition of Popeye and Woody Woodpecker.[75]

Fagerbakke voices Patrick Star[76] and other miscellaneous characters. At the same time when Hillenburg, Derek Drymon and Tim Hill were writing the pilot "Help Wanted", Hillenburg was also conducting auditions to find voices for the characters.[45] Fagerbakke auditioned for the role of Patrick after Kenny had been cast.[77] Fagerbakke recalled that during this audition, "Hillenburg actually played for me a portion of Tom [Kenny]'s performance [as SpongeBob], and they were looking for a counterpoint."[77] In an interview, Fagerbakke compared himself to the character and said, "It's extremely gratifying".[78] Whenever Patrick is angry Fagerbakke models his performance after American actress Shelley Winters.[79]

Squidward Tentacles is voiced by Rodger Bumpass, who describes him as "a very nasally, monotone kind of guy." He said the character "became a very interesting character to do" because of "his sarcasm, and then his frustration, and then his apoplexy, and so he became a wide spectrum of emotions".[80] Arthur Brown, author of Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Cartoons!, has compared Squidward's voice to that of Jack Benny's,[81] a similarity Bumpass says is mostly unintentional.[80]

Voice acting veteran Clancy Brown voices Mr. Krabs, SpongeBob's boss at the Krusty Krab. Hillenburg modeled Mr. Krabs after his former manager at a seafood restaurant, whose strong Maine accent reminded Hillenburg of a pirate.[82] Brown decided to use a "piratey" voice for the character with "a little Scottish brogue" after hearing Hillenburg's description of his boss.[83] According to Brown, his Mr. Krabs voice was mostly improvised during his audition and it was not challenging for him to find the correct voice.[83]

Mr. Lawrence had met Hillenburg before on Rocko's Modern Life. While working on the pilot episode of SpongeBob, Hillenburg invited him to audition for all the characters.[84] Since other voices had been found for the main cast already, Lawrence began by voicing a variety of minor characters. This included Plankton, who was initially only set to appear in one episode.[84][45] Mr. Lawrence recalls that Nickelodeon executives told Hillenburg, "'we could stunt-cast this. You know, we could have Bruce Willis do this voice.' And Steve was just like, 'it's Doug [Lawrence], don't you hear it? This is the character! This is the guy!'"[84] Jill Talley, Tom Kenny's wife, voices Karen Plankton.[85] Being a Chicago native, she uses a Midwestern accent for the character.[86] Electronic sound effects are underlaid by the series' audio engineers to create a robotic sound when she speaks.[87] Talley and Mr. Lawrence often improvise Plankton and Karen's dialogue. Lawrence called improvisation his "favorite part of the voice over" in 2009.[88] He elaborated in a 2012 interview, saying, "I always enjoy the back-and-forth. [Talley and I] start to actually overlap so much talking to each other that [the voice directors] have to tell us, 'hey, stop doing that, separate what you're saying!'"[84]

Carolyn Lawrence voices Sandy Cheeks. She was in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, with a friend who knew SpongeBob SquarePants casting director Donna Grillo. Her friend said to Grillo that Lawrence had "an interesting voice". Grillo invited her to audition and she got the role.[89][90] American actress Mary Jo Catlett,[91] who is known for her live-action roles on television programs from the 1970s such as Diff'rent Strokes and M*A*S*H provides Mrs. Puff's voice.[86] As of 2017, voicing Mrs. Puff has become her only regular television role; Catlett described herself as "basically retired" in 2013, since she feels that voicing Mrs. Puff requires less preparation than her performances in person.[92] Lori Alan voices Pearl Krabs.[93] During her audition for the role, Alan was shown an early drawing of the characters and noted that Pearl was much larger than the rest of the cast. She decided to reflect the character's size in her voice by making it deep and full in tone. She aimed to make it invoke the sound of whales' low vocalizations while also sounding "spoiled and lovable."[94] In an interview with AfterBuzz TV, Alan said she knew Pearl "had to sound somewhat like a child," but needed "an abnormally large voice."[95]

In addition to the regular cast, episodes feature guest voices from many professions, including actors, athletes, authors, musicians, and artists. Recurring guest voices include: Ernest Borgnine, who voiced Mermaid Man from 1999 until his death in 2012;[96] Tim Conway as the voice of Barnacle Boy from 1999 until his death in 2019;[97] Brian Doyle-Murray as the Flying Dutchman;[98] and Marion Ross as Grandma SquarePants.[99] Notable guests who have provided vocal cameo appearances include: David Bowie as Lord Royal Highness in the television film Atlantis SquarePantis;[100][101] John Goodman as the voice of Santa in the episode "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!"; Johnny Depp as the voice of the surf guru, Jack Kahuna Laguna, in the episode "SpongeBob SquarePants vs. The Big One";[102] and Victoria Beckham as the voice of Queen Amphitrite in the episode "The Clash of Triton".[103][104]

Voice recording sessions always include a full cast of actors, which Kenny describes as "getting more unusual".[46] Kenny said, "That's another thing that's given SpongeBob its special feel. Everybody's in the same room, doing it old radio-show style. It's how the stuff we like was recorded".[46] Series writer Jay Lender said, "The recording sessions were always fun ..."[105] For the first three seasons, Hillenburg and Drymon sat in the recording studio and directed the actors.[106] Andrea Romano became the voice director in the fourth season,[106] and Tom Kenny took over the role during the ninth. Wednesday is recording day, the same schedule followed by the crew since 1999.[106] Casting supervisor Jennie Monica Hammond said, "I loved Wednesdays".

Animation

Approximately 50 people work together to animate and produce an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.[70] Throughout its run, the series' production has been handled domestically at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California. The finished animations are handled overseas at Rough Draft Studios Korea, Ltd. in South Korea.[61][107] The California crew storyboard each episode, which are then used as templates by the crew at Rough Draft,[61] who animate each scene by hand, color each cel on computers, and paint backgrounds. Episodes are finished in California, where they are edited and have music added.[70]

During the first season, the series used cel animation.[63] A shift was made the following year to digital ink and paint animation.[63] In 2009, executive producer Paul Tibbitt said: "The first season of SpongeBob was done the old-fashioned way on cells [sic], and every cell sic had to be part-painted, left to dry, paint some other colors. It's still a time-consuming aspect of the process now, but the digital way of doing things means it doesn't take long to correct".[63]

In 2008, the crew began using Wacom Cintiqs for the drawings instead of pencils. The fifth season episode "Pest of the West", one of the half-hour specials, was the first episode where the crew applied this method. Series' background designer Kenny Pittenger said, "The only real difference between the way we draw now and the way we drew then is that we abandoned pencil and paper during the fifth season".[32] The shift to Wacom Cintiqs let the designers and animators draw on computer screens and make immediate changes or undo mistakes. Pittenger said, "Many neo-Luddites—er... I mean, many of my cohorts—don't like working on them, but I find them useful. There's no substitute for the immediacy of drawing on a piece of paper, of course, but digital nautical nonsense is still pretty fun".[32]
Illustration of the show's character models with SpongeBob on the left
Screen Novelties created character models based on the works of Rankin/Bass for the show's stop-motion episodes.

Since 2004, the SpongeBob crew has periodically collaborated with the LA-based animation studio Screen Novelties to create stop-motion sequences for special episodes. The studio produced a brief claymation scene for the climax of the first theatrical film.[108] It was re-enlisted in 2009 to create an exclusive opening for the series' tenth anniversary special.[109][110] The abominable snow mollusk, an octopus-like creature made of clay who acts as the antagonist of the double-length episode "Frozen Face-Off", was also animated by the company.[111] Animation World Network reported that "within the SpongeBob creative team, there was always talk of doing a more involved project together" with Screen Novelties.[111] As a result, the group was asked to create an episode animated entirely in stop motion in 2011. This project became "It's a SpongeBob Christmas!",[112] which reimagined the show's characters as if they were part of a Rankin/Bass holiday film.[113] Tom Kenny, who is normally uninvolved in the writing process, contributed to the episode's plot; he said in 2012 that he and Nickelodeon "wanted to do something just like those old school, stop-motion Rankin-Bass holiday specials ... which I watched over and over again when I was a kid growing up in Syracuse".[108]

Unconventional materials such as baking soda, glitter, wood chips and breakfast cereal were used in mass quantities to create the special's sets.[114] Members of the Screen Novelties crew received one win and two nominations at the 30th Annie Awards,[115] a nomination at the 2013 Golden Reel Awards,[116] and a nomination at the 2013 Annecy International Animated Film Festival for animating the episode.[117] The team built a dolphin puppet named Bubbles, voiced by Matt Berry, for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water.[118] Sequences involving Bubbles included a blend of stop motion and traditional animation. A second special animated in stop motion, themed around Halloween and using the same Rankin/Bass-inspired character models, was produced for season 11.[119][120]
Music

Mark Harrison and Blaise Smith composed the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song.[122] Its lyrics were written by Stephen Hillenburg and the series' original creative director Derek Drymon. The melody was inspired by the sea shanty "Blow the Man Down".[40] An old oil painting of a pirate is used in the opening sequence. Dubbed "Painty the Pirate", according to Tom Kenny, Hillenburg found it in a thrift shop "years ago".[48] Patrick Pinney voices Painty the Pirate, singing the theme song as the character.[40] Hillenburg's lips were imposed onto the painting and move along with the lyrics.[48] Kenny joked this is "about as close of a glimpse as most SpongeBob fans are ever going to get of Steve Hillenburg", because of his private nature.[40]

A cover of the song by Avril Lavigne can be found on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack.[123][124] Another cover by the Violent Femmes aired on Nickelodeon as a promotion when the series moved to prime time.[125]

Steve Belfer, one of Hillenburg's friends from CalArts, wrote and performed the music heard over the end credits.[45] This theme includes ukulele music at Hillenburg's request.[45] Drymon said, "It's so long ago, it's hard to be sure, but I remember Hillenburg having the Belfer music early on, maybe before the pilot".[45]

The series' music editor and main composer is Nicolas Carr.[121] After working with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life, he struggled to find a new job in his field. He had considered a career change before Hillenburg offered him the job. The first season's score primarily featured selections from the Associated Production Music Library, which Carr has said includes "lots of great old corny Hawaiian music and big, full, dramatic orchestral scores."[121] Rocko's Modern Life also used music from this library. It was Hillenburg's decision to adopt this approach. Carr has described the selections for SpongeBob SquarePants as being "more over-the-top" than those for Rocko's Modern Life.[121]

Hillenburg felt it was important for the series to develop its own music library, consisting of scores that could be reused and re-edited throughout the years. He wanted these scores to be composed by unknowns, and a group of twelve was assembled. They formed "The Sponge Divers Orchestra", which includes Carr and Belfer. The group went on to provide most of the music for later seasons, although Carr still draws from the Associated Production Music Library, as well as another library that he founded himself—Animation Music Inc....Films
Main article: SpongeBob SquarePants (film series)

Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies produced The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, an animated film adaptation of the series released on November 19, 2004.[356] The film was directed by Hillenburg and written by long-time series writers Derek Drymon, Tim Hill, Kent Osborne, Aaron Springer, Paul Tibbitt, and Hillenburg. He and Julia Pistor produced the film, while Gregor Narholz composed the film's score.[357][358][359] The film is about Plankton's evil plan to steal King Neptune's crown and send it to Shell City. SpongeBob and Patrick must retrieve it and save Mr. Krabs' life from Neptune's raft and their home, Bikini Bottom, from Plankton's plan. It features guest appearances by Jeffrey Tambor as King Neptune, Scarlett Johansson as the King's daughter Mindy, Alec Baldwin as Dennis, and David Hasselhoff as himself,[360] and received a positive critical reception,[361][362] It grossed over $140 million worldwide.[363] Three television films were released: SpongeBob's Atlantis SquarePantis in 2007, SpongeBob's Truth or Square in 2009, and SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout in 2019.

A sequel to the 2004 film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, was released in theaters on February 6, 2015.[364] The series' main cast members reprised their roles.[365] The underwater parts are animated traditionally in the manner of the series—the live-action parts use CGI animation with the SpongeBob characters.[366][367] The film has a budget similar to the previous film and cost less than $100 million to produce.[368][369][370]

On April 30, 2015, Viacom announced a third film was in development.[371] In April 2018, Tim Hill was named as director, and the film's original title, It's a Wonderful Sponge, was revealed. Paramount originally scheduled a release date of July 17, 2020, later moving it earlier to May 22, 2020.[372] In October 2018, it was announced the movie will be an origin story of how SpongeBob came to Bikini Bottom and how he got his square pants. Around the same time, it was announced that Hans Zimmer will compose the music. The first poster along with a title change to Sponge on the Run was revealed on November 12, 2019,[373] with the first trailer releasing on November 14.[374] The film was later delayed to July 31, 2020 (and later August 7, 2020) due to the ....-19 pandemic.[375][205] The film's worldwide theatrical release was later cancelled in June 2020 and it was announced that it would be released in Canadian theaters on August 14, 2020, followed by a release on premium video on demand before heading to Paramount+ in early 2021.[376][377] On January 28, 2021, it was announced that the film would be released on the service on March 4, 2021.[334]
Upcoming

In early March 2020, ViacomCBS announced that it would be producing two spin-off films based on the series for Netflix.[378] In February 2022, it was revealed that these plans had been revised to three character spinoff films.[379] The first character spinoff film, Saving Bikini Bottom: The Sandy Cheeks Movie, was released on August 2, 2024.[380] Prior to its release, the entire film was leaked on January 21, 2024, as a video upload on X (the website formerly known as Twitter).[381]

In August, 2021, Brian Robbins, CEO of Nickelodeon, stated that a new theatrical SpongeBob film is "in the works."[382] The fourth main SpongeBob film, The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants, was set for release on May 23, 2025,[383] but was later delayed to December 19 of that year, with Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning taking its previous date due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike....SpongeBob in internet culture

Online memes relating to SpongeBob SquarePants have achieved widespread popularity on the Internet, so much so that Vox's Aja Romano declared in 2019 that "Spongebob memes came to rule internet culture".[429] A subreddit devoted to memes based on the animated series has, as of May 2019, accumulated over 1.7 million subscribers, a figure exponentially higher than subreddits devoted to the series itself.[429]

Matt Schimkowitz, a senior editor for Know Your Meme, told Time that a combination of factors make SpongeBob memes so popular. He speculated that nostalgia for the past, alongside the cartoon's young audience, contributed to the SpongeBob SquarePants' outsized presence in Internet meme culture. Schimkowitz further added that memes derived from the series are exceptionally good at expressing emotions.[430]

Michael Gold of The New York Times concurred. The writer opined that because of the show's "high episode count" and that it was "so ubiquitous at the beginning of the 21st century", SpongeBob SquarePants became "easy meme fodder".[431]

Nickelodeon and members of the SpongeBob cast have expressed approval for the trend. Tom Kenny told Time that he found SpongeBob memes relatable and good-natured. Kenny said that while the show's characters can be considered complex, they are also simple, creating a wealth of content for meme creators to work with.[430] Nickelodeon has manufactured a line of toys based on some of the show's most recognizable meme formats,[429] and has even included references to well-known memes in video games.[432]

Among the show's most popular memes are the mocking SpongeBob meme, referring to an image macro from the episode "Little Yellow Book",[433] an image of Spongebob appearing exhausted in the episode "Nature Pants",[434] and a particularly disheveled illustration of Squidward from "Squid's Day Off".[435]

In 2024, an Internet meme surfaced consisting of Richard Myhill's "Woe Is Me!", taken from the episode "Squilliam Returns", paired with a hamster staring up in despair.[436] Dubbed the "sad hamster meme", the trend found rapid popularity on social media platforms as a way for users to express a reflection to sadness and unfortunate situations.[437]

Fans of the show have created various pages replicating Bikini Bottom News, a news show within the SpongeBob universe, with versions of the anchors Realistic Fish Head and Perch Perkins generated with artificial intelligence.[438] Some of these pages are criticized for how they handle topics and potentially spread fear mongering as a result.

Another Spongebob meme that surfaced in 2024 is the 'Freakbob' meme. Associated with Gen Z humor, Freakbob (or sometimes Freaky Bob) is typically shown on the dialing end of a. The vast rise in popularity has sparked many variations of the meme on social media." (wikipedia)

"Stephen McDannell Hillenburg (August 21, 1961 – November 26, 2018) was an American animator, voice actor, and marine biology teacher, best known for creating the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants for Nickelodeon in 1999. Serving as the showrunner for its first three seasons, and again from season nine until his death, the show has become the fifth-longest-running American animated series. He also provided the original voice of Patchy the Pirate's pet, Potty the Parrot.

Born in Lawton, Oklahoma and raised in Anaheim, California, Hillenburg became fascinated with the ocean as a child and developed an interest in art. He started his professional career in 1984, instructing marine biology at the Orange County Marine Institute, where he wrote and illustrated The Intertidal Zone, an informative picture book about tide-pool animals, which he used to educate his students. After two years of teaching, he enrolled at California Institute of the Arts in 1989 to pursue a career in animation. He was later offered a job on the Nickelodeon animated television series Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996) following the success of his 1992 short films The Green Beret and Wormholes, which were made as part of his studies.

In 1994, Hillenburg began developing The Intertidal Zone characters and concepts for what became SpongeBob SquarePants, which has aired continuously since 1999. He also directed The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004), which he originally intended to be the series finale. He then resigned as showrunner, but remained credited as executive producer on subsequent seasons (even after his death). He later resumed creating short films with Hollywood Blvd., USA (2013). He co-wrote the story for the second film adaptation of the series, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (2015), and received a posthumous executive producer credit for the third film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run (2020).

Besides his two Emmy Awards and six Annie Awards for SpongeBob SquarePants, Hillenburg also received other recognitions, such as an accolade from Heal the Bay for his efforts in elevating marine life awareness and the Television Animation Award from the National Cartoonists Society. Hillenburg announced he was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in 2017, but stated he would continue working on SpongeBob for as long as possible. He died from the disease on November 26, 2018, at the age of 57. ...Animation careerEarly works
Shots from The Green Beret (top) and Wormholes (bottom)

Hillenburg made his first animated works, short films The Green Beret (1991) and Wormholes (1992),[34] while at CalArts.[3][4][5][27] The Green Beret was about a physically challenged Girl Scout with enormous fists who toppled houses and destroyed neighborhoods while trying to sell Girl Scout cookies.[3][4][5] Wormholes was his seven-minute thesis film,[26][35] about the theory of relativity.[3][4][35] He described the latter as "a poetic animated film based on relativistic phenomena" in his grant proposal in 1991 to the Princess Grace Foundation,[36] which assists emerging artists in American theater, dance, and film.[37] The foundation agreed to fund the effort, providing Hillenburg with a Graduate Film Scholarship.[36][38] "It meant a lot," he said in 2003. "They funded one of the projects I'm most proud of, even with SpongeBob. It provided me the opportunity just to make a film that was personal, and what I would call independent, and free of some of the commercial needs."[36] Wormholes was shown at several international animation festivals,[27][36] including the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, the Hiroshima International Animation Festival, the Los Angeles International Animation Celebration, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen,[39] and the Ottawa International Animation Festival,[40] where it won Best Concept.[41] LA Weekly called the film "road-trippy" and "Zap-comical",[42] while Manohla Dargis of The New York Times called it "inventive".[30]

Hillenburg explained that "anything goes" in experimental animation. Although this allowed him to explore alternatives to conventional methods of filmmaking, he still ventured to employ "an industry style"; he preferred to traditionally animate his films (where each frame is drawn by hand) rather than, for instance, make cartoons "by filming piles of sand changing".[7] He made at least one other short film as an animation student, but its title is unspecified.[14][23]
Rocko's Modern Life

Hillenburg's first professional job in the animation business was as a director[23][26] on Rocko's Modern Life (1993–1996),[3][23][25] Nickelodeon's first in-house cartoon production.[43] He "ended up finding work in the industry and got a job" at the television network after he met the show's creator, Joe Murray,[36] at the 1992 Ottawa International Animation Festival,[14][23] where Wormholes and Murray's My Dog Zero were both in competition.[40] Murray, who was looking for people to direct Rocko's Modern Life at the time,[23] saw Hillenburg's film and offered him a directorial role on the television series.[7][23][26] He "[had] friends that [gave him] a hard time about [the offer]. ... but doors opened when [he] stepped into the animation world," so he accepted it.[23] He "was planning on being a starving artist": "[I spent] several thousand dollars to make a film and [realized] I may not make it back—I had loans out. Fortunately, Joe Murray saw my film ... and he took a huge chance," Hillenburg related.[14]

Hillenburg worked closely with Murray[44] on Rocko's Modern Life for its whole run on the air.[4] Aside from directing, he also produced, wrote and storyboarded for some episodes, and served as the executive story editor.[3][4] In particular, the third season episode "Fish-N-Chumps" was co-written and directed by Hillenburg, and involved Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt going on a fishing trip, oblivious to the fact that a pair of anthropomorphic sea creatures are attempting to catch them from underwater; this would foreshadow his later work with SpongeBob.[26] In 1995,[4][44] during the fourth and final season of Rocko,[45] Hillenburg was promoted to creative director, where he helped oversee pre- and post-production.[3][4][44] Working on the series enabled him to repay his loans.[13] He later related that he "learned a great deal about writing and producing animation for TV" from his stint on Rocko's Modern Life.[46]
SpongeBob SquarePants
Main article: SpongeBob SquarePants
Creation

Some evidence shows that the idea for SpongeBob SquarePants dates back to 1986, during Hillenburg's time at the Orange County Marine Institute.[47] He indicated that children's television series such as The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse (1987–1988) and Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986–1991) "sparked something in [him]." He continued, "I don't know if this is true for everybody else, but it always seems like, for me, I'll start thinking about something and it takes about ten years to actually have it happen, or have someone else believe in it... It took me a few years to get [SpongeBob SquarePants] together."[23]

During the production of Rocko's Modern Life, Martin Olson, one of the writers, read The Intertidal Zone and encouraged Hillenburg to create a television series with a similar concept. At that point, he had not even considered creating his own series:[7] "After watching Joe [Murray] tear his hair out a lot, dealing with all the problems that came up, I thought I would never want to produce a show of my own."[44] However, he realized that if he ever did, this would be the best approach:[7][26][48] "For all those years it seemed like I was doing these two totally separate things. I wondered what it all meant. I didn't see a synthesis. It was great when [my two interests] all came together in [a show]. I felt relieved that I hadn't wasted a lot of time doing something that I then abandoned to do something else. It has been pretty rewarding," Hillenburg said in 2002.[4] He said that he finally decided to create a series as he was driving to the beach on the Santa Monica Freeway one day.[44]

    "It finally dawned on me that if I was going to do my own show, all those things I lectured about and obsessed about would make for an interesting world."

— Stephen Hillenburg[45]

As he was developing the show's concept, Hillenburg remembered his teaching experience at the Orange County Marine Institute and how mesmerized children were by tide-pool animals, including crabs, octopuses, starfish, and sponges.[3][4][44] It came to him that the series should take place underwater, with a focus on those creatures: "I wanted to create a small town underwater where the characters were more like us than like fish. They have fire. They take walks. They drive. They have pets and holidays."[44] It suited what Hillenburg liked for a show, "something that was fantastic but believable."[44] He also wanted his series to stand out from most popular cartoons of the time exemplified by buddy comedies such as The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991–1995). As a result, he decided to focus on one main character: the weirdest sea creature that he could think of. This led him to the sponge:[7] "I wanted to do a show about a character that was an innocent, and so I focused on a sea sponge because it's a funny animal, a strange one."[45] In 1994,[17] Hillenburg began to further develop some characters from The Intertidal Zone,[7][17] including Bob the Sponge,[7] who resembles a realistic sea sponge; at first, Hillenburg continued this design[7][23][26][49] because it "was the correct thing to do biologically as a marine-science teacher."[44] In determining the new character's personality, he drew inspiration from innocent, childlike figures that he enjoyed, such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis, Pee-wee Herman, Abbott and Costello, and The Three Stooges.[7][23][47][50] While Hillenburg "retained the idea of a living sea sponge,"[17] he soon considered giving the character a square shape (like a kitchen sponge), and realized that this idea would match the character's square personality perfectly:[7][23][26] "[I]t looked so funny. I think as far as cartoon language goes he was easier to recognize. He seemed to fit the character type I was looking for—a somewhat nerdy, squeaky clean oddball."[44][51] To voice the central character of the series, Hillenburg turned to Tom Kenny, whose career in animation had begun with his role in Rocko's Modern Life. Elements of Kenny's own personality were employed in further developing the character.[52][53]

While pitching the cartoon to executives at Nickelodeon, Hillenburg donned a Hawaiian shirt, brought along an "underwater terrarium with models of the characters", and played Hawaiian music to set the theme. Nickelodeon executive Eric Coleman described the setup as "pretty amazing".[26] Although Derek Drymon, creative director of SpongeBob SquarePants, described the pitch as stressful, he said it went "very well".[26] Nickelodeon approved and gave Hillenburg money to produce the show.[54]
Broadcast

SpongeBob SquarePants is Nickelodeon's first original Saturday-morning cartoon.[16][55] It first aired as a preview on May 1, 1999,[12][56] and officially premiered on July 17 of the same year.[12][16] Hillenburg noted that the show's premise "is that innocence prevails—which I don't think it always does in real life."[54] It has received positive reviews from critics, and has been noted for its appeal to different age groups.[4][45][54] James Poniewozik of Time magazine described the titular character as "the anti-Bart Simpson, temperamentally and physically: his head is as squared-off and neat as Bart's is unruly, and he has a personality to match—conscientious, optimistic and blind to the faults in the world and those around him."[57] On the other hand, The New York Times critic Joyce Millman said that the show "is clever without being impenetrable to young viewers and goofy without boring grown-ups to tears. It's the most charming toon on television, and one of the weirdest [...]. Like Pee-wee's Playhouse, SpongeBob joyfully dances on the fine line between childhood and adulthood, guilelessness and camp, the warped and the sweet."[58]

SpongeBob SquarePants was an immediate hit.[54] Within its first month on air, it overtook Pokémon (1997–) as the highest-rated Saturday morning children's series.[55] By the end of 2001, the show boasted the highest ratings of any children's series on television.[15][59][60] Nickelodeon began adding SpongeBob SquarePants to its Monday-through-Thursday prime-time block. This programming change increased the number of older viewers significantly.[61] By May 2002, the show's total viewership reached more than 61 million, 20 million of which were aged 18 to 49.[61] Hillenburg did not expect the show would be very popular even to adults: "I never imagined that it would get to this point. When you set out to do a show about a sponge, you can't anticipate this kind of craze. We just try to make ourselves laugh, then ask if it's appropriate for children. I can tell you that we hoped it would be liked by adults. But we really thought the best we could hope for was a college audience."[62] SpongeBob SquarePants has gone on to become the longest-running series on Nickelodeon.[63] "Ten years. I never imagined working on the show to this date and this long. It never was possible to conceive that [...]. I really figured we might get a season and a cult following, and that might be it," Hillenburg said in 2009 during the show's tenth anniversary.[14] Its popularity has made it a media franchise, which is the most-distributed property of MTV Networks.[64] As of 2015, it has generated $25 billion in merchandising revenue.[65]
Departure

In 2002, Hillenburg halted production of the show after the third season was completed to focus on the making of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie which was released in 2004:[66] "I don't want to try and do a movie and the series at the same time. We have 60 episodes and that is probably as many as [Nickelodeon] really needs. It is a standard number for a show like this. I have done a little research and people say it is just crazy doing a series and movie at the same time. I would rather concentrate on doing a good job on the movie," he noted.[34] He directed the film from a story that he conceived with five other writer-animators from the series: Paul Tibbitt, Derek Drymon, Aaron Springer, Kent Osborne, and Tim Hill.[67] The writers created a mythical hero's quest: the search for a stolen crown, which brings SpongeBob and his best friend Patrick to the surface.[68] In 2003, during the production of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, his mentor Jules Engel died at the age of 94.[69] Hillenburg dedicated the film to his memory.[70] He said that Engel "truly was the most influential artistic person in [his] life."[31][32] The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie grossed $140 million worldwide,[71] and received positive reviews from critics. The review-aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes rates it 68 percent positive based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 6.2/10. Its consensus states in summary, "Surreally goofy and entertaining for both children and their parents."[72]

    "It reached to a point where I felt I'd contributed a lot and said what I wanted to say. At that point, the show needed new blood and so I selected Paul [Tibbitt] to produce. I totally trusted him. I always enjoyed the way he captured the SpongeBob character's sense of humor. And as a writer, you have to move on—I'm developing new projects."

— Stephen Hillenburg on leaving SpongeBob SquarePants as the showrunner[14]

After completing the film, Hillenburg wanted to end the series "so [it] wouldn't jump the shark."[14][73] "We're working on episodes 40 through 60 right now, and I always looked at that as a typical run for an animated show. [The Ren & Stimpy Show] lasted about that long, for example. And I thought now was a good time to step aside and look at a different project. I personally think it's good not to go to the point where people don't want to see your show anymore," Hillenburg said in 2002.[4] However, Nickelodeon wanted to produce more episodes: "The show was such a cash cow for the station that it couldn't afford not to," storyboard director Sam Henderson observed.[73] Initially Hillenburg doubted that the network would continue the show without him, saying: "I think [Nickelodeon executives] respect that my contribution is important. I think they would want to maintain the original concept and quality."[4] Consequently, he resigned as the showrunner[74] and appointed his trusted staff member Paul Tibbitt to the role.[14][75][76] Although he no longer had a direct involvement producing SpongeBob SquarePants, he retained his position as an executive producer[47] and maintained an advisory role, reviewing each episode.[74][77] Tibbitt started out as a supervising producer but rose up to executive producer when Hillenburg went into semi-retirement in 2004.[78] While he was on the show, he voiced Potty the Parrot[79] and sat in with Derek Drymon at the record studio to direct the voice actors while they were recording.[80] During the fourth season, Tibbitt took on voicing for Potty,[81] while Andrea Romano replaced the two as the voice director.[80]

In 2014, Tibbitt announced on his Twitter account that Hillenburg would return to the show. However, he did not specify what position the former showrunner would hold.[82] As early as 2012, Hillenburg had already been contributing to another film based on the series,[7] which was first reported in 2011[83] and officially announced the following year,[84] with Tibbitt as director. Tibbitt also wrote the story with Hillenburg,[85][86] who "[had] been in the studio everyday working with [the crew]."[86] Besides writing, Hillenburg also executive-produced.[87] He said in 2014: "Actually when [the film] wraps, I want to get back to the show. ... it is getting harder and harder to come up with stories. So Paul [Tibbitt] and I are really going to brainstorm and come up with fresh material."[13] Called The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, the second film adaptation was released in 2015[88] to positive critical reception, currently holding a Rotten Tomatoes approval rating of 80 percent and an average rating of 6.5/10.[89] It earned $323.4 million worldwide,[90] becoming the second highest-grossing film based on an animated television show, behind The Simpsons Movie (2007)....Other pursuits

In 1998,[92] Hillenburg formed United Plankton Pictures Inc., a television and film production company, which produces SpongeBob SquarePants and related media. From 2011 to 2018, the company published SpongeBob Comics, a comic-book series based on the cartoon.[93][94] Hillenburg announced the venture in a 2011 press release, where he said, "I'm hoping that fans will enjoy finally having a SpongeBob comic book from me."[93][94] Various cartoonists, including James Kochalka, Hilary Barta, Graham Annable, Gregg Schigiel, and Jacob Chabot, have contributed to issues of the comic.

According to Jeff Lenburg, in his book Who's Who in Animated Cartoons, Hillenburg was co-writing and co-directing a second animated feature film based on Rob Zombie's comic-book series, The Haunted World of El Superbeasto, which was slated for a 2006 release.[95] He helped to write Diggs Tailwagger, a 2007 pilot by Derek Drymon.[96][97]

In 2010,[7] he began working on Hollywood Blvd., USA,[18] a new short film for animation festivals.[7] In making the two-minute film,[13] he videotaped people walking and animated them in walk cycles.[7][13] Hillenburg said in 2012, "I hope to get [the film] done. It takes forever." He was aiming to finish it that fall.[7] In 2013,[98] three years after production began, Hollywood Blvd., USA was released to festivals.[13] Hillenburg characterized it as a "personal film" and said that "it's not a narrative. It's just really about people in our town."" (wikipedia)

"Nickelodeon Animation Studio (also known as Nickelodeon Animation, and on-screen known as Nickelodeon Productions), is an American animation studio owned by Paramount Global through the Nickelodeon Group. It has created many original animated television programs for Nickelodeon, such as SpongeBob SquarePants, The Fairly OddParents, Rugrats, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and The Loud House, among various others. Since the 2010s, the studio has also produced its own series based on preexisting IP purchased by Paramount Global, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Winx Club. In November 2019, Nickelodeon Animation Studio signed a multiple-year output deal for Netflix, which will include producing content, in both new and preexisting IP, for the streaming platform.[3]

The studio was founded in 1990 under the name Games Productions Inc. A subsidiary called Games Animation was established in 1992.[4] It oversaw the production of three animated programs for Nickelodeon: Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren & Stimpy Show. In 1992, Nickelodeon began work on Games Animation's first fully in-house series, Rocko's Modern Life. Games Animation produced much of the network's mid-1990s output in partnership with other animation companies like Klasky Csupo. In 1998, the studio moved from Studio City, California to Burbank with the construction of a new facility. It was renamed Nickelodeon Animation Studio and later Nickelodeon Studios Burbank. In 1999, a second facility in New York City was opened, named Nickelodeon Animation Studio New York....1998–2007: As Nickelodeon Animation Studio

In 1996, Albie Hecht, then-president of Film and TV Entertainment for Nickelodeon, met with Nickelodeon artists for a brainstorming session on the elements of their ideal studio, and, with their feedback (and some inspiration from the fabled Willy Wonka chocolate factory), created "a playful, inspirational and cutting-edge lab which will hopefully give birth to the next generation of cartoon classics." He added, "For me, this building is the physical manifestation of a personal dream, which is that when people think of cartoons, they'll say Nicktoons."[14] Nickelodeon and parent company Viacom threw a bash to celebrate the opening of the new Nicktoons animation studio on March 4, 1998. During the launch party, a gathering of union labor supporters formed a picket line to protest Nickelodeon's independent hiring practices outside the studio's iron gates.[14]

Located at 231 West Olive Avenue in Burbank, California, the 72,000-square-foot (6,700 m2) facility, designed by Los Angeles architecture firm AREA, houses 200–300 employees and up to five simultaneous productions. It also contains a miniature golf course (with a hole dedicated to Walt Disney), an indoor basketball course/screening room, an artists' gallery, a studio store, and a fountain that shoots green water into the air.[14] The Nicktoons studio houses five, project driven production units. Each has its own color and design environment and includes a living room, writer's lounge, and storyboard conference room. The studio also has a Foley stage (for recording live sound effects), a post-production area, sound editing and mixing rooms and an upstairs loft area with skylights for colorists.[14]

In September 1999, Nickelodeon opened a major new digital animation studio at 1633 Broadway in Manhattan. The New York studio primarily took over production of Nick Jr. animated properties.[15] At the same time, the Los Angeles facility animated the intro for The Amanda Show.

It was reported in 2005 that the Burbank studio was up for sale; this was later corrected, as the owner of the building was selling it.[16]

In mid-2006, Nickelodeon announced a collaboration with DreamWorks Animation to create shows based on DWA's films. The first DWA co-production was The Penguins of Madagascar, which would eventually premiere in November 2008 (followed by 2011's Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness and 2013's Monsters vs. Aliens).
2009–2019: Studio collaborations and acquisitions

In 2007, Nick launched El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera (the first Nicktoon created in Adobe Flash) and Tak and the Power of Juju (based on the video game series of the same name). Back at the Barnyard (a spinoff of the theatrical film Barnyard) was released that same year. These shows showed Nickelodeon's increasing willingness to collaborate with a diverse portfolio of companies, with Mexopolis and THQ being examples.

In 2009, Nickelodeon acquired the rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from Mirage Studios.[17] In early 2011, Viacom bought 30 percent of the Italian studio Rainbow SpA, the creators of Winx Club.[18] Following both purchases, Nickelodeon Animation Studio began to produce new content for both franchises: a continuation of Winx Club and a reboot series of TMNT. Since they were produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio,[19] Nickelodeon refers to both continuations as official Nicktoons.[20]

By 2013, Nickelodeon's deal with DreamWorks Animation had reached an end; according to Bob Schooley, Nickelodeon Animation expressed a desire to refocus on "more Nickish shows."[21] Looking for original concepts, Nickelodeon Animation Studio created the Nickelodeon Animated Shorts Program, under which it would produce new animated shorts with the potential to turn into whole shows. A select few were greenlit and premiered within the following years.

In 2016, Nickelodeon's Burbank animation facility moved into a five-story glass structure that is part of a larger studio complex. The move was intended to bring animated productions currently produced elsewhere in Southern California under a single production facility.[22] Because it houses both animated and live-action productions, the Burbank location has been renamed to simply "Nickelodeon Studios" (which is not to be confused with the original Nickelodeon Studios at Universal Studios Florida, which closed in 2005).[23] The studio also houses the Nickelodeon time capsule, first buried in Orlando, Florida in 1992 at the original Nickelodeon Studios and later at the Nickelodeon Suites Resort in 2006, which has moved to the new studio by the latter's closure and rebrand on June 1, 2016.[24] The capsule is set to be opened on April 30, 2042. The new studio opened on January 11, 2017.
2019–present: Expanding brands
In October 2018, Brian Robbins became president of Nickelodeon.[25] In November, he appointed Ramsey Ann Naito as head of animation at Nickelodeon;[26] she was later promoted to president of Nickelodeon Animation Studio in 2020.[27] In both roles, Naito reported to Robbins. Under Robbins' presidency, Nickelodeon began to focus more on expanding some its preexisting franchises. At Nickelodeon Animation Studio, this effort encompassed continuations for legacy shows, including Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling and Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus for Netflix and a CGI reboot of Rugrats for Paramount+. The first-ever SpongeBob spin-offs (Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years and The Patrick Star Show) were also produced. The studio also collaborated with corporate sibling CBS Eye Animation Productions to produce Star Trek: Prodigy.[28] In 2021, Avatar Studios, a division of Nickelodeon Animation dedicated to producing projects from the Avatar: The Last Airbender franchise, was launched.[29] In 2023, the studio signed a first-look deal for animated series and features with Lion Forge Entertainment." (wikipedia)

"Nickelodeon (occasionally shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel owned by Paramount Global through Paramount Media Networks' subdivision, Nickelodeon Group. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children, the channel is primarily aimed at children and adolescents aged 2 to 17,[1] along with a broader family audience through its program blocks.

The channel began life as a test broadcast on December 1, 1977,[2] as part of QUBE,[3] an early cable television system broadcast locally in Columbus, Ohio.[4] The channel, now named Nickelodeon, launched to a new nationwide audience on April 1, 1979,[5] with Pinwheel as its inaugural program.[4] The network was initially commercial-free and remained without advertising until 1984. Nickelodeon gained a new facelift regarding programming and image that fall, and its ensuing success led to it and its sister networks MTV and VH1 being sold to Viacom in 1985.[6][7]

Nickelodeon has expanded its franchise through several sister channels and programming blocks. Nick Jr. launched as preschool morning block on January 4, 1988, and was eventually spun-off into a separate channel in 2009. Nicktoons, based on the flagship brand for original animated series, launched as a standalone channel in 2002. Noggin, an interactive educational brand created in partnership with Sesame Workshop, existed as a channel from 1999 to 2009 and as a mobile streaming service from 2015 to 2024. Two blocks aimed at teenage audiences, Nickelodeon's TEENick and Noggin's The N, were merged to form the TeenNick channel in 2009.

As of December 2023, Nickelodeon is available to approximately 70 million pay television households in the United States, down from its peak of 101 million households in 2011....Programming
Main article: List of programs broadcast by Nickelodeon

Programming seen on Nickelodeon includes animated series (such as SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House, Middlemost Post, The Patrick Star Show, Kamp Koral: SpongeBob's Under Years, The Smurfs, Rugrats and Monster High), live-action, scripted series (such as Danger Force, Tyler Perry's Young Dylan and That Girl Lay Lay), and original made-for-TV movies, while the network's daytime schedule is dedicated to shows targeting preschoolers (such as Bubble Guppies, PAW Patrol, and Blue's Clues & You!).
Logo used since September 2009. Concurrently used with the 2023 logo since March 2023.

A re-occurring program was bi-monthly special editions of Nick News with Linda Ellerbee,[12] a news magazine series aimed at children that debuted in 1992 as a weekly series and ended in 2015.[13] In June 2020, Nickelodeon announced that they would bring back Nick News in a series of hour-long specials. The first installment, Kids, Race and Unity: A Nick News Special premiered on June 29, 2020, and was hosted by R&B musician Alicia Keys.[14]

Since 2021, Nickelodeon has aired at least one live National Football League game a year, produced by corporate sibling CBS Sports and incorporating elements unique to Nickelodeon into the broadcast such as green slime in the end zone and SpongeBob SquarePants' face superimposed on the netting of the goalposts. Nickelodeon also carries the weekly shoulder program NFL Slimetime during the season which includes similar graphics.[15] Nickelodeon offered the first alternate broadcast of a Super Bowl in 2024 when it aired a SpongeBob SquarePants-themed simulcast of CBS' coverage.[16]
Nicktoons
Main article: Nicktoons

Nicktoons is the branding for Nickelodeon's original animated television series.[17][18] Until 1991, the animated series that aired on Nickelodeon were largely imported from foreign countries, with some original animated specials that were also featured on the channel up to that point.[19][20] Though the Nicktoons branding has infrequently been used by the network itself since the 2002 launch of the channel of the same name, original animated series continue to make up a substantial portion of Nickelodeon's lineup.[18] Roughly, six to seven hours of these programs are seen on the weekday schedule, and around nine hours on weekends, including a dedicated weekend morning animation block.[19]

In 2006, the channel struck a deal with DreamWorks Animation to develop the studio's animated films into television series (such as The Penguins of Madagascar).[21] Since the early 2010s, Nickelodeon Animation Studio has also produced series based on preexisting IP purchased by Paramount, such as Winx Club and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." (wikipedia)

"Christmas is an annual festival commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, observed primarily on December 25[a] as a religious and cultural celebration among billions of people around the world. A feast central to the liturgical year in Christianity, it follows the season of Advent (which begins four Sundays before) or the Nativity Fast, and initiates the season of Christmastide, which historically in the West lasts twelve days and culminates on Twelfth Night. Christmas Day is a public holiday in many countries, is celebrated religiously by a majority of Christians, as well as culturally by many non-Christians, and forms an integral part of the holiday season surrounding it.

The traditional Christmas narrative recounted in the New Testament, known as the Nativity of Jesus, says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in accordance with messianic prophecies. When Joseph and Mary arrived in the city, the inn had no room, and so they were offered a stable where the Christ Child was soon born, with angels proclaiming this news to shepherds, who then spread the word.

There are different hypotheses regarding the date of Jesus's birth, and in the early fourth century, the church fixed the date as December 25. It is exactly nine months after Annunciation on March 25, also the date of the spring equinox. Most Christians celebrate on December 25 in the Gregorian calendar, which has been adopted almost universally in the civil calendars used in countries throughout the world. However, part of the Eastern Christian Churches celebrate Christmas on December 25 of the older Julian calendar, which currently corresponds to January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. For Christians, believing that God came into the world in the form of man to atone for the sins of humanity rather than knowing Jesus's exact birth date is considered to be the primary purpose of celebrating Christmas.

The customs associated with Christmas in various countries have a mix of pre-Christian, Christian, and secular themes and origins. Popular holiday traditions include gift giving; completing an Advent calendar or Advent wreath; Christmas music and caroling; watching Christmas movies; viewing a Nativity play; an exchange of Christmas cards; attending church services; a special meal; and displaying various Christmas decorations, including Christmas trees, Christmas lights, nativity scenes, garlands, wreaths, mistletoe, and holly. Additionally, several related and often interchangeable figures, known as Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, and Christkind, are associated with bringing gifts to children during the Christmas season and have their own body of traditions and lore. Because gift-giving and many other aspects of the Christmas festival involve heightened economic activity, the holiday has become a significant event and a key sales period for retailers and businesses. Over the past few centuries, Christmas has had a steadily growing economic effect in many regions of the world.
Etymology
See also: Christ (title)

The English word Christmas is a shortened form of 'Christ's Mass'.[3] The word is recorded as Crīstesmæsse in 1038 and Cristes-messe in 1131.[4] Crīst (genitive Crīstes) is from the Greek Χριστός (Khrīstos, 'Christ'), a translation of the Hebrew מָשִׁיחַ‎ (Māšîaḥ, 'Messiah'), meaning 'anointed';[5][6] and mæsse is from the Latin missa, the celebration of the Eucharist.[7]

The form Christenmas was also used during some periods, but is now considered archaic and dialectal.[8] The term derives from Middle English Cristenmasse, meaning 'Christian mass'.[9] Xmas is an abbreviation of Christmas found particularly in print, based on the initial letter chi (Χ) in the Greek Χριστός, although some style guides discourage its use.[10] This abbreviation has precedent in Middle English Χρ̄es masse (where Χρ̄ is another abbreviation of the Greek word).[9]
Other names

The holiday has had various other English names throughout its history. The Anglo-Saxons referred to the feast as "midwinter",[11][12] or, more rarely, as Nātiuiteð (from the Latin nātīvitās below).[11][13] Nativity, meaning 'birth', is from the Latin nātīvitās.[14] In Old English, Gēola ('Yule') referred to the period corresponding to December and January, which was eventually equated with Christian Christmas.[15] 'Noel' (also 'Nowel' or 'Nowell', as in "The First Nowell") entered English in the late 14th century and is from the Old French noël or naël, itself ultimately from the Latin nātālis (diēs) meaning 'birth (day)'.[16]

Koleda is the traditional Slavic name for Christmas and the period from Christmas to Epiphany or, more generally, to Slavic Christmas-related rituals, some dating to pre-Christian times.[17]
Nativity
Main article: Nativity of Jesus
The gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus as being born in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary. In the Gospel of Luke, Joseph and Mary travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem in order to be counted for a census, and Jesus is born there and placed in a manger.[18] Angels proclaim him a savior for all people, and three shepherds come to adore him. In the Gospel of Matthew, by contrast, three magi follow a star to Bethlehem to bring gifts to Jesus, born the king of the Jews. King Herod orders the massacre of all the boys less than two years old in Bethlehem, but the family flees to Egypt and later returns to Nazareth....

17th and 18th centuries

Following the Protestant Reformation, many of the new denominations, including the Anglican Church and Lutheran Church, continued to celebrate Christmas.[39] In 1629, the Anglican poet John Milton penned On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, a poem that has since been read by many during Christmastide.[40] Donald Heinz, a professor at California State University, Chico, states that Martin Luther "inaugurated a period in which Germany would produce a unique culture of Christmas, much copied in North America."[41] Among the congregations of the Dutch Reformed Church, Christmas was celebrated as one of the principal evangelical feasts.[42]

However, in 17th century England, some groups such as the Puritans strongly condemned the celebration of Christmas, considering it a Catholic invention and the "trappings of popery" or the "rags of the Beast".[43] In contrast, the established Anglican Church "pressed for a more elaborate observance of feasts, penitential seasons, and saints' days. The calendar reform became a major point of tension between the Anglican party and the Puritan party."[44] The Catholic Church also responded, promoting the festival in a more religiously oriented form. King Charles I of England directed his noblemen and gentry to return to their landed estates in midwinter to keep up their old-style Christmas generosity.[37] Following the Parliamentarian victory over Charles I during the English Civil War, England's Puritan rulers banned Christmas in 1647.[43][45]

Protests followed as pro-Christmas rioting broke out in several cities and for weeks Canterbury was controlled by the rioters, who decorated doorways with holly and shouted royalist slogans.[43] Football, among the sports the Puritans banned on a Sunday, was also used as a rebellious force: when Puritans outlawed Christmas in England in December 1647 the crowd brought out footballs as a symbol of festive misrule.[46] The book, The Vindication of Christmas (London, 1652), argued against the Puritans, and makes note of Old English Christmas traditions, dinner, roast apples on the fire, card playing, dances with "plow-boys" and "maidservants", old Father Christmas and carol singing.[47] During the ban, semi-clandestine religious services marking Christ's birth continued to be held, and people sang carols in secret.[48]

It was restored as a legal holiday in England with the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 when Puritan legislation was declared null and void, with Christmas again freely celebrated in England.[48] Many Calvinist clergymen disapproved of Christmas celebration. As such, in Scotland, the Presbyterian Church of Scotland discouraged the observance of Christmas, and though James VI commanded its celebration in 1618, attendance at church was scant.[49] The Parliament of Scotland officially abolished the observance of Christmas in 1640, claiming that the church had been "purged of all superstitious observation of days".[50] Whereas in England, Wales and Ireland Christmas Day is a common law holiday, having been a customary holiday since time immemorial, it was not until 1871 that it was designated a bank holiday in Scotland.[51] Following the Restoration of Charles II, Poor Robin's Almanack contained the lines: "Now thanks to God for Charles return, / Whose absence made old Christmas mourn. / For then we scarcely did it know, / Whether it Christmas were or no."[52] The diary of James Woodforde, from the latter half of the 18th century, details the observance of Christmas and celebrations associated with the season over a number of years.[53]

As in England, Puritans in Colonial America staunchly opposed the observation of Christmas.[54] The Pilgrims of New England pointedly spent their first December 25 in the New World working normally.[54] Puritans such as Cotton Mather condemned Christmas both because scripture did not mention its observance and because Christmas celebrations of the day often involved boisterous behavior.[55][56] Many non-Puritans in New England deplored the loss of the holidays enjoyed by the laboring classes in England.[57] Christmas observance was outlawed in Boston in 1659.[54] The ban on Christmas observance was revoked in 1681 by English governor Edmund Andros, but it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region.[58]

At the same time, Christian residents of Virginia and New York observed the holiday freely. Pennsylvania Dutch settlers, predominantly Moravian settlers of Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Lititz in Pennsylvania and the Wachovia settlements in North Carolina, were enthusiastic celebrators of Christmas. The Moravians in Bethlehem had the first Christmas trees in America as well as the first Nativity Scenes.[59] Christmas fell out of favor in the United States after the American Revolution, when it was considered an English custom.[60] George Washington attacked Hessian (German) mercenaries on the day after Christmas during the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776, Christmas being much more popular in Germany than in America at this time.

With the atheistic Cult of Reason in power during the era of Revolutionary France, Christian Christmas religious services were banned and the three kings cake was renamed the "equality cake" under anticlerical government policies.[61]
19th century

In the early 19th century, Christmas festivities and services became widespread with the rise of the Oxford Movement in the Church of England that emphasized the centrality of Christmas in Christianity and charity to the poor,[62] along with Washington Irving, Charles Dickens, and other authors emphasizing family, children, kind-heartedness, gift-giving, and Santa Claus (for Irving),[62] or Father Christmas (for Dickens).[63]

In the early-19th century, writers imagined Tudor-period Christmas as a time of heartfelt celebration. In 1843, Charles Dickens wrote the novel A Christmas Carol, which helped revive the "spirit" of Christmas and seasonal merriment.[64][65] Its instant popularity played a major role in portraying Christmas as a holiday emphasizing family, goodwill, and compassion.[62]

Dickens sought to construct Christmas as a family-centered festival of generosity, linking "worship and feasting, within a context of social reconciliation."[66] Superimposing his humanitarian vision of the holiday, in what has been termed "Carol Philosophy",[67] Dickens influenced many aspects of Christmas that are celebrated today in Western culture, such as family gatherings, seasonal food and drink, dancing, games, and a festive generosity of spirit.[68] A prominent phrase from the tale, "Merry Christmas", was popularized following the appearance of the story.[69] This coincided with the appearance of the Oxford Movement and the growth of Anglo-Catholicism, which led a revival in traditional rituals and religious observances.[70]

The term Scrooge became a synonym for miser, with the phrase "Bah! Humbug!" becoming emblematic of a dismissive attitude of the festive spirit.[71] In 1843, the first commercial Christmas card was produced by Sir Henry Cole.[72] The revival of the Christmas Carol began with William Sandys's Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (1833), with the first appearance in print of "The First Noel", "I Saw Three Ships", "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", popularized in Dickens's A Christmas Carol.

In Britain, the Christmas tree was introduced in the early 19th century by the German-born Queen Charlotte. In 1832, the future Queen Victoria wrote about her delight at having a Christmas tree, hung with lights, ornaments, and presents placed round it.[73] After her marriage to her German cousin Prince Albert, by 1841 the custom became more widespread throughout Britain.[74] An image of the British royal family with their Christmas tree at Windsor Castle created a sensation when it was published in the Illustrated London News in 1848. A modified version of this image was published in Godey's Lady's Book, Philadelphia in 1850.[75][76] By the 1870s, putting up a Christmas tree had become common in America.[75]

In America, interest in Christmas had been revived in the 1820s by several short stories by Washington Irving which appear in his The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. and "Old Christmas". Irving's stories depicted harmonious warm-hearted English Christmas festivities he experienced while staying in Aston Hall, Birmingham, England, that had largely been abandoned,[77] and he used the tract Vindication of Christmas (1652) of Old English Christmas traditions, that he had transcribed into his journal as a format for his stories.[37]

In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote the poem A Visit From St. Nicholas (popularly known by its first line: Twas the Night Before Christmas).[78] The poem helped popularize the tradition of exchanging gifts, and seasonal Christmas shopping began to assume economic importance.[79] This also started the cultural conflict between the holiday's spiritual significance and its associated commercialism that some see as corrupting the holiday. In her 1850 book The First Christmas in New England, Harriet Beecher Stowe includes a character who complains that the true meaning of Christmas was lost in a shopping spree.[80]

While the celebration of Christmas was not yet customary in some regions in the U.S., Henry Wadsworth Longfellow detected "a transition state about Christmas here in New England" in 1856. "The old puritan feeling prevents it from being a cheerful, hearty holiday; though every year makes it more so."[81] In Reading, Pennsylvania, a newspaper remarked in 1861, "Even our presbyterian friends who have hitherto steadfastly ignored Christmas—threw open their church doors and assembled in force to celebrate the anniversary of the Savior's birth."[81]

The First Congregational Church of Rockford, Illinois, "although of genuine Puritan stock", was 'preparing for a grand Christmas jubilee', a news correspondent reported in 1864.[81] By 1860, fourteen states including several from New England had adopted Christmas as a legal holiday.[82] In 1875, Louis Prang introduced the Christmas card to Americans. He has been called the "father of the American Christmas card".[83] On June 28, 1870, Christmas was formally declared a United States federal holiday.[84]
20th and 21st centuries

During the First World War and particularly (but not exclusively) in 1914,[85] a series of informal truces took place for Christmas between opposing armies. The truces, which were organised spontaneously by fighting men, ranged from promises not to shoot (shouted at a distance in order to ease the pressure of war for the day) to friendly socializing, gift giving and even sport between enemies.[86] These incidents became a well known and semi-mythologised part of popular memory.[87] They have been described as a symbol of common humanity even in the darkest of situations and used to demonstrate to children the ideals of Christmas.[88]

Under the state atheism of the Soviet Union, after its foundation in 1917, Christmas celebrations—along with other Christian holidays—were prohibited in public.[89] During the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, the League of Militant Atheists encouraged school pupils to campaign against Christmas traditions, such as the Christmas tree, as well as other Christian holidays, including Easter; the League established an antireligious holiday to be the 31st of each month as a replacement.[90] At the height of this persecution, in 1929, on Christmas Day, children in Moscow were encouraged to spit on crucifixes as a protest against the holiday.[91] Instead, the importance of the holiday and all its trappings, such as the Christmas tree and gift-giving, was transferred to the New Year.[92] It was not until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 that the persecution ended and Orthodox Christmas became a state holiday again for the first time in Russia after seven decades.[93]

European History Professor Joseph Perry wrote that likewise, in Nazi Germany, "because Nazi ideologues saw organized religion as an enemy of the totalitarian state, propagandists sought to deemphasize—or eliminate altogether—the Christian aspects of the holiday" and that "Propagandists tirelessly promoted numerous Nazified Christmas songs, which replaced Christian themes with the regime's racial ideologies."[94]

As Christmas celebrations began to spread globally even outside traditional Christian cultures, several Muslim-majority countries began to ban the observance of Christmas, claiming it undermined Islam.[95] In 2023, public Christmas celebrations were cancelled in Bethlehem, the city synonymous with the birth of Jesus. Palestinian leaders of various Christian denominations cited the ongoing Israel–Hamas war in their unanimous decision to cancel celebrations.

Observance and traditions
Further information: Christmas traditions and Observance of Christmas by country

Christmas Day is celebrated as a major festival and public holiday in countries around the world, including many whose populations are mostly non-Christian. In some non-Christian areas, periods of former colonial rule introduced the celebration (e.g. Hong Kong); in others, Christian minorities or foreign cultural influences have led populations to observe the holiday. Countries such as Japan, where Christmas is popular despite there being only a small number of Christians, have adopted many of the cultural aspects of Christmas, such as gift-giving, decorations, and Christmas trees. A similar example is in Turkey, being Muslim-majority and with a small number of Christians, where Christmas trees and decorations tend to line public streets during the festival.[98]

Many popular customs associated with Christmas developed independently of the commemoration of Jesus's birth, with some claiming that certain elements are Christianized and have origins in pre-Christian festivals that were celebrated by pagan populations who were later converted to Christianity; other scholars reject these claims and affirm that Christmas customs largely developed in a Christian context.[99][100] The prevailing atmosphere of Christmas has also continually evolved since the holiday's inception, ranging from a sometimes raucous, drunken, carnival-like state in the Middle Ages,[31] to a tamer family-oriented and children-centered theme introduced in a 19th-century transformation.[64][65] The celebration of Christmas was banned on more than one occasion within certain groups, such as the Puritans and Jehovah's Witnesses (who do not celebrate birthdays in general), due to concerns that it was too unbiblical.[43][54][101]

Prior to and through the early Christian centuries, winter festivals were the most popular of the year in many European pagan cultures. Reasons included the fact that less agricultural work needed to be done during the winter, as well as an expectation of better weather as spring approached.[102] Celtic winter herbs such as mistletoe and ivy, and the custom of kissing under a mistletoe, are common in modern Christmas celebrations in the English-speaking countries.[103]

The pre-Christian Germanic peoples—including the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse—celebrated a winter festival called Yule, held in the late December to early January period, yielding modern English yule, today used as a synonym for Christmas.[104] In Germanic language-speaking areas, numerous elements of modern Christmas folk custom and iconography may have originated from Yule, including the Yule log, Yule boar, and the Yule goat.[105][104] Often leading a ghostly procession through the sky (the Wild Hunt), the long-bearded god Odin is referred to as "the Yule one" and "Yule father" in Old Norse texts, while other gods are referred to as "Yule beings".[106] On the other hand, as there are no reliable existing references to a Christmas log prior to the 16th century, the burning of the Christmas block may have been an early modern invention by Christians unrelated to the pagan practice.[107]

Among countries with a strong Christian tradition, a variety of Christmas celebrations have developed that incorporate regional and local cultures. For example, in eastern Europe Christmas celebrations incorporated pre-Christian traditions such as the Koleda,[108] which shares parallels with the Christmas carol.
Church attendance

Christmas Day (inclusive of its vigil, Christmas Eve), is a Festival in the Lutheran Churches, a solemnity in the Roman Catholic Church, and a Principal Feast of the Anglican Communion. Other Christian denominations do not rank their feast days but nevertheless place importance on Christmas Eve/Christmas Day, as with other Christian feasts like Easter, Ascension Day, and Pentecost.[109] As such, for Christians, attending a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day church service plays an important part in the recognition of the Christmas season. Christmas, along with Easter, is the period of highest annual church attendance. A 2010 survey by LifeWay Christian Resources found that six in ten Americans attend church services during this time.[110] In the United Kingdom, the Church of England reported an estimated attendance of 2.5 million people at Christmas services in 2015.[111]
Decorations
Main article: Christmas decoration
Further information: Hanging of the greens

Nativity scenes are known from 10th-century Rome. They were popularised by Saint Francis of Assisi from 1223, quickly spreading across Europe.[112] Different types of decorations developed across the Christian world, dependent on local tradition and available resources, and can vary from simple representations of the crib to far more elaborate sets – renowned manger scene traditions include the colourful Kraków szopka in Poland,[113] which imitate Kraków's historical buildings as settings, the elaborate Italian presepi (Neapolitan [it], Genoese [it] and Bolognese [it]),[114][115][116][117] or the Provençal crèches in southern France, using hand-painted terracotta figurines called santons.[118] In certain parts of the world, notably Sicily, living nativity scenes following the tradition of Saint Francis are a popular alternative to static crèches.[119][120][121] The first commercially produced decorations appeared in Germany in the 1860s, inspired by paper chains made by children.[122] In countries where a representation of the Nativity scene is very popular, people are encouraged to compete and create the most original or realistic ones. Within some families, the pieces used to make the representation are considered a valuable family heirloom.[123]

The traditional colors of Christmas decorations are red, green, and gold.[124][125] Red symbolizes the blood of Jesus, which was shed in his crucifixion; green symbolizes eternal life, and in particular the evergreen tree, which does not lose its leaves in the winter; and gold is the first color associated with Christmas, as one of the three gifts of the Magi, symbolizing royalty.[126]

The Christmas tree was first used by German Lutherans in the 16th century, with records indicating that a Christmas tree was placed in the Cathedral of Strassburg in 1539, under the leadership of the Protestant Reformer, Martin Bucer.[127][128] In the United States, these "German Lutherans brought the decorated Christmas tree with them; the Moravians put lighted candles on those trees."[129][130] When decorating the Christmas tree, many individuals place a star at the top of the tree symbolizing the Star of Bethlehem, a fact recorded by The School Journal in 1897.[131][132] Professor David Albert Jones of Oxford University writes that in the 19th century, it became popular for people to also use an angel to top the Christmas tree in order to symbolize the angels mentioned in the accounts of the Nativity of Jesus.[133] Additionally, in the context of a Christian celebration of Christmas, the Christmas tree, being evergreen in colour, is symbolic of Christ, who offers eternal life; the candles or lights on the tree represent the Light of the World—Jesus—born in Bethlehem.[134][135] Christian services for family use and public worship have been published for the blessing of a Christmas tree, after it has been erected.[136][137] The Christmas tree is considered by some as Christianisation of pagan tradition and ritual surrounding the Winter Solstice, which included the use of evergreen boughs, and an adaptation of pagan tree worship;[138] according to eighth-century biographer Æddi Stephanus, Saint Boniface (634–709), who was a missionary in Germany, took an ax to an oak tree dedicated to Thor and pointed out a fir tree, which he stated was a more fitting object of reverence because it pointed to heaven and it had a triangular shape, which he said was symbolic of the Trinity.[139] The English language phrase "Christmas tree" is first recorded in 1835[140] and represents an importation from the German language.

Since the 16th century, the poinsettia, a native plant from Mexico, has been associated with Christmas carrying the Christian symbolism of the Star of Bethlehem; in that country it is known in Spanish as the Flower of the Holy Night.[143][144] Other popular holiday plants include holly, mistletoe, red amaryllis, and Christmas cactus.[145]

Other traditional decorations include bells, candles, candy canes, stockings, wreaths, and angels. Both the displaying of wreaths and candles in each window are a more traditional Christmas display.[146] The concentric assortment of leaves, usually from an evergreen, make up Christmas wreaths and are designed to prepare Christians for the Advent season. Candles in each window are meant to demonstrate the fact that Christians believe that Jesus Christ is the ultimate light of the world.[147]
Christmas lights in Verona.

Christmas lights and banners may be hung along streets, music played from speakers, and Christmas trees placed in prominent places.[148] It is common in many parts of the world for town squares and consumer shopping areas to sponsor and display decorations. Rolls of brightly colored paper with secular or religious Christmas motifs are manufactured for the purpose of wrapping gifts. In some countries, Christmas decorations are traditionally taken down on Twelfth Night.[149]
Nativity play
Main article: Nativity play
For the Christian celebration of Christmas, the viewing of the Nativity play is one of the oldest Christmastime traditions, with the first reenactment of the Nativity of Jesus taking place in 1223 AD in the Italian town of Greccio.[150] In that year, Francis of Assisi assembled a Nativity scene outside of his church in Italy and children sung Christmas carols celebrating the birth of Jesus.[150] Each year, this grew larger and people travelled from afar to see Francis's depiction of the Nativity of Jesus that came to feature drama and music.[150] Nativity plays eventually spread throughout all of Europe, where they remain popular. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day church services often came to feature Nativity plays, as did schools and theatres.[150] In France, Germany, Mexico and Spain, Nativity plays are often reenacted outdoors in the streets.[150]
Music and carols
Main article: Christmas music

The earliest extant specifically Christmas hymns appear in fourth-century Rome. Latin hymns such as "Veni redemptor gentium", written by Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, were austere statements of the theological doctrine of the Incarnation in opposition to Arianism. "Corde natus ex Parentis" ("Of the Father's love begotten") by the Spanish poet Prudentius (died 413) is still sung in some churches today.[151] In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Christmas "Sequence" or "Prose" was introduced in North European monasteries, developing under Bernard of Clairvaux into a sequence of rhymed stanzas. In the 12th century the Parisian monk Adam of St. Victor began to derive music from popular songs, introducing something closer to the traditional Christmas carol. Christmas carols in English appear in a 1426 work of John Awdlay who lists twenty five "caroles of Cristemas", probably sung by groups of 'wassailers', who went from house to house.[152]

The songs now known specifically as carols were originally communal folk songs sung during celebrations such as "harvest tide" as well as Christmas. It was only later that carols began to be sung in church. Traditionally, carols have often been based on medieval chord patterns, and it is this that gives them their uniquely characteristic musical sound. Some carols like "Personent hodie", "Good King Wenceslas", and "In dulci jubilo" can be traced directly back to the Middle Ages. They are among the oldest musical compositions still regularly sung. "Adeste Fideles" (O Come all ye faithful) appeared in its current form in the mid-18th century.

The singing of carols increased in popularity after the Protestant Reformation in the Lutheran areas of Europe, as the Reformer Martin Luther wrote carols and encouraged their use in worship, in addition to spearheading the practice of caroling outside the Mass.[153] The 18th-century English reformer Charles Wesley, a founder of Methodism, understood the importance of music to Christian worship. In addition to setting many psalms to melodies, he wrote texts for at least three Christmas carols. The best known was originally entitled "Hark! How All the Welkin Rings", later renamed "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing".

Christmas seasonal songs of a secular nature emerged in the late 18th century. The Welsh melody for "Deck the Halls" dates from 1794, with the lyrics added by Scottish musician Thomas Oliphant in 1862, and the American "Jingle Bells" was copyrighted in 1857. Other popular carols include "The First Noel", "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", "The Holly and the Ivy", "I Saw Three Ships", "In the Bleak Midwinter", "Joy to the World", "Once in Royal David's City" and "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks".[155] In the 19th and 20th centuries, African American spirituals and songs about Christmas, based in their tradition of spirituals, became more widely known. An increasing number of seasonal holiday songs were commercially produced in the 20th century, including jazz and blues variations. In addition, there was a revival of interest in early music, from groups singing folk music, such as The Revels, to performers of early medieval and classical music.

One of the most ubiquitous festive songs is "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", which originates from the West Country of England in the 1930s.[156] Radio has covered Christmas music from variety shows from the 1940s and 1950s, as well as modern-day stations that exclusively play Christmas music from late November through December 25.[157] Hollywood movies have featured new Christmas music, such as "White Christmas" in Holiday Inn and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.[157] Traditional carols have also been included in Hollywood films, such as "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" in It's a Wonderful Life (1946), and "Silent Night" in A Christmas Story.

Traditional cuisine
See also: Christmas food
Christmas dinner setting

A special Christmas family meal is traditionally an important part of the holiday's celebration, and the food that is served varies greatly from country to country. Some regions have special meals for Christmas Eve, such as Sicily, where twelve kinds of fish are served. In the United Kingdom and countries influenced by its traditions, a standard Christmas meal includes turkey, goose or other large bird, gravy, potatoes, vegetables, sometimes bread and cider. Special desserts are also prepared, such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, Christmas cake, and latterly Panettone and Yule log.[158][159] A traditional Christmas meal in Central Europe features fried carp or other fish.[160]
Cards
Main article: Christmas card

Christmas cards are illustrated messages of greeting exchanged between friends and family members during the weeks preceding Christmas Day. The traditional greeting reads "wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year", much like that of the first commercial Christmas card, produced by Sir Henry Cole in London in 1843.[161] The custom of sending them has become popular among a wide cross-section of people with the emergence of the modern trend towards E-cards.[162][163]

Christmas cards are purchased in considerable quantities and feature artwork, commercially designed and relevant to the season. The content of the design might relate directly to the Christmas narrative, with depictions of the Nativity of Jesus, or Christian symbols such as the Star of Bethlehem, or a white dove, which can represent both the Holy Spirit and Peace on Earth. Other Christmas cards are more secular and can depict Christmas traditions, mythical figures such as Santa Claus, objects directly associated with Christmas such as candles, holly, and baubles, or a variety of images associated with the season, such as Christmastide activities, snow scenes, and the wildlife of the northern winter.[164]

Some prefer cards with a poem, prayer, or Biblical verse; while others distance themselves from religion with an all-inclusive "Season's greetings".[165]
Commemorative stamps
Main article: Christmas stamp

A number of nations have issued commemorative stamps at Christmastide.[166] Postal customers will often use these stamps to mail Christmas cards, and they are popular with philatelists.[167] These stamps are regular postage stamps, unlike Christmas seals, and are valid for postage year-round. They usually go on sale sometime between early October and early December and are printed in considerable quantities.
Christmas seals
Main article: Christmas seals

Christmas seals were first issued to raise funding to fight and bring awareness to tuberculosis. The first Christmas seal was issued in Denmark in 1904, and since then other countries have issued their own Christmas seals.[168]
Gift giving
Main article: Christmas gift

The exchanging of gifts is one of the core aspects of the modern Christmas celebration, making it the most profitable time of year for retailers and businesses throughout the world. On Christmas, people exchange gifts based on the Christian tradition associated with Saint Nicholas,[169] and the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh which were given to the baby Jesus by the Magi.[170][171] The practice of gift giving in the Roman celebration of Saturnalia may have influenced Christian customs, but on the other hand the Christian "core dogma of the Incarnation, however, solidly established the giving and receiving of gifts as the structural principle of that recurrent yet unique event", because it was the Biblical Magi, "together with all their fellow men, who received the gift of God through man's renewed participation in the divine life."[172] However, Thomas J. Talley holds that the Roman Emperor Aurelian placed the alternate festival on December 25 in order to compete with the growing rate of the Christian Church, which had already been celebrating Christmas on that date first.

Gift-bearing figures
Main article: List of Christmas and winter gift-bringers by country

A number of figures are associated with Christmas and the seasonal giving of gifts. Among these are Father Christmas, also known as Santa Claus (derived from the Dutch for Saint Nicholas), Père Noël, and the Weihnachtsmann; Saint Nicholas or Sinterklaas; the Christkind; Kris Kringle; Joulupukki; tomte/nisse; Babbo Natale; Saint Basil; and Ded Moroz. The Scandinavian tomte (also called nisse) is sometimes depicted as a gnome instead of Santa Claus.

The best known of these figures today is red-dressed Santa Claus, of diverse origins. The name 'Santa Claus' can be traced back to the Dutch Sinterklaas ('Saint Nicholas'). Nicholas was a 4th-century Greek bishop of Myra, a city in the Roman province of Lycia, whose ruins are 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) from modern Demre in southwest Turkey.[175][176] Among other saintly attributes, he was noted for the care of children, generosity, and the giving of gifts. His feast day, December 6, came to be celebrated in many countries with the giving of gifts.[38]

Saint Nicholas traditionally appeared in bishop's attire, accompanied by helpers, inquiring about the behaviour of children during the past year before deciding whether they deserved a gift or not. By the 13th century, Saint Nicholas was well known in the Netherlands, and the practice of gift-giving in his name spread to other parts of central and southern Europe. At the Reformation in 16th- and 17th-century Europe, many Protestants changed the gift bringer to the Christ Child or Christkindl, corrupted in English to 'Kris Kringle', and the date of giving gifts changed from December 6 to Christmas Eve.[38]

The modern popular image of Santa Claus, however, was created in the United States, and in particular in New York. The transformation was accomplished with the aid of notable contributors including Washington Irving and the German-American cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840–1902). Following the American Revolutionary War, some of the inhabitants of New York City sought out symbols of the city's non-English past. New York had originally been established as the Dutch colonial town of New Amsterdam and the Dutch Sinterklaas tradition was reinvented as Saint Nicholas.[177]

Current tradition in several Latin American countries (such as Venezuela and Colombia) holds that while Santa makes the toys, he then gives them to the Baby Jesus, who is the one who actually delivers them to the children's homes, a reconciliation between traditional religious beliefs and the iconography of Santa Claus imported from the United States.

In Italy's South Tyrol, Austria, the Czech Republic, Southern Germany, Hungary, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, and Switzerland, the Christkind (Ježíšek in Czech, Jézuska in Hungarian and Ježiško in Slovak) brings the presents. Greek children get their presents from Saint Basil on New Year's Eve, the eve of that saint's liturgical feast.[178] The German St. Nikolaus is not identical with the Weihnachtsmann (who is the German version of Santa Claus / Father Christmas). St. Nikolaus wears a bishop's dress and still brings small gifts (usually candies, nuts, and fruits) on December 6 and is accompanied by Knecht Ruprecht. Although many parents around the world routinely teach their children about Santa Claus and other gift bringers, some have come to reject this practice, considering it deceptive.[179]

Multiple gift-giver figures exist in Poland, varying between regions and individual families. St Nicholas (Święty Mikołaj) dominates Central and North-East areas, the Starman (Gwiazdor) is most common in Greater Poland, Baby Jesus (Dzieciątko) is unique to Upper Silesia, with the Little Star (Gwiazdka) and the Little Angel (Aniołek) being common in the South and the South-East. Grandfather Frost (Dziadek Mróz) is less commonly accepted in some areas of Eastern Poland.[180][181] It is worth noting that across all of Poland, St Nicholas is the gift giver on Saint Nicholas Day on December 6.
Sport

Christmas during the Middle Ages was a public festival with annual indulgences included the sporting.[38] When Puritans outlawed Christmas in England in December 1647 the crowd brought out footballs as a symbol of festive misrule.[46] The Orkney Christmas Day Ba' tradition continues.[182] In the former top tier of English football, home and away Christmas Day and Boxing Day double headers were often played guaranteeing football clubs large crowds by allowing many working people their only chance to watch a game.[183] Champions Preston North End faced Aston Villa on Christmas Day 1889[184] and the last December 25 fixture was in 1965 in England, Blackpool beating Blackburn Rovers 4–2.[183] One of the most memorable images of the Christmas truce during World War I was the games of football played between the opposing sides on Christmas Day 1914.[185]

More recently, in the United States, both NFL and NBA have held fixtures on Christmas Day....

Economy
Main article: Economics of Christmas
Christmas decorations at the Galeries Lafayette department store in Paris, France. The Christmas season is the busiest trading period for retailers.
Christmas market in Jena, Germany

Christmas is typically a peak selling season for retailers in many nations around the world since sales increase dramatically during this time as people purchase gifts, decorations, and supplies to celebrate. In the United States, the "Christmas shopping season" starts as early as October.[206][207] In Canada, merchants begin advertising campaigns just before Halloween (October 31), and step up their marketing following Remembrance Day on November 11. In the UK and Ireland, the Christmas shopping season starts from mid-November, around the time when high street Christmas lights are turned on.[208][209] A concept devised by retail entrepreneur David Lewis, the first Christmas grotto opened in Lewis's department store in Liverpool, England in 1879.[210] In the United States, it has been calculated that a quarter of all personal spending takes place during the Christmas/holiday shopping season.[211] Figures from the US Census Bureau reveal that expenditure in department stores nationwide rose from $20.8 billion in November 2004 to $31.9 billion in December 2004, an increase of 54 percent. In other sectors, the pre-Christmas increase in spending was even greater, there being a November–December buying surge of 100 percent in bookstores and 170 percent in jewelry stores. In the same year employment in American retail stores rose from 1.6 million to 1.8 million in the two months leading up to Christmas.[212] Industries completely dependent on Christmas include Christmas cards, of which 1.9 billion are sent in the United States each year, and live Christmas trees, of which 20.8 million were cut in the US in 2002.[213] For 2019, the average US adult was projected to spend $920 on gifts alone.[214] In the UK in 2010, up to £8 billion was expected to be spent online at Christmas, approximately a quarter of total retail festive sales.[209]
Each year (most notably 2000) money supply in US banks is increased for Christmas shopping

In most Western nations, Christmas Day is the least active day of the year for business and commerce; almost all retail, commercial and institutional businesses are closed, and almost all industries cease activity (more than any other day of the year), whether laws require such or not. In England and Wales, the Christmas Day (Trading) Act 2004 prevents all large shops from trading on Christmas Day. Similar legislation was approved in Scotland in 2007. Film studios release many high-budget movies during the holiday season, including Christmas films, fantasy movies or high-tone dramas with high production values to hopes of maximizing the chance of nominations for the Academy Awards.[215]

One economist's analysis calculates that, despite increased overall spending, Christmas is a deadweight loss under orthodox microeconomic theory, because of the effect of gift-giving. This loss is calculated as the difference between what the gift giver spent on the item and what the gift receiver would have paid for the item. It is estimated that in 2001, Christmas resulted in a $4 billion deadweight loss in the US alone.[216][217] Because of complicating factors, this analysis is sometimes used to discuss possible flaws in current microeconomic theory. Other deadweight losses include the effects of Christmas on the environment and the fact that material gifts are often perceived as white elephants, imposing cost for upkeep and storage and contributing to clutter." (wikipedia)

"Christmas in July, also known as Christmas in Summer or Christmas in Winter, is a second Christmas celebration held on 25 July that falls outside the traditional period of Christmastide. It is centered on secular Christmas-themed activities and entertainment, including small gatherings, seasonal entertainment, and shopping. July Christmas celebrations typically accommodate for those living in the Southern Hemisphere, in which they undergo their annual winter, although the main goal of Christmas in July is getting the public in the "Christmas spirit" during the summer season in the Northern Hemisphere.
Origins

Werther, an 1892 French opera with libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet, and Georges Hartmann, had an English translation published in 1894 by Elizabeth Beall Ginty. In the story, a group of children rehearse a Christmas song in July, to which a character responds: "When you sing Christmas in July, you rush the season." It is a translation of the French: "vous chantez Noël en juillet... c'est s'y prendre à l'avance."[1] This opera is based on Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. Christmas features in the book, but July does not.[2]

In 1935, the National Recreation Association's journal Recreation described what a Christmas in July was like at a girl's camp in Brevard, North Carolina, writing that "all mystery and wonder surround this annual event."[3]

The term, if not the exact concept, was given national attention with the release of the Hollywood movie comedy Christmas in July in 1940, written and directed by Preston Sturges.[4] In the story, a man is fooled into believing he has won $25,000 in an advertising slogan contest. He buys presents for family, friends, and neighbors, and proposes marriage to his girlfriend.[5]

In 1942, the Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. celebrated Christmas in July with carols and the sermon "Christmas Presents in July".[6] They repeated it in 1943, with a Christmas tree covered with donations. The pastor explained that the special service was patterned after a program held each summer at his former church in Philadelphia, when the congregation would present Christmas gifts early to give ample time for their distribution to missions worldwide.[7] It became an annual event, and in 1945, the service began to be broadcast over local radio.[8]

The U.S. Post Office and U.S. Army and Navy officials, in conjunction with the American advertising and greeting card industries, threw a Christmas in July luncheon in New York in 1944 to promote an early Christmas mailing campaign for service men overseas during World War II.[9] The luncheon was repeated in 1945.[10]

American advertisers began using Christmas in July themes in print for summertime sales as early as 1950.[11] In the United States, it is more often used as a marketing tool than an actual holiday. Television stations may choose to re-run Christmas specials, and many stores have Christmas in July sales. Some individuals choose to celebrate Christmas in July themselves, typically as an intentionally transparent excuse to have a party. This is in part because most bargainers tend to sell Christmas goods around July to make room for next year's inventory.[12]
Celebrations
Southern Hemisphere

In the Southern Hemisphere, seasons are in reverse to the Northern Hemisphere, with summer falling in December, January, and February, and with winter falling in June, July, and August. Therefore, in some Southern Hemisphere countries, such as Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and New Zealand, Christmas in July or Midwinter Christmas events are undertaken in order to have Christmas with a winter feel in common with the Northern Hemisphere.[13][14][15] These countries still celebrate Christmas on December 25, in their summer, like the Northern Hemisphere.
Northern Hemisphere

In the Northern Hemisphere, a Christmas in July celebration is deliberately ironic; the July climate is typically hot and either sunny or rainy with thunderstorms, as opposed to the cold and snowy conditions traditionally associated with Christmas celebrations in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Some people throw parties during July that mimic Christmas celebrations, bringing the atmosphere of Christmas but with warmer temperatures. Parties may include Santa Claus, ice cream and other cold foods, and gifts. Nightclubs often host parties open to the public. Christmas in July is usually recognized as July 25 but also sometimes celebrated on July 12.[16]

The Hallmark Channel and its companion outlets (Hallmark Drama and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries) run blocks of their original Christmas television films in July to coincide with the release of the Keepsake Ornaments in stores, thus literally making the event a Hallmark holiday (an accusation that Hallmark Cards officially denies).

Every July, the television home shopping channel QVC has Christmas in July sales, mostly decor and early gift ideas for children. What was once a 24-hour block of holiday shopping every July 25 (or the closest weekend day to it) has become a month-long event: generally, the sales begin on July 1 and are showcased throughout the day, with various blocks of holiday sale programming sales throughout the month. Generally during the last week of July, QVC will dedicate entire days to holiday sales.

There is also Christmas in June.[17] In some western countries, July has a limited number of marketing opportunities. In the United States and Canada, for example, there are no national holidays between the first week of July (Canada Day on July 1 in Canada and American Independence Day on July 4 in the United States) and Labor/Labour Day (the first Monday in September for both the US and Canada), leaving a stretch of about two months with no holidays (some Canadian provinces hold a Civic Holiday, but neither Canada nor the United States has ever recognized a national holiday during that time). The late July period provides relatively few opportunities for merchandising, since it is typically after the peak of summer product sales in June and early July, but before the "back to school" shopping period begins in August. Therefore, to justify sales promotions, shops (such as Leon's in Canada) will sometimes announce a "Christmas in July" sale.[citation needed]

A summer Christmas celebration is held on June 25 each year, in Italy and throughout the world. 25 June is 6 months before the next, or 6 months after the previous (depending how one chooses to look at it), traditional Christmas celebration.

It is celebrated at this particular moment, as a statement and a reaction to the traditional Christmas celebration: there is no need to wait for one specific day to celebrate love, friendship and peace. The movement started in Italy, Europe, where traditional Christmas is celebrated in winter, leading to the alternative celebration, 6 months later, to be celebrated in summer.[18] While it started out as an improvised summer celebration in Venice, it has now become a yearly tradition. In the last 8 years, the celebrations have taken place mainly in Sardinia, but the tradition is spreading across the world and becoming a worldwide movement.[citation needed]

In parts of Denmark people may have small Christmas celebrations and put up decorations for what is known as 'Jul i Juli' (translated as 'Christmas in July'). It is a simple play on words that has come to be celebrated by some, although it is not an official holiday.
Christmas in August

In the 1950s, the Christmas in July celebration became a Christmas in August celebration at Yellowstone National Park. There are multiple theories concerning the origin of this celebration. Park employees, who were nicknamed "Savages" until the mid-1970s, were known to throw large employee parties in July complete with floats, skits, and dances. Some have speculated that the Christmas in August celebration was a way to extend the mid-summer festivities to the public and subdue the employee-only celebration. Another theory is that the celebration began as a way to incorporate a performance of Handel's 'Messiah' by a student ministry working in the park.[19]
Christmas in July in September
Christmas in July in September has been marked as a celebration by some.[20][21] For example, Parker, Arizona had a celebration for it in September 2020.[22] While in the Philippines, Christmas celebrations the longest running holiday season in the world begin four months early and run through the end of the year until Epiphany. Celebrations will unofficially start in September and run through months that end in "-ber" (September, October, November, and December)." (wikipedia)

"Tinsel is a type of decorative material that mimics the effect of ice, consisting of thin strips of sparkling material attached to a thread. When in long narrow strips not attached to thread, it is called "lametta", and emulates icicles. It was originally a metallic garland for Christmas decoration. The modern production of tinsel typically involves plastic, and is used particularly to decorate Christmas trees. It may be hung from ceilings or wrapped around statues, lampposts, and so on. Modern tinsel was invented in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1610, and was originally made of shredded silver.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the word is from the Old French word estincele, meaning "sparkle"." (wikipedia)