Among the first guest stars to appear on the show were Ernest Borgnine and Tim Conway voicing the superhero characters of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy, respectively.

[7] Creator Stephen Hillenburg initially conceived SpongeBob SquarePants in 1984, while he was teaching and studying marine biology at what is now the Orange County Ocean Institute.

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.

During his time at the California Institute of the Arts, he made his thesis film entitled Wormholes,[1] which was funded by the Princess Grace Foundation and was later displayed at various animation festivals.

[1] In 1992, Joe Murray, who had just sold his show Rocko's Modern Life to Nickelodeon, met Hillenburg at an animation festival, and offered him a job as a director of the series.

[1][11][12][13] By the time Rocko's Modern Life concluded in 1996, Hillenburg had risen to the rank of creative director and showrunner following Murray's departure from the show.

[16] The voice of SpongeBob was originally used by Kenny for a minor female alligator character named Al in Rocko's Modern Life.

[29] In addition to the regular cast members, episodes feature guest voices from many ranges of professions, including actors, musicians, and artists.

"[32] They would reprise their role in the episode "Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy II", which also guest starred Charles Nelson Reilly as their nemesis, the Dirty Bubble.

[36] American country guitarist and singer Junior Brown made a vocal cameo, performing the song "Texas" in the episode of the same name.

[42] Storyboard-driven is an approach that required artists who could take a skeletal story outline and flesh it out with sight gags, dialogue and a structure that "would strike a balance between narrative and whimsy.

[29] The group, who worked with Hillenburg on Rocko's Modern Life before, consisted of Alan Smart, Nick Jennings, and Derek Drymon.

[29] One of the ways in the book to inspire plots was "to write nouns that interested him [Bradbury] on a note card and hang them in his office.

"[46] The season was storyboarded and written by Sherm Cohen, Derek Drymon, Steve Fonti, Stephen Hillenburg, Chuck Klein, Jay Lender, Chris Mitchell, Mark O'Hare, Aaron Springer, Paul Tibbitt, Ennio Torresan, Vincent Waller, and Erik Wiese.

[a] When the crew began production on the pilot, they were tasked to design the stock locations where "[...] the show would return to again and again, and in which most of the action would take place, such as the Krusty Krab and SpongeBob's pineapple house.

The idea was "to keep everything nautical" so the crew used lots of rope, wooden planks, ships' wheels, netting, anchors, and boilerplate and rivets.

[17] Pittenger said, "So really, the sky flowers are mostly a whimsical design element that Steve [Hillenburg] came up with to evoke the look of a flower-print Hawaiian shirt—or something like that.

[48] In his review for the Variety, Noel Holston said "[The show] is smarter and freakier than most of the prime-time animated series that have popped up in the past year.

"[50] He also mentioned that "children will love the bright colors, spunky pace, and lively characters" and that "parents will not have to worry about violence or crude humor.

"[50] Jason Bovberg of DVD Talk called SpongeBob SquarePants "the coolest Saturday morning cartoon since the heyday of Warner Bros."[51] In a separate review for the season's DVD release, Bovberg "highly recommended" the set and wrote "I love the show so much, I can't see any way around giving this one a recommendation.

As they leave, SpongeBob tells Squidward that it is time to return to work, and the latter groans in displeasure when it's revealed the house they delivered to is across the street from the Krusty Krab.

SpongeBob and Patrick then go home and watch The New Adventures of Mermaid Man & Barnacle Boy on TV, which consists of the two playing checkers and complaining that their telephone needs to be fixed.

When he gets home he is surprised by his friends who forgive and hug him, only for them to start itching from the poisonous sea urchins that SpongeBob picked up whilst living amongst jellyfish.

": SpongeBob, Patrick, and Mr. Krabs play a board game based on the legend of the Flying Dutchman, which involves an in-game treasure hunt.

They begin fighting over the chest, and their arguing wakes up the Flying Dutchman, who appears and congratulates SpongeBob and Patrick for digging it up for him.

SpongeBob and Patrick go to Sandy's house to ask her to come to the Krusty Krab with them, but she tells them that she is leaving Bikini Bottom to go back to Texas.

Mr. Krabs catches the two playing on the hooks, and tells them that if they get caught, they could be eaten, or turned into gift shop knick-knacks, or be packed in a tuna can.

The hook ends up removing SpongeBob's clothes in front of Pearl and her friends, and he runs naked to his house, humiliated by the incident.

The DVD boxset for season one was released by Paramount Home Entertainment and Nickelodeon in the United States and Canada in October 2003, two years after it had completed broadcast on television.

[110][111] Upon release, the DVD set was quickly sold out at Best Buy and was selling "briskly" at online retailers, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and Walmart.