 Series creator Stephen Hillenburg has served as the executive producer over the course of the series ' entire history , and functioned as the showrunner from the series ' debut in 1999 until 2004 . The series went on hiatus in 2002 , after Hillenburg halted production to work on a feature film of the series , The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie . Once the film was finalized and the third season finished , Hillenburg resigned as the series ' showrunner . Although he no longer has a direct role in the production of the series , he still maintains an advisory role and reviews each episode . 
