"Stephen Hillenburg did not want Spongebob to have any spinoffs and Nickelodeon is now making Kamp Koral after he has passed."
reddit: the front page of the internet 2019-11-20
"Stephen Hillenburg did not want Spongebob to have any spinoffs and now Nickelodeon is making Kamp Koral after he has passed away."
https://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/stephen-hillenburg-post-1.jpg
This is a claim I have seen across Reddit for the past few months, more and more commonly now with the official announcement of Kamp Koral.
Also spelled as "Camp Coral", a preview of which has been shown in the new SpongeBob movie trailer: https://youtu.be/IwzjEkNJVkA?t=9
Sources are sparse to support this claim, though it is said to be "well known," so I wanted to make a thread collecting all I could find.
I think it's worth figuring out whether this is actually true, and I can think of no better community to do so in than r/television.
If there is a source that is not listed here, please leave a comment and I'll add it.
Sources
Sources listed in no particular chronological or strength order, though the first is the strongest support I have seen.
Source 1 - Paul Tibbitt on Twitter
Former showrunner on SpongeBob SquarePants (2005-2015).
Tibbitt worked on the show from 1999 to 2017, and alongside Stephen Hillenburg until he left in 2004.
[In response to Kamp Koral's announcement and inclusion in the new Spongebob movie trailer]
I do not mean any disrespect to my colleagues who are working on this show. They are good people and talented artists. But this is some greedy, lazy executive-ing right here, and they ALL know full well Steve would have HATED this. Shame on them.
Source 2 - 2009 TBI Interview with Stephen Hillenburg
This is a firsthand source, an interview with Stephen himself.
TBI: Have you thought about spin-offs featuring some of the other characters?
Hillenburg: The show is about SpongeBob, he’s the core element, and it’s about how he relates to the other characters. Patrick by himself might be a bit too much. So I don’t see any spin-offs.
Source 3 - Vincent Waller on Twitter
Waller was a writer for SpongeBob during the last half of the series' first season, leaving after the first season was completed. Waller returned to the series as technical director for the series' fourth season.
He will also serve as executive producer and showrunner of the upcoming SpongeBob prequel series, Kamp Koral.
[In response to a question about SpongeBob featuring in a crossover with Mighty B.]
Steve [Hillenburg] prefers we don't do crossovers.
Beyond these sources, I have not found further support than Stephen Hillenburg disapproved of sequels, spinoffs, prequels, etc of Spongebob.
Just that first source being a close friend of Hillenburg and having worked on SpongeBob with him for so long is a very strong source in my view.
Beyond that, if you can find more support for the claim, please link it.
No tertiary sources citing other sources please. There are tons of those but they provide no good support.