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Several years after studying experimental animation at the California Institute of the Arts, Hillenburg met Joe Murray, creator of "Rocko's Modern Life", at an animation festival. Murray offered Hillenburg a job as a director of the series. 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 considered creating his own series, but soon realized that this was his chance. Shortly after production on "Rocko's Modern Life" ended in 1996, Hillenburg began working on "SpongeBob SquarePants".