Bikini Bottom is undersea suburbia turned up to maximum saturation — a 1999 Nickelodeon tidepool where a fry cook lives in a pineapple and every "sky" is a rippling cyan wall of water. Stephen Hillenburg, a marine biologist turned animator, painted his neighborhood over mid-century tiki lounges and 1960s Hawaiian barkcloth: turquoise grounds, banana-yellow sponge, and double-lobed pink flower-clouds lifted straight from aloha shirts. Fat rubbery ink lines, googly asymmetric eyes, nothing rulered straight — the whole grammar is a snorkel postcard painted as a cartoon cel. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and the neighborhood is at the bottom of the ocean.