On August 21, 1961, a baby boy was born at the United States Army’s Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma. Thirty years later, this cherub — who would grow up to be a noted marine biologist and famous animator (hint, hint) — created an international phenomenon, with nothing but a drawing implement, and a few zany notions.

From the depths of his brain he created a grinning, fictitious porous yellow thing that wore polygonal trousers and lived beneath the ocean waves with sea star, a squid-like creature, a crab, plankton and other curious aquatic creatures.

He’s the father of Spongebob Squarepants.

He’s Stephen Hillenburg.

Now, this hasn’t been corroborated with Mr. Hillenburg himself, but we think it’s somewhat safe to assume that when the pilot episode aired on cable TV way back in 1999, he had no vision of the theme song of his cartoon masterpiece ever ending up on the other side of the world, on the lips of marching Russian military personnel.

It’s not exactly something you dream about as a young kid doodling with crayons in your bedroom.

But, it happened, and we have the silly YouTube vid below to prove it:

And because we’re in the mood, here’s a clip of SB and Patrick doing their thing military-style “under the sea”: