Origins and production at
VidCon 2014.
Fred Seibert became president of
Hanna-Barbera Cartoons in 1992 and helped guide the struggling animation studio into its greatest output in years with shows like
2 Stupid Dogs and
SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. Seibert wanted the studio to produce short cartoons, in the vein of the
Golden age of American animation. Although a project consisting of 48 shorts would cost twice as much as a normal series, Seibert's pitch to Cartoon Network involved promising 48 chances to "succeed or fail", opened up possibilities for new original programming, and offered several new shorts to the thousands already present in the
Turner Entertainment Co. library. According to Seibert, quality did not matter much to the cable operators distributing the struggling network, they were more interested in promising new programs. With
Turner Broadcasting CEO
Ted Turner and Seibert's boss
Scott Sassa on board, the studio fanned out across the world to spread the word that the studio was in an "unprecedented phase", in which animators had a better idea what cartoons should be than executives and Hanna-Barbera supported them. The company started taking pitches in earnest in 1993 and received over 5,000 pitches for the 48 slots. The diversity in the filmmakers included those from various nationalities, race, and gender. Seibert later described his hope for an idealistic diversity as "The wider the palette of creative influences, the wider and bigger the audiences." As was the custom in live action film and television, the company did not pay each creator for the storyboard submitted and pitched. For the first time in the studio's history, individual creators could retain their rights, and earn royalties on their creations.
Format The format for
What a Cartoon! was ambitious, as no one had ever attempted anything similar in the
television animation era. It has been rumored that
John Kricfalusi was slated to direct new
Yogi Bear-themed
What a Cartoon! shorts of his own under
Spümcø.
Broadcast The first cartoon from the
What a Cartoon! project broadcast in its entirety was
The Powerpuff Girls in "Meat Fuzzy Lumkins", which made its world premiere on Monday, February 20, 1995, during
Cartoon Network's
Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode "
1st Annual World Premiere Toon-In". Written by Cartoon Network staffer
Matt Maiellaro, it was hosted by
Space Ghost, humorously interviewing Hanna-Barbera animators while his adversaries judge each individual short. It was simulcast on Cartoon Network,
TBS and
TNT. To promote the shorts, Cartoon Network's marketing department came up with the concept of "Dive-In Theater" in 1995 to showcase the 48 cartoon shorts. The cartoons were shown at water parks and large municipal swimming pools, treating kids and their parents to exclusive poolside screenings on 9' x 12' movie screens. Beginning February 26, 1995, each
What a Cartoon! short began to premiere on Sunday nights, promoted as
World Premiere Toons. Every week after the premiere, Cartoon Network showcased a different World Premiere Toons made by a different artist. After an acclimation of cartoons, the network packaged the shorts as a half-hour show titled
World Premiere Toons: The Next Generation, featuring reruns of the original shorts but also new premieres. Eventually, all of the cartoons were compiled into one program which was used the name
World Premiere Toons: The Show until the summer of 1996 when it started bearing the name of the original project:
The What a Cartoon! Show. Following the premiere of
Johnny Bravo and
Cow and Chicken as full series in July 1997, the series shifted to Thursday nights, where it remained.
The What a Cartoon! Show continued airing new episodes on Thursdays until November 28, 1997, when the final short of the 48 contracted during Seibert's era aired. In 1998, Cartoon Network debuted two new short pilots and advertised them as
World Premiere Toons:
Mike, Lu & Og and
Kenny and the Chimp, both of which were produced by outside studios (respectively Kinofilm and
Curious Pictures) and produced after
Time Warner's acquisition of Turner Broadcasting in 1996. The two pilots were later compiled into
The Cartoon Cartoon Show, while both shorts eventually garnered their own series,
Mike, Lu & Og in 1999 and
Codename: Kids Next Door in 2002. Three shorts were retconned into
The Cartoon Cartoon Show anthology.
Bill Wray's
King Crab: Space Crustacean, as well as his former colleague
John Kricfalusi's
What a Cartoon! shorts,
Boo Boo Runs Wild and
A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith, aired on the program with minimal Cartoon Cartoons branding in 1999. On June 9, 2000,
The What a Cartoon! Show was relaunched as
The Cartoon Cartoon Show. In this new format, it aired reruns and new episodes of the full-series
Cartoon Cartoons, as well as new Cartoon Cartoon shorts and old
WAC! shorts. From 2000 to 2001, the pilot shorts appearing on the network's
viewer's poll that lost to
The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy and
Codename: Kids Next Door (except for
Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?) were added to the anthology. The show continued to air until October 16, 2003, when it was temporarily dropped from the network's schedule. On September 12, 2005,
The Cartoon Cartoon Show was revived, this time as a half-hour program featuring segments of older Cartoon Cartoons that were no longer shown regularly on the network, such as
Cow and Chicken,
I Am Weasel, and others. Some Cartoon Cartoons were moved exclusively to this show and the Top 5, though there was also some overlap with shows that already had regular half-hour slots outside the series. In 2006, the programming was expanded to also include non-Cartoon Cartoons that were regularly shown on the network, such as ''
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Camp Lazlo, My Gym Partner's a Monkey, and Squirrel Boy''. The show ended on June 21, 2008. In 2007, reruns of
What a Cartoon! played briefly on Cartoon Network's retro animation sister channel,
Boomerang. In 2020, a selection of shorts were added to the Cartoon Network website and app. On July 29, 2024, reruns of
What a Cartoon! returned to Cartoon Network, airing only on Monday evenings as part of
Adult Swim's
Checkered Past block. == Legacy ==