HowWhat a Cartoon!tapped animations past to push the form into a new 90s golden age.
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Joe, andThundercats,dominated TVs nationwide.
(Remember theGhostbustersanimated series?
But to folks there from the beginning, it would always be known asWhat a Cartoon!
Boundary-pushing but steeped in cartoon history,What a Cartoon!struck a remarkable balance between old and new.
Getting there, though, took some trial and error.
But Turner reassured him that it couldnt get any worse.
Think about it this way, Seibert recalls Turner telling him.
They havent had a hit sinceThe Smurfsin 1981.
If you come in and have a hit, people will think youre a genius.
And if you dont have a hit, they wont blame it on you!
It was a rocky beginning.
Upon telling his staff about his lack of animation experience, half of them quit immediately, Seibert says.
After two swings and misses SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadronand2 Stupid Dogs Seibert became worried.
It was 1994, and Nicktoons were firing on all cylinders.
Ten million dollars later, thats exactly what Seibert did.
Thats how2 Stupid Dogsgot into Hanna-Barbera.
WhileThe Powerpuff Girlswas the last of these shorts to go to series, it was the first to air.
Both Rob and I are very independent, and Craig is more of a hang-on kind of guy.
If we were ordering dinner, hed want to jump in.
And artistically, we were all very like-minded.
We were all supporting each others strengths and weaknesses.
SoJohnny Bravowas the first cartoon on TV that was done using a computer.
Like the other three, Feiss got involved in the industry early.
During that time, I would animate, like, 30 seconds here and 30 seconds there.
My art director, who did all the backgrounds, was a guy named Deane Taylor out of Australia.
It was the most freeing, creative thing that I had done up to that point.
The process wasnt always easy or straightforward.
Tartakovsky, McCracken, Feiss, and Partible all mention nerve-wracking focus-group sessions in Dallas and Tucson.
It didnt test well.
Then I begged Mike: Lets just let Craig develop it further.
He does the funniest boards.
And of course, we did.
But none were ever green-lit for a series themselves.
Then, of course, there was the gender disparity.
All of the 48What a Cartoon!shorts were created by men.
I think there mightve been four girls in our class.
And I met Lauren [Faust], my wife, onPowerpuff.
She came in on the third season.
Long gone were the old days of formulaic, 23-minute action-adventure cartoons.
After Turner Broadcasting System and Time Warner merged in 1996, Hanna-Barbera was moved to the Warner Bros.
Animation studio, and Seibert left to launch Frederator Studios in 1997, whichhe just left this year.
Frederator went on to partner with Nickelodeon on another anthology series,Oh Yeah!
This current era of animation was just beginning at that point, Simensky says.
There was a lot to be learned about how to make cartoons for TV.
So we all learned a lot, and those of us who could stayed with it.
And thats exactly what they did.
