What a Cartoon!
What a Cartoon! is an American animation showcase series created by Fred Seibert for Cartoon Network. The shorts were produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; by the end of the run, a Cartoon Network Studios production tag was added to some shorts to signal they were original to the network. The project consisted of 48 short cartoons, intended to return creative power to animators and artists, by recreating the atmospheres that spawned the iconic cartoon characters of the mid-20th century. Each of the shorts mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist or creator.
The series first aired on February 20, 1995, and the shorts were promoted as World Premiere Toons. During the original run of the shorts, the series was retitled to The What a Cartoon! Show and later to The Cartoon Cartoon Show until the final shorts aired on August 23, 2002. The project served as the launching point for multiple Cartoon Network animated television series, including The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Mike, Lu & Og, Sheep in the Big City, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, , Grim & Evil, and Megas XLR, as well as Fox’s Family Guy.
The series is influential for birthing a slew of original Cartoon Network hits and helping to revive television animation in the 1990s. Once it had several original shorts, those became the first Cartoon Cartoons. From 2005 to 2008, The Cartoon Cartoon Show was revived as a block for reruns of older Cartoon Cartoons that had been phased out by the network.
History
Origins and production
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 . 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 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."
Seibert's idea for the project was influenced heavily by Looney Tunes. Hanna-Barbera founders and chairmen William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, as well as veteran animator Friz Freleng, taught Seibert how the shorts of the Golden Age of American animation were produced. John Kricfalusi, creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, became a teacher of sorts for Seibert and was the first person Seibert called while looking for new talent for the project.
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. While most in the industry scoffed at the idea, encouragement, according to Seibert, came from the cartoonists who flocked to Hanna-Barbera with original ideas.
Format
The format for What a Cartoon! was ambitious, as no one had ever attempted anything similar in the television animation era. The shorts produced would be a product of the original cartoonists' vision, with no executive intervention: for example, even the music would be an individually crafted score. Each "Looney Tunes length" short would debut, by itself, as a stand-alone cartoon on Cartoon Network. Seibert explained the project's goal in a 2007 blog post: "We didn’t care what the sitcom trends were, what Nickelodeon was doing, what the sales departments wanted. We wanted cartoons."Crew
The What a Cartoon! staff had creators from Europe, Asia, and the United States. The crew also contained young series first timers, but veterans as well. In addition to the veterans, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera each produced two shorts each for What a Cartoon!. Many of the key crew members from previous Hanna-Barbera series 2 Stupid Dogs joined the team of What a Cartoon! as well.Many of its crew members later went on to write and direct for Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, and The Powerpuff Girls, including those named above. The Kitchen Casanova director John McIntyre is particularly known for directing several Dexter episodes. Ralph Bakshi's two shorts were considered too risqué to be shown. It has been rumored that John Kricfalusi was slated to direct several new What a Cartoon! shorts of his own. However, both Yogi Bear-influenced cartoons were commissioned separately by Seibert, and instead premiered as their own: Boo Boo Runs Wild and A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith both premiered in 1999.
Inspired by Seibert's interest in the modern rock posters of Frank Kozik, each of the shows' creators worked with the internal Hanna-Barbera Creative Corps Creative Director Bill Burnett, and Senior Art Director Jesse Stagg to craft a series of high quality, limited edition, fluorescent art posters. The Corps launched a prolonged Guerrilla mailing campaign, targeting animation heavyweights and critics leading up to the launch of World Premiere Toons. The first poster campaign of its kind introduced the world to the groundbreaking new stable of characters.
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 a television special called the World Premiere Toon-In. The special was hosted by Space Ghost and the cast of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, and featured comic interviews and a mock contest with the creators of the various cartoons. The Toon-In was simulcast on Cartoon Network, TBS Superstation, 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. The show's initial premieres for each short preceded Cartoon Network's Sunday night movie block, Mr. Spim's Cartoon Theatre. The shorts continued to air on Sundays until 1997, when the network moved the shorts to Wednesdays at 9pm. Following the premiere of Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel 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. 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 ' in 2002. Two pilots entitled King Crab: Space Crustacean and Thrillseeker, respectively dated 1999 and 2000, was also retconned into The Cartoon Cartoon Show anthology.
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 ' were added to the anthology. The show continued to air until October 9, 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 1, 2008.
In 2007, reruns of What a Cartoon! played briefly on Cartoon Network's retro animation sister channel, Boomerang.
Legacy
What a Cartoon! is the first short cartoon incubator created by Fred Seibert. Starting with WAC! and continuing throughout his cartoon career, his Frederator Studios has persisted in the tradition of surfacing new talent, characters, and series with several cartoon shorts "incubators," including : What A Cartoon!, Nickelodeon/Nicktoons' own Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Nicktoons Film Festival, Random! Cartoons, The Meth Minute 39, The Cartoonstitute, Too Cool! Cartoons, and GO! Cartoons. These laboratories have spun off notable series like: Dexter's Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Cow & Chicken, Family Guy, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Samurai Jack, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, , The Fairly OddParents, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Nite Fite, The Mighty B!, Fanboy & Chum Chum, Adventure Time, Regular Show, Bravest Warriors, Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, Gravity Falls, Rocket Dog, Bee and PuppyCat, and Uncle Grandpa.Dexter's Laboratory was the most popular short series according to a vote held in 1995 and eventually became the first spin-off of What a Cartoon! in 1996. Two more series based on shorts, Johnny Bravo and Cow and Chicken, premiered in 1997, and The Powerpuff Girls became a weekly half-hour show in 1998. Courage the Cowardly Dog followed as the final spin-off in 1999. In addition, the Cow and Chicken short I Am Weasel eventually was also spun off into a separate series: in all, six cartoon series were ultimately launched by the What a Cartoon! project, any one of which earned enough money for the company to pay for the whole program. In addition to the eventual spin-offs, the What a Cartoon! short Larry and Steve by Seth MacFarlane featured prototypes of characters that would later go on to become MacFarlane's massively successful Family Guy.
The What a Cartoon! project and its assorted spin-offs brought Cartoon Network more commercial and critical success, and the network became an animation industry leader as the 1990s drew to a close. In 2001, coinciding with the death of William Hanna, Hanna-Barbera Productions merged with Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network opened its own production arm, Cartoon Network Studios, in Burbank, as the rightful Hanna-Barbera successor to produce original programming for the network and future projects. Two What a Cartoon! shorts, Wind-Up Wolf and Hard Luck Duck, were the last cartoon shorts directed and produced by co-founder and co-chairman William Hanna. In addition, What a Cartoon! and spin-offs were the final original productions released by Hanna-Barbera.
Creator of The What a Cartoon! Show, Fred Seibert, left Hanna-Barbera in late 1996 to open up his own studio, Frederator Studios, and has persistently continued in the tradition of surfacing new talent, characters, and series with similar shorts "incubators", including Oh Yeah! Cartoons, Nicktoons Film Festival, The Meth Minute 39, Random! Cartoons, Too Cool! Cartoons, and GO! Cartoons. Oh Yeah! Cartoons showcased What a Cartoon! alumni and launched several successful Nickelodeon series, including The Fairly OddParents, ChalkZone and My Life as a Teenage Robot. Frederator Studios also launched an animation film festival, Nicktoons Film Festival from 2004 to 2009; only to have The Mighty B! greenlit as a series based off the Super Scout short; though one short from Alex Hirsch would later go on to make Gravity Falls for Disney Channel/Disney XD. The studio launched another animation showcase in 2006, titled Random! Cartoons, which in turn produced Nickelodeon's Fanboy & Chum Chum in 2009, Cartoon Network's Adventure Time in 2010, and Cartoon Hangover's Bravest Warriors in 2012.
A sequel-of-sorts to the What a Cartoon! project, a Cartoon Network project titled The Cartoonstitute, was announced in April 2008. Created by the channel executive Rob Sorcher and headed by The Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken and My Life as a Teenage Robot creator Rob Renzetti, the project was to "establish a think tank and create an environment in which animators can create characters and stories", and also create new possible Cartoon Network series. However, the project was eventually scrapped as a result of the late 2000s recession and only 14 of the 39 planned were completed. Nevertheless, J. G. Quintel's Regular Show short and Peter Browngardt's Secret Mountain Fort Awesome were greenlit to become full series. A recurring character on the show, Uncle Grandpa, would get his own series two years later. The Big Cartoon DataBase cites What a Cartoon! as a "venture combining classic 1940s production methods with the originality, enthusiasm and comedy of the 1990s".
List of shorts
Original show (1995–97)
The following is a list of the original shorts produced under Fred Seibert's management for What a Cartoon! by Hanna-Barbera. The shorts are listed in the order that they originally aired.| No. | Title | Episode | Created by | Hanna-Barbera | Cartoon Network Studios | Short summary | Original air date |
| 1 | The Powerpuff Girls | "Meat Fuzzy Lumkins" | Craig McCracken | The Powerpuff Girls fight to stop Fuzzy Lumpkins' plot to turn everything into meat. Note 1: This episode was included as a bonus toon on various Cartoon Network Video releases throughout the series run. Note 2: First pilot to The Powerpuff Girls. | |||
| 2 | Dexter's Laboratory | "Changes" | Genndy Tartakovsky | Dee Dee and Dexter battle turning each other into animals, using Dexter's latest invention. Note 1: First short to become a series after being deemed most popular through a vote held in 1995. Note 2: First pilot to Dexter's Laboratory. | |||
| 3 | Yuckie Duck | "Short Orders" | Pat Ventura | Yuckie Duck works as a cook and waiter in a dirty restaurant, and delivers unappealing orders to the demanding customers. | |||
| 4 | Dino | "" | Hanna-Barbera | The Flintstones' pet, Dino, tries to keep the house cat outside for the night. Note: First spin-off episode to The Flintstones. | |||
| 5 | Johnny Bravo | Van Partible | Johnny Bravo tries to score with a zookeeper girl by capturing a runaway gorilla. Note: First pilot to Johnny Bravo. | ||||
| 6 | Sledgehammer O'Possum | "Out and About" | Patrick Ventura | A trouble-making possum named Sledgehammer frustrates a dog's plans to enjoy a quiet summer day out. | |||
| 7 | George and Junior | "Look Out Below" | Pat Ventura | Classic duo George and Junior attempt to fix a lightbulb an angry pigeon keeps breaking. Note: This short was a re-imagining of the original George and Junior cartoons. | |||
| 8 | Hard Luck Duck | William Hanna | After venturing away from Harley Gators watch, Hard Luck Duck is a hungry fox's target to be cooked. Note: This short is similar to the classic Yakky Doodle cartoons by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. | ||||
| 9 | Shake & Flick | "Raw Deal in Rome" | Michael Rann, Eugene Mattos, and George Johnson | A flea named Flick has a personal agenda with a local performer, a poodle named Shake, in an anachronistic Rome setting where the two constantly try to one up each other. Note: This short was nominated to be adapted into a series but it lost to Johnny Bravo. | |||
| 10 | The Adventures of Captain Buzz Cheeply | "A Clean Getaway" | Meinert Hansen | Captain Buzz Cheeply and his robot sidekick, Slide, must escape a planet full of "Blubnoids" who have abnormally sized foreheads but small-sized brains whilst trying to do their laundry. | |||
| 11 | O. Ratz with Dave D. Fly | "Rat in a Hot Tin Can" | Jerry Reynolds and Russ Harris | A rat named O. Ratz and his fly companion, Dave D. Fly, try to find a place to stay for the night during winter in the city. | |||
| 12 | Pfish and Chip | "Short Pfuse" | Butch Hartman, Michael Rann, and Eugene Mattos | Pfish and Chip attempt to stop the squeaky-laughing Mad Bomber while the Chief naps. | |||
| 13 | The Fat Cats | "Drip Dry Drips" | Jon McClenahan | Brothers Louie and Elmo set a laundry business, expecting to earn some cash. They get a request from the President, but accidentally destroy his suit. | |||
| 14 | George and Junior | "George and Junior's Christmas Spectacular" | Patrick A. Ventura | George and Junior are forced to deliver one of Santa's presents after they fail to mail in one of his letters. | |||
| 15 | Yoink! of the Yukon | Don Jurwich, Jerry Eisenberg, and Jim Ryan | The mounted police has its uniforms stolen, so Yoink and Sergeant Farnsworth Farflung are sent to retrieve them. | ||||
| 16 | Yuckie Duck | "I'm on My Way" | Patrick A. Ventura | Yuckie Duck works as a paramedic, but does more harm than good to his patients. | |||
| 17 | Mina and the Count | "Interlude with a Vampire" | Rob Renzetti | Vlad the Count is forced to play with Mina after a mix-up in the schedule with his victims. Note: Pilot to the Mina and the Count shorts which are featured on Season 2 of Oh Yeah! Cartoons, making it the only short to appear in both cartoon variety shows. | |||
| 18 | Cow and Chicken | "No Smoking" | Dave Feiss | The Devil kidnaps Chicken, who must be saved from damnation of smoking by Super Cow. Note 1: This episode has been nominated for an Emmy. Note 2: Pilot to Cow and Chicken. | |||
| 19 | Boid 'n' Woim | C. Miles Thompson | A worm named Mr. Woim hitchhikes in the middle of the California desert alongside a bird named Mr. Boid. While driving there, Woim crashes Boid's car and they begin to hallucinate. | ||||
| 20 | Jof | "Help?" | Bruno Bozzetto | A cat that pricks his finger while sewing asks for help at the hospital, but its personnel do more harm then good. | |||
| 21 | Podunk Possum | "One Step Beyond" | Joe Orrantia and Elizabeth Stonecypher | A possum acquires an abandoned farm with three chickens to lay eggs for him, and has to defend them from a fried chicken titan, Major Portions. | |||
| 22 | The Powerpuff Girls | "Crime 101" | Craig McCracken | The Powerpuff Girls aid the bumbling Amoeba Boys in becoming able criminals. Note: Second pilot to The Powerpuff Girls. | |||
| 23 | Wind-Up Wolf | William Hanna | The Big Bad Wolf creates a robot minion wolf to attempt to finally get the Three Little Pigs. Note: William Hanna's final cartoon short. | ||||
| 24 | Hillbilly Blue | Michael Ryan | Crawdad Eustace is fed-up with being treated as food and goes with possum pal Mordechai on a cross-country trip to New Orleans. | ||||
| 25 | Courage the Cowardly Dog | "The Chicken from Outer Space" | John R. Dilworth | Courage tries to stop an alien chicken's plans to invade Earth while in his owners' farm. Note 1: This short was nominated for an Oscar. Note 2: Pilot to Courage the Cowardly Dog. | |||
| 26 | Pizza Boy | "No Tip" | Robert Alvarez | Pizza Boy must deliver a pizza from his dad Kocoum to Antarctica safe and sound under five minutes, or else he will receive no tip. | |||
| 27 | Gramps | Mike Ryan and Butch Hartman | Gramps tells his grandchildren about his battle against invading aliens. | ||||
| 28 | Dexter's Laboratory | "The Big Sister" | Genndy Tartakovsky | Dexter prevents giantess Dee Dee from attacking the whole city. Note: Second pilot to Dexter's Laboratory. | |||
| 29 | Bloo's Gang | "Bow-Wow Buccaneers" | Mike Milo and Harry McLaughlin | Bloo and his dog friends sneak out of their owner's houses at midnight to set on a pirate adventure in the city. | |||
| 30 | Jungle Boy | "Mr. Monkeyman" | Van Partible | Jealous King Raymond attempts to taint hero Jungle Boy's reputation after he begins to lose fame. | |||
| 31 | Godfrey & Zeek | "Lost Control" | Jason Butler Rote and Zac Moncrief | A giraffe and a pig leave their zoo home and visit a residual water treatment plant to retrieve the remote control they accidentally flushed down the toilet. | |||
| 32 | Tumbleweed Tex | "School Daze" | Robert Alvarez | A Wild West outlaw needs to finish the fourth grade and deal with his obnoxious class rival, Little Timmy. | |||
| 33 | Buy One, Get One Free | Charlie Bean, Carey Yost, and Don Shank | A man named Reilly gets a cat named Flinch in order to impress a female cat lover named Sofie and threatens the cat that if there is a scratch on anything while he's away, he will send him to the violin factory. It won't be easy when Sophie leaves Flinch a feline playmate named Fix that only wants to party. | ||||
| 34 | The Kitchen Casanova | John McIntyre | A first-time cook is preparing a dinner for his date. Trouble arises when the wind flips the pages from his cookbook. | ||||
| 35 | The Ignoramooses | Mike Milo and Harry McLaughlin | Two moose believe they are going to be adopted by a rich hunter due to tracking collars that a biologist put on them, and wreak havoc in his mansion. | ||||
| 36 | Johnny Bravo | "Johnny Bravo and the Amazon Women" | Van Partible | Johnny Bravo is left stranded in an island filled with beautiful giant women. Note: Second pilot to Johnny Bravo. | |||
| 37 | Pfish and Chip | "Blammo the Clown" | Butch Hartman, Michael Rann, and Eugene Mattos | The bomb squad, Pfish and Chip, face yet another clown bomber, Blammo. It isn't easy when they have to watch and protect the chief's teddy bear whilst trying to stop the clown. | |||
| 38 | Awfully Lucky | Davis Doi | A greedy guy named Luther discovers the Paradox Pearl, which brings him good luck, but not without consequences. When Luther tries to turn it in to the city museum for ten million dollars, he finds out just how harsh the consequences are. | ||||
| 39 | Strange Things | Mike Wellins | A robot finds a job as a janitor. He must remember that if it says "Don't Touch", don't touch. Note: The series' only computer-animated short. | ||||
| 40 | Snoot's New Squat | Jeret Ochi and Victor Ortado | Snoot, the flea-like alien, finds a new home on a neurotic neat-freak dog, Al. Note: A reference to the popular movie Forrest Gump is made by Snoot when Al runs away. Snoot morphs into a girl and shouts the same way as Jenny does to Forrest. | ||||
| 41 | Larry and Steve | Seth MacFarlane | Steve, a homeless dog, is adopted by dimwit Larry and lives disaster after disaster when Larry takes him shopping. Note: Episode's style developed into MacFarlane's Family Guy. | ||||
| 42 | Sledgehammer O'Possum | "What's Goin' on Back There!?" | Patrick A. Ventura | Sledgehammer O'Possum takes shelter from the cold in a mailbox, much to the dismay of a mailman named Ethel who will stop at nothing to make him leave. | |||
| 43 | The Zoonatiks | "Home Sweet Home" | Paul Parducci, James Giordano, and R.J. Reiley | A bear named Bill, a monkey named Knuckles and a turtle named Shelby try to enter the all-star Hackensack Zoo after feeling unwanted at the circus. | |||
| 44 | Swamp and Tad | "Mission Imfrogable" | John Rice and Achiu So | Swamp and Tad, two frog guards who work on Planet Marsh, are sent by the King to get a package on Earth. | |||
| 45 | Dino | "" | Hanna-Barbera | Dino takes care of a baby dinosaur and tries to prevent him from growing. Note: Second and final spin-off episode to The Flintstones. | |||
| 46 | Malcom and Melvin | Ralph Bakshi | Melvin is an alienated loser until he meets Malcom, a trumpeter cockroach who has a huge talent. Note: The creator Bakshi disowned both shorts upon release. | ||||
| 47 | Tales of Worm Paranoia | Eddie Fitzgerald | Johnny is a peaceful and forgiving worm until a human steps on him repeatedly. As a result, the worm becomes paranoid and angered at the human race, seeking revenge. Note: Style reminiscent of John Kricfalusi's The Ren & Stimpy Show; he is listed with a "Special Thanks" credit. | ||||
| 48 | Malcom and Melvin | "Babe! He... Calls Me" | Ralph Bakshi | Melvin's saga continues as his partnership with Malcom is compromised by an urban superhero's intrusion. Meanwhile, Melvin's mother aids a criminal after being unable to meet with her son. Note: The creator Bakshi disowned both shorts upon release. |
''The Cartoon Cartoon Show'' (1998–2002)
After What a Cartoon! ends its run in 1997, Fred Seibert left Hanna-Barbera in 1997 to launch Frederator Studios. In 1998, Sam Register, who was Cartoon Network's vice president at the time, took over What a Cartoon!, and two years later, turned them into The Cartoon Cartoon Show. Register would later create Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi for Cartoon Network in 2004. Two Cartoon Cartoon shorts were produced in 1998 and one in 1999. All Cartoon Cartoon shorts produced between 2000 and 2001 were entered in The Big Pick, a contest to choose the newest Cartoon Cartoon. The shorts premiered on Cartoon Cartoon Fridays in the weeks leading up to "The Big Pick" and the winner was revealed during the actual event. The winners were The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, in 2000, and , in 2001.In 2002, eight new shorts premiered during the Cartoon Cartoon Weekend Summerfest. They did not compete against one another. These were the final Cartoon Cartoon shorts before the brand name was dropped. One short, LowBrow, was given its own series under the name Megas XLR.
Cartoon Cartoon segments
From 2000 to 2003, The Cartoon Cartoon Show featured new episodes and reruns of the full-series Cartoon Cartoons, interspersed with premieres and reruns of the Cartoon Cartoon pilot shorts. From 2005 to 2008, the block was revived, this time dropping the pilot shorts.Episodes from each show were anthologized into 7 or 11-minute segments. This is a list of shows that were presented on the block:
- Dexter's Laboratory
- Johnny Bravo
- The Powerpuff Girls
- Cow and Chicken
- I Am Weasel
- Time Squad
- Samurai Jack
- Grim & Evil
- Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy
- Evil Con Carne
- Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
- Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi
- The Life and Times of Juniper Lee
- Camp Lazlo
- My Gym Partner's a Monkey
- Squirrel Boy
- Ed, Edd n Eddy
- Mike, Lu & Og
- Courage the Cowardly Dog
- Sheep in the Big City