What a Cartoon Show gives birth to a new generation of animators

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Does anybody remember the "What a Cartoon" show from the early 90s? In the vein of the Channel Frederator model, "amateur" animators could bring their vision to the small screen compliments of Cartoon Network's in-house studio.

Eddie Fitzgerald brings his Spumco chops to the table

This was one of the first attempts to develop new content on the cheap through a weekly showcase - and it worked! Shows such as Dexter's Laboratory, Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo, Courage the Cowardly Dog and Cow & Chicken were all born from this model - as was the look and feel of the modern Cartoon Network!



It worked like this: submit your cartoon idea to CN in the form of completed Storyboards. If they liked it, they would give you the staff & resources to complete your cartoon, and then show it on Cartoon Network. One major caveat - CN owned your content (with the usual development deal of 5% profit participation or something along those lines, depending on what a hardass your agent was).

That's the other major caveat to submission: you could not submit Storyboards without being represented by a professional agent. This served the purpose of weeding out a ton of crappy work by amateurs around the world (myself included). It sounds unfair, but sorting through that kind of volume would have been costly and time consuming, and probably would have hurt the overall quality.



As you can imagine, most of the opportunities were given to Hollywood Studio staffers, a sort of insiders club of young and talented players... what we outsider animators called the "Cal-Arts crowd" (named for the amazing Valencia-based school whose program consistently launches some of the best and most successful animators in the business).

Do I sound bitter? I'm not, actually. All of these guys worked their asses off, creating their storyboards on spec, busting out complete (and funny) cartoons on a lean budget and a tight schedule... but there definitely comes confidence & incentive with having the industry experience and professional relationships that would come under scrutiny during the award process.

Still, it did (and still does) kind of reinforce a clique-mentality within the Hollywood animation scene - but nothing so sinister that genuine talent can't permeate it.

Robert Alvarez had me craving pizza for days with this one.

The What a Cartoon program produced one new cartoon every week for like, a year. It was also not uncommon to see these cartoons showing up on Boomerang or any of the other warmed-up leftover channels. Not only did it give Cartoon Network several of the most profitable properties they've ever had, it launched a bunch of careers... creators like Butch Hartman (Fairly Odd Parents), Craig McCracken (Powerpuff, Foster's Home) and Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter, Samurai Jack) as well as Directors like Robert Alvarez (Johnny Bravo, Grim & Evil), Zac Moncrief (Family Guy), and Mike Milo (Chowder, Pinky and the Brain).



Even those who do not swing big balls in the studios have gone on to enjoy enormous opportunities and respect from their peers since participating in the program. Miles Thompson and Joe Orrantia both graced and tortured me with their presence on the Li'l Pimp crew back in ought 3. Talented and mischievous, both of them.


Miles Thompson's installment - I'm convinced he based the worm on himself.

Some of these cartoons represented a look that was rather stale and mainstream by that time in CN history (I will not specify out of respect), but most of them brought something kinetic and wild to the screen, a combination of fresh and retro, a Hanna Barbera on acid approach (partially influenced by Kricfalusi) that helped usher in a new era of animation that has defined Cartoon network over the last 15 years.

The most memorable aspect of this series is, for me, the opening theme song. it sounds like someone took the guitar solo from The Beatles' "The Night Before" and turned it into a punk rock song.

If you've had any love for the animation of Nickelodeon & Cartoon Network over the last decade, drink a toast to the What a Cartoon show.

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