Uploaded December 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
What a Cartoon! (also known as World Premiere Toons and The What a Cartoon! Show), is an American animated showcase television series created for the Cartoon Network by Fred Seibert, the original creative director of MTV and Nickelodeon who served as the president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., prior to founding Frederator Studios. The project was produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios and consisted of 48 short cartoons, intended to return creative power to animators and artists, by recreating the atmospheres that spawned the great cartoon characters of the Golden Age of American Animation. Each of the 48 short cartoons mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist or creator. The series is influential for birthing a slew of original Cartoon Network hits and helping to revive television animation in the 1990s.
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" (7 minute) short would debut, by itself, as a stand-alone cartoon on Cartoon Network.
The shorts from the project first aired on February 20, 1995 under the title, World Premiere Toons. During the original run of the shorts the series was retitled, The What a Cartoon! Show until the final short aired on November 28, 1997. The project served as the launching point for multiple successful Cartoon Network series, including: Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls, and Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Each of the show creators worked with the internal Hanna-Barbera "Creative Corps" Art Director Jesse Stagg and designer Kelly Wheeler 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 What A Cartoon. The first poster campaign of its kind introduced the world to the groundbreaking new stable of characters.
The World Premiere Toons experiment introduced many of today's top animation talent and was repeated several times. A spin-off of sorts, The Cartoon Cartoon Show, was introduced in 2000 and most of the Cartoon Cartoons shown got their start as a short on What A Cartoon! A similar program, also created by Fred Seibert, was introduced on Nickelodeon in 1998, titled Oh Yeah! Cartoons.
What a Cartoon! (also known as World Premiere Toons and The What a Cartoon! Show), is an American animated showcase television series created for the Cartoon Network by Fred Seibert, the original creative director of MTV and Nickelodeon who served as the president of Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc., prior to founding Frederator Studios. The project was produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios and consisted of 48 short cartoons, intended to return creative power to animators and artists, by recreating the atmospheres that spawned the great cartoon characters of the Golden Age of American Animation. Each of the 48 short cartoons mirrored the structure of a theatrical cartoon, with each being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artist or creator. The series is influential for birthing a slew of original Cartoon Network hits and helping to revive television animation in the 1990s.
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" (7 minute) short would debut, by itself, as a stand-alone cartoon on Cartoon Network.
The shorts from the project first aired on February 20, 1995 under the title, World Premiere Toons. During the original run of the shorts the series was retitled, The What a Cartoon! Show until the final short aired on November 28, 1997. The project served as the launching point for multiple successful Cartoon Network series, including: Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls, and Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Each of the show creators worked with the internal Hanna-Barbera "Creative Corps" Art Director Jesse Stagg and designer Kelly Wheeler 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 What A Cartoon. The first poster campaign of its kind introduced the world to the groundbreaking new stable of characters.
The World Premiere Toons experiment introduced many of today's top animation talent and was repeated several times. A spin-off of sorts, The Cartoon Cartoon Show, was introduced in 2000 and most of the Cartoon Cartoons shown got their start as a short on What A Cartoon! A similar program, also created by Fred Seibert, was introduced on Nickelodeon in 1998, titled Oh Yeah! Cartoons.
