The History of Cartoon Network - Annex 5: What-A-Cartoon!

When Cartoon Network launched it was initially an animation showcase channel, the channel lacked something. Their own content. All of a sudden, Fred Seibert launched What-A-Cartoon while at Hanna-Barbera, and Cartoon Network would never be the same again.

The format was successful, 79 shorts were selected, 48 shorts were picked and a handful of them got their own shows. The Powerpuff Girls, Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory had two shorts, Cow and Chicken, and Courage the Cowardly Dog had one, plus Dino, who desperately wanted to get a spin-off of it's own, had one, but it didn't get past the nominations.
What about the rest? Surely they didn't get past the nominations as well, but those shorts got some love by the producers. Can you imagine seeing Mina and the Count as an actual series?

Or Shnookums and Meat?

Or Pizza Boy?

Or Larry and Steve... oh, wait, hang on, it's Family Guy.
Eventually these shorts got packaged as "The What-A-Cartoon Show", and later on, "World Premiere Toons".


There was also an offshoot called Web Premiere Toons, but just save it for next week.