Speedy Gonzales rival became Daffy Duck. Feeling that the character presented an offensive Mexican stereotype, Cartoon Network shelved Speedy's films when it gained exclusive rights to broadcast them in 1999 (as a subsidiary of Time Warner, Cartoon Network is a corporate sibling to Warner Bros.). In an interview with Fox News on March 28, 2002, Cartoon Network spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg commented, "It hasn't been on the air for years because of its ethnic stereotypes." Despite such controversy over potentially offensive characterizations, Speedy Gonzales remained a popular character in Latin America. The Hispanic-American rights organization League of United Latin American Citizens called Speedy
What a Cartoon! 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