Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo classic Christmas specials with their own irreverent "South Park" twist, and so they watched the famous 1965 "Peanuts" special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas", repeatedly during the production process. Parker said, "At this point, we just sort of wanted to do a Charlie Brown Christmas "South Park" version. That [special] was definitely a huge part of my life growing up." The episode was considered the first "South Park" musical episode, and included such songs as "Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo", "A Lonely Jew on Christmas" and "Kyle's Mom is a Big Fat Bitch". Parker and Stone were initially concerned about making
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