How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (TV special) animation divisions of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, where Jones was under contract at the time. CBS, coming off the surprise success of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" a year before, allotted Jones and MGM a $315,000 budget, more than four times what Bill Melendez was offered to produce "A Charlie Brown Christmas". The original broadcast was sponsored by the Foundation for Full Service Banks whose sponsor plugs within the original airing were later edited out for subsequent broadcasts. The entirety of the book's text, with some slight embellishment, was adapted into the special; to pad the special to a full 30-minute time slot,
What a Cartoon! with the internal Hanna-Barbera Creative Corps Creative Director Bill Burnett, and Senior Art Director Jesse Stagg 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 "World Premiere Toons". The first poster campaign of its kind introduced the world to the groundbreaking new stable of characters. The first cartoon from the "What a Cartoon!" project broadcast in its entirety was "The Powerpuff Girls in "Meat Fuzzy Lumkins"", which made its world premiere on Monday, February 20, 1995, during a