Blondie (comic strip) was adapted into a long-running series of 28 low-budget theatrical B-features, produced by Columbia Pictures. Beginning with "Blondie" in 1938, the series lasted 12 years, through "Beware of Blondie" (1950). The two major roles were Penny Singleton as Blondie and Arthur Lake (whose first starring role was another comic strip character, Harold Teen) as Dagwood. Faithfulness to the comic strip was a major concern of the creators of the series. Little touches were added that were iconic to the strip, like the appearance of Dagwood's famous sandwiches—and the running gag of Dagwood colliding with the mailman amid a flurry of
What a Cartoon! became the first spin-off of "What a Cartoon!" in 1996. Two more series based on shorts, "Johnny Bravo" and "Cow and Chicken", premiered in 1997, and "The Powerpuff Girls" became a weekly half-hour show in 1998. "Courage the Cowardly Dog" (spun off from the Oscar-nominated short "The Chicken from Outer Space") followed as the final spin-off in 1999. In addition, the "Cow and Chicken" short "I Am Weasel" eventually was also spun off into a separate series: in all, six cartoon series were ultimately launched by the "What a Cartoon!" project, any one of which earned enough money for the