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! ended on June 1, 2008. In 2007, reruns of "What a Cartoon!" played briefly on Cartoon Network's retro animation sister channel, Boomerang. "What A Cartoon!" is the 1st short cartoon incubator created by Fred Seibert. Starting with WAC! and continuing throughout his cartoon career, his Frederator Studios has persisted in the tradition of surfacing new talent, characters, and series with several cartoon shorts "incubators," including (as of 2016): "What A Cartoon!" (Cartoon Network, 1995), Nickelodeon/Nicktoons' own "Oh Yeah! Cartoons" (1998), "Nicktoons Film Festival" (2004), "Random! Cartoons" (2008), "The Meth Minute 39" (Channel Frederator, 2008), "The Cartoonstitute" (Cartoon Network, 2009/unfinished), "Too