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! summer of 1996 when it started bearing the name of the original project: "The What a Cartoon! Show". The show's initial premieres for each short preceded Cartoon Network's Sunday night movie block, "Mr. Spim's Cartoon Theatre". The shorts continued to air on Sundays until 1997, when the network moved the shorts to Wednesdays at 9pm. Following the premiere of "Johnny Bravo", "Cow and Chicken" and "I Am Weasel" as full series in July 1997, the series shifted to Thursday nights, where it remained. "The What a Cartoon! Show" continued airing new episodes on Thursdays until November 28, 1997, when the