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! 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