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! of the original shorts produced under Fred Seibert's management for "What a Cartoon!" by Hanna-Barbera. The shorts are listed in the order that they originally aired. After "What a Cartoon!" ends its run in 1997, Fred Seibert left Hanna-Barbera in 1997 to launch Frederator Studios. In 1998, Sam Register, who was Cartoon Network's vice president at the time, took over What a Cartoon!, and two years later, turned them into "The Cartoon Cartoon Show". Register would later create "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" for Cartoon Network in 2004. Two Cartoon Cartoon shorts were produced in 1998 and one in 1999. All