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! 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