Craig McCracken

Craig McCracken (born March 31, 1971) is an American cartoonist, animator, director, writer, and producer known for creating the Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Disney Channel and Disney XD's Wander Over Yonder, and Netflix's Kid Cosmic.

Regarded as "one of the most successful creators of episodic comedy cartoons", his style was "at the forefront of a second wave of innovative, creator-driven television animation" in the 1990s, along with that of other animators such as Genndy Tartakovsky, and has been credited as "a staple of American modern animated television".

McCracken was born March 31, 1971, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. He began drawing at an early age. He attended California High School in Whittier, California and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he met his friend and future collaborator, Genndy Tartakovsky. During his first year, he created a series of short cartoons featuring a character named No Neck Joe, which were picked up by Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. While at CalArts, he also created a short entitled Whoopass Stew!, which would later become the basis for The Powerpuff Girls.

In 1993, McCracken was hired by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons as an art director on the Turner Broadcasting System series 2 Stupid Dogs, alongside Tartakovsky. As his first job in the animation industry, he was "never really happy with how that [show] worked".[10] While McCracken was at Hanna-Barbera, studio president Fred Seibert began a new project: an animation incubator consisting of 48 new cartoons running approximately seven minutes each. Dubbed What a Cartoon!, it motivated McCracken to further develop his Whoopass Girls! creation.[11] He recalled that the network could not market a show with the word "ass" in it, so two of his friends came up with The Powerpuff Girls as a replacement for the original title.[12] His new pilot, "The Powerpuff Girls in: Meat Fuzzy Lumkins", premiered on February 20, 1995, on Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons-In,[13] and a second short, "Crime 101", followed on January 28, 1996. The first short to be picked up by the network was Tartakovsky's Dexter's Laboratory, which McCracken would contribute to in early seasons. McCracken's Powerpuff was the fourth cartoon to be greenlit a full series, which premiered on November 18, 1998, with the final episode airing on March 25, 2005. The show has won Emmy[14] and Annie awards.[15] In 2002, McCracken directed The Powerpuff Girls Movie, a prequel to his series. The film received generally positive reviews but was a box office failure.[16][17]

McCracken left The Powerpuff Girls after four seasons, focusing on his next project, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. It premiered with the 90-minute television special "House of Bloo's" on August 13, 2004, on Cartoon Network. He developed the series with wife Lauren Faust and Mike Moon. The show ran for six seasons, all directed by McCracken, and concluded on May 3, 2009. It also won Emmy[18] and Annie awards.[19]

In April 2008, he became executive producer of a new Cartoon Network showcase project called The Cartoonstitute.[20] After 17 years of employment, he resigned from Cartoon Network in 2009, after it shifted focus to live-action and reality shows.[21] He created Wander Over Yonder for Disney Television Animation and Disney Channel in August 2013.[22] After Wander Over Yonder was cancelled, McCracken pitched a new show to Disney, based on his 2009 comic strip The Kid from Planet Earth.[23][24] Disney ultimately passed on the project,[25] and he eventually left the company in 2017.[26] He then pitched his idea to Netflix and it was greenlight under the name of Kid Cosmic. The show premiered on February 2, 2021, and ended on February 3, 2022.[27][28] It is the first of McCracken's original works to have a serialized format and his return to the superhero genre since The Powerpuff Girls.[29] He pitched 10 projects to Netflix in August 2021,[30] but eventually left by April 2022 due to mass layoffs at Netflix Animation.[31][32]

On July 18, 2022, it was announced that McCracken began developing reboots of The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends at Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe. Foster's Home will take form in a pre-school show focused on new characters.[33] In 2023, McCracken received the Winsor McCay Award at the Annie Awards ceremony for his "unparalleled achievement and exceptional contributions to animation".[34] The Hollywood Reporter also named him one of the most powerful people in kids entertainment, in pair with Lauren Faust.[35]

Since his early years of career, McCracken has chosen to design characters in a simplistic way (as opposed to the realism of Warner Bros. or Disney feature films) because it is more practical for television production, as money and time limits what the animators can do.[36] In addition to this, he claimed that the crew at Hanna-Barbera wanted their shows "to be different than what was on Nick and Disney".[36] Some of his main inspirations were comic book artists such as Charles M. Schulz, Bill Watterson and Hergé.[37] All of his series have had diverse influences in terms of design, comedy and storytelling. To mention some: 1960s Batman, Underdog and Rocky and Bullwinkle in The Powerpuff Girls,[38] The Muppet Show and SpongeBob SquarePants in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (which also has a visual style inspired by 60s psychedelia),[39][40] Yellow Submarine and Looney Tunes in Wander Over Yonder,[41] and Dennis the Menace and The Adventures of Tintin in Kid Cosmic.[42]

During his time at CalArts, he discovered the cartoons of United Productions of America (UPA), which also heavily influenced the visual style of his creations.[37] His shows often present the underdog as the main focus:[37] for example, Kid Cosmic is about a group of "punk rock" characters who "may not have the skill or the talent, but they have the determination and conviction" to create a superhero team.[42] Foster's also revolves around a group of misfit creatures that have been abandoned by their original owners.[39][43] Although the Powerpuff Girls are not typical underdogs, the fact that they are little girls might make people underestimate them as superheroes.[37] He also liked "the contrast of cute characters being strong and tough" presented in the show.[44] Although the Powerpuff Girls have been widely regarded as feminist icons, McCracken has claimed that the real background for their creation was finding "a fun idea" or "a cool concept".[44]

McCracken married animator Lauren Faust on March 13, 2004. Faust took maternity leave in mid-2016 to take care of their newborn daughter, Quinn.[47]