This Sunday, Cartoon Network will air its’ last cartoon. Wait, that’s next year. This year, they’re airing the final Foster’s cartoon. Starting at 1pm on Sunday, the network will begin airing the show’s final 5 episodes, concluding with the series finale Goodbye to Bloo. Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends began in 2004 and has delivered over 75 episodes and received numerous awards. I know most of the crew has already left the building, but here’s to an exceptional run. You guys created something quite special.

For more on the topic, check out our interview with series creator Craig McCracken and animation director Eric Pringle.

On his blog, Cartoon Network animation director Eric Pringle offers a swan song for the departing crew from Craig McCracken’s Cartoon Network series Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. With 54 episodes behind them (many animated by Dublin-based Boulder Media), he wraps up the 5+ years he spent at the studio with a parting gift – a 6-page PDF tutorial of how to animate Bloo. I know I’m not alone in saying that Eric’s Emmy-award winning crew helped raise the bar of what Flash animators could do and will do in years to come. Happy trails, Foster’s team!

Like Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s web empire Google, Craig McCracken’s path to world domination began as a school project. While the TV series and the internet search giant launched within weeks of eachother, it was 1992 when McCracken first brought Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup to life in a student short titled Whoopass Stew! A Sticky Situation, initially introducing the threesome as The Whoopass Girls. The Google gang may preach their altruistic “don’t be evil” mantra, but The Powerpuff Girls immediately “dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil.” Let’s watch a few scenes from this original short:

McCracken’s crime-fighting cuties wowed the execs at Hanna-Barbera, in particular Fred Seibert, who navigated Craig’s work into What A Cartoon! Show (initially dubbed World Premiere Toons), the seminal shorts program that spawned a string of animated hits like Dexter’s Laboratory, Johnny Bravo and Courage the Cowardly Dog. After producing four in-house shorts (only one was completed), the show was given a greenlight by the network for a 1998 premiere (all of this development material is available on the DVD that releases next Tuesday – The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series – 10th Anniversary Collection). McCracken’s college roommate Genndy Tartakovsky was already a rising star at Cartoon Network, having created Dexter’s Lab, when the two teamed up to produce the first season of PPG. On November 18, 1998, the series enjoyed the highest rated premiere in Cartoon Network’s history, setting the stage for a six season run.
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Back in 2003, I produced a pilot at Warner Bros. titled Circus Peanut. It was Andy Suriano’s original concept, aimed at Cartoon Network. Matt Danner directed, Eric Pringle was Animation Director, while animation was handled by Brendan Burch, Greg Franklin, Dave Vamos and a number of other folks who soon after launched Six Point Harness. Suriano hand painted (it was actually sort of a marker wash process) each and every one of the 40 backgrounds, which were then scanned into Flash. On his blog, Andy recounts my reaction to his decision to go it alone.

As with so many pilots, testing success and a quality project don’t always equate to a season order. Politics, timing and just pure luck play huge roles in the outcome, and in this case the show never saw the light of day. You may recognize Dave Foley as the voice of Circus Peanut and if I remember correctly Tom Kenny handled the Rollo. Kim Olds, the lead development executive on the project, played the Sweet Tooth. Thanks again, Andy, for teaming up with us to bring your vision to life. Here’s the pilot episode Lunchtime For Leo.

Suriano remains a sought-after series creator, storyboard artist and character designer, but he also designed a popular comic book and recently found time to hang some art on the walls.

Note to the team at WB Animation – who else was on the crew? Help me fill this out….

I spent Saturday night celebrating this season’s final Prophet Buddy episode. Eric Pringle, the creator of the Flash-animated series, was on hand, and so were hand-crafted versions of the two stars of the show, Cat and Mouse (inset with my wife Daniela). Also attending were Eric Bauza, the voice of Cat, and party host Matt Danner, who plays Mouse. With this set of episodes behind him, Pringle says he will now reestablish a relationship with “video games, the sun, television, the gym and booze.” Let’s raise a toast together to Prophet Buddy, and enjoy The Greatest Idea.