Craig McCracken

Craig McCracken (born March 31, 1971) is an American animator, best known for creating Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Disney'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".

Early life and education McCracken was born on March 31, 1971, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, to Eva (née Pfile), a community college art instructor, and Norman "Herk" McCracken, a Minor League Baseball pitcher who died when McCracken was 7. They relocated to Southern California shortly after Norman's death. He began drawing at an early age. He attended California High School in Whittier, California and in 1990 enrolled at 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.

Career 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". 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. 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. His new pilot, "Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins", premiered during the Space Ghost Coast to Coast episode 1st World Premiere Toon-In on February 20, 1995. 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 Girls 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 and Annie awards. 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.

McCracken left The Powerpuff Girls after four seasons, focusing on his next project, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. and Annie awards.

In April 2008, he became executive producer of a new Cartoon Network showcase project called The Cartoonstitute. After 17 years of employment, he resigned from Cartoon Network in 2009, after it shifted focus to live-action and reality shows. He created Wander Over Yonder for Disney Television Animation and Disney Channel in August 2013. After Wander Over Yonder was cancelled, McCracken pitched a new show to Disney, based on his 2009 comic strip The Kid from Planet Earth. Disney ultimately passed on the project, and he eventually left the company in 2017. 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. 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. He pitched 10 projects to Netflix in August 2021, but eventually left by April 2022 due to mass layoffs at Netflix Animation.

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. In 2023, McCracken received the Winsor McCay Award at the Annie Awards ceremony for his "unparalleled achievement and exceptional contributions to animation". The Hollywood Reporter also named him one of the most powerful people in kids entertainment, alongside Lauren Faust. In February 2024, Deadline announced that the couple was developing a screenplay based on the children's picture book The Circus Ship for Trustbridge Entertainment.

Style and influences During his time at CalArts, McCracken discovered the cartoons of United Productions of America (UPA), which heavily influenced the visual style of his creations. He also noted that the crew at Hanna-Barbera wanted their shows "to be different than what was on Nick and Disney." Each of his series have distinct influences in terms of design, comedy and storytelling. To mention some: 1960s Batman, Underdog and Jay Ward's Rocky and Bullwinkle in The Powerpuff Girls, Jim Henson's The Muppet Show and Sesame Street and Stephen Hillenburg's SpongeBob SquarePants in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (which also has a visual style inspired by 60s psychedelia), Yellow Submarine and Looney Tunes in Wander Over Yonder, and Dennis the Menace and The Adventures of Tintin in Kid Cosmic.

His shows often center around underdogs; 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."

Filmography Feature film YearTitleDirectorStoryWriterProducerCreatorStoryboardartistAnimatorOther rolesNotes 1991 No Neck JoeAnimator (made in 1990, copyright date 1991) 1992 Whoopass Stew! 1999 Dexter's Laboratory: Ego Trip 2002 The Powerpuff Girls MovieCharacter designer and character layout

Television

Other roles

Awards and nominations Date Award Category Work Shared with Result Ref Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour or Less) Dexter's Laboratory (for "The Big Sister") Larry Huber, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Paul Rudish Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming One Hour or Less) Dexter's Laboratory (for "Star Spangled Sidekicks", "TV Super Pals", and "Game Over") Sherry Gunther, Larry Huber, Genndy Tartakovsky, and Jason Butler Rote Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or Less) The Powerpuff Girls (for "Beat Your Greens" and "Down 'N Dirty") Robert Alvarez, John McIntyre, Randy Myers, Amy Keating Rogers, and Genndy Tartakovsky Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour) The Powerpuff Girls (for "Moral Decay" and "Meet the Beat Alls") Robert Alvarez, Lauren Faust, John McIntyre, Amy Keating Rogers, and Genndy Tartakovsky Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More) The Powerpuff Girls (for "'Twas the Fight Before Christmas") Robert Alvarez, Lauren Faust, Juli Hashiguchi, Craig Lewis, John McIntyre, Brian A. Miller, Randy Myers, Amy Keating Rogers, Chris Savino, James Tim Walker Annie Awards Best Production Design in an Animated Television Production Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for "A Lost Claus") Mike Moon, Dave Dunnet, and Martin Ansolabehere Annie Awards Best Directing in an Animated Television Production Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for "Duchess of Wails") Annie Awards Best Directing in an Animated Television Production Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for "Bus the Two of Us") Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour) Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for "Go Goo Go") Brian A. Miller, Lauren Faust, Jennifer Pelphrey, Vince Aniceto, Robert Alvarez, Eric Pringle Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More) Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for "Good Wilt Hunting") Brian A. Miller, Jennifer Pelphrey, Lauren Faust, Vince Aniceto, Michelle Papandrew, Darrick Bachman, Craig Lewis, Robert Alvarez, Eric Pringle, Robert Cullen Annie Awards Directing in an Animated Television Production or Short Form Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for Destination: Imagination) Rob Renzetti Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour or More) Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends (for Destination: Imagination) Jennifer Pelphrey, Michelle Papandrew, Tim McKeon, Ed Baker, Alex Kirwan, Robert Alvarez, Brian A. Miller, Ryan Slater, Lauren Faust, Darrick Bachman, Vaughn Tada, Rob Renzetti, Eric Pringle Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Short-Format Animated Program Uncle Grandpa (for "Pilot") Peter Browngardt, Janet Dimon, Robert Alvarez, Rob Renzetti, Brian A. Miller, Jennifer Pelphrey, and Rob Sorcher Annie Awards Outstanding Achievement, Character Design in an Animated TV/Broadcast Production Wander Over Yonder Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Short-Format Animated Program Wander Over Yonder (for "The Gift 2: The Giftening") Francisco Angones, Amy Higgins, Lauren Faust, Ben Joseph, Johanna Stein, Dave Thomas, Eddie Trigueros Annie Awards Best Character Design - TV/Media Kid Cosmic (for "Kid Cosmic and the Rings of Power!") Annie Awards Winsor McCay Award Children's and Family Emmy Awards Individual Achievement in Animation Kid Cosmic