‘Dexter's Laboratory' & ‘The Powerpuff Girls' Creators On How They Broke The System At Cartoon Network

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If he was starting out today, Dexter's Laboratory creator Genndy Tartakovsky would 'make cartoon after cartoon until something hits.'
That was Tartakovsky's pearl of wisdom delivered to a packed Annecy audience as he celebrated 25 years of Cartoon Network Studios with a sextet of creators of some of the biggest American cartoons of all time, including The Powerpuff Girls, Adventure Time and Steven Universe.
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Tartakovsky, who is also in Annecy promoting Netflix's Fixed, figures it's easier than ever to get your big break because young cartoonists can flood YouTube with ideas.
'It's partly independent now because you can make it and put it on your own kind of cable channel,' he added. 'That's what I'd do [if I were starting now]. I'd work a day job and then at night I'd make cartoon after cartoon until something hits. It was more difficult when we were coming up.'
Tartakovsky is enthused by the new landscape and said he 'feels like when I was younger, I feel like that energy makes me still want to do new things.'
He sat next to his old friend and The Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken, who concurred, saying that for his spin-off of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, which he is making with Warner-owned Hanna Barbera Studios Europe, 'the energy is so Cartoon Network' on set.
Adam Muto, showrunner of Adventure Time, was slightly more muted on the current state of things.
'We need to make sure people with idiosyncrasies get to have their own voices,' he said. 'But [commissioners] have to greenlight stuff. They have gotta greenlight.'
'We were breaking the system'
Tartakovsky and McCracken walked the Annecy audience through how they broke the system at Cartoon Network Studios a quarter century ago when they were first starting out, with Tartakovsky describing the older generation of cartoonists back then as being 'beaten down' when he landed his Dexter's Laboratory greenlight as a young man.
McCracken, who worked with Tartakosvky on Dexter's Laboratory, added: 'We were breaking the system and they didn't like that. They were survivalists and we had been given an opportunity they had been working their whole lives for. I felt a bit bad for them but we were given this golden opportunity, this one seven-minute show. And to be fair some of the old guard loved what we were doing.'
Tartakosvky set the scene for the early days of Dexter's Lab, which went on to achieve the rare feat of being a primetime Emmy-nominated cartoon. 'Half the crew were high,' he joked. 'I felt like I was saying, 'Guys come on this is our one shot,' and then they wouldn't start working till 2 p.m.'
He said he was 'so worried about getting fired' that he 'didn't have a minute to focus on anything apart from what I was doing.'
Soon after, McCracken's Powerpuff Girls landed a greenlight, making him into a star of the animation world, but this wasn't plain sailing either. McCracken spoke of experiencing the worst focus group of his life with a group of 11-year-old boys, one of whom even called for the 'creator to be fired.' At the time, Cartoon Network executive Mike Lazzo convinced McCracken that it was better to have people hate the show than be indifferent, and he was told to push ahead.
'I had to get out of my own head and tell myself to stop being so arty,' said McCracken. 'We felt we could make cartoons at the time so we said let's make this the best thing it can be.'
The pair were joined on stage by four younger cartoon creators including Muto, Regular Show's JG Quintel, Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar and Adventure Time's Pendleton Ward.
This quartet, who were termed the 'second generation' of Cartoon Network voices, had an intriguing discussion around fear of failure.
'The first season we thought we'd get canned every moment,' said Muto. 'It was during a transitional moment [for Cartoon Network] and our shows had to be hits.'
Quintel said creatives live in fear at the start of their journeys that 'if these are bad, then we're getting in trouble.'
For Sugar, who is the first non-binary person to independently create a series for the network, it was 'less about competition and more about protection' at the start of her journey.
'I learned when showrunning that when there is something specific on a board, you have to think how to protect it,' she explained.
Sugar was delighted to sit on the same stage as Tartakovsky. She recalled pitching him an early version of Steven Universe. When Tartakosvky said he'd direct an ep, 'I crashed my car into a pole on the way home,' Sugar added.
The group were speaking at Annecy on the same day as Matt Groening.
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