The Powerpuff Girls was based on a short film by former California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) student, Craig McCracken in 1994. Produced for Spike and Mike's Twisted Festival of Animation, the original short, titled "The Whoopass Stew Girls" was the story of three little girls with super powers and their creation. A lonely professor attempted to create a little girl in his laboratory by mixing sugar, spice, and everything nice. The mixture created a blast and thus three little girls were born, with super abilities. McCracken's second short with the girls, titled "A Sticky Situation" featured the Amoeba Boys, a gang of bumbling amoeba thugs. It was in this short that they each received their names, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup.

     By 1995, Craig McCracken had already been working at Hanna Barbera Studios as an art director for the show "Two Stupid Dogs". It was this year he submitted his short to the company's newest film project, the "What A Cartoon!" show. Before airing on television, there were many things that needed to be tweaked, such as the title. "Whoopass" became "Powerpuff", and some more quirky story elements were added, such as Chemical X, a colorful new villain, and more narration. The third short was titled "Meet Fuzzy Lumpkins" and was the very first cartoon to air on the "What A Cartoon!" show. A year later, a second short was made for the program titled "Crime 101" which introduced the Gang Green Gang, a group of teen rebels with green skin.

     Finally, two years after the girls' mark on television, Cartoon Network approached McCracken about turning the Powerpuff Girls into a weekly series. In the summer of 1998,  Cartoon Network premiered its fourth Cartoon Cartoon series, "The Powerpuff Girls". The mix of comedy, super heroics, sci-fi, and action was a international success, making the series popular not only in North America but around the world. The weekly series would focus on the girls protecting the city from their main rival Mojo Jojo, a former lab assistant to Professor Utonium that received an extra large brain as a result of the chemical explosion that created the Powerpuff Girls. 

     In 2000, Cartoon Network reacted to the success of the series by allowing McCracken and staff to work on "The Powerpuff Girls Movie," a prequel to the television series. Production went underway at Cartoon Network Studios for almost a year until the film's release in the summer of 2002. It later aired on Cartoon Network in 2003, in a marathon.

     Today the Powerpuff Girls are in their 5th season and still enjoying success as the butt-kicking preschoolers that save the city. With improved character designs, background art, music, a more polished cast and crew, and computer aided animation the show has gone from "cute" to making heads turn in Hollywood, and becoming a phenomenon all it's own.