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Checkered Past Showcases Influential "What a Cartoon!" on July 29th

Cartoon Network & Adult Swim's Checkered Past will showcase Fred Seibert's What a Cartoon! on July 29 at 6 pm. Here's why that's important...

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Running from 1995 to 1997, Fred Seibert's animated anthology series What a Cartoon! (also titled World Premiere Toons, The What a Cartoon! Show, and The Cartoon Cartoon Show) consisted of 48 cartoons over the course of 16 episodes, with three cartoons per episode. It's purpose? To give writers and artists a chance to showcase the animated adventures that they wanted to tell, putting creative control back into the hands of the artists. The results speak for themselves – with the series serving as the springboard for classic animated series such as Dexter's Laboratory, Johnny Bravo, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Cow and Chicken, I Am Weasel, The Powerpuff Girls, and more. In fact, you might just recognize some of those series from Adult Swim's "Checkered Past" programming block – which makes the news we're about to share even more appropriate in a very Karmic, the-circle-is-complete kinda way.

checkered past
Image: Adult Swim; Cartoon Network Screencap

In a tweet/x from earlier today, Cartoon Network announced that a block of What a Cartoon! was scheduled for Monday, July 29th, beginning at 6 pm – and they did it by offering another example of just how influential the series continues to be over 25 years later. Before there was Family Guy, there was Seth MacFarlane's "Larry and Steve." Originally airing on February 5, 1997, as part of the show's 14th episode, the cartoon introduces us to a man named Larry and the homeless dog he adopted, Steve – who Larry can understand but no one else can. Let's just say that shenanigans ensue when the two head out shopping and decide to check out a massage mattress. In the clip below, it doesn't take long to recognize MacFarlane's voice – and to see the impact that the animated short would have on MacFarlane's long-running series:

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Ray FlookAbout Ray Flook

Serving as Television Editor since 2018, Ray began five years earlier as a contributing writer/photographer before being brought onto the core BC team in 2017.
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