Life and Career
McCracken got involved in drawing at an early age. After he graduated from California High School in Whittier, he attended the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he honed his animation skills and met his classmate Genndy Tartakovsky, with whom he would occasionally collaborate throughout his career. During his freshman 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 become the basis for The Powerpuff Girls. In 1993, McCracken was tapped by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons to work as art director on 2 Stupid Dogs, as well as Tartakovsky's Dexter's Laboratory, both of which aired primarily on Cartoon Network in the United States. He began producing The Powerpuff Girls, which premiered as a short in 1995 on studio president Fred Seibert's animation incubator What a Cartoon!, and full half-hour episodes in 1998. The show has won both Emmy and Annie awards. In 2004, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends began airing on Cartoon Network. This series also won Emmy and Annie awards. In April 2008, he became executive producer of a new Cartoon Network showcase project called Cartoonstitute. After 15 years of employment, he left his job at Cartoon Network when the network switched to reality programing, developed a live action/animation project at Sony Pictures Animation, and, as of 2012, is developing Wander Over Yonder for Disney Television Animation.
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