The Powerpuff Girls
What Could Have Been in this franchise.
The more adult-themed pilot of the series, "Whoopass Stew."
The Powerpuff Girls (1998)
- Before the Girls, Craig played around with a luchador superhero character as the star for his thesis film, but after drawing a birthday card for his brother with three cute, Margret Keane-inspired girls, he though the idea of those little girls fighting bad guys was hilarious and chose that instead.
- The original tone of the cartoon was meant to be much more adult and was titled Whoopass Stew!
. One can only imagine what that series would've been like if Craig hadn't made it more kid friendly. - Also (in McCracken's first sketch), the Girls originally had slightly different designs such as different dress styles, having lines drawn on their hands to represent fingers (as opposed to the fingerless nubs they currently have), their hair being drawn slightly different, etc. However the biggest design change was that Bubbles was originally the green one and Buttercup the blue. No one knows whether that design would have an impact on their names and personalities (or even the show itself).
- Buttercup's name was originally going to be Bud, to accentuate her tomboy attitude. The reason it didn't stick was because one of McCracken's friends found the name too short and abrupt when compared to the other two. The current name was suggested and taken as it had a nice ring to it, and while also keeping the B Theme Naming.
- The show came close to being Cartoon Network's first original series, but the network changed their minds at the last minute and chose Dexter's Laboratory instead.
- One planned episode, Deja View, about the girls visiting an alternate universe ruled by their evil versions, ended up being cancelled due to the visuals requiring the budget to go overboard. It wound up being given to the DC comic book writers and turned into the 50th issue of the DC comic.
- As said on the main page, Craig wanted Jack Black to voice the Gnome in "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey", but they couldn't, due to him being too busy and expensive.
- According to Craig on this post, one rejected idea the team had considered was doing a DCAU crossover. In it, the Joker came to Townsville and started wreaking havoc, only for the girls to be stopped at every turn by the mayor because the city's been put on the map for being targeted by an A-list villain. They wanted to use Bruce Timm's designs for the characters and have Mark Hamill reprise his role as the Joker as well.
- David Byrne was due to appear on the Heroes & Villains album, duetting with his daughter Malu on a song entitled "Buttercup, Blossom, and Bubbles Say", but for unknown reasons the song was cut.
- The German dub was initially commisioned in early 2000 for KIKA, but they never ended up airing it, and the show went to Super RTL instead.
- Cartoon Network wanted a seventh season of the show, maybe more, before Craig McCracken and Chris Savino both decided that it ran its course and end it after six seasons.
The Powerpuff Girls Movie
- Craig McCracken originally pitched the movie to have the show's regular villains argue over who would rule Townsville. Craig found that it left little screen time for the girls, so he pitched the origin story.
- The movie bore the secondary titles "First Flight" and "Maiden Voyage" during production.
- McCracken has stated through his social media that he originally intended for the movie to be even darker, aiming to make it for "25-year-old guys". This was actually due to Cartoon Network and Warner Bros. going through the early phases of their experimental "adult animation" period that would lead to the creation of [adult swim] (other products of this including the likes of the John Kricfalusi-esque The Flintstones on the Rocks and the live action Scooby-Doo movie originally being intended for older audiences with an R rating). However Warner Bros. later backed down from this idea and requested the film be toned down to a PG rating (the Scooby Doo movie was similarly affected by having much of the adult humor cut out of the final film in order to get a PG rating).
- It was planned for other shows such as Codename: Kids Next Door and Ed, Edd n Eddy to have theatrical films following this movie. But due to the film underperforming, Cartoon Network backed away from feature films and have since stuck with made-for-TV movies for their shows. This is also why the Samurai Jack Grand Finale movie languished in development hell for over a decade, before it was decided to produce a fifth season.
- Craig asked Gorillaz if they could do a song for the film. But that never came to pass due to scheduling conflicts. They ended up making a cameo on a newspaper that Mojo is reading.
The Powerpuff Girls (2016)
- While they could go ahead with or without him, Craig McCracken was given the option to return for the reboot, but was under contract to Disney at the time and was too busy with Wander over Yonder.
