Craig McCracken (born March 31, 1971) is an American cartoonist, animator, director, writer, and producer known for creating the Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Disney Channel and Disney XD's Wander Over Yonder and Netflix's Kid Cosmic. Regarded as "one of the most successful creators of episodic comedy cartoons", his style was "at the forefront of a second wave of innovative, creator-driven television animation" in the 1990s, along with that of other animators such as Genndy Tartakovsky, and has been credited as "a staple of American modern animated television". Early life and education McCracken was born March 31, 1971, in Charleroi, Pennsylvania. He began drawing at an early age. He attended California High School in Whittier, California and the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where he met his friend and future collaborator, Genndy Tartakovsky. During his first 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 later become the basis for The Powerpuff Girls. McCracken married animator Lauren Faust on March 13, 2004. Faust took maternity leave in mid-2016 to take care of their newborn daughter. Career In 1993, McCracken was hired by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons as an art director on the Turner Broadcasting System series 2 Stupid Dogs, alongside Tartakovsky. As his first job in the animation industry, he was "never really happy with how that [show] worked". While McCracken was at Hanna-Barbera, studio president Fred Seibert began a new project: an animation incubator consisting of 48 new cartoons running approximately seven minutes each. Dubbed What a Cartoon!, it motivated McCracken to further develop his Whoopass Girls! creation. He recalled that the network could not market a show with the word "ass" in it, so two friends of his came up with The Powerpuff Girls as a replacement for the original title. His new pilot, "The Powerpuff Girls in: Meat Fuzzy Lumkins", premiered on February 20, 1995, on Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons-In, and a second short, "Crime 101", followed on January 28, 1996. The first short to be picked up by the network was Tartakovsky's Dexter's Laboratory, which McCracken would contribute to in early seasons. McCracken's Powerpuff was the fourth cartoon to be greenlit a full series, which premiered on