Anderson, the narrator of the pilot episodes, died of cancer in 1997 before the show premiered, and he was
Powerpuff girls movie
The movie's DVD cover.
replaced by Tom Kenny for the remainder of the series.The show's animation director was McCracken's former classmate Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack), who also directed many episodes himself. All of the original episodes (except the WAC shorts with the first one being animated at Animal House in Japan and the Second being animated at Fil Cartoons in the Philippines) were hand-drawn and produced at Rough Draft Studios in South Korea. The Powerpuff Girls series debut on November 18, 1998 was the highest rated premiere in Cartoon Network's history at the time.