As director of The Powerpuff Girls Movie and as creator, writer and producer of the three-time Emmy¬-nominated television series The Powerpuff Girls, Craig McCracken has put his stamp on popular culture. Inspiration for the Powerpuff Girls struck McCracken while studying character animation at California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts) in Valencia, CA. The resulting student film, The Whoop@#! Girls, was selected for the 1994 Festival of Animation and launched his animation career. A few years later, while working as art director for Dexter's Laboratory at Hanna-Barbera, McCracken submitted his student short to Cartoon Network executives. Since then, The Powerpuff Girls has become a genuine phenomenon, attracting devoted fans of widely varying ages and lifestyles, all of whom identify with some aspect of McCracken's creation, be it the overwhelmingly cuteness of Bubbles, the butt-kicking brassiness of Buttercup, or the take-charge moxie of Blossom.