Craig McCracken created the student film that introduced the early Powerpuff Girls concept in 1992.
The short was titled Whoopass Stew! and was made while McCracken was studying at the California Institute of the Arts. It featured an early version of the three superpowered girls and established the basic premise that later developed into The Powerpuff Girls.
The student film was not yet the finished Cartoon Network series. McCracken later revised the concept, including its title and presentation, for the What a Cartoon! anthology. The resulting television shorts led to the regular series that premiered in 1998.
This date is sometimes mixed up with 1995, when a later pilot short appeared in the anthology’s development history. The original student-film milestone belongs to 1992.