A massive Cartoon Network leak exposes decades of behind-the-scenes animation files

A huge trove of behind-the-scenes animation material from Cartoon Network’s history appears to have leaked online, and it’s the kind of stuff animation nerds rarely, if ever, get to see.

The leak centers on a Google Drive folder containing production files from shows including The Amazing World of Gumball, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, The Powerpuff Girls, The Looney Tunes Show, Duck Dodgers, and Garfield. Mashable was able to access the Drive and independently confirm its contents.

According to IndiaTimes, the leak totals more than 200GB of Cartoon Network material.

The leak appears to trace back to an anonymous X account called “totallynotaburner.” According to its profile, the account is based in the U.S. and was created this month. Mashable reached out to the account but did not receive a response.

Beyond the Drive folder, the leaker shared a master Google Doc linking to material from even more of Cartoon Network’s back catalog, hosted on a separate file-sharing site. That includes Teen Titans, Dexter’s Laboratory, Robot Chicken, and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Many of those links have already been taken down, and links to the Drive folder and other Google Docs are being struck for copyright violations as they spread.

Mashable reached out to Warner Bros. and Paramount to confirm the leak’s authenticity, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

What’s inside

To the average viewer, a cartoon is just the finished episode. But each one is built from thousands of pieces most people never see, and this leak is full of them. Some of the material will be familiar to anyone who’s watched a DVD extra, like storyboards and pitch documents. Other parts are more inside baseball.

Model sheets are reference drawings that show a character from every angle, with notes on proportions and expressions, so dozens of animators can draw the Powerpuff Girls exactly the same way. Puppet rigs are digital versions of characters broken into movable parts, a bit like a paper doll, which animators can pose and move in software instead of redrawing every frame by hand. Many of the character files are EPS files, a vector graphics format that lets the art scale to any size without getting blurry.

For artists and the broader public, this material offers a rare look at how professional productions are made. Some of it usually only surfaces in official art books, studio exhibits, or artists’ portfolios, and much of it never surfaces at all. That’s especially true for older shows, whose production files can easily get lost as studios restructure. Cartoon Network itself has already shown how easily its history can vanish, as its website was shut down after 26 years.

That doesn’t make the leak harmless. These files represent years of unpaid-for access to other people’s work, and artists have pushed back on past leaks for exactly that reason.

The timing of the leaks should be noted. On Oct. 6, Skydance, led by David Ellison, completed its roughly $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The combined company, also called Skydance, now controls Warner Bros., HBO, DC Studios, CNN, and Paramount, along with CBS News and Cartoon Network.

That’s why plenty of people on social media were quick to pin the leak on Paramount’s security.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

This Tweet is currently unavailable. It might be loading or has been removed.

The studio has had a rough year with leaks. In April, clips and eventually the full Avatar: Aang, The Last Airbender movie surfaced online about six months before its planned Paramount+ debut. The leaker claimed Nickelodeon had accidentally emailed them the movie. And back in 2023, Nickelodeon confirmed that leaked production files from its animation department were legitimate, though it said some of the material appeared to be decades old.

Still, there’s no evidence yet tying this leak to Paramount’s systems. In the Avatar case, Paramount’s initial investigation found the leak didn’t come from within the studio, according to Variety. How the Cartoon Network files got out and whether they predate the merger remain unclear.

What’s clear is that Ellison’s newly enlarged empire has another leak to deal with. And for animation fans, a rare and unauthorized look behind the curtain of some of their favorite shows.