Film Flam

A movie producer, Bernie Bernstein, wants to star the PowerPuff Girls in their own movie.  However, the whole movie shoot is just a front for an elaborate plan to rob the Townsville Bank.

This was an extremely flat episode.  The movie producer character was totally uninteresting.  I was hoping they would imbue some of the personality traits of the shows creators into the characters.  It would have also been fun if they could have added some humorous tidbits about making the actual PPG movie.  But they didn't...or if they did, they were so obscure that I didn't pick up on any of them.

The plot of the episode was pretty dumb.  I mean, it certainly must have cost more to put on the whole charade of shooting a movie than whatever funds might be locked away in the bank's vault.

There were a couple of bright spots:

• Newspaper headline, "Powerpuffs doon it again."
• Guilt trip laid on the Professor.
• The girls arguing about their lines.
• Bernie Bernstein: "Dr. Plutonium, please!"
• Powerpuff Girls movie?!  What a dumb idea.

This episode doesn't give me a "warm and fuzzy" feeling about the decision to make all of the episodes a full 30 minutes this season.  The story seemed a little padded in places.

All Chalked Up

This is one very cool episode.  Buttercup and Bubbles clash when Buttercup's dodge ball game with Mitch gets interrupted by Bubbles' chalk drawing on the school playground.  Bubbles becomes upset and runs away into the forest where she finds some enchanted chalk.  It's eventually revealed to be...well, let me not spoil it for you.

Without giving too much away, this episode is the perfect compliment to Bubblevicious.  The animation and direction is absolutely magical.  One of the most inventive and well-written episodes ever.

Some things to note:

• The "high noon" feel to the dodge ball challenge between Mitch and Buttercup.
• Hey!  Blossom and Buttercup have sonic scream, too?!  Awww...
• New attack: Cherry bomb.  (No space suits this time.)

I'm so glad they didn't end the story using the first solution.  Also, it's nice to see someone other than Blossom save the day.  The bad news is that it's not Buttercup.  Some day...some day...

Get Back, Jojo

It's career day at Pokey Oaks kindergarten.  All the students' parents have come to help give a short presentation about what they do for a living.  Of course, Professor Utonium is there to talk about his chosen profession.  The Professor reveals that he didn't always love science when he was a child.  His change in attitude was due to some strange event in his childhood that motivated him to become a scientist.  As fate would have it, Mojo is walking outside and passes an open window while the Professor is giving his speech.  He hears this revelation and quickly disguises himself as a scientist, uh, I mean student and then joins the science conference...er, I mean class.  The Professor shows off his latest invention: a small device that allows time travel.  Mojo begins questioning the Professor on how to operate the device.  Obviously, he plans to travel back in time and prevent the Professor from ever experiencing whatever it was that provoked him to become interested in science.  Mojo begins to grill the Professor about how his invention works in such an obvious and leading way that a normal person would realize it was all a ruse.  However, the Professor and everyone else at the First Annual Symposium on Chemical X...darn!...I mean, in the classroom, are completely fooled by Mojo's appearance and disguised voice.  (Whoa, I keep getting this strange feeling of deja vu!  It seems like I've written about this before.  I guess all this talk about time travel must be having a strange effect on me.)  You can pretty much guess what happens next.  Mojo goes back in time and ends up causing the very event that made the Professor who he is in present time.

I really liked this episode.  The plot was very tight.  Most things made perfect sense...in a science fiction sort of way.  And let's not forget the younger versions of the Mayor, Professor, Miss Bellum, Ms. Keene....Ms. Keene?!  Wait a second!  The title of "Ms." wasn't commonly used in the late fifties.  In fact, I don't think it even existed until the 70s!  Even if it did exist back then, I seriously doubt a teacher would use it when referring to a child.  Gotcha!  Anyway, the only real let-down was the cheesy time travel sequence.  In Speed Demon, we were treated to an incredible CGI sequence that was so cool, Cartoon Network uses it in its new advertisement for http://www.powerpuffgirls.com.  Instead, we get pencil scribbles.  PENCIL SCRIBBLES!!!!  The horror!

I was hoping the Professor would have pointed out the danger/impossibility of Mojo killing him at the end of the episode.  Think about it.  If Mojo was successful, he would prevented his own creation.  If he was never created, how could he then travel back in time and kill the Professor?  Whoa!  Paradox!  Trippy dude!

I wasn't too happy about seeing 1959 as the date that the Professor, Miss Bellum, and Miss Keene were all children.  That would mean...what?  They're all closing in on their 50th birthdays?!  This isn't the first time a discrepancy occurs with dates.  Someone pointed out to me that the photo in the episode Cop Out was dated 1994.  We know the year of the third season is takes place in current time since the date on the coin in Moral Decay was 2000.  So, are we to assume the girls have been around for at least six years?  Then how old were they in Birthday Bash?  Why were there only three candles?  I had previously figured the girls were all one year old (a candle for each of them).  I know, I know; the girls don't age.  Fine.  But we still need to get a reasonable temporal perspective!

Okay, enough complaining and more about what was good in this episode:

• George Jetson?!  What are you doing there?
• Mojo imitating Mary.
• The safety film about the volcano was dead-on and funny as heck!
• The "Town" of Townsville.
• The Mayor encouraging kids to throw stuff in the volcano.
• Miss Bellum: "I learned that the Mayor is a complete idiot."
• Professor: "Blood!  Blood!  Blood for monster!"  Hahahaha!  He's pretending to add blood in that mixture...he's...making...oooh...there's that weird deja vu feeling again.  I hope Mojo doesn't try to toss him in the volcano...oh wait...he does do that, doesn't he?  This is getting too creepy.
• Teacher: "Stop, drop, and roll!" (followed by kids rolling out of the classroom.)

The symbolic significance of the warning about the volcano and the dangers of "fooling around" with science was done masterfully.  The whole connection between the Professor, the volcano, the PPGs, and Mojo was brilliant.  In fact, I'm beginning to wonder if this episode hinted to us that the Professor is responsible for the monsters that attack Townsville!  The scene with the young Professor feeding the "monster" chemicals could be interpreted that way.  However, I think the explosion in the classroom was more an allegory for the creation of Mojo and the PPGs.  The Professor's future creation, Mojo, borne out of his experimentation with chemicals almost destroys him.  How?  By tossing him into the volcano, which symbolizes the unknown and volatile nature of science (and Chemical X).  However, the PPGs save the Professor from his fiery fate.  They are also his creation.  They feed his inspiration to use his abilities for the good of mankind.  They appear to him as angels representing the positive possibilities of his endeavors.  By the way, this episode indirectly supports a theory I have about the relationship of the Professor's personality and the PPGs, specifically Buttercup.  You can read more about it in my FanFic Writing Guide.

Oh yeah, Chris Cook mentioned that the Mr. Kevin mentioned at the end of the episode was referencing the storyboarder, Kevin Kaliher.

In conclusion, the Professor became a scientist so he could one day make girls.  Let me let you in on a secret...every male scientist had the same exact dream when they were young!  For more information on making females in the privacy of your own home, rent the 1985 classic, Weird Science.  This fine video and many others like it are available for rental at your local public library.  And that's one to grow on!

Him Diddle Riddle

Aw yeah, baby.  "Him" is back and this time...it's personal!  Him gives the girls a series of nine riddles to solve.  The girls must succeed in unraveling all of them or the Professor will pay!

An extremely entertaining episode full of surprises and suspense.  The inspiration for this episode was probably from the movie, "Die Hard: with a Vengeance (a.k.a. Die Hard 3)."  The title is a play on one of the old Batman TV shows from the 1960s, "Hi Diddle Riddle."  The riddles and their solutions are well-thought out and very, very clever.

Some of my favorite parts:

• Bubbles: Math?!  I hate math!
• Blossom: "Abacus (abba-kiss-my) butt!"
• Blossom's pragmatic solution to the "two trains" problem.
• The classic "one always lies and one always tells the truth" puzzle.
• Buttercup in the helicopter ala Neo in "The Matrix."
• Best...ending...sequence...ever!

One funny thing to note: The S.A.T. is comprised of 1,600 multiple choice questions.  The combined score starts at 400.  That means you get 400 points just for writing your name on the exam paper without answering any questions.  To get below 400, you have to answer questions wrong.  Lots of them.  Each wrong answer deducts one-quarter of a point from your score.  Keep that in mind while watching this episode.

Oh yeah, we finally find out where in the world Townsvile is located!  I won't spoil the surprise, so if you want to know, just click here and enter the coordinates given in the episode.  Two hints: 

1. Take the larger value and subtract it from 360 to get the adjusted value.
2. It's probably very humid in Townsville.

No wonder they get all those monsters from Monster Island!  I wonder if the city of Atlantis is buried near there, too?

EXTRA!  EXTRA!  Alan Back e-mailed me with something very important.  The answer Blossom gives to Him for the "two Ms. Keanes" problem is incorrect.  She picks the wrong Ms. Keane!  Here's the scoop!

Members Only

Ehhhhhh.  I suppose it's inevitable.  You can't have a show for kids that doesn't have at least one "women's lib" episode.  I thought that our society had matured enough not to require subjecting our nation's youth to a straw-man (oops, straw-person) lesson in equality of the sexes.  I was wrong.

One of the best pieces of advice a teacher in college gave me was this: when writing a position paper, don't write about any of the classic hot-button issues.  You may have some perfectly valid thoughts about capital punishment, abortion, separation of church and state, etc.  The problem is that we've heard it all before.  Many times.  Many, many times.  Over and over.  And now, it's boring.  It's not impossible to accomplish, but you'd have to be really, really, really, inventive to do it successfully.  Maybe if you try real hard, you can at least be marginally entertaining.  This story...is not.

The episode features a crossover of some of the characters from Dexter's Lab: Major Glory and Val Halen.  Huh?  Where's the "infraggable" Krunk?  Perhaps the writers didn't want to show that Buttercup was stronger than Krunk.  Oh yeah, Birdman and Space Ghost are in it, too, but they're poorly drawn...more than usual.

Oops, I almost forgot to tell you about the subtle way the writers slipped in some Freudian symbolism into the episode.  When I say subtle, I mean subtle like a 700 pound gorilla repeatedly bashing you in the back of the head with a baseball bat that has the word "innuendo" engraved on it.  That kind of subtle.  I will now recap the ending of the story:

The giant robot monster emerges and begins to GROW in size, threatening the MANHOOD of all the male superheroes.  He challenges the other members to DISPLAY their MANHOOD and COMPARE it against his to see whose is LARGER.  The battle only serves to EXCITE the beast.  It FEEDS off the EXPULSIONS of their MANLINESS and makes him HARDER.  The PPGs intervene by forming a giant flaming PUSSY cat and attack the villain.  The PUSSY cat RUBS UP AGAINST the robot's HARD exterior making it HOTTER and HOTTER.  Eventually the HEAT from the RUBBING reaches a critical point causing him to SCREAM OUT and SHRINK into a SMALLER version of himself.  The male superheroes are so grateful for the PPGs' PERFORMANCE that they wish to SUBMIT to the girls' superiority.  The girls PUNISH them for their behavior by making them wear dresses.  Not too surprising considering how well their PUSSY WHIPPED that monster.

What?  What?  Don't look at me like that.  I didn't write this mess.  Don't blame me.  Oh, and considering the above, allow me to point out the newspaper headline seen in this episode: "[Don] Shank burns out!"  Hmmmmmm...

Knock it Off

Professor Utonium's roommate in college, Professor Dick, discovers the PowerPuff Girls during a visit to Townsville.  Professor Dick creates an army of PPG knock-offs (get it?) by tricking the girls into giving him some Chemical X.  He makes millions by selling cheap imitation PPGs all over the world.

One of the nagging questions we fanfic writers have always asked ourselves was, "what would happen if you tried to make more PPGs?"  Would you make exact duplicates or unique puffs?  Would they have the same personality?  This episode reveals all!  (Hmmm...all we need are some snips, snails, and a puppy dog tail and we got ourselves a sequel!)

Some points of interest:

• Dick: "Wow, look at this place.  Still living in the 60s, huh?"
• The sign on the gate: Abandoned Evil Factory.
• I can believe that it's difficult to get a hold of Chemical X, but where do you buy a box of "everything nice?"
• Wally Gator almost crushing New York.
• Professor (to Buttercup): "Girl power?  When did you start saying 'Girl Power?'"
• Sobbing giant Japanese robots.
• Raja Jaja!
• Professor: "India, huh?"  Blossom: "Yeah!  Mazeltov!"
• The cheesy infomercial complete with Aussie sidekick.
• You can "make" Chemical X?
• Did we mention the villain's first name enough times?  What was it again?  Professor...what?  Oh, this is going to keep me up all night wondering.

The ending was a little dark and "edgy."  A welcome departure from the usual PPG episode.  Oh...one more thing.  In the scene with Wally Gator almost crashing into a bunch of skyscrapers in New York, the first ones he would have hit would have been...well, take a look at these two screenshots:

Picture #1     Picture #2

Superfriends

This had to be one of the most boring, ill-conceived, and pointless episodes I've ever seen.  The episode's creators came up with about five minutes of material and tried to stretch it into a full half-hour.  The result is a stream of mind-numbingly dull dialogue with scene after scene of the same thing shown in a slightly different way, over and over.  The plot is so thin, the writers had to throw in a half-baked music video for that rotten "Signal in the Sky" song just to fill time.  And by the way, how the heck is the signal supposed to work in broad daylight?!

I'll throw the writers a bone and mention the one funny part:

• Robin: "Don't worry Professor, I was an accident, too."

This episode reminded me of a news story I read.  Someone created an edited version of the movie, "The Phantom Menace."  Many of the scenes and lines of dialogue that some fans objected to when the original film debuted were deleted.  Someone ought to take an axe to this and a couple other episodes, too.

Nano of the North

Nanobots are raining down on Townsville and they're eating away at anything with carbon in it!  The girls are too big to stop the microscopic invaders so the Professor shrinks the girls down to the nanobots' size.  It's kind of like that movie "Fantastic Voyage."

This was a borderline three-star episode that didn't quite make the cut.  I'll make my comments short for a change:

• The plot was pretty good,
• the story dragged on a little (to fit the half-hour long format),
• some of the stuff didn't make sense (e.g., why weren't the people devoured since flesh is made of carbon, too?)
• the ending was predictable, and
• you get to see the PPGs naked.

That about sums it up.  Oh wait.  One more...  Buttercup shoots laser beams out of her hands like she did in Octi Evil!  Now they decide to give her this power again?  No mention of it in over four seasons worth of episodes and then BAM!  Lasers from the fingertips.

Stray Bullet

Bubbles saves a squirrel from getting eaten by a hawk.  The creature's chances for survival are slim, so she uses chemical x to speed the squirrel's recovery.  The chemical x turns the rodent into a superhero and it joins the girls in their quest to fight crime.

The theme for this episode has been used many times before in other television shows involving animals taken out of their natural habitat.  This adaptation is both clever and cute.  I've got a feeling that young children are really going to like this one.

Once again, the episode felt like it was padded to fill the entire half hour.  One way they did this was by making Bubbles' "squirrel-talk" go on and on and on...  All that "chit-chit" stuff was getting on my nerves!  The other way involved the scene with Mojo taking his time to assemble all of his weapons.  Don't get me wrong; I thought it was extremely clever and funny.  I just think it could have been done a little better.  BTW, what's going to happen to the food chain now that small furry creatures are no longer on the menu?

My favorite line was:

• Blossom: "Dubbed with the appropriate 'B' name..."

Hah!  Now it's official!  Suck it, you non-'B' name nay-sayers!  (Just kidding.)

Forced Kin

There's an alien spaceship that's attacking Townsville and the girls can't stop it!  It seems to be able to predict all of their moves thus nullifying the PPG's attacks.  In order to defeat the invader, the girls consult the most evil villain in Townsville.  Eh, no...it's Mojo.

This is one of the most action packed episodes ever!  It's a non-stop thrill ride from start to finish.  My hands were shaking for weeks!  This is an episode that has it all: raw adventure, pulse-pounding excitement, and enough humor to keep us from taking things too seriously.  And, uh...I ran out of clichés.

There are a whole bunch of interesting stuff in this episode.  Here's some of what I found:

• The PPGs have three new attacks including "PowerPuff Starburst Ray."
• There's a reference to the musical artist Might Mos Def on the spaceship the girls crash into.
• "Nassau" instead of N.A.S.A.  Hmmmm...
• That black thing around the waist of the PPGs is a belt of some kind and not a coloring on their dresses.
• Blossom has extra hair bows she keeps in her...uh...I don't know, but I bet it's the same place Optimus Prime's trailer goes when he transforms.
• Dexter cameo!
• 33 cents for a stamp?  Not!
• Top secret labs do NOT use those fruity I-MACs!
• A PlayStation One that uses DVD cartridges?!
• Government Man #1: "Virtual bomber?  What's this?"  Government Man #2: "Beats me.  Put it in, stupid!"  Government Man #1: "Cool, it looks all low tech"  Government Man #2: "That's because it's vector graphics, stupid!"

I wish we could have found out more about the alien.  How was it able to predict so much?  Why were the attacks so similar?  It's funny, but I always wanted to do a fanfic that explained the origins of chemical x.  My idea was to make it's source extraterrestrial.  Some of you may scoff at the idea, but think about it.  Space is the great unknown.  Source of infinite wonder and scientific exploration.  What better allegory than to associate chemical x with outer space?  Perhaps this alien was from a planet that uses/makes chemical x?  Just some idle speculation...

Update: A kind reader reminded me that the PPGs used the PowerPuff Starburst Ray once before: when they blew up the bridge in "Town and Out."  Doh!  I should have remembered that!