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transcribed by Alan Back (ajback@yahoo.com)
(Opening shot: the city skyline, seen through a green filter. Machinery hums o.c.) Mojo Jojo: (voice over) The city of Townsville…will be mine! (Cut to a close-up of him, seated at a control panel behind a green-tinted clear canopy and laughing. The previous shot was from his perspective. Pull back quickly to reveal the aforementioned machinery as a huge, headless robot with three gun barrels protruding from the end of each arm. Mojo’s control area is embedded in the chest. From here, cut to the girls as they charge in.) Blossom: Not so fast— Buttercup: —Mojo— Bubbles: —Jojo! (The robot raises its arms.) Mojo: “Not so fast,” yourselves! (He laughs again and lets loose with a string of laser blasts; the girls dodge these easily and continue their approach. Close-up of him, still cackling—but he suddenly stops short.) Mojo: (surprised) Oh. (Pull back. The girls fly behind the robot and zero in on its back.) Mojo: This could hurt. (It does indeed; they smash cleanly through the body, knocking him from his seat. Before he can tumble toward the ground, however, the picture freezes and a bit of static flares up briefly. When it subsides, the image has taken on the quality of a TV broadcast. Pull back; it is on one of three large monitors in Mojo’s lair. All three girls appear on another monitor, while the last shows Buttercup hovering above him. The monkey himself disgustedly surveys the recordings—what we have seen up to this point was one of them. Close-up; he presses buttons on a remote control to rewind the tapes.) Mojo: I grow tired of the repetitive outcome of my encounters with the Powerpuff Girls, which appears to repeat with the same conclusions over and over again. (Extreme close-up.) Loss. Failure. Flop, fold, flunk! If only I could detect a weakness in those incessant girls and which I could capitalize upon, thereby exploiting their weakest trait. (Pull back slightly. He rewinds furiously and is about to throw the remote to the ground when the next words stop him cold.) Buttercup: (on o.c. monitor) I don’t care what you say! I say we hit him straight on. (Cut to one monitor, which shows her in midair.) Buttercup: That way he knows we mean business! (Video pulls back; she is addressing her sisters.) Blossom: That’s just like you, Buttercup. Always blindly charging into a fight. We need to be smarter than that. Bubbles: (petulantly) Well, no one ever asks me what I think, so I’m not listening to either of you! (Back to Mojo; their squabbling is heard.) Mojo: What is this? The Powerpuff Girls immobilize themselves with their boobyish arguing and bossiness of each other. Ahhh! Therein lies the key to their defeat! But how can I accomplish that which I know not how to achieve? (Pull back. He turns away from the central monitor, which shows Bubbles’ image.) Mojo: Mojo is hungry. Mojo cannot think properly without proper sustenance in Mojo’s stomach. (Cut to the sign above an ice cream shop’s front entrance: “Townsville Ice Cream—Yum.” If the window dressing is to be believed, thirty-two flavors can be had here. Inside, Mojo hoists himself with difficulty onto a stool at the counter. The clerk—an unshaven, scraggly-looking fellow—has his back to the stools at the moment and is checking a dispensing machine. A bell rings from o.c., accompanied by the closing of the door, and a small girl walks up. The next two lines are delivered simultaneously.) Mojo: I must have service! Girl: My mommy gave me five dollars to go spend on whatever I want. (The camera has now shifted to a close-up of these two.) Mojo: Annoying little girl, you must wait your turn in which I am first and you are second, which in essence makes you last, since one is before two. (He gives her a big frown, which looks very much like the one often displayed by Aku on Samurai Jack, and then blows her a raspberry. She bursts into tears and runs for the door.) Girl: (fading out, between wails) Ice cream… (The slamming door and jingling bell mark her departure. Now Mojo turns his attention back to the counter.) Mojo: I will take a…blueberry, green apple, and…pink bubblegum cone. (Each flavor is heard being scooped as he names it. The triple-decker cone is handed across the counter, and Mojo carries it to his tongue slowly, with great anticipation. Before he can take the first lick, though, a ball sails into view and beans him in the back of the head. The ice cream scoops hit the floor. Pull back; the ball bounces away as Mojo turns to glare toward the door. Standing there is one very angry little girl—she was the one who let him have it. As the ball rolls to a stop near her, she returns his raspberry with interest and then runs off. Extreme close-up of Mojo, whose dander is still up—but when he looks toward the floor, that fury evaporates very quickly.) Mojo: (small voice) Mojo’s ice cream! (The scoops melt together into a puddle of Technicolor sludge on the tiles; small blots of each are now mixed with the others. Sadness soon gives way to wonder and triumph.) Mojo: What is this?…Yes…Yes!…YES! That is it! I know now what I must do to once and for all beat those meddling Powerpuff Girls and bring about the destruction of all Townsville! (Pull back to frame the entire counter. He laughs maniacally and jumps down from his stool. Scooping up the mess of ice cream, he heads for the door. The clerk has turned from the machine he was checking earlier.) Mojo: The fools! (More laughter as he exits.) Clerk: (with a disgusted snort) What a jerk. (Cut to the exterior of Mojo’s observatory.) Mojo: (from inside) It is done. (Inside, he stands in the shadow of a formidable piece of equipment and laughs to himself.) Mojo: At last, with my ultimate weapon in place, it is time to summon the Powerpuff Girls! (He presses a button; cut to the exterior shot again.) Girl: (from inside) Help! Help! Help! (The girls fly toward the observatory and crash through its dome. Cut to Mojo inside; bits of the ceiling patter to the floor around him.) Mojo: Hello, girls. So nice of you to drop by. (Cut to behind him, looking up at the girls.) Blossom: Cut the small talk, Mojo! We know you’ve been up to no good. Now it’s time to— (She cuts herself off abruptly.) Girls: (awed) Whoa… [Animation goof: Bubbles’ and Buttercup’s mouths do not move.] (The camera pulls back across the lair to put the equipment partially in view, then backs up a bit more to frame all of its base and starts to tilt up slowly. The middle section is dominated by a large fan set behind a round glass window, while the top consists of a hemispherical chamber with three sets of electrodes attached.) Buttercup: Okay, what’s the scoop with the machine, Mojo? Mojo: (mock frightened) Oh, no. You have caught me. Please do not lay harm upon me again. (Close-up of the glass window. Behind it, standing between two blades of the fan, is a robot duplicate of the girl from the ice cream shop—this was the voice heard calling for help. Now it starts to sound mechanical, as expected.) Robot Girl: (through glass) Help me, Powerpuff Girls, help me! (Cut to behind it and pan slowly across the interior of the rig; the robot is attached to the floor by means of a pipe on the back.) Robot Girl: Help me, Powerpuff Girls, help me! (Cut to them.) Buttercup: Come on! Let’s go save that little girl! (She flies o.c.) Blossom: Wait, Buttercup! Bubbles! It could be a trap! We shouldn’t just— Bubbles: Hey, if Buttercup can play hero, so can I! (She flies after Buttercup on the end of this line, leaving Blossom floating by herself.) Blossom: (sighing wearily) Why do I even bother? (She flies off after her sisters. Cut to the top section of the machine.) Buttercup: (from inside, through metal walls) Hey, wait a sec. (Inside the chamber, the girls have found the robot.) Buttercup: That girl’s a fake girl! (Close-up of a remote in Mojo’s hand; he presses a button and begins to laugh. Blossom cocks a puzzled eyebrow and looks off to one side as the machinery starts up—and when the camera pans slowly in the direction of her gaze, we see yellow liquid pouring in from a large overhead pipe. The level of the stuff quickly rises in the chamber.) Blossom: I told you it was a— (She is cut off when the material engulfs all three of them. Cut to outside the glass window; they are swirled around and around at increasing velocity, yelling all the while. Close-up of each girl in turn; after she speaks, her image blurs and stretches before being yanked o.c. by the force of the current.) Blossom: What’s— Buttercup: —happening— Bubbles: —to us? (Outside the machine. Lights flash from within the chamber, and after a few seconds a large dollop of yellow glop is discharged from a nozzle on the side. Floor level; the girls’ heads protrude from the mess, which slowly melts away to expose the rest of them. At first glance, it appears as if all three of them have been stuffed into one dress, with their backs to each other. The fabric is striped like a short, thick candy cane; every other stripe is black, while the rest are in one girl’s color apiece.) (Blossom and Buttercup look down at themselves and gasp in shock; Bubbles is facing away from the camera.) Buttercup: What’s happened to us? (She tries to pull loose.) Blossom: We’ve been swirled together! Mojo: It worked! (Extreme close-up.) I am a genius! I am finally victorious! (Pull back on these last two words. He laughs exultantly for some moments, then stalks away.) Mojo: Now, to destroy the city of Townsville. (Back to the girls. The camera is positioned to put Bubbles’ face in view; she waves her right arm, but her left is motionless.) Bubbles: My arm! I can’t move my other arm! Buttercup: Yes, you can, Bubbles. (Shift to her.) It’s over here! (Buttercup’s right arm flips up and socks her in the face several times. The swirling operation has not only merged the girls into one large body, but also mixed up their appendages to boot. Pull back a short distance.) Blossom: Cool it, girls. What we need to do is formulate a— Buttercup: (trying to pull loose) No time! I’m going after Mojo! (She gets airborne, but is still attached to the other two—and her flight is rather short and graceless. Yelling in fear, the girls slam back to the floor headfirst.) Blossom: (sarcastically) Bang-up job there, Buttercup. Buttercup: Oh, be quiet. Blossom: You can’t just go running off willy-nilly like that. It’s what’s got us into this mess in the first place. As I was saying, we need to— (All six legs piston furiously in the air; after a second, the girls flip themselves upright.) Blossom: We need to formulate a plan. Now if my calculations are correct, all I need to do is shift my leg like this— (She moves one leg.) —and give a push, and we’ll… (Again they lift off, and again they tumble screaming to the floor and hit headfirst. This time, they come down not far from the place where they fell from the machine.) Buttercup: …be right back where we started. (The girls get upright again.) Bubbles: (petulantly) Well, since nobody’s going to ask me… (She initiates the attempt to fly this time; it proceeds and ends as did the two before it.) Buttercup: Now you know why we don’t ask you. Blossom: Yeah, Bubbles. Bubbles: Be quiet, both of you. (Cut to a close-up of Mojo, laughing madly and standing atop a flying contraption that carries him along; he has his hands on a pair of control levers. Pull back to show him piloting a hovercraft through the skies. A hatch on the leading edge opens up, and out pops a three-barreled laser that opens fire as the craft stops. He goes into a slow ascent, strafing a building and leaving it pocked with enormous holes. Back to the girls.) Blossom: I think it’s up to me to get us out of this mess. I’m gonna super-spin us apart! Bubbles, Buttercup: Super-spin?! No, wait! (Too late. Yelling, all three girls rise into the air, rotating rapidly about their central axis as they go. Overhead view of the area; they are leaving a tri-color vortex in their wake. They climb o.c. and then drop like a rock to the floor.) Buttercup: (very snarky) Nice going. Bubbles: (ditto) Great. Now I’ve got stretch marks. (Floor level.) Buttercup: Looks like there’s only one way to get us apart. (smiling wickedly) Sheer brute force! (Once again she tries to tear free of the conglomeration, while Blossom shoots a disapproving look toward her. She pulls harder and harder—and we hear the short, distinct sound of breaking wind. This stuns everyone into silence for a moment; Buttercup blushes, while Bubbles turns away from her.) Blossom: (disgustedly) Nice. (The exterior of the observatory.) Bubbles: (from inside) I’m gonna try and run us outta here! (Back to the girls. Bubbles grunts and strains with her effort, and two legs are straightening up—but they are the ones in front of Blossom.) Blossom: Um, Bubbles, are you sure those are your legs? (The legs start to run, dragging everyone away.) Girls: Whoa! (Overhead view. Still more yelling from the girls as they dash erratically around the place, spinning all the while. Ground level: they barge ahead, with Bubbles facing the rear.) Bubbles: I can’t see where I’m going! Blossom, Buttercup: WHOA!! (They run flat into a wall, stick to it for a moment, and then slowly peel free to land on their backs. Cut to the exterior of the observatory, their voices and attempts to fly carrying over the distance, then to a pan across the interior as they keep trying to sort out the mechanics of group flying and make no progress whatsoever for a while. Blossom finally speaks up when they have reached a point in midair and are trying to go in three different directions.) Blossom: Okay, STOP!! (The others do so and fall silent—and Blossom’s expression changes to one of surprise an instant before they plummet to the floor. They end up lying on their side.) Blossom: Okay. Is everyone all right? Bubbles: (increasingly nasty tone) Well, other than my left eye being smashed up against your head, and my right eardrum ruptured, sure! Buttercup: Next silly question? Blossom: Whether we like it or not, we’re going to have to work together here. Buttercup: This isn’t another one of your lame-o plans, is it? Bubbles: (slightly muffled due to jaw wedged against floor) She’s right, Buttercup. Buttercup: Yeah, yeah. Blossom: Okay. We have to figure out who’s who and what’s what. Buttercup, raise your left arm. (The left arm in front of Blossom goes up.) Bubbles, wiggle your right leg. (Both legs in front of Blossom move.) Well, obviously we’re in a really mixed-up way. The only way out of this is if we act as a team. Bubbles, Buttercup: Roger that! Blossom: Bubbles, swing your left leg up and out. Let’s see if we can get upright. Bubbles: Here goes! (The girls do a slow, lopsided somersault and find themselves standing up.) Buttercup: That worked! Now what? Blossom: Let’s try to walk as a team. I think it’s your turn to move, Buttercup. (Close-up of a leg as it inches forward; pull back to reveal it in front of Blossom.) Blossom: Ready? (The girls start to move, with her in the lead.) One, two, three, four, five, six! (faster cadence; walking also speeds up) One, two, three, four, five, six! One, two, three, four, five, six! One, two, three, four, five, six! One, two, three, four, five, six! One, two, three, four, five, six! Buttercup: Yeah! (They trip and hit the floor with a grunt.) Blossom: (laughing sheepishly) Guess we still have some kinks to work out. (Her sisters trade a high five.) Bubbles: Good teamwork, guys! Buttercup: That was great! Blossom: We still have to stop Mojo before he destroys all of Townsville. Bubbles, Buttercup: Right! (Cut to the observatory exterior.) Buttercup: (from inside) No time to practice our flying. It’s trial by fire! (They emerge from the hole they smashed in the dome, yelling confused directions to each other and having great difficulty in going where they intend to. Once they are clear of the volcano’s summit, they drop o.c.—and then float back up, smoothly and securely, before charging straight at the camera.) (Wipe to Mojo, still blazing away aboard his hovercraft. He shoots holes in a pair of buildings; a peaceful street is seen next, then the discharging muzzles of his weapon, then the same street with buildings turned into smoking Swiss cheese. Mojo’s laughter rains down from above—but after the camera cuts back to him, the next line freezes him in his tracks.) Girls: (from o.c.) Mojo Jojo! (He looks behind himself; cut to them in flight.) Blossom: Your reign of terror is over! (Brief dip.) Girls: Whoa! (Level out.) Blossom: We finally came to the realization— (They turn to put Buttercup in front.) Buttercup: —that there’s no I— (Turn; Bubbles in front.) Bubbles: —in “we”! (Long shot of the area; they move in, but are still wobbling quite a bit in their flight. Mojo giggles at the sight.) Mojo: You girls can barely fly, let alone beat me in your inept state of deficiency! Blossom: Oh, yeah? Let’s see how good your aim is, Mojo Jojo. (He fires a salvo; the girls easily avoid all the shots. Now Mojo starts to sweat a bit.) Mojo: Impossible! (The girls stop.) Blossom: Wrong, Mojo. You tried to use our only weakness against us, but it only made us stronger and taught us the value of teamwork. But it also gave us something else—a new power! Girls? (They execute a stationary spin, reaching RPM numbers that would redline any internal combustion engine known to man. White light emanates from their bodies and hides them from view; this gives way to a large ball of green radiation that begins to expand slowly. As Mojo watches, dumbfounded, the glare from this phenomenon washes over him.) Mojo: (small voice) This looks like it will hurt. (The sphere expands to touch the hovercraft as he screams in fury; the vehicle disintegrates and the energy fades away to leave him suspended in midair and the girls watching. He drops toward the street, and the camera cuts to an overhead view of him.) Mojo: (fading out) CURSE YOU, POWERPUFF GIRLS!! (Snap to black, with a copy of the Townsville Tribune spinning up to the camera. Banner headline: “TAKE THAT MOJO JOJO!” Subhead: “Ice Cream Drove Me to a Life of Crime.” Photo: Mojo behind bars. This paper disappears, and a second one spins up. Banner: “TRIPLE-HEADER?” Subhead: “Professor Utonium Baffled by Three Headed Problem.” Photo: the puzzled Professor looking down at the girls, whose backs are to us.) (Cut to the exterior of Townsville Hall.) Professor: (from inside, sobbing) Girls, I’ve failed you. (In the Mayor’s office, the girls look on while the Professor cries on the little man’s shoulder. The latter is standing on his desk and does not appear particularly broken up over all this.) Professor: I’ve tried everything in the arsenal I call my brain, and I just can’t…just can’t… (sobbing harder) …separate them! (Something occurs to the Mayor; he hops down off the desk.) Bubbles: That’s okay, Professor. We don’t mind being like this. (The girls turn to put Buttercup in front.) Buttercup: Yeah. It’s great being this close to each other. (Turn; Blossom in front.) Blossom: There’s so many advantages to this. (Close-up of the Mayor, from the shoulders down, and pan to follow him across the room.) Bubbles: (from o.c.) Think of all we can achieve! Buttercup: (from o.c.) Two-thirds less clothes to buy! Blossom: (from o.c.) We could earn extra money at the circus! (On the end of this line, he stops near one of the girls’ legs. There is a loose thread at the hemline of their dress; he slowly reaches toward it on the next two lines.) Bubbles: (from o.c.) This is for the better. Buttercup: (from o.c.) I never want to be apart. (He grabs the thread.) Blossom: (from o.c.) We love it. (A quick tug breaks the thread. Pull back; the girls tumble free of each other and are back to normal, dresses and all. They stand up and take stock of themselves and each other for a moment before smiling in relief.) Blossom: I’m the leader again! Buttercup: And I can still kick your butt! Bubbles: I never want to be that close to you two again! Professor: And I… (gathering them up for a hug) …love all three of you. Let’s go get some ice cream, girls. (This suggestion strikes fear into them, but he does not notice as he carries them away.) (The background for the end shot comes up.) Narrator: And so once again the day is saved— (The girls appear in their melded form, with their heads in the usual positions.) Narrator: —thanks to Blossubblecup!…er, Buttossomles!…Bubbersom!…Oh, skip it. I’ll have tutti-frutti! T H E E N D |
