The Powerpuff Girls

The Powerpuff Girls is an American animated television series about three little girls in kindergarten who have superpowers. Created by animator Craig McCracken, the program was produced by Hanna-Barbera until 2001 when Cartoon Network Studios took over production for Cartoon Network. The series is a spoof on American superheroes as well as Japanese Tokusatsu heroes like Super Sentai. As is typical in McCracken's work, the show also makes heavy use of references to 1960s pop culture, particularly the famous English musical group The Beatles.

The animation director is Genndy Tartakovsky, of Dexter's Laboratory and Samurai Jack fame, who has also directed many of the show's episodes himself.

[edit] Overview

The Powerpuff Girls revolves around the adventures of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup, three little girls with super powers. The plot of a typical episode is some humorous variation of standard superhero and/or tokusatsu fare, with the girls using their powers to defend their town from various villains, such as bank robbers, mad scientists, aliens or giant monsters. All the while, the girls also has to deal with normal issues young children face, such as bed wetting or dependence on a security blanket. The show is one in a long line of cartoons that derives a great deal of humor from pop culture parody.

It has a highly stylized, minimalistic visual look, reminiscent of 1950s and 1960s pop art.

[edit] History

Craig McCracken, a student of California Institute of the Arts, created The Whoopass Girls in 1992 in his short film The Whoopass Girls in A Sticky Situation. Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation selected the short in 1994; McCracken submitted it to Hanna-Barbera's innovative What A Cartoon! shorts program (eventually to be produced for Cartoon Network as "The Powerpuff Girls in: Meat Fuzzy Lumkins" as part of World Premiere Toons) while working on Dexter's Laboratory.^[1] As the word "whoopass" was deemed inappropriate for younger audiences, the word was replaced by "powerpuff", which may be a pun on "powderpuff", as indicated the episode "Powerpuff Bluff", where one of the villains says "powderpuff" instead of "powerpuff".

The Powerpuff Girls TV debut in 1998 was the highest rated premiere in Cartoon Network history.^[2] For several seasons, the series consistently scored the highest rating each week for the network across a wide range of demographics -- from young children to adults.^[2] In October 2000, Cartoon Network credited the Powerpuff Girls for its Friday night prime time ratings win among cable networks.^[3]

In April 2005, plans for an anime version, Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z were announced and the series premiered in Japan the following year. The series deviates highly from its American predecessor in terms of both style, storyline and characterisation.

[edit] Setting

The Show mainly takes place in fictional the City of Townsville, USA. Townsville is depicted as a major American city, with an impressive cityscape consisting of several major skyscrapers. The physical location of Townsville has never been determined, but the city does have a Financial District, Museum, City Hall, Police station, Fire Department, Seaport, Retirement home, a Times Square themed district, Suburbs, Observation tower, Schools, Nuclear Power Plant, and a Volcano in the middle of a large Park.

Cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, London and Tokyo have been shown throughout the series.

[edit] Opening and ending themes and sequences

James L. Venable composed the opening theme of the series and Scottish band Bis performed the ending theme song, as played during the credits. Tom Kenny narrated the introduction, and also acted as narrator throughout the whole series.

The opening narration reads as follows: "Sugar, spice, and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction: Chemical X! Thus the Powerpuff girls were born! Using their ultra super powers, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil!"

As the narration reveals, Professor Utonium created the girls out of sugar, spice, and everything nice, a reference to the nursery rhyme "What are Little Boys Made of?", plus the accidental addition of Chemical X. The opening of the series pays homage to the animated beginning of 1960s live-action television series, Batman, as both shows feature a pan across a gallery of villains, with the animated heroes running toward the viewer while striking the villains, who are tossed away in slow motion.

[edit] Characters

[edit] The Powerpuff Girls

Main article: The Powerpuff Girls (characters)

The main characters are Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. Blossom is the intelligent and level-headed leader, Bubbles is innocent and shy, and Buttercup is tough, cynical and tomboyish. The girls, collectively known as the Powerpuff Girls, are drawn with physical traits that make them exaggeratedly cute. They have large eyes, and, although they are able to hear, smell and hold, their bodies are drawn without noses, ears, fingers or toes. Whether they actually have these features is not clear and may be a running gag; for example in the episodes "Criss Cross Crisis", when the girls switch bodies with other people in Townsville, Buttercup, who had swapped bodies with the Professor, complained that his hand did not work.

The girls have many superpowers like those possessed by Superman, including super-strength, flight, super-speed, X-ray vision, the ability to project a variety of kinetic blasts, and limited invulnerability. Each girl also possess a super power not shared by the other two, such as Bubbles ability to speak in many different languages (including squirrel and Spanish), and Blossom's ability to breathe ice. It is not known what Buttercup's special power is, but one known ability that only Buttercup can do is curl her tongue.

However, in the Gameboy Advance Game called The Powerpuff Girls: Him and Seek all girls have two powers that none of the other have. Blossom can breathe ice and send out electric shocks. Bubbles has two different levels of sonic screams and Buttercup can momentarily turn into a tornado and can throw fireballs.

It should be noted that in the game they all are able to shoot lasers, punch, and fly at a faster speed (for a short period of time).

[edit] Citizens of Townsville

• Professor Utonium (voiced by Tom Kane): The scientist who creates the Powerpuff Girls. The Professor is very "square" and old-fashioned, and he is unlucky in love (which perhaps explains why he created the girls through science; however there was once a possible hint of him being possibly married but somehow that ended in tragedy possibly death as proof by a second pillow in the Professor's bed). His first name is never mentioned; he introduces himself as "Professor. Professor Utonium," though it is possible that Professor is his first name. He is fiercely protective of the girls, sometimes to a fault. He is a very affectionate and supportive father whose pep talks often bring the girls around when they are discouraged. He is a keen golfer. His most successful inventions are those that he makes by accident --- such as the Powerpuff Girls themselves, or the containment device seen in "Bubble Boy" (he says of it, "once again, I have no idea what I did!") He bears a fair resemblence to Samurai Jack.

• Ms. Keane (voiced by Kath Soucie in the "What-A-Cartoon" episodes and by Jennifer Hale in the series): The Kindergarten Teacher of Pokey Oaks. She wears an orange shirt, red vest, brown pants, short black hair and light blue eyes. Her first name has never been mentioned. She is patient, understanding and very protective of her students, making her a well-liked, motherly figure. Her name is a tribute to Margaret Keane, an artist whose paintings feature children with huge eyes, much like Powerpuff Girls. She may also represent a nod to cartoonist Bil Keane, creator of The Family Circus, as she closely resembles that cartoon's character Mommy (Thel), with dark hair and flip hairdo. She also seems to have a fair command of general relativity, able to produce complex equations quickly, as seen in "Speed Demon." Her name is also revealed by Bubbles asking her that Billy throws paper at her in "Tough Love". In several episodes, her innate motherly instincts come into play when she is teaching her surrogate children in class, particularly when weaker kids (like Elmer Sklue in "Paste Makes Waste") get picked on and bullied by the other children. She even fell in love with the Professor and went on a date with him in "Keen On Keane", however the romance failed after she refused to believe the Professor's story about a cat who controlled his actions (the events of the episode "Cat Man Do").

• Mayor of Townsville (a.k.a Mayor Mayer) (voiced by Tom Kenny): The empty-headed/old coot mayor of Townsville who is referred throughout only as "Mayor" (even campaigning with the slogan "vote Mayor for Mayor"), although he is referred to as "Barney" by his wife in the episode "Boogie Frights". He is short and old with a fringe of white hair around a bald scalp, a thick mustache and a scatterbrained-sounding voice. He wears a monocle and a small top hat that floats just above his head. He is very fond of pickles, and his little hat. He is almost infantile in his stupidity, and without the Powerpuff Girls, Townsville would have been destroyed long ago. The Mayor is married (to a woman who looks very much like him), although apparently their marriage is a rather lame one and he rarely mentions her. In the episode "Powerpuff Bluff", he is willing to trade his wife in exchange for a "priceless, very rare, one-of-a-kind" porcelain poodle. In the episode, "Pee Pee G's," he shows Bubbles that he wears a diaper underneath his pants. He also had a crush on Ms. Bellum when she was replaced by Sedusa. "Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins" featured a different Mayor, who had a voice like that of Paul Lynde. He was younger and taller, and seemed much smarter than the Mayor.

• Ms. Sara Bellum (voiced by Jennifer Martin): Mayor's very competent assistant, a statuesque redhead. She handles things the Mayor cannot, which is practically everything. Her face is never revealed onscreen. Whenever she appears, an object will either block her face or the camera will "cut off" everything above her neck. Whenever she is the center of attention (as when Blossom took over her body or when she fought Sedusa) her hair often covers her face. Other onscreen characters often claim that she is very beautiful, with the exception of the abrasive Talking Dog. In the bleak future of the episode "Speed Demon," she expresses an obsessive attachment to the Mayor, suggesting that she may be in love with him. She is named after the cerebellum, probably in reference to her job as the "brains" of the mayor's operation. Like the Powerpuff Girls themselves, Ms. Bellum's name begins with a 'B' and contains a double consonant.

• Narrator (voiced by Ernie Anderson in the "What-A-Cartoon" episodes and by Tom Kenny in the series): The series' enthusiastic but unseen narrator, known for opening nearly every episode with "The city of Townsville!" and ending them with "So once again, the day is saved, thanks to . . . The Powerpuff Girls!" (except in a few episodes where someone else or another form of the girls gets credit). He will often comment on the proceedings of the episode, and frequently breaks the fourth wall. He is never seen at any point in the series, though he is a person and not just a disembodied voice. He also seems to be the only connection between the audience and the girls, as he can "talk" to both and even be involved, such as Mojo transforming him into a dog. His name is also apparently "Narrator". In the episode "Simian Says", he is kidnapped by Mojo, who promptly takes his place as the episode begins, granting Mojo the power to narrate the story as he sees fit; the girls have no choice but to go along with the narrative until they accidentally blast Mojo, suggesting that the Narrator has absolute power over the story, though he never seems to exercise it himself.

• The Talking Dog (voiced by Tom Kane): A small white dog with black ears and nose and a black spot on his back, wearing a red collar with yellow dog tag. He mostly appears as a background character, but always has something to say. In the episode "Shut the Pup Up", he was taken in by the Girls when he became the sole witness to a mystery crime. When he stays with the girls he is shown to be blunt, abrasive and insulting, though his demeanor remains straightforward and earnest. In "Mo Linguish," he was the only one in the city whose English was good enough to reverse Mojo Jojo's language lessons.

• Mitchel "Mitch" Mitchelson (voiced by Tom Kenny): The bully at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. Mitch has brown hair, and wears a black T-shirt with the words “MITCH ROCKS” on the front. Usually talks in a gruff voice; he torments the kids in the class in a few episodes, though he is not a major threat. His laugh is almost the same as that of Popeye. He is Buttercup's best friend.^{[episode needed]}

[edit] Villains

• Mojo Jojo (voiced by Roger L. Jackson): A mad scientist chimp with great intelligence, notable for his pseudo-Japanese accent and his overly convoluted manner of speaking. As revealed in the episode "Mr. Mojo's Rising", and again in "The Powerpuff Girls Movie", Mojo Jojo was Professor Utonium's lab assistant, Jojo, before Professor Utonium created the Powerpuff Girls, and it was he who caused the Professor to accidentally add Chemical X to the mixture (thus making him responsible for their creation). He is the Powerpuff Girls' most frequent villain. He has a huge, exposed brain under his hat, and has super strength; however, he can only use it when he flies into a rage, as seen in the episode "Forced Kin" (a chimpanzee is, in fact, about four times as strong as an adult male, so perhaps it represents an enhancement of his latent natural talent).

• Fuzzy Lumpkins (voiced by Jim Cummings): A large, husky, furry pink bear-like hillbilly monster with a wide jaw, a green nose, two antennae on his head and Southern accent wearing bib blue overalls who will shoot anything he finds trespassing "on his property". He lives in the woods next to the city of Townsville.

• Him (voiced by Tom Kane): A mysterious, super powerful, red-skinned, effeminate, and immortal devil-like creature. His physical appearance is an amalgamation of sorts with crab-like claws, lobster-like skin, pointed ears, a hooked nose and a long, curled beard, wearing makeup, a woman’s red jacket and skirt with pink tulle at the collar and hemline, and black, thigh-high, spike-heeled boots. It's implied that he may be Satan, but he is so evil that his real name "can never be said." He is the ultimate embodiment of pure evil, and talks in a chilling voice that echoes at all times as if in a cave.

  He often disguises himself or creates psychological events or catastrophes which he uses as an attempt to cause the Powerpuff Girls to break mentally. He has shown numerous satanic forms, most of which are revealed in hell or apocalyptic situations or realms. His powers are so great that he is able to resurrect and improve The Rowdyruff Boys. The Powerpuff Girls themselves are often unsure how to fight him. It was Him who, in an alternate future without the Powerpuff Girls, controlled Townsville (again, in the episode "Speed Demon"). The scene in the episode "Tough Love" that depicts Him hovering above Townsville sowing the seeds of hatred in the minds of the citizens is probably a parody or a tribute to the scene in FW Murnau's 1926 adaptation of Faust which depicts Mephistopheles hovering above the sleeping town sowing the seeds of plague.

• The Gangreen Gang: A gang of hoodlums that are green-skinned and unhealthy looking (as if suffering from gangrene). They originally appeared alongside the The Amoeba Boys in McCracken's original short, Whoopass Stew. They have the personality of juvenile delinquents. They are a tribute to the work of cartoonist Ed Roth, particularly Rat Fink.
  • Ace (voiced by Jeff Bennett): The Gang's leader, Ace is a mean-spirited, bullying, opportunistic rogue. Ace sports a slick-back hairdo, a colored vest-jacket, a pair of shades and even fangs. As Gang's smartest member, he is the instigator of most of their antisocial activities, and he does possess a certain charismatic charm that allows him to sweet-talk people who ought to know better, including Buttercup in the episode "Buttercrush".
  • Snake (voiced by Tom Kenny): Snake is a slippery character with a forked tongue , a skinny body and a hissing voice. He seems to be the Gang's second-in-command, but mostly this means that Snake acts as a sniveling yes-man to Ace. It is revealed in "School House Rocked" that his real name is Sanford D. Ingleberry.
  • Grubber (voiced by Jeff Bennett): Grubber is the Gang's most physically grotesque member--untidy hair, grubby clothes and protruding eyes. He also appears to be mostly mute, communicating instead through blowing a raspberry. He does, however, occasionally demonstrate unexpected talents, such as playing the violin, speaking eloquently or performing impersonations (at first, they were so obvious it was a wonder how he fooled anyone, but later he was able to do them perfectly).
  • Big Billy (voiced by Jeff Bennett): A hulking fat colossus who acts as the Gang's muscle. Though he does at times display a childlike innocence, he mostly just does the bidding of his more savvy and vindictive friends. In the episode "School House Rocked", he is revealed to be a Cyclops.
  • Li'l Arturo (voiced by Tom Kenny and by Carlos Alazraqui in two episodes^{[episode needed]}): A malevolent midget with a Hispanic accent, Li'l Arturo seems to take the most amusement from the Gang's activities. He carries around a switchblade-styled comb he calls "Maria".

• The Amoeba Boys (voiced by Chuck McCann): A gang of amoebae who were the villains featured in McCracken's original short, Whoopass Stew. They reappeared in the World Premiere Toons "Crime 101". With their gangster-ish affectations, are aspiring criminals who would love nothing more than to be regarded as serious villains, but whose brains are too primitive to devise a crime above the level of littering or jaywalking (in contrast to the original short, where they are seen having successfully robbed a bank); indeed, they considered stealing a discarded orange to be their greatest crime ever (in the episode "Divide and Conquer"). They are generally harmless, but their actions have on several occasions endangered both the girls and the town purely by accident.

  The members of this team are as follows:

  • Bossman, leader of The Amoeba Boys. He wears a gray fedora.
  • Junior/Tiny, the little one. He wears a black cap and sounds like a typical gangster underling.
  • Slim, the tall one. He wears a brown fedora and sounds like a typical gangster underling.

• The Rowdyruff Boys: Evil male counterparts of the Powerpuff Girls created by Mojo Jojo from snips, snails and a puppy dog tail (based on the Nursery rhyme entitled "What are Little Boys Made of?") in a prison toilet. They are violent bullies. Although the girls destroyed them in their first appearance (the episode "Rowdyruff Boys"), the boys were later resurrected by Him in the episode "The Boys Are Back in Town". Each boy can be seen as an evil variation on their female counterpart;
  • Brick, Blossom's equivalent, is the abrasive, bullying leader, different from Blossom's tactical logic.
  • Boomer, Bubbles's equivalent, is a loudmouthed dimwit, different from Bubbles' naive sweetness.
  • Butch, Buttercup's equivalent, is a hyper-aggressive borderline psychotic, different from Buttercup's tomboyishness.

• Sedusa (voiced by Jennifer Hale): A mistress of disguise who uses her feminine wiles to influence people to do her bidding. When her identity is revealed, she often fights with her whip-like hair which she can control. In one episode, she had the ability to whip off globs of uber-sticky hair gel adhering people to walls. Her name is a combination of seduce, which she does quite often, and Medusa. Her appearance was based on The Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, especially the original version played by Gale Sondergaard.

• Princess Morbucks (voiced by Jennifer Hale): Princess is a spoiled, insecure little rich girl, whose partially unseen and mostly mute "daddy" allows her to finance various evil plots to destroy the Powerpuff Girls. In one episode she is told by Blossom that you can't just go out and buy superpowers, and she retorts, "Oh yeah, tell that to Batman!" Her hatred of the girls stems from her deluded rebuffed attempt to become one of them. Her name is a play on words of Daddy Warbucks from Annie.

[edit] Monsters and minor characters

See also: Minor characters of the Powerpuff Girls

The girls frequently combat a wide assortment of giant monsters, all of which seem to visit Earth solely for the purpose of demolishing Townsville. In the episode "Super Zeroes", a giant monster named Steve (based on Hedorah) explains to the girls that going to Townsville and encountering the Powerpuff Girls is a symbol of honor on Monster Isle, whose very name is a reference to Monster Island in the Godzilla series. Ironically, in the episode "Three Girls and a Monster" they fought a giant monster that had powers and body structure very similar to Godzilla. This monster was invulnerable to any attack they could muster, and became the only monster the girls bested with diplomacy (Bubbles nicely asked the monster to leave — and he complied).

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of The Powerpuff Girls episodes

78 episodes (one of which was never shown in the U.S.A.) spanning six seasons and one self-titled movie have been made. There was also an episode that was in production entitled "Deja View" that was never finished.

There have also been shorts entitled "Powerpuff Girls, Dream in Style" That were released in Aug. 2004, around when Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends aired. It followed the girls with a new look, and in their teenage years, fighting crime in style, with such things as make up, shoes, clothes, etc.

According to The Animation Guild (TAG), "Cartoon Network has been doing a good bit of hiring lately, and TAG will hold a new member lunch for a bunch of the newbies this week. Among the projects now bubbling along at the studio ... The Powerpuff Girls returns to the teevee with a new 1/2 hour special now in work.".

[edit] Awards

The show has been nominated for an Emmy five times in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004 & 2005 for "Outstanding Achievement in Animation". In 1999 the show actually won the Emmy. In 2000 & 2005 the show also won Emmys, but both in juried for non-nominated selections.^[4]

The show has also been nominated for an Annie award nine times, winning it twice.^[4]

[edit] DVD releases

[edit] Episode highlights

[edit] Television specials

[edit] Seasonal release

The entire first season of the show was released in America on a 2-disc set on June 19, 2007.^[5] Bonus features include the original pilot pitch and never before seen footage^{[citation needed]}. Was released in Australia April 16, 2007.^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• The Powerpuff Girls Movie, a feature-length film
• Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, an anime spin-off

[edit] External links

• Official site
• The Powerpuff Girls at the Big Cartoon DataBase

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