Movie Info:
Writer: Various
Director: Various
Cast: Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong, Elizabeth Daily, Tom Kenny, Tom Kane, Jennifer Hale, Roger Jackson
Rating: G
Studio: Cartoon Network
Release Info:
Theatrical Release: 1998-2003
DVD Release Date: January 20, 2009
Online Availability: Amazon for $45.92
I loved the Powerpuff Girls. I watched the show regularly throughout its entire run of six seasons. There weren’t a lot of cartoons I was fond of in the 90s, but The Powerpuff Girls was one of those shows I just loved. The show ran from 1998-2003 before being shown in reruns on a variety of different cartoon networks. I still watch the show when and if I can, even though I’ve already seen most of the episodes.
You see, I grew up in the 80s. There was no better time for cartoons then in the 80s. I grew up with The Smurfs, Care Bears, Garfield and Friends, Rainbow Brite, The Gummi Bears, Shirt Tales, The Get Along Gang, Duck Tales and many other cool cartoons. Then the 90s came and as the decade progressed, cartoons decidedly went downhill. As I aged, I yearned for the good ol’ days, while shows I watched were replaced by the likes of Doug. Though decent enough to watch, these cartoons didn’t hold a candle to the shows I watched as a kid.
So, when The Powerpuff Girls came on television I was ecstatic. The show was witty. It didn’t talk down to kids the way many of the shows today seem to do, and adults could watch and enjoy this cartoon as much as the kids. I find that today, many cartoons dumb down their humor and speed up the story to the point where only the hyper, technology obsessed kids of today will find the show enjoyable. Back in the day, cartoons could still be funny and kid-friendly and yet remain intelligent. The Powerpuff Girls had this going for the show.
Add in the fact that the superheroes are girls and we have a great, positive message filled show that little girls can look up to, as well as little boys. The vast majority of heroes are male, so its nice to have something girls can enjoy just as much as boys. If you want to introduce the kids of today to a great, family-friendly cartoon that everyone in the family will want to watch, picking up this 10th Anniversary Edition Box Set of The Powerpuff Girls is definitely the way to go.
The The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series Plot
There were six seasons of The Powerpuff Girls for a total of 78 episodes. It’d take forever to list plots for all of the episodes. Instead, I will be listing the episodes and then letting you know a little bit about my favorite episodes from each season.
Season One
“Insect Aside/Powerpuff Bluff”
“Monkey See, Doggie Do/Mommy Fearest”
“Octi Evil/Geshundfight”
“Buttercrush/Fuzzy Logic”
“Boogie Frights/Abracadaver”
“Telephonies/Tough Love”
“Major Competition/Mr. Mojo’s Rising”
“Paste Makes Waste/Ice Sore”
“Bubblevicious/The Bare Facts”
“Cat Man Do/Impeach Fuzz”
“Just Another Manic Mojo/Mime For Change”
“The Rowdyruff Boys”
“Uh Oh Dynamo”
Favorites from Season One:
“Mommy Fearest”: The professor falls for the evil Sedusa disguised as the pleasant Ima Goodlady.
“Fuzzy Logic”: Fuzzy Lumpkins goes nuts on Townsville, wreaking havoc and leaving chaos in his wake. Only the girls and a flying squirrel can stop Fuzzy!
“Mr. Mojo’s Rising”: Mojo Jojo has more tricks up his sleeves as he reveals he was the Proffessor’s assistant, after Mojo kidnaps him.
Season Two
“Stuck Up, Up, and Away/Schoolhouse Rocked”
“Collect Her/Supper Villain”
“Birthday Bash/Too Pooped to Puf”
“Dream Scheme/You Snooze You Lose”
“Beat Your Greens/Down n’ Dirty”
“Save the Day/Los Dos Mojos”
“A Very Special Blossom/Daylight Savings”
“Mo Job/Pet Food”
“Imaginary Friend/Cootie Gras”
“The Powerpuff Girls Best Rainy Day Adventure Ever/Just Desserts”
“Twisted Sister/Cover Up”
“Speed Demon/Mojo Jonesin”
“Something’s a Miss/Slumbering with the Enemy”
Favorites from Season Two:
“Daylight Savings”: A very early curfew and bedtime makes stopping Mojo Jojo impossible for the girls. Try explaining that to the Professor who is taking advice from Ms. Keane on the matter.
“Twisted Sister”: The Powerpuff Girls create a fourth sister when they grow tired of fighting bad guys. Unfortunately, she’s not exactly sure who the bad guys are.
Season Three
“Fallen Arches/The Mane Event”
“Town and Out/Child Fearing”
“Criss Cross Crisis”
“Bubblevision/Bought and Scold”
“Getting’ Twiggy with It/Cop Out”
“Jewel of the Aisle/Super Zero”
“Three Girls and a Monster/Monkey See Doggy Two”
“Candy is Dandy/Catastrophe”
“Hot Air Buffoon/Ploys R Us”
“Helter Shelter/Power Lunch”
“Powerprof”
“The Headsucker’s Moxy/Equal Fights”
“Moral Decay/Meet the Beat Alls”
Favorites from Season Three:
“Jewel of the Aisle”: When a robber makes off with an expensive diamond, he foolishly loses it in a box of cereal. When the Professor buys the box of ‘Lucky Captain Rabbit King’ cereal with the diamond in it, he tries to disguise himself to get the diamond back.
“Criss Cross Crisis”: An experiment gone wrong by the Professor has everyone in Townsville switching bodies. This gives Mojo Jojo the perfect anonymity he wants to cause trouble in Townsville.
“Moral Decay”: Buttercup goes cash crazy when she accidentally knocks our one of Bubble’s teeth and Bubble gets $1 from the tooth fairy. Wanting more money, she starts knocking out the teeth of her villains and cashing in on them with the tooth fairy.
“Gettin’ Twiggy With It”: When the class hamster is being pet sat by one of the kids, Mitch Mitchelson, it soon becomes clear that Mitch isn’t very nice to Twiggy.
**”Meet the Beat-Alls”: This episode is worth it for all the references to the Beatles.
Season Four
“Film Flam”
“All Chalked Up”
“Get Back Jojo,” “Him Diddle Diddle”
“Members Only”
“Knock It Off”
“Superfriends”
“Nano of the North”
“Stray Bullet”
“Forced Kin”
“Keen on Keane/Not So Awesome Blossom”
“Power-Noia”
“Nuthin’ Special/Neighbor Hood”
Favorites from Season Four:
“Forced Kin”: The tables are turned on Mojo Jojo when he has to team up with the Powerpuff Girls to fight some very smart aliens.
“Film Flam”: Bernie Bernstein seems genuine when he decides to make a film about the crimesaving the Powerpuff Girls do. However, his bad attitude towards Bubbles sings a different tune.
Season Five
“Monstra City/Shut the Pup”
“I See a Funny Cartoon in Your Future/Octi-Gone”
“Toast of the Town/Divide and Conquer”
“Burglar Alarmed/Shotgun Wedding”
“Save Mojo/Substitute Creature”
“The Boys are Back in Town”
“See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey”
“Pee Pee G’s/Boy Toys”
“Seed No Evil/City of Clipsville”
“Lying Around the House/Bubble Boy”
“Documentary/Girls Gone Mild”
“Curses/Bang for Your Buck”
“Silent Treatment/Sweet ‘n Sour”
Favorites from Season Five:
“Shotgun Wedding”: When the Professor goes on a trip to study up on Fuzzy, he almost ends up seeing wedding bells instead.
“Pee Pee G’s”: It looks like the girls have had a midnight accident (if you get my drift), but they refuse to believe that’s really why their bed is wet.
Season Six
“Prime Mates/Coup D’Etat”
“Makes Zen to Me/Say Uncle”
“Reeking Havoc/Live and Let Dynamo”
“Mo’ Linguish/Oops I Did It Again”
“A Made Up Story”
“Little Miss Sunshine/Night Mayor”
“Custody Battle/City of Nutsville”
“Aspirations”
“That’s Not My Baby/Simian Says”
“Sun Scream/City of Frownsville”
“West in Pieces”
“Crazy Mixed Up Puffs/Mizzen in Action”
“Roughing It Up/What’s the Big Idea”
Favorites from Season Six:
“Reeking Havoc”: When the Professor makes his infamous chili, the entire town faces an epidemic. The girls must stop the ‘fart-fest’ before it gets out of hand.
“Crazy Mixed Up Puffs”: The girls’ arguments intensify when Mojo Jojo finds a way to literally keep them together.
“I See a Funny Cartoon in Your Future”: This episode rocks because it pays homage to Rocky & Bullwinke. June Foray lends her voice for this.
Storyline/Plot: 
Replayability:
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Directing:
Audio/Visual:
Before I mention the quality of The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series, which is by no means bad, I have to rant a little about something I rarely talk about. This set was bound to be huge. One of the things that Cartoon Network did attempting to save space (or money) was utilizing both sides of the disc. While this was mildly annoying the thing that really got to me was the size of the overall set. It’s huge! The set is housed in regular sized DVD cases rather then the thiner cases, which would have made a great deal more sense.
The quality for The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series has its ups and downs. In the beginning things aren’t quite as impressive as they could be, but the series progresses quite nicely. Children’s cartoons often come with their faults, but Powerpuff Girls looks pretty good for something that has been off television for awhile. The art for the girls is just plain cute. They are adorable and they are crime fighters. Visually speaking the colors are good and there are few errors. At most you have some occasional grain. This disappears as the episodes go on. At the end, things look flawless.
The audio is covered by Dolby Digital 2.0 and it sounds fine. The sound effects are tons of fun, the music works just fine for what it is, and I never had a problem understanding the dialogue. I did not notice any major differences in the sound from season one to season six. Unlike the video, things were good from the start and they stayed that way.
Visual: 
Audio: 
Bonus Features:
When it comes to bonuses, The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series offers a mixed bag. There is a much greater amount of quality special features here than in the previous sets, but only a few of them are truly exciting. If you are expecting to be absolutely wowed by this set, you might have a problem with what you receive. However, there are a few goodies here. Just don’t expect perfection because it will not be available to you.
If you have the season one set of Powerpuff Girls already then you probably won’t find anything new on the first season discs. You receive some pilot type episodes and the original college short, “The Whoopass Girls: A Sticky Situation”. The college short is fun because it comes in the penciled version as well as the main finished version. Sadly though it comes without commentary. The pitch worthy pilots “Crime 101″ and “Meat Fuzzy Lumpkins” are also on this disc. Some audio tracks and additional animation are also added for some of “The Whoopass Girl” episodes.
There is an interesting CNN piece that looks at the work Cartoon Network once did. It contains interviews and a good look at what used to be awesome about Cartoon Network. There is an episode of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, “World Premiere Toon In” that was included as a way of introducing various Cartoon Network Shows including Girls and other amusing shows like Johnny Bravo. A ton of promose wrap out the first set of features and by a ton, I mean close to 20.
“Staylongers” and “Anger Management” begin the season two set. In addition to the promos, commentary has been added. The commentary tracks don’t add too much. If you want a good laugh and are interested in hearing something amusing you might like the commentaries, otherwise you won’t be too amused. The only other thing on the season two set is three little Show and Tell type pieces about the girls that they handle themselves. They are cute, but pretty short.
Seasons three through five are pretty slim pickins with each season offering a little less than the one before. Season three is home to a mere two music videos. The first is “I’m a Super Girl” by Shonen Knife and the second is “Signal in the Sky” by Apples in Stereo. The nice thing about these videos is that they include newer graphics and when they are added to old video footage they are quite fun to watch.
Another promo is added here along with the videos, but that’s it. Season four includes a couple of promos and a nearly hour-long Christmas special, “Twas the Fight Before Christmas.” It is becoming more and more unfortunate to see that many of the features that were added to separate DVDs were left out.
There are a number of things included here, but for everything mentioned it seems that something has been left out that was available on a previous release. Season five includes the least of the special features. There are only four promos to watch with season five and they don’t add a whole lot to the bunch.
The sixth season is filled with mainly new features. There are a few promos, but the majority seems to be all new stuff. A new tenth anniversary episode is included. While “The Powerpuff Girls Rule” is done in flash, it has the look of the original series and it really feels like one of the old episodes. This was one of the best features by far, just because it’s nice to see the Girls back in action.
Another great feature is “The Powerpuff Girls: Who, What, When, Where, Why, How…Who Cares?” This documentary lasts for around 30 minutes and it offers plenty of information about the history of the show. It’s funny but informative. Along with the history, the documentary offered interviews, art, and plenty more information on the show. Had all of the features been like this they certainly would have received a higher rating.
Bonus Features:
Bottom Line:
The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series offers all of the episodes from the six seasons of this series. This show is awesome. If your kids are not watching it already, they need to start. You can introduce your children to this amazing show by purchasing the The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series, which is fairly affordable, considering how many episodes are included in this set. Add in some pretty good bonuses and this set is well worth the purchase. The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete Series is highly recommended.
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Technorati Tags: Cartoons, TV on DVD, DVD Review, PowerPuff Girls, Bubbles, Buttercup, Blossom
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