After the previously-documented show pilots, The Powerpuff Girls made
it to a full series at the end of 1998, a couple of years later than its
partner Dexter’s Laboratory. Though clearly Craig McCracken’s baby,
Tartakovsky is clearly still heavily involved, co-directing a majority of the
episodes.
It’s clear from the start that the series was heavily developed before ever
reaching the air. It’s not unusual for a series’ title sequence to show
characters who don’t appear until many episodes in, but this one even has
characters who don’t even appear until the early episodes of season 2 – the guy
from The Collector and, more prominently, Princess Morebucks.
The series does that very syndicated-American-toon thing of having no
establishing episode or premiere but simply launching into the setting without
explanation with the assumption that the audience knows the scenario and
characters already – so random episodes can easily be broadcast in any order.
It even seems very likely that ‘Tough Love’ rather than ‘Octi Evil’ was written
as Him’s introductory episode, but things were swapped around. Indeed, however
the show was broadcast when I used to watch it on TV was likely pretty random –
I’d seen most of these episodes before, but some, like ‘Insect Inside’ and
series finale ‘Uh Oh Dynamo’ were new to me.
Split into 22 half-episodes and 2 full episodes, Powerpuff Girls is
very easy to watch. Its exaggeratedly cute characters are of course adorable,
but what makes the likeable is the heavy emphasis on their faults and failings
despite their powers. Bubbles is childlike and gullible, a bit of a crybaby
despite not wanting to be underestimated, allowing for her to be adorable, to
learn and also for reversals like her deciding she wanted to be ‘hardcore’
being very funny. Tara Strong’s brilliant voice work (here still credited as
Tara Charendoff, as she hadn’t gotten married yet) brings the role to life. Blossom
is perhaps the least immediately distinct of the three, wanting to be a leader
and taking charge, but getting a little boastful when she develops new powers
and easily annoyed when Buttercup challenges her authority. And Buttercup is
the quintessential tomboy character, making her most probably my favourite –
she’s stubborn and self-conscious and that makes me feel like she’s actually
the most vulnerable. And y’know, there’s something pretty heavy about an
episode where she falls for a guy, he makes her feel really special and loved,
and then only by happy accident does she see he’s actually just getting her out
of the picture so he can brutally murder her two sisters. That’s a lot for a
kindergartener to take on!
Indeed, the series gets its adult-friendly edge in two ways, really –
first, by being irreverent with what’s appropriate for kids to see, taking
pride in showing gross-out humour, its tiny adorable heroes being constantly
abused both physically and mentally, a whole episode about how funny the mayor looks
without any clothes on, and in its wanton destruction, the certain death of
many thousands of Townsville residents. And second, with a real sense of bathos
– some episodes feel they’re late in the run of a well-established show, like
one with Mojo just trying to go about his daily routine in peace but the girls
bothering him interminably, endlessly and indeed unendingly. A new superhero
shows up but turns out to be engineering crimes, but the way the girls beat him
is by doing the very same thing. And one episode is about the Gangreen Gang
making prank phone calls, which ends up with the villains sorting the problem
out while the heroes are unawares.
The strength here is really in the characters, major or minor. The girls
are immediately engaging and understandable, Professor Utonium’s protective
nature but vulnerability to women is easily understood and though some baddies
are duds – ‘Roach Coach’, with power over cockroaches, for example, or some kid
who eats glue before a radioactive insect turns him into a huge hulking glue
monster that’s actually one of the girls’ toughest challenges – many, many more
of them are brilliant and iconic. The Gangreen Gang and the Amoeba Boys from
the pilots/shorts are great, but it’s really Mojo Jojo with his ridiculous
pleonastic way of speaking and Him with his evil mind games that stand out as
classics. The Rowdyruff Boys are an obvious but strong idea, and Fuzzy Lumpkins
becomes much stronger conceptually with his pseudo-Southern attitude to people
on his property. Plus you can’t help but love the Mayor.
The voice work is also top-notch, which is something that made 90s cartoons
appeal so much to Gen-Xers and stoners. The three girls have an instant
dynamic, two of them having starred in Rugrats before this, and of
course Tom Kenny puts his stamp on every role he plays, from Spongebob to The Ice King. Where Mojo’s daft speech patterns came from I do not know, but
they’re absolutely inspired, and Him’s voice sends chills down the spine.
Being ironic and going for a lot of parody – from Star Wars to Godzilla
– protects the show from a lot of criticism. Of course it’s lame – it’s a joke
on silly superhero tropes! But there are some real shortcomings. Sometimes the
episode length means a strong idea has to just be randomly dropped, like when
Him’s Octi just blows up because it’s made to drop the captive girls, or when a
cure for a terrible disease can simply be taken out of the Amoeba Boys. It is
also unashamedly politically incorrect to the point of being offensive – racial
caricatures abound, there’s something anti-trans in how Him is portrayed, I
don’t know why Mojo has that accent and with the mecha parody episode and all
those unflattering representations of the Japanese, it’s amazing they loved it so much. And while sure, kids won’t notice or care, this is emphatically not
just for kids and I don’t see what gets added by it.
But it doesn’t stop the real brilliance of the
writing, how it turns typical Hanna Barbera-style cartoon making into something
hip and intelligent, or how well-performed and well-executed the whole thing
is. Impressive work.
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