The Powerpuff Girls/The Powerpuff Girls Movie

The Powerpuff Girls Movie
Release Date	July 3, 2002
Written by	Craig McCracken, Charlie Bean, Lauren Faust, Paul Rudish, Don Shank, Amy Rogers
Directed by	Craig McCracken
Produced by	Donna Castricone, Michael Lazzo, Craig McCracken, Brian A. Miller, Mark Norman, Jennifer Pelphrey, Linda Simensky
Distributor(s)	Warner Bros. Pictures
Running Time	73 minutes
Origin	US
The Powerpuff Girls

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The Powerpuff Girls Movie is a feature film based on the TV series The Powerpuff Girls.

Cast: Tara Charendoff (Bubbles), Catherine Cavadini (Blossom), Elizabeth Daily (Buttercup), Tom Kenny (Narrator, Mayor), Tom Kane (Professor Utonium), Jennifer Martin (Miss Sara Bellum), Roger Jackson (Mojo Jojo)

Plot Overview

Professor Utonium, an altruistic scientist, sets out to bring sunshine into his little corner of crime-ridden Townsville by creating the perfect little girl. Using the theoretical yet improbable ingredients of sugar, spice and everything nice, Professor Utonium began mixing his concoction only to have his recalcitrant lab monkey Jojo knock him into an unstable formula called Chemical X which spills into the concoction. After the resulting explosion, the Professor is confronted by three saucer-eyed little girls: Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup. And to his amazement, these three girls can not only fly but they also have superpowers. The Professor falls in love with his three artificially created daughters, leaving Jojo out in the cold.

A game of tag at the girls' first day of school rents the school a wreck and Townsville itself asunder. After the girls knock over a pickle cart while the Mayor is about to imbibe in one, the town is outraged. The girls become vilified pariahs and the Professor is jailed. Left to walk home alone in the rain, the girls encounter Jojo, who coerces them to help set up a headquarters to set in motion a plan that will put the girls in the city's good graces. Mojo is actually out to juice all the zoo's primates with Chemical X (which the girls give him) and create a race of super monkeys. When the girls find they've been tricked and even the Professor doubts them, they exile themselves on a lone asteroid. Meanwhile, the apes are each staking claim to being what Jojo (now named Mojo Jojo) wants to be--ruler of all.

The girls squabble on the asteroid but when they sense the Professor is being threatened, they fly back to the ape-littered city and begin to atone for their mistakes. They rescue babies, dogs and people in general before mopping the city with the apes. They now must rescue the Professor from Mojo Jojo who has juiced his brain with Chemical X and has grown to an immense monster chimpanzee. After a fight with the girls, he climbs the tallest skyscraper having overcome the girls, and entreats them to join him as the outcasts he is and what Townsville made them before. But the girls break free with the epiphany that they have to fight what he became for the common good. Mojo falls and lands in a pool of Antidote X, created by the Professor. After Mojo is reduced to normal size, the girls are about to take the Antidote X, feeling that Townsville would like them better as normal little girls. Townsville unanimously votes otherwise and appoints the girls as their champions.

Arc Advancement

Characters

Professor Utonium: A handsome, square-jawed, single scientist who lives in a futuristic home on the outskirts of Townsville. Creator and dad of the Powerpuff Girls.

Blossom: The smart, level-headed, and oft-times vainglorious and egocentric leader of the Powerpuffs. Pink eyes and dress.

Bubbles: Sweet and naive sister. Prone to crying. Blue eyes and dress.

Buttercup: Tomboy of the team. Whips butt first then asks questions. Green eyes and dress.

Mojo Jojo: The Professor's lab chimpanzee who struck out on his own after the girls were created. Speaks in repetitive Japanimation-speak.

Mayor: Mayor of Townsville. Addled and pint-sized, he has a pickle addiction.

Sara Bellum: The Mayor's assistant. Curvacious and quite intelligent, long-suffering to the Mayor's actions. Up to the special episode The Powerpuff Girls Rule, we never see her face.

Ms. Keane; The girls' kindergarten teacher. While all the children looked at the girls in anger for destroying their school, Ms. Keane maintains professional decorum in addressing them.

Trivia

The Film

The Powerpuff Girls Movie was greenlit in 2000 with a proposed budget of $25 million. Production began in 2001 following the completion of season four of the TV series, and at completion the cost came in at $10 million.

Promotion of the film was threadbare at best, and in spite of wide release, the film had the bad luck of opening on July 3, 2002 opposite Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and had a domestic gross of $12 million. The film rated a 65% at Rotten Tomatoes.

In 2002, creator Craig McCracken told an audience at San Diego's Comic-Con International that the first idea for the movie was to have all of Townsville's regular villains squabble over who was going to rule, but the girls would have figured in very little of it. He then proposed the idea of an origin story with the subplot of all these monkeys wanting to be the ruler Mojo wanted to be.

DC Comics published a comic book adaptation of the movie on the same date as its release, July 3, 2002. It was written by Amy Rogers and drawn by Phil Moy, Christopher Cook and Mike DeCarlo.

Allusions and References

When Buttercup tries to free Talking Dog from the mechanical grip of Rocko Socko (a reference itself to the old toy Rock 'Em-Sock 'Em Robots), she yells "Get your hands off him, you darned dirty ape!" That referred to Charlton Heston's line from Planet Of The Apes (with "damned" replaced by "darned" in this case).

When Mojo Jojo (as a giant monster) rips the façade of a skyscraper, the people in the office were caricatures of the staff of the movie.

DVD Releases

Title	Release Date	#
The Powerpuff Girls Movie	November 5, 2003	1

External Sites

• The Powerpuff Girls Movie at the Internet Movie Database