Original air date: 10/19/2001 (produced in 2000) note
Production code: PPG-310
Helter Shelter: Bubbles' love for animals goes too far, and despite the Professors’ warning to her (as well as Blossom and Buttercup) not to bring home any more animals, she ends up bringing home a baby whale.
Power Lunch: After feeling a side effect from eating and drinking sweets combined with the Girls' heat ray, the Gangrene Gang then get superpowers.
Helter Shelter:
- An Aesop: If you love something, you must set it free.
- Exact Words: The professor tells Bubbles that she can't bring any more animals home because they don't like being locked up in the closet. As she points out later, the baby whale can't fit in the closet, so she's actually keeping him in the girls' room.
- Friend to All Living Things: Bubbles' love for animals really gets out of hand in this episode.
- In Space, Everyone Can See Your Face: The girls’ space suits have transparent visors.
- Inventor of the Mundane: The Professor is intrigued by the fact that his new shoes have lights in them that light up with every step, and really wants to find out the secret behind this technology.
- A Lesson Learned Too Well: When the Professor discovers the baby whale, he tells Bubbles that animals are meant to be set free so they can be with their families instead of being locked up. At the end of the episode, Bubbles sets every animal from the zoo free.Narrator: Oh, Professor, when are you gonna learn you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
- Literal-Minded: When the professor shows Bubbles the shoes with the mice inside and asks her what these are, she answers “Shoes?”. Happens again later when, after seeing the baby whale she brought home:Buttercup: When the Professor gets home, he’s gonna have a cow!Bubbles: No, a baby whale!
- At the end of the episode, Bubbles took the Professor's words of freeing animals too literally.
- Man-Made House Flood: The girls flood the basement of the house to give the whale a place to stay. Professor Utonium finds out the hard way when he wants to go down to his lab.
- Nice Mice: Bubbles' mouse friends Mr. and Mrs. Squeakers. They live in the Professor's sneakers.
- No Antagonist: One of the few episodes without a monster or villain looking for trouble.
- Rule of Three: The Professor angrily shouts Bubbles' name three times throughout the episode.
- Say My Name: The episode opens with Professor Utonium angrily calling Bubbles back home, because he discovered the mice she put in his shoes. He does it again after he finds out they flooded the lab and put a whale in, and one final time when Bubbles releases all the animals from the zoo.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: When Buttercup and Blossom arrive home and see Bubbles lock the door to their bedroom, Bubbles immediately proclaims that she didn’t bring anything home, even though none of her sisters asked her if she did. It’s enough of a sign to the other two that she brought yet another animal home.
Power Lunch:
- An Ice Person: Ace becomes one during this episode. His ice powers seem to be stronger than Blossom's, as he was able to easily break free from her ice while she couldn't do the same for his.
- Ask a Stupid Question...: Snake asks Ace what super power he got….while he is already stretching out his neck.
- Blue Means Cold: Ace's skin turns blue when he gains his ice powers.
- Bowled Over: The girls use this attack on the superpowered Gangrene Gang. Blossom uses her ice powers to freeze the road like a bowling lane, and Buttercup rolls Bubbles towards the gang.
- Brain Freeze: Ace repeatedly gets one when he drinks slushees straight out of the machine from the convenience store the gang is robbing.
- Brought Down to Normal: The Gangreen Gang lose their powers once they use the bathroom and pass the food they ate.
- Fastball Special: Buttercup and Bubbles use a variation of this, with Bubbles rolling up into a ball and Buttercup using her a bowling ball.
- Foreshadowing: The foods the Gangrene Gang eat while raiding the convenience store all serve as the catalyst for what powers they get.
- Ace drinks slushees and eats popsicles. He becomes An Ice Person.
- Snake chews (and evidently swallows) mouthfuls of gum. He becomes a Rubber Man.
- Grubber helps himself to nachos, potato chips, hot dogs and soda. He gains supersonic burps.
- Big Billy munches on numerous lollipops. He turns into a giant rock.
- Lil' Arturo downs an entire pot of coffee. He gets Super-Speed.
- Freeze Sneeze: Ace suddenly sneezes, and a gust of icy wind blows out of his nose and mouth and completely covers a nearby garbage can.
- How Do I Shot Web?: Averted, the Gangrene Gang learn how to use their new powers almost instantaneously.
- Klatchian Coffee: Arturo’s super speed comes from the fact that he drank a whole pot of coffee prior to getting superpowers.
- Mass Super-Empowering Event: The girls’ eye beams combined with all the food the Gangrene Gang ate earlier leads to all five of them gaining super powers.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: the girls accidentally end up giving the Gangrene Gang superpowers.
- Nobody Poops: Averted for laughs. When the food that gave the Gangrene Gang their powers is starting to digest, all 5 of them quickly have to quit the fight and retreat into a portable toilet.
- Potty Emergency: Just as the gang is about to crush the girls, all five of them suddenly need to use the bathroom badly, breaking from the battle to use a set of Port-o-Lets. Unfortunately, this causes them to lose their superpowers, and the girls are able to pummel them black and blue.
- Repeat Cut: The scene where Grubber burps loudly at Bubbles and Lil’ Arturo zips over and rapidly punches her is used three times in a row.
- Also when Snake grabs Buttercup and sucker punches her in the side of her head.
- Rubber Man: Snake gets elasticity powers during this episode, allowing him to stretch his body to different sizes.
- Superpowers for a Day: The Gangrene Gang get super powers from the combination of the Powerpuff Girls’ eye beams + the food they ate earlier, but lose them again when the food digests.
- Super-Scream: A variation. Grubber's burps become this trope when he gets powers.
- Super-Speed: Lil' Arturo gains the power to run at super fast speeds.
- Taken for Granite: Big Billy becomes a living rock.
- Touched by Vorlons: The Girls accidentally empower the Gangrene Gang when they zap them all with their heat vision and it reacts with the food in their systems.
- The Voiceless: Big Billy doesn't speak, aside from his laughter and groaning.
