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-superpowers, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil!
One of Cartoon Network's most popular original series, originally called "The Whoopass Girls" by creator Craig McCracken (they were created with "sugar, spice, everything nice," and a can of Whoopass) before it got picked up by the network during The Renaissance Age of Animation. The Powerpuff Girls centers around a Power Trio of little girls who fight crime in the fictional city of Townsville. These Artificial Human girls, who have no discernible fingers, toes, ears, or noses, were created when Professor Utonium accidentally added Chemical X to his mixture of sugar, spice and everything nice.The series' heroines are Blossom, "commander and the leader," who often acts the Drill Sergeant Nasty; Bubbles, "the joy and the laughter," whose personality is very similar to that of her namesake from Jabberjaw (but not quite a Dumb Blonde), and Buttercup, "the toughest fighter," and the tomboyish Action Girl with a bad temper. Their simian Arch-Enemy Mojo Jojo wears a helmet to cover his enlarged brain and speaks in a manner reminiscent of bad anime dubbing. Aside from the obvious Anime influences, most of the series' supporting characters are drawn in the style of Two Stupid Dogs (not surprisingly, as the creator of the show worked on that cartoon).Warner Bros. released an animated feature, The Powerpuff Girls Movie, in 2002 (which sadly bombed at the theaters due to bad marketing from Warner Bros, though it does have the honor of being the only Cartoon Network series to have a theatrical movie). An anime version, Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z, hit the airwaves in Japan on July 1st, 2006. There is also, off the record in the webcomic world, a popular fancomic based off the series called Powerpuff Girls Doujinshi.Reruns still air on Boomerang.
Added Alliterative Appeal: From the episode "I See a Funny Cartoon in Your Future" a newspapers headline reads "Powerpuffs Powerless to Pinch Pocket-Picking Pin-Pushing Predictor!"
"So we have Blossom, Bubbles, and, hmmm, Buttercup because... it also begins with a B."
Also Bunny and Bullet. Also note the double letter in each name as well.
Also, the Rowdyruff Boys: Brick, Boomer, and Butch.
Also, from the episode Powerpuff Bluff:
Blossom: Put down that priceless porcelain poodle, you punk! Criminal: P-P-P-Powerpuffs? Blossom: Precisely!
Aesop Amnesia: If Blossom's vision of a world ruled by her is any indication, she forgot the moral of "Equal Fights".
Alphabetical Theme Naming: All three girls have names beginning with B. This even extends to temporary members (Bunny, Bullet) as well as both sets of evil counterparts, the Rowdyruff Boys (Brick, Boomer, and Butch) and the Powerpunk Girls (Berserk, Brat, and Brute).
Animesque: The above-mentioned "bad anime dubbing" style of speech that Mojo Jojo uses, the fact that Image Song is one of the tropes listed below (and that the "Supergirl" music video had both English and Japanese subtitles on it, but no other languages), and the fact that it often seemed an ill fit for the American Animation Age Ghetto—it was only natural that it would become a true anime one day! Of particular note is the episode "Substitute Creature", in which the girls repeatedly go into overblown mangaesque Imagine Spots.
In "Get Back, Jojo", while Mojo Jojo is traveling through time, the art becomes pencil sketches.
"Substitute Creature", as noted above.
Also, when the animation format switched to Flash.
As Themselves: "The Powerpuff Girls' Best Rainy Day Adventure Ever" simply focuses on them playing in their room, pretending to be... The Powerpuff Girls. Subverted as they all switch roles and even dragoon the very annoyed professor into playing Bubbles. Watching them run around singing their own theme tune turns the adorable Up to Eleven.
Badass Normal: Mojo Jojo brings down the Powerpuff Girls with Antidote X during their Slumber Party, and the Girls' classmates subdue him with a Pillow Fight.
Bat Signal: The Powerpuff signal, though it's very rarely used.
Batman Can Breathe in Space: Although they wore space suits in "Uh Oh Dynamo" and the beginning of "Helter Shelter" the girls are perfectly capable of breathing, talking and even hearing sounds from Earth while in space.
There was a variation of this trope in "The Boys are Back in Town." All three girls are squashed into a hockey puck and smacked around by the Rowdyruff Boys.
This trope also occurred in a "Got Milk" promo, when Buttercup throws Lil' Arturo into the rest of the Gangreen Gang like a bowling ball.
"FUZZY! You can throw away my things, and I don't mind the hay on the floor, and the chicken wire's a nice touch, and I kinda like that beat-up old flivver. But no one, I mean no one, wears my mayorin' hat! Now give it back!"
Bubbles in the pilot, when Fuzzy Lumpkins turns one of her pigtails into a chicken leg. The Narrator goes to great lengths to describe the hours she spends brushing and conditioning it.
Also, under any circumstances, do not come between the girls and their candy. Mojo learned this the hard way and was practically beaten to an inch of his life as a result.
Mojo Jojo does not like having his ideas stolen, as the alien invader in "Forced Kin" learned to his sorrow.
The entirety of "Bubblevicious" is dedicated to Bubbles going on a rampage after her button (being treated like a baby by everyone, even her own family) is pressed one time too many. She calms down at the end, but then Mojo zaps her with a laser (again)...
An easy way to tick off all three of the Powerpuff Girls is to endanger the life of the Professor.
Fuzzy Lumpkins and "trespassers", a term he defines very broadly. For example: He shot at a leaf that happened to drift onto his lawn.
Marianne Smith when anyone tries to disrupt the dinner she is hosting.
Berserker Tears: A sign that you have pushed Bubbles too far.
The Bet: HIM has the Girls doing a scavenger hunt, with the threat that if they fail, Dr. Utonium WILL PAY... full price for breakfast.
Between My Legs: Invoked fairly often. Craig McCracken even discusses the shot in the commentary of The Movie.
Beware the Nice Ones: As mentioned above, Bubbles is downright vicious when she's pushed too far.
Big Damn Villains: A variation — in one episode, the Gangreen Gang occupies city hall while the Mayor's away and use his hotline to sic the Powerpuff Girls at Fuzzy Lumpkins, Mojo Jojo and HIM, who are all having days off. Although the Powerpuff Girls never catch on to the fact that the Mayor's an impostor, the villains quickly do, tracking down the Gangreen Gang and delivering a(n) (un)righteous smackdown onto them. The Narrator is forced to declare that "So Once Again, the Day Is Saved, thanks to... Fuzzy Lumpkins, Mojo Jojo, and HIM?"
Broken Glass Penalty: One episode plays out like this - the girls throw their ball through the window of their arch-villain, who tries to use it as an excuse to destroy them while pretending to be looking for their ball. After the girls continue to do more damage in the house, he instead just gives them the ball back so that they will leave.
Canon Immigrant: Issue #64 of the comic introduced the Micro-Puffs, tiny sprite versions of the girls from another dimension who show up to merely yank the girls' chains. One story has Blossom actually getting help from Mojo Jojo in defeating them. Considered canon in that all Micro-Puffs stories were written by Amy Rogers, head writer for the show.
Captain Obvious: Done by Blossom in "Los Dos Mojos"; lampshaded by Mojo.
Catfight: Miss Bellum and Sedusa have one at the end of "Something's a Ms".
Cereal Vice Reward: Magnificently parodied in one episode. "Ridiculous Lucky Captain Rabbit King! Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets are for the youth!"
City of Weirdos: The citizens of Townsville are so used to having the girls fighting giant monsters, that they simply ignore when one goes on a rampage. An entire episode focuses on a typical day in the life of Mojo Jojo, who does mundane tasks without anybody giving him a second thought.
The City Vs The Country: In "Town and Out", the Utonium family moves to the metropolis of Citiesville, only to realize that it can't compare to Townsville, their original home.
Clip Show: Subverted and parodied partway through.
Comic Book Adaptation: DC Comics—70 regular issues (including one reprint and the movie adaptation), plus two issues of Cartoon Network Starring (their first two comic appearances), 21 appearances in Cartoon Network Block Party, 3 appearances of Cartoon Network Action Pack (Rowdyruff Boys stories—the boys appeared in four issues) and four volumes of reprinted stories. Series creator Craig McCracken drew and co-wrote the first CN Starring issue.
Buttercup: Wow, where did you get that giant match? Blossom: Same place I got the giant jar, silly! Episode 2, Season 1, remember?
Cowboy Episode: One episode is basically a normal episode of the show, but in the Old West. The girls become the Steamypuff Girls. Titled "West In Pieces," the episode was hated by virtually all the Powerpuff fan community yet it still won an Emmy (special juried award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation).
Hotta Watta: For I don't give a— Mojo Jojo: Watch your mouth!
Cute Kittens: In the episode "Catastrophe", in which the Powerpuff Girls have to find one of the kittens for a giant monster in order to help him leave Townsville alone.
Dark Reprise: a more sinister version of the theme song's origin exposition music plays when Utonium's college roommate Professor Dick creates imitations of the Powerpuff Girls.
A blink-and-you'll-miss-it example in The Movie, as Mojo finally sees his ultimate plan coming together, a sinister rendition can be heard.
Department of Redundancy Department: Mojo Jojo. That is to say, he speaks in a manner that is highly repetitive and frequently says things that he has already said at an earlier point in time and is now redundantly saying again, thus causing the audience to wonder if they are hearing the same thing multiple times, for they are hearing dialogue that they have already been exposed to, for he has already said it. He does go the extra mile to deny it:
Mojo Jojo[after hearing Bubbles speak like him]: I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different! I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again! I am clear, concise, to the point!
Didn't See That Coming: In the episode "Sweet n Sour", three cute animals - a puppy, kitten, and rabbit - are brainwashing the whole city of Townsville, except for the girls, of course, with their obviously cute faces, thus also causing a backlash on the girls due to their doubts on the animals. However, when they walk into a building which they think is a bank, they find it's a school filled with children who love the animals to near-death, thus delivering the message of how too much of something isn't always good. Of course, after the children leave, it is revealed that their receiving too much love was set up by the girls.
In the episode "Bought and Scold", Princess Morbucks takes over as Mayor of Townsville and passes a law legalizing crime, just so she could put the girls out of business. However, she apparently didn't realize that with crime being legal, she herself could be robbed as well, which is obviously one of the reasons why the girls thought of the idea of robbing her blind.
Also, in the episode "Birthday Bash", the Amoeba Boys send the girls voodoo dolls of the girls themselves without realizing that they were supposed to keep the dolls in order to make them work.
Mojo Jojo's first attack involved turning the world and the girls into dogs. He was beaten when Buttercup ran up the platform bit him in the behind. In another episode, he does almost the same thing, then he plays a video recording of the first event to the girls and explains that he won't turn them into dogs this time, and he installed butt armor to prevent getting bitten again. Mojo got so wrapped up on how he was beaten previously he forgot to disable or weaken the girls this time and they beat him up as usual.
Also used in issue #2 of the comic book ("Buttercup's Boyfriend"). HIM gives a boy a belt that sends out a beam that makes whoever it hits hate everyone. It hits Bubbles, but because she's filled with so much love, it short circuits her and knocks her unconscious. Blossom and (reluctantly) Buttercup verbally announce their love for Bubbles to revive her.
Roach Coach falls out of a building. While the Girls were shocked because they believed he was a man and they thought they'd killed him, but it turns out he was actually a cockroach in a mechanical suit, so he survived and was captured.
HIM sent plummeting into a bottomless abyss by Buttercup in "Power Noia". Being a recurring villain who can survive As Long as There Is Evil, this doesn't kill him, but it defeats him for the time being.
During the episode where Mojo is hired to babysit the girls, the girls take a level in jerkass and beat him first with pillows, then just regularly beating him, for telling a bad bedtime story.
Combined with Minor Injury Overreaction, the two-parter episode about a meek husband trying to be a villain and horribly failed for it... the wife was MAD and ANGRY at the Powerpuff Girls and resort to crime along with the whole family because the Powerpuff Girls ruined her dinner to protect Professor Utonium.
"A Very Special Blossom" ending with Blossom sentenced to 200 hours of community service.
Drunk with Power: That episode where The Mayor got tired of relying on The Girls and decided to bring his own brand of justice, riding a balloon and stopping bad guys with an extending boxing glove. It goes to his head...
Dying Like Animals: Pretty much every townsperson and the highly co-dependent Mayor are Sheep. Explicitly lampshaded in one episode, when the girls get sick of being called on to fix every little problem. They go sit on a cloud and encourage the people to work out a solution to the Monster of the Week, but keep having to beat them over the heads with hints, in what is probably a direct Shout Out to the "Burn the witch" scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Enemy Mime: Rainbow The Clown's alternate personality in "Mime for a Change".
Every Episode Ending: Nearly every episode ended with a shot of the titular protagonists and the narrator exclaiming, "And So Once Again, the Day Is Saved, thanks to... the Powerpuff Girls!" This was subverted more and more as the series went on.
Whenever a hero other than the Powerpuff girls are the focus, they're the ones who saved the day, although in the Daylight Savings episode, the Narrator says the day was saved thanks to Benjamin Franklin.
When the day didn't actually need saving: "And so... uh... hmm..."
When the girls get fed up with the people of Townsville's Dying Like Animals attitude and force them to destroy a monster without the girls' help: "... the day is saved with no thanks to the Powerpuff Girls. Hey, I did it all by myself!"
When the Time Travel episode reveals Mojo Jojo's caused the Stable Time Loop that led to the girls' existence: "And So Once Again, the Day Is Saved, thanks to the Powerpuff Girls... but thanks originally to Mojo Jojo who, once again, had a hand in creating the Powerpuff Girls!"
When the episode centered around a couple of elderly heroes who were out to fight their out-of-retirement, equally elderly foes, and Blossom refused to allow the girls to intervene. The episode ends with all the old men falling over and breaking various limbs. Instead of the narrator, an in-story newscaster says over the end card "In this reporter's opinion, all this could have been averted if Blossom had just LET the Powerpuff Girls save the day."
When Mojo Jojo and HIM get into an Eviler than Thou contest to decide who is a better father for the Rowdyruff Boys: "The day is doomed, thanks to the Rowdyruff Boys." It also changes the usual pink-and-hot pink heart background for a black-and-white crossbones and skull one.
Many comic book stories end with the standard hearts-and-stars with the girls posing in front, but like in the show, it can be averted and subverted once in awhile. Among them was "Monkey Business" (issue #67), where Mojo's attempt to go straight and open his own restaurant keeps getting sabotaged by the girls, skeptical of his intentions. The last straw was when Blossom mistakes everybody farting (from Mojo's chili) as a gas leak, causing a frantic evacuation. Frustrated, Mojo goes back to crime, and it ends with the narrator chiding the girls in the hearts/stars panel for making Mojo evil again.
Family Friendly Firearms: Surprisingly averted - in a number of episodes guns wielded by standard criminals have goofy colors, but fire actual bullets.
And in the earlier seasons, they weren't silly at all. The guns were almost always colored gunmetal gray or brown.
Family Theme Naming: Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup all have cutesy names that start with B and contain a double consonant. When they create a temporary fourth Powerpuff girl, she also fits the pattern, being named Bunny.
Cute bricks, to be sure, but the girls' basic powerset is this.
The Rowdyruff Boys possess the same basic powerset, and Blossom's male counterpart there is named Brick.
F Minus Minus: In the episode "Mo' Linguish", Mojo Jojo mentions that if he had control of the grading system, he would make the lowest grade a "Z" rather than an "F".
Flanderization: Bubbles in particular seems to go from "cute" to "annoying" in later episodes.
The Mayor went from eccentric and absent-minded to Too Dumb to Live.
Almost everyone suffered this (if they weren't a Brother Chuck) in the later episodes, but most notably were the Powerpuffs themselves. Blossom went from smart, cool-headed and somewhat bossy to a full-blown irritating know-it-all as the show went on. Bubbles, as mentioned above, had been transformed from a cute little girl to a shrill harpy by the middle, and Buttercup, if not being My Friends... and Zoidberg, pretty much was defined by her fighting lust. Also, the Narrator seemed to be paid by the hour to talk every five minutes.
Freak Lab Accident: Hilariously lampshaded when, in an attempt to create a fourth Powerpuff Girl, the sisters re-create the circumstances of their origin by elaborately pretending that they're adding the Chemical X to the pot by sheer accident, complete with awkward dialogue delivery.
Friction Burn: In one episode, Buttercup creates a fireball by rubbing her hands together rapidly and throws it at a monster.
Fun With Flushing: The class hamster gets flushed down by Mitch, the schoolyard bully. In the sewer, the hamster gets exposed to chemical waste and comes back a mutated monster out for revenge.
In the episode "Cootie Gras" our kindergartner heroines are terrified of a boy said to have Cooties. A fact Mojo Jojo uses to keep them at bay until they get over it. Once they do, however, they leave the boy Covered in Kisses, then go kick Mojo's butt.
Also, used in the first episode featuring the Rowdyruff Boys — the girls' key to defeat them is to look prettily at them and actually kiss them. It worked so well the guys explode in horror. Lampshaded right after this, when Bubbles and Blossom think kissing isn't that bad, but Buttercup is shown coughing and almost throwing up in disgust.
Bubbles: *being zapped by a laser at a low level* I'm not... gonna... cry... you... dumb... doo-doo-brain! Mojo Jojo: "Doo-doo-brain"? That's it! I've had it with your sassy mouth!
One episode was devoted to showing how the citizens of Townsville have become so used to the girls taking care of everything from invading monsters to fires to getting cats out trees that every problem is shrugged off with, "Oh, the Powerpuff Girls will take care of it". This causes the girls to go on strike.
Reversed in "Collect Her", which had an obsessive collector of Powerpuff Girl merchandise capture the girls themselves to add to his collection. The people of Townsville paid the girls back for helping them by going to the collector's house and ripping up all his merchandise, freeing the girls in the process. Since he was a fat, bald, overweightOtaku with no powers, there wasn't much he could do to stop them.
Mojo Jojo: I do not talk like that! The way I communicate is much different. I do not reiterate, repeat, reinstate the same thing over and over again. I am clear, concise, to the point!
Imaginary Friend: In Imaginary Fiend, the PPG had to fight an Imaginary Friend who was causing trouble at school. They defeat him by imagining a friend of their own to beat the snot out of him.
It's said that this episode served as the inspiration foundation for Craig McCracken's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Mike Believe is the template for the later show's Mac.
Imagine Spot: Keeps coming up in "Live and Let Dynamo", as the girls try to figure out which villain has their Humongous Mecha, the Powerpuff Dynamo, and keep imagining what the recurring villains would really do if they got control of the Dynamo — the Rowdyruff Boys would force her into demeaning acts such as picking her nose, Mojo Jojo would just criticize her cockpit and leave, the Gangreen Gang would just make prank calls from within the Dynamo, the Amoeba Boys wouldn't know what to do, Fuzzy Lumpkins would make Dynamo play a banjo, and HIM would give it an extreme makeover.
Blossom: A tarot card! Girls, this is worse than we imagined! Bubbles: Whatever do you mean, Blossom? Blossom: Not only are we dealing with a petty criminal, we're dealing with... A tarot-ist. [5 second beat]
Innocent Swearing: In the episode "Curses", the girls overhear Professor Utonium using a naughty word and start using it themselves. Many Sound Effect Bleeps ensue.
Institutional Apparel: Strangely, Townsville Jail uses the striped suits version and the orange suits version.
I Owe You My Life: Gangreen Gang member Big Billy to the Powerpuff Girls in "Slave The Day". It didn’t work out well.
Ironic Echo: In The Movie, when the girls meet Mojo for the very first time, he says that he's a monster, to which Blossom replies that he's not a monster, because "Monsters are evil", in the final battle, they tell him that he is evil, and is a monster.
Karma Houdini: At the end of "Shut the Pup Up" when it turns out the Talking Dog was wrong about the two men dumping a dead body in Townsville Harbor, there were hints that they actually were mobsters and they're left to go free. When the "wrapped up corpse" turns out to be beef bones they're just as surprised as everyone else.
Kath Soucie: Bubbles' voice in the What A Cartoon! shorts.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey" has never been shown in the U.S., not even in the current runs on Boomerang. It is on the complete series DVD set.
Princess Morbucks: Prepare to bow to your princess!
Mojo Jojo: You will bow before me!
Alien Force: And you will now bow down to me!
Knight of Cerebus: What do all the darkest episodes have in common? HIM always makes thing darker and edger.
Knights and Knaves: In the episode "Him Diddle Riddle", they come across the "Are you wearing a sombrero?" variant. And they leave it to Blossom to figure out the riddle. And she uses the correct line of reasoning to deduce the "correct" variant. And she gets it wrong. But Him gives them the point anyway, presumably because Blossom has a really good poker face.
Lantern Jaw of Justice: Professor Utonium, surprisingly, is one of those rare non-superhero examples, given the genre of the series.
Whenever the Powerpuff Girls arrive to save the day or do something heroic, they have a little tune that plays.
Many of their most often reoccurring villains have their own theme music as well.
Let Us Never Speak of This Again: In the Shotgun Wedding episode, in which the Professor tries to learn more about Fuzzy Lumpkins for the purpose of science, he's mistaken for a female of Fuzzy's species (whatever he is), and the Professor ends up nearly marrying him. After the Professor is saved by the Powerpuff Girls, he writes "never speak of this again" on the notepad that he was using... and then eats it. He gets really mad when the Powerpuff Girls mention it about 10 seconds later.
Like a Badass out of Hell: HIM brings the Rowdyruff boys back to life to defeat the Powerpuff girls.
Limited Animation: Definitely influenced by the style, especially in the earlier episodes.
Lost in Translation: None of the Beat-Alls jokes work in the Swedish dub. The translator doesn't come up with any Woolseyisms, since that wouldn't be possible in Swedish.
Loophole Abuse: "Schoolhouse Rocked". The rules are there's no fighting in school. So Miss Keane suggests to the Powerpuff Girls they "play dodgeball" with the Gangreen Gang instead.
MacGuffin: The Key to the World in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule". The Professor lampshades the utter ridiculousness of the concept.
Magic Meteor: In one comic book story of The Powerpuff Girls, they had to deal with everyone in the City Of Townsville getting powers from a meteor ("Power Play," DC Comics issue #3).
Make Me Wanna Shout: The Girls' Sonic Scream. Bubbles uses it the most frequently, however.
Midair Bobbing: The girls are the queens of this trope; they even do it in unison.
Mind-Control Eyes: Professor Utonium and several others in one episode.
Minor Flaw, Major Breakup: In "Keen on Keane", Professor Utonium ends up breaking up with Ms. Keane because she owns a cat. In his defense, the last cat that the professor had spent any prolonged time with turned out to be an evil mastermind that tried to make him jump off a building.
Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher: Ms. Keane inverts this in "Speed Demon", where she goes from a math problem with apples to Einstein's Theory of Relativity and how it pertains to potential Time Travel. It was relevant to the plot, but the class just kinda stared blankly.
Mondegreen: Used intentionally with many, many Beatles lyrics in the "Meet the Beat-Alls" episode.
Moral Dissonance: The Brocolli Aliens' invasion of earth could be justified by the humanity constantly consuming his "kin", and the girls respond with a vicious genocide on the invaders. Mojo Jojo frequently attempts to kill the girls for reasons which are far harder to justify, and he gets beat up and jailed.
In Not So Awesome Blossom, Mojo issues an ultimatum to Blossom in exchange for the lives of her sisters and the Professor, an ultimatum of servitude. Blossom asks "How do you know I won't lie?," to which Mojo responds "Because you're Blossom." They must have forgotten A Very Special Blossom, where she steals a set of golf clubs to give the Professor for Father's Day then lies not only about how she got them but when cornered tried to frame Mojo for it.
Motive Decay: An In-Universe example would be the crook who dressed up like Lucky Captain Rabbit King,who went through so much torment trying to get the box of cereal he forgot he was originally after the stolen jewel hidden in the box.
Mistaken for Profound: Mayor is running for reelection, spouting his usual, tired lines. Fuzzy Lumpkins gets tired of Mayor's shouting to the crowd interrupting his sleep, so he yells "SHUT UP!", and people act like it's the best campaign slogan ever.
MSTing: In "Silent Treatment", the girls make fun of the silent movie they're watching, complete with silhouettes in front of the screen.
My Friends... and Zoidberg: "The city of Townsville: a place filled with some of the most brilliant, clever, and ingenious criminal masterminds ever to hatch an evil scheme! ...Then, there's the Amoeba Boys."
The girls would sometimes encounter people who call them the Powderpuff Girls or something similar.
Major Glory in particular not only calls them by that name, but he also uses "Sugarpuffs" twice. He also calls the individual girls "Butterdish", "Caboodles", "Blaze'em", and "Bless'em".
Mythology Gag: The exterior of the Pokey Folks retirement home in "Fallen Arches" is what used to be the Hanna-Barbera studio. The numerical address seen is 3400, and the studio was at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood.
Never My Fault: In one episode a cop is fired for being lazy and not doing his job and he assumes the reason he was fired was because the Powerpuff Girls' crimefighting was causing the police department to make cutbacks. He proceeds to capture the girls and try to dunk them in acid.
He actually pulls it off, but then everyone present (including the girls themselves) learn that acid doesn't hurt them.
Doubly Subverted when Mojo Jojo actually repeated one of his previous plans exactly, except for one minor detail that led to the plan's previous failure. The minor detail being to actually try to hinder the Powerpuff Girls from simply beating the snot out of him from the get-go. As Mojo Jojo starts smugly stating how not trying to hinder them, because they overcame it the last time, will make the plan certain to work this time, the Powerpuff Girls respond by simply beating the snot out of him.
Also, HIM explicitly states that he never "gives repeat performances" in one episode.
Mojo wouldn't have been able to set his plan in The Movie in motion without help from the girls.
The first time they use the Dynamo, they end up causing more damage then the monster they were fighting, causing the Mayor to demand that they never use it again.
Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In "Forced Kin" Mojo Jojo helps the girls fight an alien, only to find the alien is seemingly using all his own ideas! When the alien defeats the girls, Jojo literally goes ape and physically forces the alien to submit, driving off the threat and becoming the reluctant hero.
In an episode in which Buttercup tries to find her own unique power, she finds out she is the only of the girls who can curl her tongue. Cut to many Townsville inhabitants trying to do the same and failing miserably - among them, Gene Simmons!
The two senior superheroes Blossom coerces to come out of retirement in "Fallen Arches" are caricatures of Bill Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Series creator Craig McCracken appears twice in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule", as does fellow staffer and his wife, Lauren Faust.
Off To Boarding School: In "Mommy Fearest", Sedusa does this to the girls while disguising herself as a kind woman named Ima Goodlady, that the Professor goes ga-ga for.
The One Girl: In Cartoon Network's "Staylongers" interstitials (spoof of "Survivor"), Blossom is the only female member of the "Cartoon Cartoon" tribe.
Don't swallow a whole beaker of Chemical X. It has this side effect.
Also, Mojo's monster ape form in The Powerpuff Girls Movie.
HIM's demonic forms in "Speed Demon" and "Power Noia".
Sedusa's giant asp-haired form in "Aspirations".
Opening Shout-Out: The "Run of the Mill Girls" from the episode "Oops, I Did It Again".
Out-of-Character Moment: In "That's Not My Baby!" when the girls try asking Ms. Keane to look after the baby temporarily while they look for the parents, Ms. Keane claims that she's too busy. This is actually a lie and gives the false implication that she hates children, showing the bin next to her desk full of gifts from her students.
Overly-Long Gag: Betty, Buttercup's "Run of the Mill Girls" counterpart from "Oops, I Did It Again", goes back to get her schoolbooks as soon as everyone's ready to go to school, causing the rest of her family to wait a long time for her until she comes back with the books. If she had superpowers like Buttercup, she would have gone and came back in no time flat.
The three crooks who wear rather unconvincing Powerpuff Girls costumes in "Powerpuff Bluff".
Mojo Jojo in "Slumbering With the Enemy". Partially averted in this instance, because the girls see through his disguise immediately. Though everyone else is still unaware.
Paste Eater: In one episode, there's a boy in the girls' class named Elmer Sglue who gets teased for eating paste. A mosquito tainted by toxic waste falls on the paste he was eating, turning him into a giant glue monster who wreaks havoc on the city.
Pie Eyed: The girls gain these in "Silent Treatment" when they get trapped inside a silent cartoon.
Pietà Plagiarism: Done in "Mommy Fearest" with the Professor and Ima Goodlady after the latter pretends to faint.
The Pig Pen: Buttercup became one for an episode when she refused to take a bath.
Poor Man's Substitute: Craig McCracken originally wanted Jack Black to voice the Gnome in "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey" but by the time they got to production he was too busy and expensive, so they instead got Jess Harnell doing a Jack Black-like voice.
"Powerprof" confirmed Bubbles used to wet the bed, much to her embarrassment.
The episode "Pee Pee G's" was about the girls thinking one of them was wetting the bed, but unsure of which it was. It turned out to be Mojo Jojo who, in a completely OOC manner, just wanted to pull a prank on them by spilling water on their bed while they were asleep. Leads to his own Potty Failure at the end of the episode.
Power Nullifier: Antidote X, first appearing in "Slumbering with the Enemy" and later in The Movie.
Powerpuff Girl Hands: The Trope Namer. Lampshaded in "Criss Cross Crisis" when Buttercup switches bodies with Professor Utonium. When she tries to pick up the phone, she can't figure out how his fingers are supposed to work.
Power Trio: The Powerpuff Girls and The Rowdyruff Boys.
Precision F-Strike: Two comic book story titles: "Hell Toupee" (issue #16—also counts as an Incredibly Lame Pun), and "Helliday" (issue #29). Also, in "Shutter Thug" (issue #11), Blossom says "Oh...dam" after said structure collapses on said villain. And finally in "Trick Or Beatings" (#31), the girls are laying a smackdown on the Gangreen Gang on Halloween. Blossom, dressed as a witch, originally had the line "Prepare to be witch-slapped!" before it was changed to a more kid-friendly line.
Narrator: Love is in the air, can't you just feel it?
Mojo Jojo was also turned into a dog once, and left in the pound. A big burly dog woofs at him suggestively. At least it wasn't a human prisoner that time.
Previously On: The episode Just Desserts is a sequel to Supper Villain, which came 16/8 episodes (depending on your definition of an episode) prior. It opens with a recap of Supper Villain that begins "Last week, in the city of Townsville..." Once the recap ends, the actual episode begins with "The City of Townsville!" as per usual.
Rashomon Style: In one episode, the Mayor is kidnapped by Mojo Jojo and blindfolded. The girls save the Mayor and beat Mojo Jojo, but can't stop laughing after. The Mayor asks why. The girls each tell the story of how they saved the day today differently, accompanied by Art Shifts. What they neglect to mention? The Mayor was naked all along.
Reality Ensues: Everything related to the town of Citiesville, most notably the girls' destruction of the bridge leading in to town to stop some robbers. The bridge was both the only way for workers to commute to Citiesville and a historical landmark, costing over three million dollars. Reality Ensues, and hard.
Reunion Show: 2008's "Powerpuff Girls Rule", a PPG special made five years after the show ended, featuring nearly every main character within the series, as well as all the original voice actors.
Rhyming With Itself: In "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey", this trope is rather egregious when the PPG join in Professor Utonium's "Freedom Beef" song, as they rhyme "peace" with itself rather forcefully, directly after rhyming "powers" with itself.
Rogues Gallery: Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, The Gangreen Gang, Him, Princess Morbucks, Sedusa, The Rowdyruff Boys to a lesser extent and The Amoeba Boys if you consider irritation to be roguish. Rainbow The Clown has also appeared in the background in his villainous mime-form post-Mime for a Change
Rule of Three: The episode "Super Zeroes" with the line, "Better heroes, huh?" (Said by Utonium, the Mayor, and even the Monster of the Week itself!)
Princess: I have the most powerful power there is! Cold! Hard! Cash!
Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Mojo Jojo in The Powerpuff Girls Rule after having victory literally swept from under his nose.
Second Person Attack: Used and abused; in certain cases, the viewer can suffer the virtual effects of getting punched and kicked DOZENS OF TIMES IN A ROW.
Blossom's hairbow in the comic book story "Bow Jest" (issue #20). It's Bubbles, of all people to light a fire under Blossom's butt about it.
Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Mojo Jojo. In one episode, he's left in charge of an adult education English course, and the whole town starts talking like this. Society comes to a screeching halt.
Shadow Discretion Shot: Parodied in "Collect Her" — we see shadows of children ripping open the comic book guy's collectors items.
Shaggy Dog Story: The episode "HIM Diddle Riddle" revolves around the girls flying around town, trying to solve HIM's insidious riddles in a desperate attempt to save Professor Utonium, only to fail, and now HIM is going to make the professor PAY!... full price for breakfast. The narrator even lampshades it, with "And once again, the day is... um... yeah..." while the girls just float there staring blankly.
The comic book story "Steal A Meal" (Cartoon Network Block Party #26) has the girls doing a tearful Big "NO!" upon learning that after all the breakfast cereal in town had been stolen the only thing left was oatmeal.
Towards the end of "Slumbering with the Enemy", Mojo Jojo douses the Powerpuffs with the Antidote X to remove their powers. They're back to normal without explaination in the next episode.
Mojo Jojo is turned into a dog twice. No explanation is given as to how he turned himself back into an ape.
Solve the Soup Cans: "Go to a place where it is freezing and boiling at the same time! You have 45 seconds!". And who, of all people, solves it? The Mayor!
Space Is Noisy: The few times the girls go into space, they can communicate with each other just fine.
Spear Counterpart: The Rowdyruff Boys, Brick (red color scheme), Boomer (blue color scheme), and Butch (dark green color scheme) to the Powerpuff Girls, Blossom (pink color scheme), Bubbles (cyan color scheme), and Buttercup (green color scheme).
Spoiled Brat: Princess Morbucks, to a ridiculous extent.
Squashed Flat: In the episode "Down 'n Dirty" Buttercup gets slapped between the hands of a cyclops. When he opens his hands, Buttercup is flattened by them, with a stunned expression on her face.
Sssssnake Talk: Snake of the Gangreen Gang, appropriately enough.
The episode "Members Only" is about the girls trying to get into a superhero guild that only allows men. Let that sink in a bit.
Two words: "Forced Kin".
Straw Feminist: Femme Fatale in "Equal Fights", who uses feminism as an excuse for her crimes. Along with her usual physical beatdown, the Girls also give her a verbal beatdown as "real" feminists.
The girls can fly faster than the speed of light. At top speed, they have been known to bend the time-space continuum and perform Time Travel, thus creating an Alternate Universe where there has been no Power Puff Girls to save the day for fifty years.
Gangreen Gang member Lil Arturo temporarily gains this ability in "Power Lunch".
Mojo Jojo's ultimate goal, which he obtains in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule". And then he goes and makes it a better place... only to get bored of it and shoot everything up all over again.
Ironically HIM, who never expressed the desire to do this, would be the one to take over the world if the girls ever left. And he wouldn't make it a better place but quite the opposite.
Take That: One could consider "City of Clipsville" to be one. Not only to shows that use this episode format, but also to fanfiction writers, especially the shippers.
One of the later criticisms of the series was that the show promoted animal cruelty because of their treatment of Mojo. Episode 57 ("Save Mojo") depicted a group of animal rights activists protecting Mojo from the girls despite their argument that Mojo is an evil animal and therefore others must be protected from him.
Two episodes featured the Smith family, one member of which was their angry teen son Bud. The first episode, Bud's entire appearance consisted of him yelling something typically teenagerish at his father, such as "I hate you!" and "No one understands me!" The second episode, which features the entire family as villains, provides every member of the family with a motivation for why they hate the Powerpuff Girls - and Bud's is "You know what? I hate everything!"
Also, the Gangreen Gang. Literally.
Teeth Flying: Bad guys' teeth go flying in the opening sequence; also, one episode is pretty much based on this trope - Buttercup learns the Tooth Fairy gives you money for teeth, and starts deliberately knocking villains' teeth out and collecting them to make a huge windfall.
The Townsville Fireball: Usually as the result of a giant monster, although in at least one episode, the girls ended up doing more damage than the monster — and getting harshly reprimanded for it.
Tom Kenny: He narrates the show AND voices the Mayor of Townsville.
Too Dumb to Live: The mayor. In one episode he jumped out a window because Bubbles told him to go save the day... while pretending to be him.
Took a Level in Badass: Bubbles in "Bubblevicious" to prove she's hardcore. She even subverted her apparent chickification when Mojo captured her and gave her the full blunt of his torture device before she broke out and beat him mercilessly all by herself. She only softens from her tough exterior when her sisters finally admit that she's hardcore, only to slide right back into it when Mojo tried to make a cheap shot at all three of them.
Ultimate Authority Mayor: The Mayor of Townsville (though to his credit, he is elected, and even lost once).
Ultimate Evil: HIM, as actually stated in one episode. Most of the episodes with HIM simply revolve around the girls surviving HIM's magic and psychological challenges.
Unfortunate Implications: Touched upon In-Universe. In the "Members Only" episode, Major Glory talks the girls through several gender roles, asking who does various things ("Who goes to work?", "Who pays the bills?", etc) and receiving "Our Dad" as an answer each time. Then he gets to cooking and cleaning, getting the same answer. 5:12 - 5:45
Major Glory: So what does your mother do?
Girls: (in unison) We don't have a mother.
*cut to Major Glory looking over at Mucho Muchacho and Birdman, all three looking uncomfortable*
To drive it in further, Batman was earlier shown sitting next to Birdman, meaning he would've been just off-screen for this.
The Unintelligible: Grubber of the Gangreen Gang usually speaks only in raspberries. The rest of the gang members understand him just fine though. Subverted in one episode, where Grubber is shown to be quite eloquent when he straightens his posture. He's also an expert voice mimicker.
Up to Eleven: In "Bubblevicious" Bubbles takes the battle simulator and Mojo's laser up to eleven. The dial even shows considerable resistance, like it was never meant to go that high.
Victory Is Boring: What Mojo experiences in "The Powerpuff Girls Rule".
Villainous Breakdown: Mojo has these occasionally, most notably at the beginning of "The Rowdyruff Boys", when he starts howling and snarling like a real ape over his many defeats.
Mojo Jojo has a particularly huge one at the end of "Forced Kin" when he finally snaps after being repeatedly defeated by the alien force's Villain Sue trait of unrealistically predicting every attack. But the one thing the alien force didn't predict was Mojo going berserk and beating the crap out of it.
Those are nothing compared to the one he has in The Movie. Up until his monkey army rebels against him, Mojo speaks in a very straightforward manner. Once it becomes apparent that the Chemical X-enhanced simians have their own plots for world domination, he flips out, and starts ranting in his trademark redundant speech-style;
"Nooooo! Stop! Cease! Desist! Do not continue with the ramblings, for my ramblings are the ramblings to be obeyed. For I am king, supreme leader, and all-around dictator. Don't you see? all you monkeys are my plan, so your plans are my plans because you are my plan and my plan was to make you! And I plan to rule the planet! Not to have my plans plan to stop me! I am your creator! I am your king! I am Mojo Jojo! Obey ME!"
HIM also has these, normally after the girls defeat his plans with their sisterly love. He goes from his normal, creepy voice to screaming about how they didn't act like they were supposed to. He has an especially noteable one at the end of "Power Noia", when the girls have turned the tables on him and got him completely at their mercy, for the first time actually begging them to let him go.
The entire concept of "Beat Your Greens". What better way to get children of the '90's to eat their veggies by making a race of hyperintelligent, nigh invulnerable broccoli invade earth only to be defeated by Townsville's children banding together and devouring them all into oblivion?
Wanting Is Better Than Having: One episode had a collector of Powerpuff Girls' merchandise who freaks out and becomes a villain when his collection is complete: there's nothing left for him to collect except the girls themselves.
When Elders Attack: An old lady does this from the roof of an episode to a Godzilla-like monster, who promptly eats her.
Who Would Want to Watch Us?: One episode featured a con-artist "director" allegedly making a movie about the girls. The initial broadcast of this episode was suspiciously close to the release of the actual movie.
Window Pain: Not only do things get thrown through windows, but driven. And the girls occasionally fly through them!
Would Hit a Girl: None of the villains have any problem attacking three kindergarten-aged girls.
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