For the 2016 reboot, see here.
- The girls house is inspired by the look of a house from the 1958 film Mon Oncle.
- Mojo Jojo's brain-obscuring helmet is based on
the one worn by the main character of the 70s Toku series The Kagestar.- His characterization as a genius-level evil ape fond of excessive gesticulation is based on Dr. Gori, the antagonist of another 70's toku, Spectreman.
- His characterization as a genius-level evil ape fond of excessive gesticulation is based on
- Allegedly, one of the main inspirations for Mojo Jojo's speech patterns was DC's Super Dictionary. The same one which included the memetic Luthor stole 40 cakes image.
- In "Super Zeroes", The Mayor has a Jigglypuff Watch.
- Also in "Super Zeroes", Buttercup's comic book "Spore" is a direct parody of Spawn, complete with a Malebolgia expy granting her powers.
- In "Cootie Gras", the montage showing Mojo's rise in the world of organized crime directly parodies scenes from The Godfather and Scarface. He even channels Don Vito Corleone during his An Offer You Can't Refuse speech to the mayor. Also, a painting of Mojo and Harry Pitt is similar to that of Tony Montana and Elvira.
- "Three Girls and a Monster" features the girls trying, and failing, to stop a giant dinosaur-like monster who is impervious to all of their physical and strategic attacks. In the end, Bubbles simply asks nicely for him not to destroy the city, and he promptly leaves. The monster itself is a nod to Geof Darrow's "Yellow Taoking" from The Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot.
- "Meet the Beat-Alls" is one long string of Beatles references.
- Speaking of The Beatles, the episode entitled "Get Back Jojo".
- Additionally, Him has a very similar voice to the Chief Blue Meanie from Yellow Submarine, and according to McCracken, he was a major inspiration on the character.
- In "Twisted Sister", the Professor's book detailing the creation of the girls is entitled "How I Did It".
- "The Powerpuff Girls Rule" makes as many pop culture references as it possibly can in its 30-minute timeslot. Everything from George Orwellnote to Mario Kartnote gets its fair share of homage.
- "Child Fearing" had the Mayor playing a video game with a character and a HUD that looked suspiciously like those from 3D Zelda titles. The Mayor was so bad at the game, he killed Navi, accomplishing something OoT fans could only dream of.
- In "Members Only", you can see Harvey Birdman, Space Ghost, and expys of Captain America and many other comic book superheroes.
- The girls' big eyes were inspired by the art of Margaret Keane; Ms. Keane is named after her.
- There's one to 2001: A Space Odyssey in "Coupe D'etat".Blossom: This isn't very funny. Open the door, KARR!KARR: (close-up on just one of KARR's headlights) I'm sorry, Blossom. I'm afraid I can't do that.
- This is also a reference to Knight Rider, which featured a villainous prototype of supercar KITT named KARR.
- Said KARR also transforms into a sentient robot.
- The idea of an evil car with an unhealthy obsession with its owner also seems to be a reference to the Stephen King story "Christine".
- "Nuthin' Special"
- When Buttercup shows off all of her powers in an attempt to find one her sisters don't have, she finally yells out "The Matrix!" and begins to "dodge" backwards in slow-motion.
- One of the people who can't curl his or her tongue is Gene Simmons.
- From "Mojo Jonesin'": "Together, you will be a wonderfully diverse and multi-ethnic super hero team, perhaps saving the environment or, whatever."
- Multiple to Dexter's Laboratory:
- In "Powerpuff Bluff", Dexter is among the students napping.
- In "Ploy's R Us", Dexter and Dee Dee dolls can be seen.
- In "Imaginary Fiend" when the Girls are coming up with an imaginary friend to defeat Patches, Bubbles thinks of Dee Dee's imaginary friend Koosalagoopagoop; Buttercup snaps at her and says, "No one likes that Koos jerk!".
- In "Bought and Scold", Quackor the Foul is seen in the villain roll call.
- "Dream Scheme" has this reference to The Princess Bride.Professor: No buts! I mean it!
Bubbles: Anybody want a peanut? - "See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey"
- The title is a reference to the recurring "See me, feel me" lyrics (and the eponymous song) from The Who's Tommy. Of course, there must have been more inspiration taken from it as well, with one specific example being a Suspiciously Similar Song to the opening of "Pinball Wizard" playing when the gnome is granting the girls' wish.
- During the final song, the faces of several villains appear in nine boxes around the screen. "The baddie bunch! The baddie bunch!"
- "Imaginary Fiend" has Blossom thrown into a pile of coats, emerging dressed as◊ Cartman.
- In the movie, the spices used to create the Powerpuff Girls are revealed to be parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
- The title of the episode "A Very Special Blossom" alludes to the NBC sitcom Blossom (starring Mayim Bialik) in which every other episode was a Very Special Episode.
- In "Knock It Off", there were giant robots in a shot◊. One had the head of the Mazinger Z. Another had the head of the getter-1, the arms of Grendizer, and the Mazinger's breast fire thing. The last one was blatantly Ultraman. Pretty impressive considering their obscurity outside their home country.
- In the climactic scene, when Dick tells the clones that he is their master, they retort "Only a master of evil, Dick."
- There's a certain scene in the movie with Mojo Jojo holding a newspaper headlining the girl's destruction of Townsville. The back page of the paper has a small poster for a certain ape-based virtual band complete with a heading stating that they're headlining Townsville's Music Fest. Cue Troper's head exploding after a second viewing of the film 9 years after watching it in theaters.
- In the comic book "Trick or Beatings", the following exchange occurs as the Powerpuff Girls (and Mojo Jojo) are out trick or treating:Buttercup: I got a gooey bear!Blossom: I got a lollipop!Bubbles: I got a candy bar!Mojo Jojo: Mojo got a rock.
- In "'Twas the Fight Before Christmas", there's a scene near the beginning where Buttercup worries that waiting until the last minute to send her wish list to Santa might mean she won't get her "official Red Ryder carbine-action 200 shot range model air rifle".
- In "Jewel of the Aisle", the girls watch a cartoon called Mech-Animals.
- Then there's Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets, a combination of Lucky Charms, Cap'n Crunch, Trix and the rather obscure King Vitaman.
- In "Los Dos Mojos", after knocking out Bubbles, who was convinced she was Mojo Jojo, the real Mojo says "One shall be the number of Mojo Jojos in the world, and the number of Mojo Jojos in the world shall be one. Two Mojo Jojos is too many, and three is right out."
- In the first Rowdy Ruff Boys episode in Season 1, Bubbles crashes through a window and apologizes to the clerk, "sorry about your window, Mr. Looper." with which the clerk states "It's Hooper!! Hooper!!!".
- In "Collect Her", when the Mayor is trying to determine who the culprit is, one of the names he comes up with is Genndy McCracken. This is an amalgam of two of the show's main writers, Genndy Tartakovsky and Craig McCracken. Another is Chaim Ishkabibble — a nod to Ish Kabibble (born Merwyn Bogue), a comedian and cornetist.
- McCracken received another shout-out in a subsequent episode in the form of a pirate named Crack McCraigan.
- "Silent Treatment"
- A scene has the girls sitting in a movie theater, positioned at the bottom right of the screen making fun of a movie as it plays.
- The movie has caricatures of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and the Keystone Cops.
- In "Boogie Frights", when the Boogie Man eclipses the sun with a giant disco ball, the Powerpuff Girls' final assault on the ball is an almost shot-by-shot remake of the Death Star trench run in Star Wars Episode IV.
- An episode called "Mr. Mojo's Rising".
- An episode makes a reference to Mega Man, as two police officers ask each other who would win in a fight, Mega Man or Mondo Dude?
- In "Pee Pee G's", the TV news flash graphic is similar to Kermit the Frog's live on the scene skits on "Sesame Street".
- In "Octi-Gone", the professor receives a call from Mojo Jojo, who claims that he's holding Octi ransom for 1000 barrels of Chemical X. The professor asks the operator to trace the call... who reveals that the call is coming from inside the house.
- In "Bubblevicious," Bubbles faces a torture device that goes up to eleven, a subtle shoutout towards the movie This is Spın̈al Tap and the infamous going up to 11 scene.
- In the same episode, one of the monsters she faces in the danger room bears a striking resemblance to Malebolgia.
- As Bubbles beats up Talking Dog as he begs for mercy, she shouts "Mercy is for the weak!".
- "Too Pooped to Puff" features an extended sequence of the girls talking the dimwitted townspeople through defeating a monster on their own, which sounds a lot like a scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bedevere talks a group of equally-dimwitted peasants through testing to see if a woman is a witch.
- In "Seed No Evil" a museum tour guide tells the Pokey Oaks class about a caveman frozen in ice. He then says he is going to show them how primitive man used wooly mammoths for dishwashers and pterodactyls for record players.
- In "Something's a Ms.", the Mayor reenacts The Big Lebowski's epically hammy "Strong men also cry" scene when Ms. Bellum is kidnapped. Later in the episode, the girls use a bag full of the Mayor's underwear as a ringer for the demanded ransom money, as Walter did in the movie. This was most likely one of Lauren Faust's contributions, as she's a huge fan of the film.
- In "The Mane Event", the villain-of-the-week is a giant sphere with one eye, resembling the Eye of Volger from Giant Robo.
- The episode "I See a Funny Cartoon in Your Future" pays homage to Rocky and Bullwinkle.
- In "Shut the Pup Up", a TV screen displays a black and white pixilated image of a woman, comparable to an in-game TV commercial in Animal Crossing (2001).
- "Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pants" features a Rhythm Game within the show called "Dance Pants Revolution"
- In "All Chalked Up" HIM convinces Bubbles to draw chalk monsters to "express her anger" and brings them to life. One of them is a giant turtle a la Gamera. it doesn't have the tusks though..
- In "Roughing It Up", the Professor and the girls are at one point panting nature paintings together, and while they do, the Professor sounds and acts like famous TV painter Bob Ross and is even painting a similar mountains-and-trees landscape. To drive the point home further, his head is partly obscured behind a leaf-covered branch making it look like he has an afro.
- A roundabout one: the show's original title was "The Whoop-Ass Girls," inspired by a friend of Craig's who always used the phrase "open a can of whoop-ass," but he only officially decided to use it when he misheard the lyric "My roof has walls" in The Pixies song "Nimrod's Son" as "My whoop-ass balls."
- The Gangrene Gang were described by Craig as "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids as designed by Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth."
- In "Ice Sore" Bubbles asks Blossom to make the floor icy like in Tom and Jerry (specifically, the short "Mice Follies").
- Princess is an expy of Annie from Little Orphan Annie. Her surname "Morbucks" is a parody of the character "Mr. Warbucks".
- The potty-mouthed monster's profanity in "Curses" is an obvious nod to Yosemite Sam.
- In "Reeking Havoc", Bubbles claims she "has a rumbly in her tumbly."
- While Princess is pretending to have been captured by Mojo Jojo in "Mo Job"; she says "Help! I need somebody! Help! Not just anybody!"
- The Blossom's first fight with Princess Morbucks is a scene-for-scene shout out to Dragon Ball Z. The energy blast, the Nonchalant Dodge, the smoke, and the fight between the two were directly from one of the fights in the Namek Saga. To a lesser extent, Bubbles and Buttercup can be seen as the Vegeta and Gohan, respectively, to Blossom's Goku in this same episode.
- In "Beat Your Greens", a large boy is wearing an NWO shirt.
- In the Polish dub, Keen on Keane is named Ken i Keane (Ken and Keane). Barbie, anyone? It also fits the episode's plot quite nicely.
- In a meta example, the Hanna-Barbera logo used during the first 3 seasons is the one they used during the 80s-specifically the CGI Swirling Star- rather than the "character portrait" logos they were using at the time. Since Craig McCracken grew up during the 70s/80s it was likely intentional; although it probably became a Harsher in Hindsight moment for Craig when he learned that PPG would be the studio's final TV series (the Cartoon Network productions were split off into Cartoon Network Studios, while H-B's remnants were absorbed into Warner Bros. Animation).
- In one comic, "Black and Blue Period", when the girls have to talk about what they did on their weekend, one of them mentions that they started the weekend watching Cow and Chicken.
- In "Slave the Day", when Billy goes to save the girls from a speeding train, Ace tries to stop him, screaming, "No, Billy! DON'T BE A HERO!"
