The Powerpuff Girls/Headscratchers


 * Why don't they have any fingers/toes?
 * They were made in a freak lab accident, so they're technically mutants.
 * Why does everyone say the PPGs and RRBs are twins? They don't share any DNA, right? Or ingredients, or even the Chemical X if you think about it...
 * It's Hollywood shorthand for similarly created superchildren with near-identical Opposite Sex Clone counterparts.
 * If they were made with "sugar, spice, and everything nice" why is the green one such a bitch?
 * She's the one made from spice.
 * For the record, I think Bubbles is sugar and Blossom is everything nice.
 * You know, that kinda makes sense. Sugar is sweet and it makes things tasty, but too much of it will be bad for your health, and if you look at Blossom throughout the series...
 * Considering Bubbles' love of animals, coloring, among other things, I think she's "everything nice".
 * In the intro sequence, sugar is accompanied by a blue background, spice by a green one, and everything nice by pink. Bubbles, Buttercup, Blossom, in that order. Simple.
 * I always thought of it that way, too. Bubbles--sugar because she's sweet, Buttercup--spice because she isn't, Blossom--everything nice because she's the leader.
 * Is anyone kind of bothered by the episode 'Speed Demon', where the girls fly too fast and get catapulted into the distant future, where Him has taken over the world? I understand the gist of it. This episode posits an alternate future where the girls are no longer around to defend Townsville against evil attacks. At the end, when they finally get back to their present time, they tell the professor that they can't go on a weekend vacation to the Bahamas and leave Townsville defenseless. But wait a minute. Everything they saw in that future only happened because they flew so fast that they broke the space time continuum and disappeared, not because they left Tonsville for a weekend vacation. It just seemed like the girls were being too harsh on themselves for something which happened because of a superpowered accident. Were they reckless for flying that fast in the first place? Maybe. Then again, they could hardly have known that that would happen. So what, superheroes can't go on a vacation because then they have to worry that a world ending cataclysm might happen in the TWO DAYS they're gone? Besides, in a later episode they moved to Citiesville for a few days at least, and when they returned to Townsville it was fine.
 * They're five years old and overreacted. Remember how when you were little you thought your parents would throw you out of the house if they found out you broke that vase? Immediately after seeing the horrors of a Townsville without them, they panicked and swore never to leave it.
 * Furthermore, It's freaking Townsville. It gets attacked by giant monsters/ super-villains every few days. Imagine what would happen when the girls leave.
 * What particularly bothers me about this episode was that the villain that took over was Him. Him has been stated that he only wants to screw with the girl's heads; Mojo even calls him out on it in one of the comic books. Also, in the birthday episode, Him considered his rigged birthday gift (a magicial bull pinata) a success not because it destroyed the girls, but because they broke it and the candy will (as it is candy) cause tooth decay. Although there are times when he's gone the physical route (such as in "Meet the Beat Alls"), bottom line is he generally goes for a mental strike. Whatever changed in those fifty years the girls were gone to make him take over Townsville remains unknown.
 * He's Satan -- he enjoys causing misery and pain. If the girls aren't around, other victims are just as satisfying.
 * He did use having taken over the world to screw with their heads, and he immediately knew exactly what had happened to them, so he might have been watching when they zipped forward into the future and took over the world just to have an epic-level Mind Screw ready when they popped back into the normal timestream.
 * That idea is so awesome that This Troper hereby declares it to be canon.
 * And the ultimate result of said Mind Screw? Girls are now terrified of leaving the Townsville and will never experience the joys and wonders of the world! Him, you Magnificent Bastard!
 * What Bothers this Troper is that they flew superfast and went to the past? That doesn't actually make sense, going faster should slow time down and if you're going for the whole time travel thing, then they should go BACK in time.
 * They went so fast they flew into the time vortex. Simple.
 * In responce to this and the above Magnificent Bastard Him posts, a viable explanation that makes Him even more badass: That entire episode was All Just An Illusory Psychological Torment Zone. Going that fast the second time in reality would have sent them even further into the future, but He needed a quasi-believable way to "send them back" so they wouldn't realise it wasn't real. All the awesomness of the above Mind Rape, none of the 50-year plan hassle.


 * It bugs me that the Rowdyruff Boys didn't show up at all in "Powerpuff Girls Rule!!!". You can't tell me thy wouldn't like to rule the world, so why didn't they at least appear in the background of a fight scene or something?
 * They don't particularly care about the world. They can already take anything they want with their superpowers. Moreover, they probably don't read newspapers, so it's quite likely that they spent the day tormenting a cat somewhere or something like that.
 * I concur. They are Chaotic Evil to Chaotic Neutral juvenile delinquents. If the Powerpuff Girls were getting beaten, they'd just as likely help the girls as attack them, because anyone strong enough to beat the Powerpuff Girls would be fun to fight.
 * Aren't the Rowdyruff Boys, y'know, DEAD?
 * They got better.


 * It bugs me that the Rowdyruffs were nowhere to be seen in "See me, Feel me, Gnomey." They're all about senseless wanton destruction, so you'd think they'd be all over it.


 * It bugs me that the villains only attack townsville. I mean, if they know the powerpuff girls are going to stop their plans if they know about it, and most of their plans involve world domination, why not start dominating the world anywhere else, preferably in a different country or something?
 * Well, the monsters at least come there because it has superheroes-fighting the Powerpuff Girls seems to be the monster equivalent of an extreme sport. The rest of the villains either have a personal rivalry with the girls or else simply happen to be living in Townsville and don't want to move.
 * The girls are safer. As shown in "Member's Only," there are other, grown up heroes. We could probably assume that many of the other heroes are a lot less forgiving than the girls can be.
 * Let's take a look at the recurring villains.
 * As has been mentioned already, the monster attack Townsville because the girls are there.
 * Likewise, the Amoeba Boys want the girls to catch them, because it will mean they're real criminals.
 * Mojo Jojo, Princess Morbucks, and the Smiths have specific grudged against the girls.
 * In the majority of Fuzzy Lumkins's appearances, he's either reacting to something else, or isn't actually doing anything wrong. "Meet the Beat Alls" is the only episode where he's a major part of the plot and he's actively trying to destroy the girls.
 * The Rowdyruff Boys were specifically created to be the girls' evil counterparts, so seeking out the girls is part of their innate psychology.
 * Him wants to corrupt them because they're so good and pure.
 * With one exception, the Gangreen Gang never get up to anything worse than petty theft and vandalism. They'd act the same way regardless of where they happened to be.
 * That just leaves Sedusa... yeah, I've got nothing for her.
 * Similar to Mojo, Morbucks, and the Smiths, Sedusa has grudge against the Powerpuffs (and Ms. Bellum). Remember, they cut off all of Sedusa's hair. Not to mention they ruined her other nefarious schemes, so there's no way she would leave Townsville without getting revenge on them first.


 * Are the Powerpuff Girls not able to grow older or are they just subject to normal cartoon aging?
 * Yes.
 * I think it's just cartoon aging, or even that the show takes place in a short enough period of time that they don't really age significantly. They had a birthday party once, I think (was it one of TheMovies?), but if they were still at Pokey Oaks, it's probable that they would have been moved up to Grade 1 if it was as much as one school year from when they were first enrolled. I doubt that they would be held back in kindergarten for poor attendance, it's not like missing three class periods of Adhering Glitter To Construction Paper will mean they have to catch up in the first-grade classes. But to tell if they actually are being held back because they never age physically or mature mentally (they're pretty intelligent anyway, and don't seem to have any notable learning impediment), you'd have to look closely to see if Generic Classmates 1-15 are replaced by Generic Classmates 17-32 halfway through the series.
 * What happened to Generic Classmate 16?
 * Also held back..


 * In The Movie, Mojo creates an army of monkeys and apes that are just as advanced as he is. Yet we never see any of them except Mojo again. And while we're on the subject, Antidote X shrinks Mojo back down, but shouldn't it have also turned him back into a normal chimp?
 * One of them actually does appear in an episode of the series -- a stupid episode, but it does happen. I was surprised, though... I assumed the girls killed them all. As for Mojo, I'm guessing the effects of the first blast (his super brain power) happened too long ago to be affected; there's often a short window for administering a Magic Antidote before the effects become permanent, so the same could happen with the effects of Chemical X. Mojo was just altered by it; the girls were created from it, which is why Antidote X is permanently a danger to them long after the events of the movie.
 * If the girls were willing to kill all those monkeys, one wonders why they haven't killed Mojo after all their fights with him. This Troper has a theory: they used Antidote X to strip all the other monkeys of their brain-mutatey-ness. The reason it only reduced Mojo back to his puny self, rather than take away all of Chemical X's original effects, is most likely either because it had been too long (as mentioned above), or because (this troper's theory) when he injected himself with Chemical X that second time (and turned into that King Kong thing), he made it so his "default" form was the already brain-mutated one; therefore, Antidote X only reduces him back to that form. ...This troper has spent waaay too long thinking about this. Chemical X does whatever the plot demands, anyway.
 * Because the girls killed the monkies in their very first battle ever and were vastly outnumbered and the proffesor's life was on the line. Mojo is special to the girls, as evil as he is they've got a cnnection, he's like a cousin to them. Remember, in the movie the girls are running off basic knowledge that seems to have huge holes in it. They see absolutely no problem in destroying Townsville during a game of tag so actually using lethal force, which they do still use during the series for non-human enemies, isn't much of a stretch. It's extremly likely that Miss Bellum took them aside and explained what would be acceptable behaviour and what their duties would be
 * The monkeys might have moved out to other cities and try and take them over instead of fighting each other.


 * Why is Princess sometimes seen in prison when she can just buy her way out?
 * As far as This Troper can tell, that's always right after the girls have beaten her and she's been thrown in jail - i.e., just been arrested. She just hasn't paid bail yet.
 * Not always; she was shown in jail along with Mojo and the Ameoba Boys in "Birthday Bash."
 * Occasionally Daddy Morbucks does get fed up and decides to teach her a lesson.


 * On a similar note, why don't Townsville prison officials at least try to put Him, a supernatural entity, in something a little more resilient than an average prison cell? At least a summoning circle made of salt or something!


 * How is it that three kindergarteners knew more about Napoleon than a super intelligent ape? Not to mention two of those kindergarteners are Bubbles and Buttercup!
 * It's funny.
 * Why wouldn't Buttercup know much about Napoleon (at least as compared to any other kindergartener, not necessarily compared to the super-intelligent ape)? And intelligence does not mean learnedness.
 * Plus, unlike Mojo, the girls actually go to school.
 * I always figured Mojo knew the truth about Napoleon, he just preferred his version where Napoleon won. And the girls rubbed Napoleon's loss in his face to show that they'd always beat him.
 * I think there was this Running Gag about how the girls learned advanced stuff in kindergarden. In one episode specifically, the lesson started with naming things shown in pictures - an apple, a ball, a cat, some high-technology gadget with a barely pronounceable name.
 * Four-stroke internal combustion engine.
 * Also, Miss Keane goes off on a tangent about advanced theoretical physics while discussing basic arithmetic in Speed Demon.


 * The way that they are treated compared to other ArtificialHumans, and Mutants in general, even relatively benign ones like Stitch because they are six year old children. Makes me wonder what the government will do with a bunch of flying superhumans once they're old enough to be a "threat."
 * Other superheroes are seen in the series, they'd probably be fine in the heroic tradition.


 * Why did Mojo Jojo strip the Mayor of his clothes?
 * It was the simple set-up for the "girls tell the story" episode. That's all the reason you need.
 * I recall that he was giving the mayor an extremely dubious explanation when the girls burst in. Something along the lines of, "If I want to rule Townsville, I have to dress like the leader!"


 * When does the series take place in? In one episode the kids went back to the 50s when Ms.Keen and the Professor were kids. So is it set in the 70s? But the technology..So I'm guessing they're just really hot 50 - 60 year olds.
 * Generally, ceators of shows try to avoid putting anything into the show that would tie it to a certain time period, unless they're going for a specific time period. Random referances to the time period could make the show seem dated after a while.
 * So it's similar to Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy? But at least that show has a date of around 2001 - 2010.
 * Writers Cannot Do Math, so if the only thing contradicting the obvious time period is dates, especially when Time Travel is involved, adjust said dates in your mind accordingly.
 * The internet is mentioned once or twice so it's current time, late 90s at earliest.
 * It's more like a stylistic universe with alternative art design and technology, similar to the Venture Brothers.
 * In one episode they're playing what appears to be an N64 and watched CGI snime in another.


 * What became of the Powerpuff Girls Extreme after the episode "Knock It Off"? I know they were mostly destroyed in the explosion. But it would be a bit of a stretch to say every PPG Extreme in the world was in the factory when it blew. So what happened to the ones that weren't? Were they unstable and fell apart after a time, like Bunny? Could some of them still be out there, keeping a low profile and just trying to stay out of the way? For that matter, how would Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup react if they ever met any of the surviving PPG Extreme at some point?
 * "The new model's guaranteed to last up to five full hours!" Yes, sadly, any survivors around the world had a very short window to live before they eventually died. Ya know, for kids!

"Bubbles: Um, am I supposed to catch up with you or is one of us supposed to win?
 * I vaguely remember an episode in which the Powerpuff Girls attempted to gain membership into the Justice Friends, guest-starring the three main members as well as several others. The only part of the episode I actually remember is Bubbles racing Internet, who could run around the world in exactly seven seconds. That episode did actually happen, right? I didn't imagine it?
 * No that was real. It was the episode "Members Only," where the Super Friends refused the PPG membership because they were girls. Cue the girls not only out powering the Super Friends at every turn, but then saving their butts and deciding they don't need to join the Super Friends.
 * What bugs me is the seven seconds part? Is that in there for no reason at all, or is it a case of Writers Cannot Do Math, where Internet is supposed to be running at the speed of light, which should be circling the Earth in one seventh of a second?
 * Also: You cannot beat the speed of light to the *corner store*, let alone around the earth. The speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest possible speed anything capable of carrying information (Yes, that includes Bubbles) can travel.
 * It was Buttercup who raced him, and his name is E-Male, not Internet. The team wasn't called the Justice Friends, it was called the Association of World Super Men (A.W.S.M.). It had Val Hallen, Tiki Torch, and Major Glory on the team, and presumably the rest of the Justice Friends, but it was never called the Justice Friends. Some of the members to talk were Big Ben from England, Ya-Man from Jamaica, Down Under Mate from Australia, and E-Male from Japan. Some in the background were Mucho Muchacho, Mushu Gai-Man, Mandingo, Space Ghost, and Birdman. I can't exactly recall, but I might have seen Capital G and White Tiger from Justice Friends in the back as well.
 * Um, no, it was definitely Bubbles who raced against E-Male.

E-Male: Oh, one of us is definitely supposed to win.

Bubbles: Oh. Okay. (Turns on afterburners and streaks ahead)"


 * What was Mojo Jojo's motivation for teaching people to speak the same way he does?
 * He's full of himself, that is to say that he thinks quite highly of himself, as in superfluous and way too much, and he thinks that's a correct way of speaking, and the others ways that are not his ways are incorrect, wrong, and not right.
 * A judge ordered him to do it.
 * We were supposed to feel sorry for poor Jojo being forgotten, then reverse that sympathy when he turned out to be "a terrible lab assistant"... but he was a chimpanzee! Who uses a non-sentient (and apparently juvenile) chimpanzee as a lab assistant?
 * We're not necessarily supposed to feel sorry for a villain once we know their Backstory. Some of them (Mojo included) have really stupid excuses, which justifies the hero stopping them.
 * It's legal and ethical for five year olds to go to prison in this world?
 * When three people who shoot laser beams out of their eyes and can casually fly straight through buildings tells you to take someone away, are you gonna argue?
 * They are underaged though. Send them to a rehabilitation center or wherever they usually send underaged criminals.
 * Perhaps because they were artificial?
 * What about Princess?
 * Blossom had to do community service after stealing golf clubs (A Very Special Blossom).


 * During the Imaginary Enemy episode, one has to wonder why a kid imagined up an evil jester to keep him company? Maybe it's meant to be sorta like how Ralph Wiggum has a pyromaniacal leprechaun in his head (only not Played for Laughs). Sorta gives the episode some disturbing implications of how the kid is a potential Creepy Child.
 * Kids tend to have over-active imaginations. It's not unusual for a child to imagine a giant fire-breathing gecko rather than a cute little bunny rabbit.
 * The jester was initially merely mischievous. The kid just lost control among the way, probably because he isn't old enough to properly understand when pranks go too far.
 * Who protected the Townsville before the girls were created? I know, the monsters are in there for the challenge so they probably didn't attack the city back then (wait...), but what about the likes of Mojo? Come to think, it must be a common theme for super-hero stories, so maybe there's a trope for that?
 * No one did. In The Movie, it's shown that Townsville was a hellhole before the girls were created.
 * Weren't Mojo and the girls created simultaneously?
 * Nope. He was simply Jojo, the prof's lab monkey who had his brain exposed after the explosion that created the girls. When he saw he was one too many, Jojo left and only became Mojo Jojo after the plan to create a race of super monkeys was affected.
 * You know that episode called "Collect Her" where that Comic Book Guy Expy kidnaps the girls and puts them in cardboard boxes and the citizens of Townsville have to save 'em? How come they didn't just try using their laser vision to destroy them?
 * Or for that matter, can't their super strength break through plastic?
 * And I quote: "Looks like your power-packed punches can't punch their way out of my power-packages!" I don't know where he got "Power Packages" from, but that's what was stopping them.
 * Why did the Mayor flip out when the girls asked him for 2000 dollars? In an earlier episode, criminals badly disguised as the girls managed to rob the whole freaking bank.
 * Because the 2000 would come from his pocket.
 * In one episode (can't remember the name, sorry), after the girls fall asleep in class, Ms. Keane calls Professor Utonium in to talk about it. During the conference, the Professor points out that the girls are superheroes and saving the world is a big job, to which Ms. Keane replies that education is an even bigger job and the Professor agrees. How on Earth is teaching children a bigger job than saving the world, especially when the heroes are five years old?! Yes, the girls do need an education, but you must be kidding me! These girls put themselves at risk battling villains everyday for the lives of the citizens. They could easily just live normal lives and give up their superhero lifestyle. How can you compare teaching a class of 15 or so kids to saving the whole town?
 * I think she meant education is a bigger job for the girls than saving the world.
 * That makes some sense. Do you think she may have meant juggling education and saving the world is too big a job?
 * You can't. That's the joke.
 * Why do 12-inch-high girls need a queen-sized bed?
 * Apparently, so they can all fit. The girls may only be a foot tall, but they might not be able to all fit into a normal-sized bed meant for one person.
 * What grade were the girls put into when they went to Citysville? One day they're kindergarten students and they go to a new town and all of a sudden are lumped in with middle school kids.
 * How old is the Professor? His childhood was in the 50s, he looks like he's in his twenties, and the show appears to be set in the early 2000s.
 * I always thought he was somewhere around a youthful looking 40/40-and-a-bit, and Ms. Keane was somewhere between her mid/late twenties and early thirties. If the show was set at the end of the 90s/turn of the century, and the 50s episode took place at the end of the decade, it would just barely work, but Ms. Keane probably isn't that old, and they were kids at the same time. Then again, I'm also terrible at estimating ages even when it's in a real or more realistic style. My guess is that the writers didn't care, or thought it was funny.
 * Did Harold Smith turn to villainy because he was always evil or was it because he was envious of the Utoniums' more active and fulfilling lives?
 * I think he was just bored, and/or having a mid-life crisis.
 * Laser Cha-Cha. Link here. Is it Unwinnable by Design or something? No walkthroughs exist for it, and there doesn't seem to be any way to win it. What gives?
 * Played it and won it. The ending is an anticlimax to say the least.
 * So is that to say the idiotic prank call about the bowling alley IS the ending?
 * In the episode "Nuthin' Special", where Buttercup tries to find her own special power, she's using all these random powers with the hope that Blossom and Bubbles won't be able to do them. But a lot of these powers, like bursting into flames, shrinking, duplicating, turning into a puddle of water, I honestly cannot recall from previous episodes. Were they all just done for the episode? Cause I bet some of those powers would've been useful in past episodes.
 * Those were more likely a parody of other super powers--the water puddle in particular reeks of the Superfriends.
 * What was with the attempted redesign a few years ago, and the attempt to age the girls up?
 * What attempted redesign? Are you referring to Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z?
 * He/she might be talking about that one "what if" episode where the girls are teeneagers. It wasn't an actual attempt at re-branding the series.
 * Or s/he may be talking about that redesign that came about more than a few years ago. It was never used for the show, but for a "girlier" line of PPG merchandise like makeup and makeup bags. The design used lighter colors, and the girls were taller, slimmer, and had "girlier" faces. There were commercials and plenty of merchandise, but it must not have been very popular because this troper can't find much proof of it's existence on the internet.
 * It's mentioned on the Girliness Upgrade page. I meant the "girly" upgrade.
 * In "Equal Fights" Femme Fatale said Princess and Sedusa don't count just because they're in jail. How does that make sense?
 * She's a Nietzsche Wannabe. Of course she doesn't care for the losers who get themselves caught.
 * She's also an idiot.
 * Speaking of Princess, if the first episode with her how does Blossom break through her armor?
 * Ice Breath to make the suit shatter.
 * What happened to Elmer? At the end of his episode, he's still a radioactive paste monster, which would be a little inconvenient regarding his daily life, to say in the least.
 * You can see him normal in the episode "Beat Your Greens" as an extra. It's safe to say he recovered.
 * I can't believe this never occured to me when I watched the episode the first time, but isn't "making crime legal" technically impossible? Crime is, by definition, something that's illegal, so legalizing crime is contradictory. Once it becomes legal, it isn't "crime" anymore and therefore doesn't fall under the scope of what the law as written made legal. (Remember, the exact words of the law were "crime is now legal.")
 * I wouldn't say that crime is illegal by definition. More likely, the definition they used was "nefarious acts". Legality and morality don't always mesh, so it's maybe kind of okay and probably the reason why the PP Gs preventing crimes was illegal - it was a crime, but not a nefarious act.
 * As I recall, the "Crime is now legal" part was essentially a tl;dr tacked on the end of a longer document.
 * ^Exactly. If the new law had literally said "Crime is now legal" then the plot wouldn't have made any sense. If crime is legal, how could the Powerpuff Girls possibly be breaking the law by fighting crime? Most likely the new law just legalized all sorts of previously criminal acts.
 * So Buttercup can't have a blankie, but Bubbles can have Octi? Isn't a little out of character for Bubbles to side with Blossom rather than Buttercup on this? I mean, considering she has a security item herself, you'd think she'd be sympathetic. But really, I want to know what makes it okay for Bubbles to have a security object and not Buttercup.
 * Payback maybe? Buttercup always used to tease Bubbles about Octi and needing the hall light on.
 * Why does one of the Powerpuffs' classmates look like a middle aged woman? It's been lampshaded when Mojo Jojo disguised himself as her, but never explained.
 * Something seems odd about Major Glory in this series... first off he wears "red underwear" on the outisde of his costume, he never wore that in "Dexter's Laboratory", second in "Dexter's Laboratory" one of the members of the Justice Friends is a female hero named "Miss Spell" and she once made Dee-Dee his sidekick, but here she doesn't allow the Powerpuff Girls in his superhero group because they are girls... WHAT THE HECK! Unless it's another hero who just looks and sounds like Major Glory but it isn't him.
 * ...Maybe the Justice Friends and AWSM have different rules?
 * At the end of "Twisted Sister", Bubbles laments "[Bunny] was good after all; we're the ones who were bad." Just what does that mean exactly?
 * I believe Bubbles was saying they were just impatient with Bunny and didn't understand how helpful she was trying to be.
 * To quote Mr. Miyagi: "No such thing bad student, only bad teacher." All the destructive things Bunny did were the direct result of the Girls' crummy lessons on how to be a proper crime fighter. Bunny was innocent. The Girls were the ones who were ultimately responsible.
 * Why does the town of Citysville resemble a city more than the city of Townsville? You'd expect the official term to hold more weight than the given name.
 * They both resemble a city just fine. If you watch closely you'll see there are plenty of skyscrapers all over Townsville. Citysville is just a dirtier, grittier city than Townsville.
 * Then why is it a town?
 * Because if it was a city the joke wouldn't work.