"Abracadaver" is the tenth episode of The Powerpuff Girls Season 1.
It first aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on December 16, 1998.
Plot[]
A local magician named Al Lusion pulls a deathly trick where he comes back from the dead as a zombie to haunt Townsville. The Powerpuff Girls are left to deal with him while he runs around scaring people with his dark magic and exacting his revenge for being mocked and humiliated in his last days.
Synopsis[]
The episode begins with the Mayor, Ms. Sara Bellum, and the Powerpuff Girls at an old magic theater; though celebrated, it is condemned and slated for destruction. Taking notice of an old magic poster, the Mayor tells the girls of an old magician named Al Lusion. When the mayor was the girls' age, he went to Al Lusion's final performance, which was spectacular in its own right.
The performance is shown in a flashback. When the magician asked for an assistant from the audience, Al chose a little girl named Anne, whom the Mayor describes to be as sweet and charming as the girls (and has eyes and feet similar to theirs). The magician asks to borrow her teddy bear and does an incredible trick by vanishing it into thin dust. Heartbroken by the loss of her beloved stuffed bear, Anne angrily slides down the floor and pulls down Al's pants, revealing his underwear and opening him to laughs and heckling. As his magic stuff falls from his clothes, he panics trying to get his stuff back. He then stumbles into an iron maiden loaded with spikes. The girl and the audience watch as Al tragically loses his life in what was otherwise a comedic show.
After a moment of respect, the Mayor begins the demolition of the theater, only for one of the wrecking balls to hit the old iron maiden that held Al Lusion and set him free once more.
That night at the Powerpuff Girls' house, the girls are watching a horror movie filled with zombies when they hear noises. Meanwhile, Al Lusion has returned from the dead as the magical zombie: Abracadaver. Armed with "real" magical powers, he exacts his revenge by using his evil magic to destroy the town. From transforming innocent civilians into cards to conjuring giant saws to cut through the buildings of Townsville, the resurrected magician's acts of terror prompt the Mayor to call the haberdasher (due to one of the saws cutting his hat) and (at Bellum's insistence) the girls to come to their rescue.
Even though they are terrified, the girls fly to where Abracadaver is. As fast as they spot him and confront him, he immediately mistakes Blossom for Anne who humiliated him and incited his fatal accident. In an act of revenge-driven by mistaken identity, he pulls out a large pocketwatch and swings it back and forth right in front of her enormous unblinking eyes. With Blossom's attention glued to it, she is pretty soon totally hypnotized. Buttercup demands Al to release her and races to the rescue. She hits him with a knuckle sandwich and Abracadaver is shattered to pieces when he hit a stone wall. However, his arm holding the pocket watch is somehow still keeping Blossom entranced. Worse yet, Abracadaver easily reassembles himself and traps Buttercup and Bubbles in separate magic traps (Buttercup in a hacksaw box and Bubbles in a drawstring bag at the bottom of a fishtank).
Abracadaver then returns to the hypnotized Blossom, ties her up with a rainbow handkerchief chain, and throws her into an iron maiden where it slams shut on her. It seems that Abracadaver had killed Blossom in the way of his own fatal accident as the townspeople and narrator sadly think their heroines are gone forever, but Abracadaver suddenly rips himself in half to reveal a hyper-realistic disguise worn by Blossom, unhypnotized and completely fine. Wasting no time, Blossom then proceeds to rescue Buttercup and Bubbles. After having been surprised by how Blossom and Abracadaver switched places, they soon show that Abracadaver is the one in the coffin - having been put to rest once more - revealing this whole magic trick to be their plan to take down their supervillain. The narrator ends the episode with a laugh, saying he loves the "voodoo that the Girls do", and the episode ends.
Trivia[]
- Only the Narrator refers to Abracadaver by name.
- George Jetson from The Jetsons made a cameo appearance.
George Jetson's cameo
- This is one of the two episodes where the hotline's facial expression changes. The other episode is Tough Love. In this case, it makes a frightened face while the girls were watching the zombie movie when the Mayor calls.
- This is the second time that all three of the girls fight a villain at night (Buttercup fought Ace by herself in Buttercrush), following Boogie Frights and preceding Burglar Alarmed, Something's a Ms., and Aspirations.
- The woman screaming "A ZOMBIE!" sounds like Ms. Bellum.
- The coffin in which Al died is an iron maiden, a type of medieval execution device, though it closes backwards, likely due to censorship reasons.
- This episode and Boogie Frights are the only two horror-themed episodes to not feature HIM.
- Abracadaver makes a cameo appearance in the title sequence, nine episodes prior to this one.
- The girl that ended Al Lusion's career is unnamed in the episode, only being referred to as "girl with bear" by Abracadaver.
- For its reruns, this episode, along with Boogie Frights, are aired during the Halloween season.
- The Powerpuff Girls know magic tricks in this episode. This would only be shown again in Nuthin' Special, where they make cards disappear on their hands.
- A newspaper featuring Blossom and Abracadaver is seen in the 2016 TV series episode "Memory Lane of Pain". Blossom even brings up the subject of how different she used to look.
- It is odd for Buttercup to be scared when the hotline was ringing during a zombie movie. This could be because she was not expecting a real-life zombie, much less an evil undead magician to be wreaking havoc in Townsville.
- Ms. Mojo ranked this as the #9th darkest episode of The Powerpuff Girls.
- Abracadaver mistook Blossom for Anne, despite the incident involving Anne being several decades ago. He may not have been aware how much time has passed after his death.
Errors[]
- During the Mayor's flashback, when he is shown, he is sitting in a seat somewhere in the middle of the row. But when he raises his hand, he is in a different seat and at the end of the row.
- When Abracadaver pulls out his watch and begins to hypnotize Blossom, he is shown to be holding the watch chain in his right hand. However, when he yells at Buttercup for hitting him (before he attaches the arm that was holding the watch chain, as the arm holding the chain was left behind to keep Blossom under his control), he is shown to be missing his left arm instead. However, when he casts the spell on Buttercup that causes her to be sawed in half, he casts the spell with his left hand. Additionally, when he attaches the arm that was holding the watch chain, it is shown to be his right arm.
- Another inconsistency occurs dealing with Abracadaver's right arm: When Buttercup punches Abracadaver into the building and causes him to fall apart, his right arm stays behind to keep Blossom under his control. When he collides with the wall, as well as when he reassembles himself, he is shown to be missing his entire right arm, from the shoulder down. However, when he reattaches the arm that was holding the chain, he is shown to only be missing his right arm from roughly the elbow down.