Moral Decay

Moral Decay
Season 3, Episode 12A
Episode name pun on: Oral decay and another term for disrespect, "Moral decay”.
Airdate:	February 9, 2001
Credits
Director:	Robert Alvarez Craig McCracken
Story:	Craig McCracken Lauren Faust
See also
episode transcript	image gallery
Episodes
Previous "Equal Fights"	Next "Meet the Beat-Alls"
Rating

"Moral Decay" is the first half of the 12th episode in the third season of The Powerpuff Girls, preceding "Meet the Beat Alls".

Synopsis

After cleaning the house and getting a $1.00 reward, Buttercup discovers a way to get more by knocking out teeth from bad guys and putting them under her pillow.

Plot

When the girls clean the house for the Professor, he gives them a dollar coin each for their hard work. Buttercup gets excited and accidentally knocks out one of Bubbles' teeth by unintentionally hitting her. She apologizes repeatedly and Bubbles forgives her. The next day when she discovers a dollar from the Tooth Fairy under Bubbles' pillow. Buttercup sees an opportunity to make money by putting teeth under her pillow.

Buttercup with a golden coin

The more, the merrier, am I right?

Buttercup becomes so obsessed with money that she tries to knock out Bubbles' teeth again until the Professor prevents her from doing so. After facing disappointment, Buttercup fights a bad guy and some of his teeth fall out. With a greedy grin, Buttercup starts to beat up every bad guy and steals the teeth that fall out for money, including a monster's. Then one day, when no crimes are being committed, Buttercup gets impatient and hunts down the girls' worst enemies (including Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, HIM, and the Gangreen Gang), breaks into their homes, knocks out as many of their teeth that she can and takes off with them.

All the villains go to the dentist's office and they all agree that this isn't supposed to happen and they have to get revenge. After finding out from Mojo what Buttercup has been doing behind their backs, Blossom and Bubbles trick her into being beaten up by the villains that she had harmed for her comeuppance, resulting in most of her teeth being knocked out.

At the dentist's office, all three Girls and the Professor are in the waiting room. The Professor briefly scolds Buttercup and reveals to her that he recently found her secret stash of money so he can pay for her dental bills. Blossom and Bubbles are happy about Buttercup's punishment.

Bubbles blowing a raspberry at Buttercup, who got beaten up and had her teeth knocked out by the villains as punishment.

At the ending background, Buttercup in the middle, her hand to her jaw embarrassed, Blossom on the left, grinning at her evilly and Bubbles on the right, sticking her tongue out.

Bubbles then blows a raspberry at the crestfallen Buttercup, who goes into the operating room. The episode ends with the sound of drilling.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, as they appear in this episode.

Characters

Major characters

• Powerpuff Girls (Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup)
• Mojo Jojo
• Fuzzy Lumpkins
• HIM
• Gangreen Gang
• Professor Utonium

Minor characters

• Dr. Payne

Trivia

• The dollar coins in this episode are neither Susan B. Anthony silver dollar coins from "Equal Fights" nor the current Presidential dollar coins. They are the gold Sacagawea dollar coins from 2000-2006. In the early 19th century, Sacagawea played a very helpful part in the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
  • It is hinted that this show might be set after 2000, seeing as the dollar coins were labeled with the year 2000.
• Bubbles' voice when her tooth came out sounds like she has a lisp for the rest of the episode.
• This is the second episode in the series to feature corruption among the girls. In this case, Buttercup, who was under the influence of her own greed, immorally attacked many criminals who were not even committing crimes at the moment (much less even provoked her), without even the slightest bit of justification.
• This is one of the few episodes where Buttercup actually feels sorry for Bubbles. However, when playing rough in the house, she actually apologizes insincerely.
• Princess Morbucks, Sedusa, the Amoeba Boys, and the Rowdyruff Boys were the only recurring villains who didn't appear in this episode.
  • Princess is also the only Beat-All to not appear in this episode.
  • The villains shown in the waiting room are Mojo Jojo, Him, Fuzzy Lumpkins, and the Gangreen Gang.
• In this episode two 3D stars were removed from the 3D star explosion, resulting in the introduction of the February 2001 version of the 1998-2001 3D star explosion.
• Blossom is the only Powerpuff Girl that did not sustain any damage to her teeth in this episode, although Buttercup did briefly plot to knock her teeth out before the Professor forbade her to knock out either Bubbles' or Blossom's teeth.
• This is the only episode that features Buttercup having a criminal role, the same way a negative ending happened to Blossom in A Very Special Blossom.
• There are two Morals in this episode, firstly that greed can lead to your downfall and second that despite someone being evil, causing unnecessary harm can be a crime itself.
• Bubbles said that Buttercup has been kicking it into high gear for a few days, but if you count the number of days she's been knocking teeth out from criminals (not counting Mojo, HIM, the Gangreen Gang, and Fuzzy Lumpkins), she's been doing it for a rough twelve days.
• This episode (along with Meet the Beat-Alls) was the first broadcast on Cartoon Network after their rebrand to the "City" era on June 14, 2004.

Production Notes

• Although this episode premiered in 2001, it was produced in 2000 according to the credits.