"Paste Makes Waste" is the 15th episode of The Powerpuff Girls Season 1.
It was produced in 1998 and first aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on January 13, 1999.
Synopsis[]
Right after being bullied at school for eating paste, Elmer Skloo becomes a paste monster. It's up to Buttercup to admit her actions to Elmer in her least favorite way: apologizing.
Plot[]
At Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, the kindergarteners are making crafts with paste and popsicle sticks. As Ms. Keane takes roll call, she notices Elmer is not responding like he normally would, instead putting the paste in his mouth. Not one to take to the odd behavior, fellow student Mitch Mitchelson disgustedly calls him a "paste eater", and a round of bullying Elmer (mostly name-calling related to Elmer eating paste) erupts within the classroom.
Though Blossom and Bubbles observe this harassment with disapproval, Buttercup finds pleasure in contributing and goes as far as yelling, " EAT THIS, PASTE EATER!" and pelting Elmer with a glob of paste (shown in slow motion), bringing him to tears, and Ms. Keane demands that Buttercup apologize to Elmer for her actions. Buttercup tries to talk her way out of it, but Ms. Keane won't let her say anything else until she hears those two words out of her mouth. While scrambling to find the right words to say, she stalls long enough for the class to run out the room for recess. Buttercup only ends up saying Elmer "should have ducked" from the paste.
Ms. Keane helps Elmer clean himself up after the incident, explaining that while Buttercup's actions (and those of almost all of the other children) are condemnable, his paste-eating is an imitable act that she herself does not recommend. As Elmer later joins the rest of the group for recess, he sits alone voicing his ill feelings towards Mitch and Buttercup for the incident as he eats through a jar of paste.
The story cuts to a large industrial facility, where someone accidentally kicks down a vial containing a mutagenic toxic sample and it smashes to the floor. He uses a rag to clean it up, but sees a green glowing material on it. Another person wipes his face with it, and tentacles grow from his cheeks. The rag is discarded; a fly finds it in a trash truck and eats the contaminated product, causing it to mutate.
With its ability to fly being compromised by the mutation, the fly eventually makes its way to Elmer's paste jar. Elmer then eats a handful of its contents along with the fly. Further bullying ensues in the schoolyard when Mitch teases Elmer and pushes him down while he tries to stand up. Sickened, however, by the exposure to toxins, Elmer then assumes the form of paste itself, transforming him into a towering, slimy, white paste monster.
Elmer's rage in the schoolyard leads him to torture his colleagues and the school proper, by flicking his classmates every which way. Seeing too much carnage, Buttercup tries to intervene solo but fails after getting tacked to the wall. Blossom and Bubbles reluctantly refuse to help after her involvement in the earlier bullying incident until he smashes the school itself and takes Ms. Keane herself hostage. The Girls begin to try to fight the monstrous Elmer. Blossom and Bubbles get slammed into the wall when he throws a paste-covered Ms. Keane towards them, and he sets his sights on the unsuspecting Townsville. Blossom tells Buttercup that all this mess could have been avoided if Buttercup had just apologized to Elmer. Using a heat ray to dry the paste, the girls break free and pursue him.
Townsville, on the other hand, sees the other part of Elmer's rage, from bowling over the tallest buildings with paste to stepping on innocent civilians. The girls catch up with him and try to confront him physically, but they become attached to the monster in melee. Blossom once again tells Buttercup that she should apologize, or they will be stuck in the monster's body. Buttercup, however, decides that she could fight him. She attempts to use a heat ray on Elmer and dusts herself with flour to minimize the chance of her sticking to him. This proves difficult, for his body regenerates and changes form to compensate for damage. With her combat strategy failing, Buttercup realizes that (at the risk of losing her dignity and pride) apologizing is the only way to stop Elmer, and she succumbs to her guilt to do just that. As the monster hears her take back the insults towards him, he forgives her and frees Blossom and Bubbles.
Later, Townsville is seen rebuilt with copious amounts of Elmer's paste, and Buttercup thanks him for helping to rebuild the school and Townsville proper. Elmer tells her that she is cool, and Buttercup tells him that they must stick together.
Characters[]
Major Roles[]
Minor Roles[]
- Ms. Keane
- Mitch Mitchelson (debut)
- Julie Bean (debut)
- Harry Pitt (debut)
- Wes Goingon (debut)
- Lloyd Floydjoydson (debut)
- Floyd Floydjoydson (debut)
- Kids
- Narrator
Trivia[]
- Moral: It is important to apologize to someone that you have hurt. Apologizing does not make you weak, but rather means that you are able to admit your mistakes.
- Buttercup struggles to apologize to Elmer in this episode, yet she had no trouble apologizing for her actions in Octi Evil and Buttercrush, and she instinctively apologized profusely when she accidentally hurt Bubbles in Bubblevision and Moral Decay.
- The Howie scream can be heard in this episode when Elmer steps on someone after he is mutated from the paste. The Insane Tantrum scream follows as Elmer scrapes the man off.
- The title is a play on Benjamin Franklin's quote, "Haste makes waste".
- This episode is loosely based on the book, "Bartholomew and the Oobleck", by Dr. Seuss.
- This episode marks the first time that any of the girls have behaved aggressively towards one of their classmates (Buttercup picking on/harming Elmer, in this case).
- In later episodes, Elmer is never seen eating paste again, possibly due to avoid being the main target of his classmates' bullying, it could also be because Elmer broke out of the habit.
- Even though Buttercup and Elmer become good friends at the end of the episode, they are never seen interacting with each other for the rest of the series. The only other Buttercup/Elmer-related activity displayed is in the episode "Substitute Creature", where Buttercup imagines a horrid dialogue exchange between Mr. Green and Elmer and then starts to feel worried that Mr. Green might spin Elmer into the earth.
- In several shots, while in the classroom, there is a drawing on the wall by an unknown student showing an overraged, drunk man with the word "Daddy" written underneath (most notably visible when Buttercup is about to throw paste at Elmer). This is the only instance in the series where domestic violence is implied in an episode.
- A similar picture was seen at the end of the Dexter's Laboratory episode, "Sister Mom". This episode references domestic child abuse as well, more than once. Earlier in that episode, there is a one-off joke that suggests a little girl's father gave her a black eye.
Production Notes[]
- Although this episode premiered in the United States on January 13, 1999, it was actually produced in 1998 according to the credits.
- This episode was finished in October of 1998.[1]