Note: Text in boldface indicates title and intertitle cards that appear at various times, interrupting the action.
(Opening shot: the city skyline during the day.)
Narrator: The city of Townsville…has a multi-megaplex theater!
(Cut to the marquee of said theater on the end of this, then pull back to show a considerable crowd outside.)
Narrator: Where everyone goes on a Saturday afternoon to see the very latest in state-of-the-art widescreen motion picture entertainment.
(Pan away from this area a short distance to show, across the street, a small theater that runs silent movies. The Professor and the girls stand outside it.)
Narrator: That is, everyone except…
(Zoom in quickly. He is eyeing an advertisement for an Oilcan Larry feature, the girls look rather glum at what he has in mind, and an elderly cashier naps in the box office behind them.)
Narrator: …the Powerpuff Girls.
Buttercup: Aw, have a heart, Professor. Every kid in town is over at the multiplex, and you decide to take us to a silent movie theater.
Blossom: Yeah. Nobody cool ever comes here.
Bubbles: And the popcorn is as stale as their dumb old movies.
Professor: Silent films are where all movies come from.
Buttercup: But, Professor, we like our movies with color and sound.
Blossom: Yeah, and car crashes.
Bubbles: And explosions.
Girls: And in a really cool theater!
Professor: That’s all well and good, girls. But you can go to the multiplex any day of the week. (Cut to them; he continues o.c.) Today is the day you learn all about the history of motion pictures.
Girls: (wearily) Oh, all right.
(Cut to inside the theater’s auditorium, the camera pointing at the doors to the lobby. An eager Professor swings them open; near him float three considerably less eager girls.)
Professor: Oh, boy! (Pull back; the place is nearly empty.) It’s a full house! (Back to them, heading down the aisle.) Oh, this is gonna be so great. I’m totally excited! Aren’t you? (They stop.) Oh, here’s a good place to sit.
(Reluctantly, the girls float into the row he has indicated.)
Professor: Not too close and not too far. (Close-up of them, slumped over in seats; he continues o.c.) Now just make yourselves comfortable, and I’ll get some popcorn. (leaning into view) Don’t go away now. And remember—these grand old films are where all movies came from.
(He ducks away. We hear the projector start up, accompanied by an old-time piano. Cut to behind the girls; the camera is positioned so as to give a view of the entire screen—black, with plenty of dust and scratches flickering across it.)
Buttercup: (sarcastically) “Remember, girls, it’s where all movies came from.”
Blossom: No, they didn’t. They came from cans. (The girls giggle.)
(During this exchange, the title card fades into view.)
Joseph M. Skunk Presents Max Von Nitrate in “For Once He Is Speechless”—Directed By �Cecil B. Centipede
(The title fades out, and there is an “iris in” transition to one end of a room, near the door. Bare walls, cracked plaster, a window looking out on a city—the sort of thing you might see in the old black-and-white pictures.)
Blossom: What’s this?
Buttercup: Looks like Mitch Mitchellson’s house.
Bubbles: Only cleaner. (The door is kicked open.)
Blossom: Uh-oh!
Buttercup: Somebody forgot to knock.
(Said somebody comes into the room; pan to follow him. Black suit and top hat, long bulbous nose, thin curly mustache—the archetype of the silent-movie villain. A bound woman is slung over his shoulder; she bears a passing resemblance to the Professor.)
Buttercup: Whoa! Who’s that?
Blossom: The bad goy. (He dumps the woman in a chair.)
Bubbles: How can you tell? (Head-on view of the girls.)
Blossom: He’s the one with the flycatcher for a mustache. (They giggle again.)
(Behind them. He rubs his hands and leers at his captive.)
Blossom: And the girl is a damsel in distress.
Bubbles: Shh! He’s speaking!
Buttercup: “At last I have you in my power!”? Oh, man, what a cornball. (He continues to gloat, twirling his mustache.)
Blossom: This is too much.
Buttercup: Yeah, look at him. Where does he get his mustache wax from, his ears? (She and the girls start giggling again, he starts to talk.) Oh, no, now he’s gonna go into a big spiel.
“You can not escape my clutches! I am Max Von Nitrate! I see all and control all!”
Buttercup: “You can not escape my clutches! I am Max Von N…Von Ni…”
(The action resumes before she can sound out the whole word.)
Buttercup: Hey, wait a minute! (Head-on view.) I’m not done reading yet!
(Behind them. Max, the villain, slides a hand over his face in disgust and pulls the previous intertitle card back into view.)
Buttercup: “…Nitrate! I see all and control all!”� Okay, I’m done.
(Max pushes the card away and seems to glare at Buttercup as if to say, “Are you happy now?” Head-on view; she smiles and waves acknowledgment. Behind them; he stalks back to the door, the camera following.)
Bubbles: Now what’s he gonna do?
Blossom: Maybe he’s leaving.
Buttercup: No such luck.
(He slams the door and locks it. Cut to an iris view, centered on the keyhole as Max secures it. The camera is zoomed in on the screen, putting the girls out of view.)
Blossom: (from o.c.) Uh-oh!
Buttercup: (from o.c.) He’s locking the door! (He holds the key over his open mouth.) Oh, my gosh! (He drops it in.)
Bubbles: (from o.c.) Yikes!
Blossom: (from o.c.) I don’t believe it!
Buttercup: (from o.c.) He’s swallowing the key whole! (He does so.)
Bubbles: (from o.c.) Key…hole Get it? (She giggles.)
(He looks a bit ill at ease and belches.)
“Burp!”
(The previous view again.)
Buttercup: (from o.c.) Gross!
(Pull back to behind the girls again; the screen view has expanded to show all the action. Max slinks dramatically back to the woman, the camera following.)
Buttercup: Hey, now he’s being creepy.
Blossom: A snake in the grass. (Zoom in on her startled face.) Oh, look. She gets the arty shot.
(Pull back on this last to frame both characters. Max draws himself up to his full height and stands menacingly over her.)
Bubbles: I know I don’t like this movie!
Buttercup: Yeah, this picture stinks.
Blossom: I agree.
(Head-on view; they blow raspberries at the screen. We immediately see Max glower at them, and they all start laughing heartily in his direction. Behind them.)
Buttercup: Take that, furry lip! (He starts steaming.)
Blossom: Ha-ha!
Bubbles: Yeah!
(Max lets off a soundless yell of frustration, then leans very close to the camera and gives the girls a good view of just how ticked off he really is. Head-on view: the girls recoil in fear, realizing that this movie is starting to jump the sprockets in more ways than one. Behind them.)
“You kids are starting to get on my nerves!”
(Max grabs the captive by the hair and speaks.)
“Let’s see if you find this funny!!”
(He pulls her hair away—it is actually a wig—and, sure enough, underneath it is the Professor, still wearing the makeup that had further obscured his identity. Iris view of his face in close-up; he speaks.)
Blossom: “Girls! Save me!!”
(Mute desperation remains on his face. Head-on view; the words finally sink in, and all three girls jump out of their seats. Bubbles’ pigtails try to flee the theater of their own accord.)
Girls: It’s the Professor!
(Behind them; the full-screen view is re-established. Max throws the wig aside and laughs, with “HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA” appearing over his head. Head-on view.)
Blossom: What do you want with the Professor anyway, Mr. Mustache?
(Cut to the screen, zoomed in on an iris view of Max’s face in extreme close-up. Pull back to behind the girls.)
“I want his VOICE!”
Girls: His voice?!?
(Head-on view; they are speechless at this. Behind them, with the previous camera view; Max speaks some more.)
“A simple operation really…I put his voice into my throat!”
(He draws a finger across his neck, making his ultimate intentions crystal clear. Head-on view.)
Girls: Operation?!?
(Behind them. Now the Professor’s terrified mug occupies the limited field. Head-on view.)
Buttercup: This guy’s totally nuts! What do we do?
Bubbles: We have to get in there and stop him!
(They zip away. Cut to a long shot of the auditorium; the light from the projector flickers down from the elevated booth, and the girls fly all over the place. Close-up of the beam.)
Girls: (from o.c.) He’s in there!
(They fly into the beam, but are stopped cold upon doing so. Their images begin to disintegrate, and the camera pulls back as three fuzzy black blobs travel o.c. toward the screen. A customer looks toward us in bewilderment.)
(Cut to a close-up of the screen. Max stands near an empty patch of floor, where the girls materialize after a second. Their colors are rather faded, and their eyes look different: a very thin ring of iris around huge pupils that have taken on the style of Mickey Mouse in the old Disney cartoons. Think of Pac-Man with his mouth slightly open and you have the idea. It takes the girls a second to get their bearings, after which they glare at Max and Buttercup speaks.)
“Give us back the Professor!”
(She claps her hands to her mouth, shocked at what has just happened—the intertitle, that is—and Blossom speaks.)
“We’re in the silent movie now…we can only talk in titles!”
(Max laughs—“HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!” appearing—then grabs the Professor and bolts for the door. Shoving a hand down his throat, he produces the swallowed key and puts it into the lock. Now he taunts the girls.)
“See ya Powerless Girls!”
(The door is now open, and he laughs as before and runs out with the Professor. Cut to the staircases of this building and tilt down quickly to follow his escape. In the room, the girls are momentarily at a loss. Blossom speaks.)
“He’s gonna steal the Professor’s voice!”
(Bubbles and Buttercup reply.)
“We gotta stop him!”
(They run to the door and leap out into the hallway, preparing to fly—but, as the camera cuts to just outside the room, they instead tumble headlong into a corner. Blossom speaks while her sisters try to clear their heads.)
“He’s stolen our powers too!”
(Iris view of Buttercup in close-up. She speaks.)
“Then, we’ll just have to save the Professor without them!”
(She finishes saying this. Full-screen view; the girls pile up one hand apiece between them, break, and run o.c. The stairs are seen again, and the camera tilts down as before to follow their rush to the ground floor. Max reaches the bottom and loads himself and the Professor into a car waiting at the curb. A silent screech of tires, and he is barreling away around a corner.)
(Now the girls make it to the bottom and race after him, rounding the corner just in time to see the car speeding out of sight. Buttercup stops first and is run into by her sisters. Close-up of the vehicle, with one crazed driver and one truly scared hostage, then back to the girls. Buttercup vents her frustration in a quick outburst that gets no intertitle. Blossom looks up o.c. at an angle; a dotted line traces out from her eyes to show where she is looking. Cut to her perspective—she has spotted a telephone, and the view irises in briefly on it before cutting back to the girls, full screen. They run o.c. toward it.)
(Cut to the corner where the phone stands, mounted on a pole at adult height. Buttercup stops near its base, Bubbles jumps on her shoulders, and Blossom jumps on Bubbles’ to reach the instrument. Iris close-up of her, holding the earpiece in one hand and turning the crank with the other—remember, this is long before the rotary phone came into use.)
(Iris close-up of a second phone as it begins to ring. Full-screen view, pulled back; this is a police station, and the phone sits on an officer’s desk. Many other lawmen are lined up nearby. The desk man answers; the others lean in to hear. The previous view of Blossom; she says something urgent. Full-screen station; the cops are thrown into a panic and run in all directions. Stuffed into one squad car, they roll out into the street to give chase.)
(A busy intersection. On a small island at its center, a cop maintains order in the flow of traffic; however, his colleagues speed past him and leave him spinning in their wake. Cars crash and pile up around him. Cut to a man hanging on for dear life to one hand of a large clock that is mounted on the façade of a building; the face is pulling away from the masonry. Tilt down to ground level as the squad car races by. Now it reaches the girls’ corner. Buttercup grabs the outstretched hand of a cop in the back seat, and all three are pulled along in a chain—Buttercup, Bubbles, Blossom.)
(Another intersection. There is a full-scale pie fight going on here, with the combatants getting their ammunition from a vendor’s cart parked nearby, but they stop just before the cops barrel through. Once the coast is clear, the melee resumes. Max is seen next, still working the wheel like an Indy 500 driver on speed; he looks behind himself and finds the squad car gaining fast. He takes a sharp turn off the main road.)
(Cut to a tranquil spot farther along this new path, where a Charlie Chaplin-like fellow in a derby and baggy suit is taking a walk; he carries a short piece of dotted line like a cane. Max charges through this area and knocks him over, causing his hat to fly off. The cops take the same turn off the road. Meanwhile, the man stands up, puts his derby on again, and starts back into his walk just in time to be struck by the squad car.)
(Max drives to an airfield and stops. A plane is waiting for him; he grabs the Professor, shoves him into the passenger seat, then runs to the propeller and cranks it up. Now Max jumps into the pilot’s seat and turns to speak to the Professor.)
“A quick trip across the ocean and your voice will be mine!”
(He laughs as he did in the room. The cops reach the airfield just as the plane starts to taxi. Max waves to them; they shout and brandish their nightsticks, and the girls run after the plane, followed by all the cops. The plane gradually gains speed, and Max laughs as before—but the girls are slowly closing the gap, making a beeline for the landing gear. Finally Buttercup grabs the wheels’ axle as the craft rises clear of the ground. Blossom grabs her ankles, Bubbles grabs Blossom’s, and all three are airborne. The nearest cop drops his nightstick and seizes Bubbles’ legs, and one by one his colleagues follow suit to form a human chain. The last one, very fat, does not make the grab and ends up tumbling along the runway.)
(Max’s plane weaves up and down in an attempt to shake all these stowaways, but without success. He flies over the ocean, complete with a tropical island and a large jumping fish that tries to snap at the end cop. Earth is seen from outer space next, with the African continent labeled, and the aircraft flies over this. Cut to a pan along the jungle landscape; the pursuers are still holding on for dear life, and several animals watch in amazement. In a different area, the pan continues. A rickety bridge has been strung across a chasm, and a small silhouette can be seen out on it. Close-up of this point; it is a gorilla seated at a piano. The animal cracks its knuckles and starts to play—the background score changes briefly to reflect this—but when the human chain sweeps past, one hand catches a cop’s leg and the would-be barrelhouse virtuoso is hauled up.)
(The angry gorilla quickly makes its way up toward the plane. Iris close-up of Bubbles, looking down worriedly in that direction with a dotted line marking her sight. She starts to sweat buckets; full-screen view as the ape reaches Buttercup and pulls her off the landing gear. The girls and cops are then sent hurtling toward the ground. Now the beast climbs up the fuselage, yanks Max out of the pilot’s seat, and takes his place. The dastardly fellow is also flung down, and the Professor gets a big sloppy kiss from his most unlikely savior before the craft disappears into the distance.)
(Cut to Max and the girls, who have just about reached terminal velocity, them tilt up to show that the cops have done likewise. Down to the four again; Bubbles yells.)
“I dont [sic] like this movie!!”
(She finishes this line, then veers to her left slightly so that she is reaching toward the edge of the screen. Iris close-up of a very panicked Max, who speaks.)
“No, no, not that!!”
(Full-screen view of the four. Bubbles pulls back toward the others—with the edge of the film stock in her hands. She backs halfway across the screen, pulling the image along with herself and leaving white space where the film used to be. The image starts to jump and repeat itself as she strains mightily; finally the stock breaks and the entire screen goes white. Girls and cops tumble everywhere. Cut to the auditorium as characters fall away from the screen—the cops into the seats, the girls on the floor at the front. Our heroes are back to their usual appearance.)
Blossom: Hey! We got our color back!
Buttercup: And our voices too!
Bubbles: (pointing at screen) Looky!
(Cut to the screen. Max floats by himself against the white background, shaking his fist angrily at the bunch—but after a moment his image starts to flicker and he travels,intact, along the projector’s beam of light toward the booth. The cops look up at him; long shot of the beam.)
Bubbles: (from o.c.) He’s headed for the projector booth! (Back to the girls.)
Blossom: Let’s go!
(They zip o.c. A quick flash of three light trails through a doorway and up some stairs, and they burst through the door of the booth.)
Blossom: All right, Max, give it up! We know you’re here!
(Close-up of the projector lens. Max floats into the booth through the opening in the wall and disappears into the equipment. Pan to the film reel at the rear; he is carried briefly into and out of view, moving with the film, and after a moment he floats out entirely. Pan away from the camera to an old fellow—the projectionist—who bears some resemblance; the villain’s image superimposes itself on his body and disappears.)
Blossom: The projectionist and the silent movie villain are the same guy!
Projectionist (Old Max): Yes, that’s right, Blossom.
(His voice is rather high and wheezy, often breaking like an that of an adolescent boy. Now he looks wistfully up at a picture of his dashing younger self hanging on the wall.)
Old Max: Once upon a time, I was the star of the silent screen. A big star—until talking pictures came along. And then my career ended—all because of my stupid voice! Then today I heard it. That deep centurion baritone.
(Now he is seen sitting near another wall plastered with signed photos and caricatures of stars from Hollywood’s good old days. The girls stand before him; he sighs heavily.)
Old Max: (gradually losing composure) Girls…I didn’t mean to hurt the Professor, girls. I just…I just… (He starts crying.)
Blossom: Cheer up, Max. We’ll get you a new voice.
Buttercup: Sure! They do it all with computers.
Old Max: (sniffling, smiling) You’d do all that for me?
Girls: Sure!
(Wipe to one corner of a rather well-appointed room. A formally dressed man comes partially into view, holding a bowl of popcorn on a tray. The camera advances with him so as to keep just the side of his body visible, from the shoulders down. He stops at a fireplace, where an armchair is turned toward the flames; one hand, holding a pipe, can be seen around the side. The chair rotates to face the camera. Seated in it is the young Max, as suave and genteel as he was in that old photo. When he speaks, his voice is a perfect copy of the Professor’s.)
Young Max: Yes, Jeeves?… (reaching for bowl) Ah, yes, the popcorn. Thank you.
(Taking it, he swivels partway back toward the fire; pan slightly in that direction to show an attractive blond woman in a seat next to him. He offers her the bowl.)
Young Max: Here you are, my dear.
(Giggling, she accepts the popcorn from him and starts to eat; he turns briefly toward Jeeves.)
Young Max: That will be all, Jeeves.
(He turns to his companion, then back toward Jeeves after a moment.)
Young Max: (impatiently) I said, that will be all, Jeeves.
(Tilt up to put Jeeves’ face in view; it is the Professor. However, his voice is that of Old Max—they have traded.)
Professor: But I want popcorn. (The crowd starts laughing hysterically from o.c.; he turns angrily to the camera.) What’s so funny?
(Pull back to reveal this entire scene as taking place on the screen of the silent movie theater—with a packed house that is eating it up.)
Professor: Stop that!
(Cut to a slow pan across the guffawing customers—with the girls and Old Max in the front row. Close-up of them.)
[Note: The young woman who was seen briefly at the end of “Mommy Fearest” is sitting behind the girls.]
(The Girls and Old Max are still laughing uncontrollably)
Old Max: Thank you, Powerpuff Girls.
(They flip him a salute. The screen is seen again; during the next line, pull back all the way out through the auditorium doors and into the theater lobby.)
Professor: Help me, girls! Please!
(The auditorium doors swing shut, followed by those of the theater very close to the camera. On the latter is a poster showing Young Max and the blond woman, along with the words “Max Nitrate Is Back.” Zoom in slightly on this.)
(A black-and-white end shot comes up. The girls are standing in line and waving—L to R: Buttercup, Blossom, Bubbles. Blossom’s sisters lean out a bit to their respective sides. The image jumps a bit and is of similar quality as the silent movie, and the music is done as a piano accompaniment.)
“…And so once again the day is saved, thanks to The Powerpuff Girls!”
(The heart background is not re-established, and “THE END” does not appear.)
The End!
We’ll see you again soon!