Stray Bullet

"Stray Bullet" is the ninth episode of season 4 of The Powerpuff Girls and the 83rd episode overall.

It was completed on March 20, 2001 ^[1] but didn't premiere on Cartoon Network in the United States until July 5, 2002.

Plot[]

Bubbles saves an injured squirrel by giving it Chemical X, turning it into Bullet, the Powerpuff Squirrel. With its newfound superpowers, the squirrel joins the girls and helps them fight crime.

Synopsis[]

While enjoying some family time in Townsville's local forest, Bubbles notices a helpless little squirrel desperately trying to escape from a hawk, who ultimately catches it. Bubbles is able to rescue the poor creature. As she and her sisters stare at the injured squirrel, it loses consciousness. It wakes up again, now in a box in the girls' room, and passes out again. The girls ponder what they should name it when it recovers. Blossom and Bubbles suggest girl names while Buttercup suggests a boy name. The three get into an argument about it, which is interrupted by the Professor, who grimly tells the girls that the squirrel might not survive, as its condition is very serious. The girls, particularly Bubbles, are distraught about the possibility of the squirrel dying, but the Professor says, while he can't necessarily "fix" it, like a toy or appliance, what they CAN do, for the time being, is give the squirrel love and care, and just let nature take its course.

Sometime after the lights are out, Bubbles gains an idea. She races to the lab and gives the squirrel three drops of Chemical X before getting into bed. The next morning, the Professor awakens the girls and tells them the squirrel is sleeping, but they'll know more when it awakens. Instantly, the girls receive a call from the Mayor. Blossom and Buttercup dash away, but Bubbles stays, unwilling to leave the squirrel alone. With a little support from the Professor who promises to look after it, Bubbles chases after her sisters. When the girls arrive at the Mayor's office, they find evidence that Mojo Jojo has been there and they fly to his lab only to discover they've fallen into his trap. Mojo has put sticky flypaper all over the floor, and the girls are caught, and completely helpless. As the three struggle futilely to escape, Mojo quietly gloats, and retrieves various items to be used to destroy the girls. Just as all hope seems lost, a figure surrounded by orange light defeats Mojo, foiling his plan, and frees the girls. The orange light is shown to be the squirrel and Bubbles tells her sisters she gave the squirrel Chemical X in order to save it. Instead of being mad, Buttercup says it should fight crime with them, but before it can they have to do something first.

Now at home, the girls hold a ceremony, with the Professor and their stuffed animals in attendance, and welcome the squirrel into the family. In the Powerpuff tradition, Blossom prepares to give it a "B" name. Buttercup tries to comment on the name Bruce, but Blossom shushes her for interrupting and then names their new pet Bullet and it begins to fight crime alongside the girls. A few days later, Bullet hears the cries of a baby mouse in trouble and races to save it. The girls follow and watch Bullet battle with the same hawk that nearly killed her. Bullet defeats the hawk and is thanked by the woodland creatures, but Bullet's fame is short-lived when the girls call her to come home. On the way back, the girls notice Bullet looking back toward the forest only to see the squirrel fly back. Once caught up to Bullet, Bubbles talks to the squirrel. Bullet tells her that she's worried about the animals into the forest and wants to stay and protect them. Blossom and Buttercup tell Bubbles to tell Bullet they need her and she should stay with them, but Bubbles tells Bullet to stay in the forest. At first, when they hear this, Blossom and Buttercup are in total shock but after laying some ground, they finally understand and say their farewells to Bullet.

Bullet Smiling In Air — Bullet, the new hero of Townsville Forest

Once the girls have left, Bullet rescues a baby rabbit from the same hawk from earlier and the animals welcome the Powerpuff Squirrel as their protector.

Characters[]

Major Characters[]

Minor Characters[]

The Mayor of Townsville

Trivia[]

Bullet is the only member of the Powerpuff Girls who is not a human.
This is Bullet's first episode appearance.
This episode premiered in some countries before the United States.^[2]
- This episode premiered in Australia on November 9, 2001.
- This episode premiered in Canada on December 7, 2001.
- This episode premiered in the United Kingdom on January 20, 2002.
- This episode premiered in Mexico on March 28, 2002.
This episode was directed by Rob Renzetti, who went on to create the Nickelodeon cartoon My Life as a Teenage Robot (2002-2006) shortly after this episode.
Even though she chose to live in the forest, Bullet is still a PPG member.
This is the second episode where the girls add a new member to their team. The first was "Twisted Sister."
This is the second episode where the girls miraculously avoid getting hypnotized, the first one was in Beat Your Greens.
Blossom's summoning of the Girls, Professor, and Bullet with the toy microphone set to celebrate the promotion of Bullet to be a Powerpuff Girl is a direct reference to Sheriff Woody summoning the committee of toys in the Pixar-animated 1995 movie Toy Story (Pixar's first film). Blossom's line "Testing, testing. Is this thing on?" is identical to Woody's dialogue, and the mic set in the episode is identical to that in the movie.
- A containment capsulel tank resembling the one for Hector Con Carne's brain from Evil Con Carne (but with a flower instead of Hector's brain) was among the toys in the audience.
This episode is the last episode to use the 2000 circle designs of Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, which first appeared in the episode "Cootie Gras".
This is the first episode to air after the release of The Powerpuff Girls Movie.
The pose Bullet does in the ending is similar to Bunny's.
The forest where Bullet lives is essentially a woodland version of Townsville, complete with a gopher/groundhog that resembles the Mayor, a fox that resembles Miss Bellum, and a firefly that acts and makes the same sound as the Powerpuff Hotline.
There is a Powerpuff Girls DC comic with a similar plot.
This episode has a few references to the Disney movie "Inspector Gadget". Both Bullet and Inspector Gadget's secret identity (i.e. John Brown) seem to be in intensive care after an accident. Both are also brought back to life and transformed into a brand-new crime-fighting hero. And, the hawk who causes Bullet's accident bears strong resemblance to Dr. Claw (a.k.a. Sandford Scolex), the villain of that movie.
The plot of the episode is also similar to the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Techno Tuttle", where a baby animal (in this case a turtle) gets injured by a hawk, taken care of by the main characters, and given superpowers.
Buttercup insists throughout the episode on that Bullet should be named Bruce. This could possibly be a reference to the artist Bruce Springsteen, as this episode does have the exact same name as one of his songs.
The subliminal message that flashes onscreen while Bullet is beating up Mojo Jojo reads, "NUTS".
This is the sixth episode to have a character gain superpowers. First was Mojo Jojo in "Mr. Mojo's Rising", second was Princess Morbucks in "Mo Job," third was the children in "Mojo Jonesin'", fourth was the Gangreen Gang in "Power Lunch", and the fifth was Professor Utonium in "Powerprof."

Goofs[]

When Powerpuff Girls and Bullet notice crying cats, Blossom's hair bangs are red instead of orange.
When Buttercup destroys the flasher and during the removal of the three trucks, the girls' dresses are black, with the belts in their respective colors.
The flypaper in Mojo's observatory isn't shown until he mentions it. Instead, it looks like the girls are standing on the regular floor.
Blossom has pink hair when the girls are sleeping.
This episode is evidence of how little care continuity is taken in the series with the flypaper trap. Mojo Jojo is casually assembling his doomsday arsenal while the girls are vainly muscling at the flypaper when they could’ve simply freed themselves in seconds by frying it with their laser eyes. Or, on a lesser extent, Blossom with her dragon breath.
- There's no logic anywhere in the theory of the girls' weakness to flypaper that the series has been able to justify, outside of the possible fact that the flypaper is made out of a sticky material that is nearly as strong as, but is still weaker than "Polyduranium Fibroid", another material that the girls' are weak to.

Production Notes[]

Although this episode premiered in the United States on July 5, 2002, it was actually produced in 2001 according to the credits.
- This episode was completed on March 20, 2001.^[3]

References[]

[1] ttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166947/locations

[2] ttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166947/releaseinfo

[3] ttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt1166947/locations

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