Supper Villain

Supper Villain
General Information
Original broadcast	July 23, 1999
Details
Season	2
Episode	4
Pun	The word “supervillain”
Credits
Written by	Amy Keating Rogers
Storyboarded by	David Smith
Directed by	Genndy Tartakovsky Craig McCracken
Episode Guide
Previous episode	Collect Her
Next episode	Birthday Bash
Links
Gallery
Transcript

"Supper Villain" is the fourth episode of Season 2 of The Powerpuff Girls, and the 28th episode overall. It first aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on July 23, 1999.

Synopsis

The Powerpuff Girls are invited to dinner by their next door neighbors, the Smith family, making an unexpected encounter with Harold Smith's villainous nature.

Plot

The story opens highlighting the Smith Family, a family of innocent civilians living within the city of Townsville next door to the Powerpuff Girls. Harold Smith, the family patriarch, has a rather rubber-stamped routine from day to day: he wakes up; readies for the morning; eats pancakes with his son Bud, his daughter Julie, and his wife Marianne; fills mustard jars at a local factory; and comes home to catch up on the day's headlines. However, as Harold turns on the news, a news flash reports that Mojo Jojo has taken the Mayor hostage and has him at gunpoint inside City Hall. Seemingly borrowing inspiration from this news brief, Harold sneaks off to work on something in his private time.

The next day is the same routine, except now, the hostage situation has moved on to the second day with the Powerpuff Girls responding to the incident, only to be subdued with a laser gun powerful enough to knock them unconscious, and taken hostage alongside the Mayor by Mojo Jojo that night. Harold sneaks off again to work in his private time.

The third day comes and amidst Harold's regular routine, a break in the hostage situation comes. Mojo Jojo is captured and the Mayor is secured as the girls are successful at defusing the crisis. Marianne interrupts Harold's private time as she has invited the Professor and the Girls to dinner at their house. Though Harold appears quite intimidated at the idea of dinner with them, she angrily reminds him to not ruin this engagement as they are trying to be good neighbors and help them through the troubled times they endured, as the girls thwarted a hostage crisis highlighted on the news.

At dinner, the Professor and the Girls discuss their last mission, but Harold loses his control over their remarks, going practically insane and taking on a villainous persona. Wearing a goofy and improvised costume, he threatens to melt the Professor's head off his shoulders at the end of the meal, an empty threat since the "weapon" he was using was actually a hairdryer. As the Girls begin to charge toward Harold, Marianne comes between them and warns Harold once again about ruining the visit. Nonetheless, the Professor remains seated and held at "gunpoint", filled completely with fear.

Mealtime comes, and the Girls all rush through their food as they keep their eyes on the Professor; however, it is stalled as the Professor is ordered by Harold to slowly eat a single pea. When Marianne serves coconut cream pies for dessert, inadvertently stalling Harold, Blossom takes the opportunity to attack by throwing her pie at Harold, only for him to retaliate, inciting a fun pie fight between the Professor, the Girls, and the Smiths. At this point, the police show up, only to take Harold away (on the idea that he had a gun), and Professor and the Girls leave in a haste. With Harold arrested, Marianne and the rest of her family will have the revenge on the Girls and the Professor for ruining their dinner party - which is a prelude to a later episode.

Characters

• The Powerpuff Girls
  • Blossom
  • Bubbles
  • Buttercup
• Professor Utonium
• Stanley Whitfield (debut)
• The Smiths (debut)
  • Harold Smith (debut)
  • Marianne Smith (debut)
  • Julie Smith (debut)
  • Bud Smith (debut)
• Mojo Jojo (non-speaking)
• The Mayor of Townsville (non-speaking)
• Policeman
• Narrator
• Chief Hiddledee

Trivia

• The voice cast of the Smiths is very similar to that of Dexter's family from Dexter's Laboratory. Jeff Bennett voices both Harold and Dexter's Dad, Kath Soucie voices Marianne and Dexter's Mom, and finally, Christine Cavanaugh voices Bud and Dexter. However, Julie is voiced by Kath Soucie instead of Kat Cressida.
• This episode aired on day 1 of Toonami's event Trapped in Hyperspace, as Toonami was airing the Powerpuff Girls during this time. Swayzak, the main antagonist of the event who also watched the shows with TOM, related to Harold Smith and both him and TOM laughed at the memorable "eat your pea, Professor!" scene. Coincidentally, the film featured on the final day of the event was The Iron Giant, which was released the same day as this episode.
• The scene where the Professor slowly chews his pea has become a popular meme on the internet.
• This episode and "Just Desserts" could both be considered Rugrats reunions, featuring E.G. Daily (Buttercup/Tommy Pickles), Christine Cavanaugh (Bud Smith/Chuckie Finster), Kath Soucie (Marianne and Julie Smith/Phil and Lil DeVille), and Tara Strong (Bubbles/Dil Pickles).