"Cover Up" is the 22nd episode of Season 2, and the 46th episode overall.
It was produced in 1999 but premiered on Cartoon Network in the United States on May 26, 2000.
Plot[]
It's not an uncommon occurrence for the girls to respond to emergency dispatches, such as one where Buttercup deals swift physical justice to a group of thieves. When the Mayor calls the girls on a few other occasions, however, Blossom & Bubbles look for Buttercup, but there isn't any time left as she arrives late to the mission at hand.
When the Mayor calls the girls one other time, they eventually do find Buttercup once again, as she is cuddling with a green blanket in the closet, "I am a good fighter" she chants as a mantra repeatedly, while stroking the blanket. At one point, Buttercup's alibi is that she is practicing her spelling, but her sisters are hysterical, saying that she is beyond the need of a security blanket to ensure her skills in combat.
Suddenly after the last battle, the blanket is lost. Once Buttercup discovers her blanket is missing, she trashes the entire house to look for it, but to no success and driving her to throw a tantrum. Her sisters don't have the patience to deal with her tantrum over her lost blanket and explain to her that their job is to save Townsville, but she carries on and insists she needs it anyway. Meanwhile, another monster appears, a rather small one, and lacking the confidence to confront it, Buttercup is brought to near-defeat by the monster's physical and acoustic strength until Blossom shows up with her blanket. The comforting nap of her blanket reawakens her will to fight, driving her to dispatch what otherwise was a pushover to her. To Buttercup's delight and victory to defeating the monster, she cuddles with the blanket in front of the public.
Later that evening at home, Buttercup discovers that it wasn't really her blanket as it was just a fake one that Blossom found to get her through the fight. At that, Buttercup desperately searches the house for her blanket, but then breaks down once more. Then the Professor turns up with the blanket. Buttercup at first hugs it tightly, but when her sisters glare at her, she changes her tune and lets the Professor keep the blanket. Like Buttercup earlier, the Professor repeatedly chants, "I am a good scientist" while rubbing the blanket on his face, seemingly as part of a psychological experiment. Soon, after the Narrator says the usual tagline, he repeatedly (like Buttercup and the Professor) chants, "I am a good narrator."
Errors[]
- When Buttercup goes missing for the second time, Blossom and Bubbles leave the house without her.
- However, in the stock footage used to depict them flying out the window, the distinctive color trails of all three girls can be clearly seen, and a quick freeze-frame reveals Buttercup alongside them.
- In the scene where Blossom encourages Buttercup to fight the monster without Blankie, there's a perspective error where Blossom grabs Buttercup's arm, and yet because of her distance and the fact that her arm didn't stretch out, it made it seem like she suddenly became tiny compared to Buttercup.
- When Buttercup throws a tantrum inside the open kitchen cupboard over losing her blanket, there are no tears there. In the next shot when her sisters arrive and suggest she stop relying on her blanket, a flood of tears appear inside the cupboard.
Trivia[]
- This episode premiered in some countries before the United States.[1]
- This episode premiered in Australia on December 10, 1999.
- This episode premiered in Canada on January 1, 2000.
- This episode premiered in the United Kingdom on February 13, 2000.
- A stuffed animal resembling the Pokémon, Pikachu, makes a cameo appearance.
- This was the first episode since "A Very Special Blossom" that they have their old font [2]. Because the directors' credits in the previous episodes only had that font.
- This was Genndy Tartakovsky's last time directing an episode in season 2.[citation needed]
- This was Chris Reccardi's first episode in storyboarding.[citation needed]
- This was the first time in the series where Buttercup cries.
- In this episode, Buttercup is the only Powerpuff Girl that beats up bad guys, as Blossom and Bubbles does nothing and lets her do all the work.
- It is unknown why neither Blossom nor Bubbles helped Buttercup when she was getting beat up by the little monster.
- In this episode, viewers discover a softer side of Buttercup.
- The scene where Blossom and Bubbles find out about Buttercup's blanket is shown in "City of Clipsville".
- The scene where Buttercup is weakened and says "No!" later became a popular Internet meme.
- This is one of the few episodes where Blossom is seen reading Chinese.
- The cover of the book she's reading rather has Japanese kanji on it, which would otherwise be Romanized as nihongo, which is Japanese for its language. Kanji is the type of Japanese syllabary directly loaned from Chinese characters.
- Running gag: Someone saying that they are good in a certain profession over and over again while cuddling Buttercup's blanket (except the Narrator since he is not physically seen but still says the line, "I am a good narrator.").
- In 2000, Don Shank won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Animation for this episode, along with Twisted Sister.[citation needed]
- There is a rare live-action TV series, also named Cover Up, whose theme song, Holding Out for a Hero, is sung by E.G. Daily, who also voiced Buttercup.[citation needed]
- This episode was also adapted into a 2002 book of the same name by Scholastic.
- The washer and dryer set are both in a front-loading and rear-control configuration and both have opaque doors. The only front-load washer in real life that was made with an opaque door instead of a glass one was a Maytag Neptune made from the late 1990s through 2006.
Production Notes[]
- Although this episode premiered in the United States on May 26, 2000, it was actually produced in 1999 according to the credits.
- This episode was finished in July of 1999.[3]