"Criss Cross Crisis" is the fifth episode of the third season of The Powerpuff Girls, and the 55th episode overall.
Plot[]
One of Professor Utonium's failed experiments causes everyone in the city to swap bodies. The race is on to find a solution whilst the girls fight Mojo Jojo, who exploits the mix-ups throughout town during a crime spree.
Synopsis[]
When one of the Professor's inventions go wrong, it causes everyone to switch bodies. Buttercup switches with the Professor, Blossom switches with Ms. Bellum, and Bubbles switches with The Mayor. Buttercup starts to cry at her wrong body and gets pushed by Blossom saying "Keep it down! I'm trying to sleep!"
Later, the Professor explains he was trying to turn apples into oranges by using an alchemy he devised. Although it worked with the use of theta emissions, the conversion was incomplete; only the interiors have interchanged as the Professor demonstrates with cross-sections of the two fruits. The Professor then theorized that he could harness theta waves from human REM sleep from every citizen in Townsville to achieve total conversion. Unfortunately, he overloaded the power matrix and caused the entire conversion process to backfire throughout Townsville in such a way where all its citizens swapped bodies with each other, much in the way of the earlier apple and orange.
Then, the Mayor calls and Ms. Bellum explains that all of Townsville exchanged bodies and that someone exploited the confusion to rob the bank; they are in Bubbles and Blossom's bodies respectively. After he calls, the "girls" get dressed in their clothes. Bubbles won't leave because she has a bald spot. Blossom just combs some hair on the bald spot to help her.
Upon arriving at the bank, they gasp at the fact that everyone has switched bodies (a security guard to that of a baby, and a female bank teller to a guard dog). An old woman is there and tells them that it was Fuzzy Lumpkins ("A pink fellow concerned over his property") and they go find him. But when they get to Fuzzy Lumpkins' shack, it is just a British gentleman in Fuzzy Lumpkins' body who was drinking tea. Bubbles gets a call from the Mayor about another robbery. Once again, the girls find the old woman at the crime scene. This time, she said it was The Gangreen Gang ("Seasick-looking young lads"). The girls rush off and burst into the gang's hangout to find that they had switched bodies with teenage girls, and they are seen reading girly magazines and getting pedicures. The girls in Snake's and Grubber's bodies suggest that it was Mojo Jojo ("The monkey you were chasing around. He seems like a pretty bad guy") that's been committing the crimes. The girls burst into Mojo's lair, but it is an old lady inside Mojo's body who offers the girls with milk and cookies but the girls beat up the old lady until realizing their error: if she switched bodies with Mojo then he is in hers.
Sometime after realizing what had happened, the girls rush back into town and fight Mojo Jojo, who they come to realize had swapped bodies with the old lady and fed them several red herrings to detract from his robberies. Their battle is naturally complicated by the Professor's attempts to figure out how to restore everyone's proper bodies.
Meanwhile, the Professor, Ms. Bellum, and the Mayor stayed behind to repair the machine and find the proper frequency to restore everyone's proper bodies, and the girls send Mojo Jojo to prison; though everyone is back to normal, as the episode ends Bubbles and the Narrator appear to have switched bodies, which is likely a joke to reference the events of the episode.
Characters[]
- The Powerpuff Girls
- Professor Utonium
- The Mayor
- Ms. Bellum
- Old lady
- Mojo Jojo
- Fuzzy Lumpkins (British man's voice)
- Gangreen Gang (teen girls' voices)
- Townsville citizens
- Policeman
Trivia/Goof[]
- This episode premiered in some countries before the United States.[1]
- This episode premiered in Australia on February 4, 2000.
- This episode premiered in Canada on April 8, 2000.
- This episode premiered in the United Kingdom on May 21, 2000.
- This is Don Shank's last episode in storyboarding, yet he was still the art director until the end of season 4.
- Paul Rudish, Craig McCracken, and Don Shank make a cameo appearance in the body-switch scene in the laboratory.
Paul Rudish, Craig McCracken, and Don Shank
.
- This is the second of the four episodes in season 3 directed by Genndy Tartakovsky.
- During the bank scene, Totoro makes a cameo.
- When Buttercup wakes up the Professor's body, she looks in horror at the fingers on her new body. Later, she's unable to answer the hotline because she touches the receiver without actually grasping it. This is a reference to the fact that the girls' normal arms don't have hands or fingers and they normally grab and hold things by simply touching them.
- When Buttercup (in Professor's body) asks the female teller who robbed the bank, she said "who stole the moneys?" instead of "money"
- Dexter, from Dexter's Laboratory, makes a brief cameo appearance with Ms. Bellum in his body.
Ms. Bellum in the body of Dexter.
- This episode has the following references from the episode, "The Powerpuff Girls' Best Rainy Day Adventure Ever":
- Blossom as Ms. Bellum.
- Bubbles as the Mayor in their pretend game of The Powerpuff Girls.
- The argument over whom would get to be Bubbles eventually followed by the narrator's disappointment episode the game was over out of not getting to play Bubbles as he wanted and the voice swap with the narrator and Bubbles towards the end of this episode.
- Behind the scenes, this episode was an animation disaster, having to draw all the characters differently than normal.
- The scene of the girls flying to Mojo's Lair was remade during production, proved by a single frame which was accidentally retained on the episode.
- The old lady's glasses resemble that of Mandark from Dexter's Laboratory.
- This episode is the first 22-minute episode since "Uh-Oh, Dynamo".
- When standing on the old lady in Mojo Jojo's body Ms. Bellum's shoes are red but in the rest of the episode, her shoes are black.
- At the scene when the six are on the couch, Ms. Bellum's neck is longer than usual.
- Popeye and George Liquor make cameo appearances in this episode.
- Running gag: Mojo Jojo saying he is the old lady he originally switched bodies with and Professor Utonium trying to rearrange their bodies during the episode.
- This episode is almost similar to 1976 Disney movie, Freaky Friday.
- When the girls swapped bodies with the Professor, the Mayor, and Ms. Bellum, they were in their own homes, while the people who swapped bodies with the villains were in the villains homes with their bodies, rather than the villains in their home with the other bodies.
Production Notes[]
- This was the first episode produced in 2000 according to the credits. Every episode that premiered earlier in 2000 was produced in 1999.
- This episode was finished in January of 2000.[2]
- This was originally meant to be a season 2 episode, but production was held off until season 3.