The Rowdyruff Boys are major antagonists in The Powerpuff Girls franchise. They are the male but wicked counterparts of the Powerpuff Girls created by Mojo Jojo and after their death, they were resurrected by HIM. Although they have powers stronger and better than the girls, they have very easily targeted weaknesses. They were created via flushing armpit hair, snails, and a dog tail down a prison toilet containing a potency of Chemical X.
History
The Rowdyruff Boys
- In their self-titled debut episode, Mojo created them during a stay in prison. Desperate to find a way to create a power equal to the Powerpuff Girls, Mojo placed an anonymous phone call to Professor Utonium, who was all too willing to tell "the stranger on the phone from Townsville Community College" his recipe for the girls' creation. Finding the ingredients of sugar, spice, and everything nice "too girlish" for his needs, Mojo sought something "tougher" and "more manly." So he made a few variations on the recipe with everything he needed available in prison: snips (underarm hair), snails (escargot from the prison cafeteria), a puppy dog tail (pulled from the Talking Dog), and Chemical X from the prison toilet. As with the Powerpuff Girls, the ingredients used to make the Rowdyruff Boys are based on the nursery rhyme, "What are Little Boys Made of?", in contrast to the Girls' rhyme, "What are Little Girls Made Of?". When the Powerpuff Girls and the Rowdyruff Boys first meet, they nearly destroy all of Townsville in the ensuing fight, which ultimately concludes with the Rowdyruffs leaving the girls bruised, broken, and beaten. As the girls recover from the tears of the Townsville citizens, they are so ashamed of their defeat they consider leaving, but Ms. Bellum suggests a different way of fighting the boys, as they are naturally superior in combat. Taking her suggestion to the field, the Powerpuff Girls manage to destroy the Rowdyruff Boys with a single kiss on the cheeks, each to their counterpart. Being 10x irregular from the average boy, the kisses had 10x irregular the effect of disgust on the boys, which triggered an explosive reaction playing off of every little boy's greatest fear: Cooties/kisses from a girl, which are claimed to be able to spread. Blossom and Bubbles liked kissing, but for Buttercup, not so much.
Bought & Scold
- The Rowdyruff Boys are seen at the beginning of the episode being labeled by the narrator as "Miscreated". This is the last time The Rowdyruff Boys are seen in the original classic style of the show. Boomer is on the left with his hands by his side, Butch is on the right with his arms folded, and Brick is in the center on his knee. The Rowdyruff Boys' poses bear a striking resemblance to the Girls' poses in the intro of the pilot short Whoopass Stew. A known error: Brick is missing his triangular bangs and Butch's sleeves aren't colored green, thus making it look like he's sleeveless.
Divide & Conquer
- Before The Rowdyruff Boys official return to the show in "The Boys are Back in Town", they can be seen on a Wanted poster (In their new designs) labeling them as "Jerks!" Brick now has a long spiky mullet and his bangs are hidden under his hat, Boomer's hair is spikier on the edges with two strands of hair on the top of his head, and Butch's hair is entirely spiked upwards, thus removing his original cowlick, This is technically the first time The Rowdyruff Boys are seen in their new designs because of this episode being produced before their return episode.
The Boys are Back in Town
- After their previous encounter with the Powerpuff Girls and being killed by them, the Rowdyruff Boys were brought back to life by HIM, the boys meet the girls once again to a rematch and the girls start laughing and mocking about their new haircuts, Brick tells them to shut up and cuss them with terms such as: "stupid", "lame" and "wacky". By hearing this, the girls get offended and they start to fight individually with their counterparts and then as a group, Throughout the fight, they prove to be at a standoff. Recalling how the situation ended last time, Blossom suggests that same strategy: showing affection by kissing them. Having tried this once, there were no results. But as the girls have tried this multiple times, to their horror, they soon discover that the boys are actually feeding on their affection, which only increases their size and makes them even more powerful. HIM then appears and it's revealed that he gave the anti-cootie vacination on them, making them immune to their kiss and he then leaves the girls intimidated by the boys, now 10 times their normal size! The Boys get their revenge by grossing out (Butch cracking his knuckles, Boomer's spit, and Brick's scab), severely beating, and torturing the girls with brutal games (Rumble Time, Roller Brawl, Ultimate Fight). The Boys overwhelm The Girls completely and the girls are laid barely conscious and badly bruised from the beating. When the boys gain the upper hand and use their newfound tremendous strength to pick on the girls, the girls realize that having their sense of manly strength threatened is how they reverse the effects. So, to that end, they simply treat them to girly stuff and keep bruising their egos until they're reduced to the size of powerless mice.
Boy Toys
- They make their third appearance in "Boy Toys", in which they are fighting the Powerpuff Girls. They crash into Princess' car and Princess' questions who they are. After that, they then go back to fight the girls. As the girls are about to attack them, Princess appears and stops them. She asks the boys to be on their team, but they reject her and Brick kick her down before leaving. The boys later appear breaking out of the hamburger restaurant and were about to crash the video arcade until the Girls and Princess appear with their vehicles and nearly attack them. The boys, just excited about the vehicles, smash their counterparts out of them and they play fight with each other. They become incapacitated with laughter, just as the girls had planned.
City of Clipsvile
- They later appear in their fourth episode, "City of Clipsville", in which the girls have flashbacks to various things (most of which were new/unaired/non-canonical scenes), including becoming teenagers through speeding up time. The Rowdyruff Boys are also teenagers in this, and despite them being known as "bad boys" (as the girls deem them), they have dulled their nature and become more slacker-ish about it. Butch even drives an Escalade, which the ditzy teenage Buttercup confuses for an escalator. Despite this, the girls all seem to have crushes on their male counterparts, and the boys likewise appear to feel the same way. This clip was in response to many fans writing letters to Craig McCracken telling him they would like to see episodes in which they and the Powerpuff Girls got paired up as couples. It might be possible he made the clip in City of Clipsville (in which they and the Powerpuff Girls were teenagers and fell in love) in response to them and confirmed it.
Bubble Boy
- In their fifth appearance, "Bubble Boy", the Powerpuff Girls kidnap Boomer after he has been ordered by Brick to steal sweets. Bubbles disguises herself as Boomer by wearing his clothes and copying his hairstyle. There are several moments when Bubbles is close to letting it slip to Brick and Butch, who are still unaware that the real Boomer is held hostage or of who she really is. There is even a moment when Brick looks like he suspects that Boomer is really Bubbles when he notices her panic about a cockroach. Bubbles manages to capture all of them with the containment ray but accidentally breaks the device after showing her loogie spitting, allowing the boys to escape.
Live & Let Dynamo
- The Rowdyruff Boys make a short appearance in "Live and Let Dynamo". When the girls are trying to figure out who is in the Dynamo. During the clip, the boys make Dynamo pick her nose and the boys laughing and encouraging the disgusting behavior. The girls figured it couldn't be them because, remembering the events of Boy Toys, they would get paralyzed out of their love for destruction if they controlled Dynamo.
Custody Battle
- In what would become their final appearance in the show, Mojo Jojo and Him have a major argument over which is the Rowdyruff Boys' true father and more evil parent. The boys witness several of Mojo and Him's attempts to prove their evil. In some cases, they are impressed, but at the end of the episode, they are fed up, and Brick ultimately breaks up the fight by proclaiming that they only care about destroying the Powerpuff Girls, which brought tears of joy to the two villains. It is unknown what happened to the Rowdyruff Boys as they never appear again after that.
Members
Just like the Powerpuff Girls, the Rowdyruff Boys are three kindergarten-aged little boys with super powers created by the Chemical X, but unlike their female counterparts. They are evil and love to cause destruction, their lives' mission became defeat and kill the PPG's after Mojo Jojo persuaded them and after they were killed by the Powerpuff Girls' kiss of death. However, the group is formed by Brick, Boomer and Butch.
Brick
Brick, nicknamed the Master Masher, King of Crushing, The Duke of Destruction, Reigning World Champion, or The Bludgeoner, is the red eyed, redheaded and long-haired leader of the Rowdyruff Boys, he is the oldest of the brothers. as well as Blossom's male counterpart. His main ingredient is Puppy Dog Tail.
Physical Appearance
Brick is Blossom's male counterpart, but while he shares her red hair, pink is a traditionally feminine color, so his own color is a more masculine fire engine red, meaning his eye color and shirt are also red. He wears a red shirt of the same color with a black stripe, black pants, and black converse as his brothers. He is the same height and shares the same body shape as them. In his first appearance, his hair is short and hidden under his cap (his mirrored version of Blossom's bow) with only triangular bangs similar to Blossom's. After his resurrection, Brick's bangs are hidden under his hat and he has a long spiky mullet. It's unknown if his bangs are still triangular or they're a spiky shaped, similar to Berserk.
Personality
In his first appearance, he was more of an evil leader and had respect for his brothers as he never hit on Boomer, unlike his resurrected self. In his first appearance, he also commands how the boys would attack the Powerpuff Girls and like his brothers confirmed as a team. After his resurrection, he becomes cruel, tough, devious, greedy, sinister, menacing, and gross. Like his brothers, he finds sadistic pleasure in beating and taunting those around him. In his initial appearance, his personality was closer to both of his brothers; proud, confident in his abilities, and has a lust for evil. It is after his rebirth by HIM that he begins showing a more argumentative, rude, unfriendly, mean, disrespectful, and arrogant side. Like Blossom, Brick is the team leader of the Rowdyruff Boys, but true to form, he is much more powerful, violent, dangerous, ruthless, controlling, murderous and destructive. Blossom is logical and organized while Brick is short-tempered and reckless. He is overbearing, bossy, and vain; he never asks for input and is the final word on any action. Verbally and physically abusive, he is constantly yelling at his brothers for getting distracted or saying something stupid. Despite all this, in Issue 10 of the IDW Comic, Brick was willing to work alongside the girls and the Iron Viking against the Klin-Ton without much convincing. Brick seems to be dumb, because in Bubble Boy, he is seen thinking dumb is spelled "d-u-m" (along with Butch) despite being smart, though he hides it to be cool. However he is smart enough to recognize both Mojo and HIM's own ignorance. He despises anything girly and cute.
Boomer
Boomer, nicknamed the Dumber Than The Dumbest, is the dumb, blue eyed blonde and big mouth of the team, as well as Bubbles' male counterpart. He is the middle child. And the dummy of the team, and is always picked on by others due to being the Middle child. especially his older and younger brothers. His official special power is lightning control and his main ingredient is Snips (armpit hair).
Physical Appearance
Boomer is the second in the Rowdyruff Boys. Boomer and his brothers were creations of Mojo Jojo. He shares many of Bubbles's physical traits, having short blond hair parted in the middle which flips outwards in a similar style. After his resurrection, his hair is much longer and spikier on each end (in a wings haircut) with two strands sticking out from the top. His signature color is cobalt blue. Like his brothers, he has a signature colored shirt with black stripe, black pants, and black sneakers. Like his brothers, he is also sly and cool.
Personality
In his first appearance, Boomer was agreeable as he had followed orders with no retorts or delays as well and agreed when Butch mentioned having burritos for lunch, except when the boys triple punch the girls after catching the vehicles, as he stated he had hit them harder. He was also corrective as when he corrects Mojo that they are not babies. He does not appear smart nor dimwitted and usually does exactly what his brothers do. As the same with his brothers, he was conformed as a team. After his resurrection, he becomes loud-mouthed, dimwitted, and often retorts against his brothers and the PowerPuff Girls such as saying, “But I thought we was...”, before being interrupted by Brick and after getting a soda can crushed into his face, he states that Brick had said the same thing he had, as well as telling the girls they are going to eat their words, spit them out and then eat them again. Like Bubbles, Boomer can be a bit dim at times but more in his case as it didn't occur to him that the odds were stacked against him when the Powerpuffs cornered him alone without Brick and Butch nearby and even took his time savoring candy which, of course, left him open for a total beat-down from the girls. And this all happened after Boomer dared the girls to do so. Some things go way above Boomer's head. He's also Bubbles' equivalent in the sense that he is the loud-mouthed dimwit of the trio, as opposed to Bubbles' naïve sweetness. He is constantly picked on by his brothers, partially for being extremely naïve (and also, in an extent for his stupidity). In the episode "The Boys are Back in Town," Bubbles claimed that Boomer is cute (her sisters told her she was weird after that). One difference between him and Bubbles is that she is very easily grossed out by most of the icky stuff he and his brothers would always enjoy doing. It is also revealed in the episode Bubble Boy that Boomer (Bubbles in disguise) is the best spitter of the trio. Even though Brick and Butch are in disbelief of the fact that Boomer is their brother, there is no doubt they regard him as important; Boomer is always included in their acts of violence and/or criminal acts. Despite being a villain, Boomer is (like Bubbles) the most polite of his (or hers for Bubbles doesn't count in her sayings but does so in her thoughts in Bubble Boy) group, and also in "The Boys are Back in Town," he is seen to be easily distracted (in this case by a passing fly, which he stopped to play with) only to get yelled at by Brick. He seems to be similar to Snake of the Gangreen Gang, as both are frequently ordered around and punched or hit by their group leaders.
Butch
Butch, nicknamed the Baron of Berserk is a green eyed, black-haired tough boy, the youngest brother, and sociopath, as well as Buttercup's male counterpart. He is reckless and enjoys fighting more than anything else, like Buttercup. While all three boys love to cause havoc, Butch seems to enjoy it the most. Often, he is the most caring but unlike his female counterpart, he'll sometimes be itching just to get out and do anything destructive. Butch seems to be a version of Buttercup that had all her lust for battle and none of her conscience. He has a tendency to twitch when he gets particularly excited. His special power is creating energy shields. His main ingredient is Snails.
Physical Appearance
Butch has short black bangs parted in a similar style to Buttercup's with a small rectangular cowlick standing up in the back. He wears a forest green shirt with a black stripe, black pants, and black converse. After being resurrected, his hair has become spiked upward entirely in place of the original single cowlick. Like his brothers and the Powerpuff Girls, Butch was a creation of Mojo Jojo in an attempt to mimic Professor Utonium's experiment.
Personality
In Butch’s first appearance, he was calmer, cooler, and more conformed, and often silent as he didn’t open his mouth while Brick and Boomer were agreeing with Mojo. He did not do anything except what his brothers were doing such as screaming after crashing into the pavement. He did however make a joke about burritos they apparently had and he and his brother pranked Mojo by pouring what is assumed to be Gatorade on him. After his resurrection, he becomes the polar opposite of his former self as he had gotten borderline psychotic, jolly, violent, and somewhat wacky. However, his pranks are made more prominent but in a more criminal way such as graffiti. Also, he exceeds Buttercup in both bloodlust and rage. While all three boys love to wreak havoc, Butch enjoys it the most. His hyperactive nature has a tendency to make him twitch. He usually gets particularly excited when Brick calls out a game to play during fights. While all boys love to cause havoc, Butch seems to enjoy it the most. Often, he'll be itching just to get out and do anything destructive. Butch seems to be a version of Buttercup with all her battle lust and none of her sympathy. While Buttercup is sweeter, Butch has no sense of regret at all. He has a tendency to twitch when he gets particularly excited in a fight. He is still shown to be the most violent of his brothers, but now seems to directly take orders from the bossier Brick and agrees with him no matter what.
Main Abilities
Aside from having the same powers that the girls have, the Rowdyruff Boys, have special abilities of their very own; such as:
- Growth: When revived by HIM, the boys gain the ability to grow bigger, stronger, tougher, more dangerous, and more powerful whenever they get kissed by the girls. This was only used once in "The Boys are Back in Town" and it will most likely never be used again because all the Powerpuff Girls need to do is not kiss them again.
- Ballistic Barrage: Seen in “The Rowdyruff Boys”, the boys run towards their opponent, jump off any nearby walls, fly into the air, and dive down while delivering punches to their opponent until they’re drilled into the ground.
- Afterburner: The boys can emit thick, toxic gas through their farts which increases their speed. It can also temporarily blind and suffocate the girls, as seen in their self-titled debut episode. In order to use this ability, they must consume burritos or a similar substance of the same magnitude.
- Sonic Pulse Wave: As seen in "The Boys Are Back In Town", the boys can produce a hypersonic wave that can knock the girls away.
- Rowdyruff Megablast: As seen in their return episode, the boys can produce an energy blast by creating a whirlpool of pure energy. The girls can do this too but while the boys' energy is bright green, the girls' energy is bright blue.
- Brick's Scab: Brick rips off a scab and throws it at the enemy.
- Snot Splat: Butch charges up a spit and spits it into Boomer’s mouth, he then spits it at his target making a gross sticky explosion.
- Snot Rocket: All 3 boys are able to charge an explosive snot rocket through their mouths. Bubbles has learned this trick.
Weaknesses
The Rowdyruff Boys have several significant weaknesses that they all share. Due to the boys' being having a higher tolerance for damage than the girls, they are almost impossible to defeat in head-on combat, this is proven in their first encounter where they were the only ones that could defeat the Powerpuff girls in a fair fight. These weaknesses must constantly be exploited by the Powerpuff Girls; such as:
- Girl Kisses/Cooties: (formerly) While they have superpowers, the Rowdyruff Boys are still little boys and fear girl kisses due to cooties. If the girls do land a kiss on the boys, then it will cause them to explode. However, this is no longer an issue as of "The Boys are Back in Town", since they have become immune to the girls' kisses thanks to HIM’s anti-cootie vaccination.
- Threatened Masculinity: While it doesn't have the same effect on the Boys as the kisses did, this is undoubtedly another big weakness. Due to their enormous size and immunity to their previous weakness in "The Boys are Back in Town", they were nearly unstoppable. However, after Buttercup forces Butch to bite his tongue, he begins to shrink. Blossom then deduces that their size will diminish whenever their masculinity was threatened. With that, the girls humiliate the boys in different ways from pulling down their pants to treating them like babies. It is unknown if this weakness still exists.
- Love for Destruction: In the episode "Boy Toys", the Powerpuff Girls agree to form an alliance with Princess to use her weapons to defeat the Rowdyruff Boys. The girls don't actually cause any harm to the boys even though they aim their weapons at them, (a tank, plane, and boat.) The boys are awed at how much destruction the weapons cause and soon take advantage of each of them. The boys aim the weapons at each other and end up enjoying playing with them so much that their own laughter subdued them. While they were not really defeated, they just could not move because they had so much fun.
- Individuality: If the boys or girls are separated, they are easily defeated. All three of the girls can only work together and all three of the boys can only work together or else they will never be able to fight and win. This is shown when Boomer is ordered by Brick to get sweets. The Powerpuff Girls spot him after stealing sweets from another boy and the three girls easily defeat him. His injuries included a black eye, missing teeth, messy hair, and torn clothes.
- Antidote X: Presumably, the Rowdyruff Boys share the same weakness to Antidote X that the girls have, as they were also created using Chemical X.
Appearances
- The Rowdyruff Boys
- Bought and Scold (cameo)
- Divide and Conquer (cameo)
- The Boys are Back in Town
- Boy Toys
- City of Clipsville (As teenagers)
- Bubble Boy
- Live & Let Dynamo (cameo)
- Custody Battle
Names in other languages
Language | Name | Meaning |
---|---|---|
Italian | Lino (for Brick), Dino (for Boomer) and Mino (for Butch) | Linen (for Brick), Give (for Boomer) and Undermine (for Butch) |
Portuguese | Durão (for Brick), Explosão (for Boomer) and Fortão (for Butch) | Tough (for Brick), Explosion (for Boomer) and Strongman (for Butch) |
Gallery
Trivia
- The Rowdyruff Boys' signature colors of red, blue, and green are the same as the colors of the phosphors on a cathode ray tube color television set.
- Despite their lack of appearances, they are the most loved and popular villains by fans.
- Their popularity has caused their return to the show by the fans requesting it.
- They are the least recurring villains in the show, appearing in only nine episodes.
- They are the only villains that are never defeated by physical combat by the Powerpuff Girls
- The personalities of the Rowdyruff boys are like meaner versions of the Powerpuff Girls.
- Brick's bossiness is equivalent to Blossom's leadership.
- Boomer's stupidity is equivalent to Bubbles' baby-like sweetness.
- Butch's hyperactive, erratic, and violent behavior is equivalent to Buttercup's toughness and strong fighting skills.
- The Rowdyruff Boys are one of the only three characters to die in the show, the others being Bunny and Dick Hardly, although they get revived by Him.
- The Powerpuff Girls 10th anniversary countdown revealed the Rowdyruff Boys to be number 2 of the worst villains, only behind Mojo Jojo.
- Many fans wrote letters to Craig McCracken telling him they would like to see episodes in which they and the Powerpuff Girls got paired up as couples. It might be possible he made the clip in The City of Clipsville (in which they and the Powerpuff Girls were teenagers and fell in love) in response to them and confirmed it.
- The Rowdyruff Boys do not appear to consider other villains as either comrades or competition. In "Bubble Boy", they remorselessly take over Fuzzy Lumpkins' cabin, leaving him tied up in a corner (Brick and Butch), and in "Boys Toys", they reject Princess' offer of alliance on account of her being a girl(brick is the only one who say that,the other two just laugh). In "Custody Battle", they show little to no respect towards HIM or Mojo Jojo. This shows that the boys don't care about anyone but themselves (to be honest, Mojo and Him only see the Rowdyruff Boys as tools to do evil stuff, and Mojo and Him were competing who was the most evil).
- Both Brick and Boomer were voiced by Rob Paulsen, who is famous for playing Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the 1987 series) and Donatello (in the 2012 series), Yakko Warner and Pinky from Animaniacs. while Butch was voiced by Roger L. Jackson, who also portrayed Mojo Jojo, the boys' original creator.
- An interesting note is that in their original appearance, when the boys fight the girls, they are not shown to attack a specific Powerpuff as much as the one closest to them. Whereas in "The Boys are Back in Town," they are shown to attack their counterparts more specifically. This is probably due to the fact that after their first encounter, in which each Powerpuff girl kissed their counterpart (Blossom - Brick, Bubbles - Boomer, Buttercup - Butch), they now have a specific grudge against their said counterparts and possible hate them slightly more than they hate the rest of the Powerpuff Girls.
- The Rowdyruff Boys are unlockable characters to play in two of the three games of The Powerpuff Girls video games for the Game Boy Color when the player inputs a special code. The games include Bad Mojo Jojo and Battle Him. They do make an appearance in Paint the Townsville Green, but are unplayable. The Rowdyruff Boys appear as alternate costumes for all three of the Powerpuff Girls in Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL
- They seem to be similar to the Kanker Sisters from Ed, Edd n Eddy;
- Both sides are siblings who crave destruction.
- They act as the opposite counterparts of the Powerpuff Girls and the Eds.
- They are the opposite-sex evil counterparts of the Powerpuff Girls and the Eds.
- Brick and Lee Kanker are red-headed leaders.
- Boomer and May are the blonde dummies of their own factions.
- The differences are that the Rowdyruff Boys want to destroy the Powerpuff Girls while the Kankers are obsessed of making Ed, Edd, and Eddy.
- Butch and Marie Kanker don't have any similar traits to each other.
- Despite never appearing again after Custody Battle, they still appeared in the Powerpuff Girls DC comics, so it’s safe to assume that they never left Townsville or were never killed off-screen.
- Craig McCracken plans to add them into the new Powerpuff Girls Reboot in the best way possible.
- They were designed by Lauren Faust.