This is an article about the 1998 series episode. If you're looking for the characters of the same name, see The Rowdyruff Boys (characters).
"The Rowdyruff Boys" is the 23rd episode of Season 1 of The Powerpuff Girls.
The episode aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on April 7, 1999, although it was produced in 1998.
Synopsis[]
Seeking to defeat the Powerpuff Girls once and for all, Mojo Jojo creates the Rowdyruff Boys – Brick, Boomer, and Butch – to fight them. When regular fighting does not work against the boys, the girls must use their feminine wiles to seal a victory.
Plot[]
Mojo Jojo has been causing mischief in Townsville once again. His developments of laser cannons and towering mechanicals help him to terrorize the city until the Powerpuff Girls best him easily. After suffering three high-profile defeats at the hands of the girls, Mojo is at the end of his rope. During his most recent stay in prison, he goes through a mental breakdown and realizes he needs to "fight fire with fire" if he wants to bring the girls down once and for all. Posing as a student at the Townsville Community College on the phone, he calls Professor Utonium to ask him what the Powerpuff Girls are made of.
The Rowdyruff Boys
Deciding that "sugar, spice, and everything nice" is "too girlish", Mojo deduces that he is going to need something "tougher, harder, more manly" and reaches the solution to his problem with the following question: "What are little boys are made of?". Within the prison, he amasses all the necessary ingredients for his latest experiment by collecting snips (armpit hairs from one of the inmates while he is lifting weights), snails (escargot ordered from the prison commissary), and a puppy dog's tail (an actual tail torn off and stolen from the Talking Dog doing his rounds on the prison block). For the final ingredient -Chemical X- he substitutes that kind of potency for the filthy toilet in his cell. One flush of the toilet yields an explosive tsunami of toilet water, flooding the whole prison block and nearly drowning Mojo in the process.
When the water runs off, Mojo discovers that his "seeds of evil" have indeed borne fruit; standing before him are Brick, Boomer, and Butch - the Rowdyruff Boys. At first, Mojo is filled with the joy every new father receives, and embraces the boys. Although they immediately threaten to beat Mojo up, the evil simian directs their aggression toward the Powerpuff Girls instead. He offers to lead the Rowdyruff Boys to their foes, and they bust him out of prison by dragging him along as they fly straight through the roof, with the Narrator pointing out that the boys are bad to the bone.
The next day, the Rowdyruff Boys challenge the Powerpuff Girls to a battle, just after the latter bring down a Giant Octopus monster attacking Townsville. The boys lay out the first strike, but are taken aback and impressed at the girls' ability to retaliate; being the Powerpuff Girls, it would take more than a few cheap shots to make them cry. Upon making their identities known to each other, both trios deliver furious strikes and special attacks to their counterparts, but the Rowdyruff Boys gradually gain the upper hand - in no small part due to their disregard for property damage, rules of engagement, and the safety of Townsville's citizens at large; the boys even go so far as to hurl large ships, buses, and sabotaged aircraft to distract the girls from the battle.
Realizing the Rowdyruff Boys' psychopathic ruthlessness and overall disregard for human life in their pursuit of putting the Powerpuff Girls in their graves, the girls try to lure the evil counterparts out of Townsville. However, the Rowdyruff Boys "kick in the afterburners", overtaking the girls and knocking them out with toxic fumes. Before the girls can recover, the boys deliver a brutal blow that sends them hurtling into the street below, seemingly defeating them once and for all. A blinding flash confirms their downfall before the people and Mojo Jojo from afar. With their foes vanquished, the boys rocket back to Mojo's place to celebrate their victory.
With his perennial enemies down and out, Mojo gloats at his fortress while celebrating with his creations, while in the street, the people of Townsville mourn the apparent "death" of the girls - but the tears grief-stricken citizens fall on them, waking them up as they lay deep in their crater. Ashamed of their defeat and losing all of their self-esteem, the girls prepare to leave Townsville forever, but Ms. Bellum rushes over and calls them back, insisting that the citizens love them too much to see them go. The brainy secretary explains that the three of them have only lost the fight, not the battle, because they have been going about the issue from the wrong angle. To that end, she asks them what little boys are most afraid of and offers an alternate means of battling the Rowdyruff Boys: instead of violence, "try being nice".
With Ms. Bellum's advice, the girls head to Mojo's lair, drawing out the Rowdyruff Boys for another round. This time, however, the girls forgo their fists in favor of flirtatious looks, confusing their foes long enough for them to each plant a kiss on their counterpart member's cheek. Overcome with disgust and horror, the Rowdyruff Boys explode into their base components, leaving Mojo to be arrested once again. In the wake of their victory, the girls discuss the fun of kissing, although Buttercup strongly disagrees in haughty disgust, then the episode ends.
Quotes[]
(Mojo is sitting in his prison cell at night after being defeated by the Powerpuff Girls again) |
(Bubbles was hit by a cash register) |
(Mojo is being sent back to jail after the girls blow up the boys with their kisses) |
Characters[]
- The Powerpuff Girls
- The Rowdyruff Boys (debut)
- Mojo Jojo
- Mayor
- Ms. Bellum
- Professor Utonium
- Talking Dog
- Citizens of Townsville
- Giant Octopus
- Prisoners
Trivia[]
- Moral: There are some problems that cannot solved by hitting as hard as you can. In those situations, analyze the situation and think outside the box, and you just might realize that the strangest solution you would never think to work is exactly the right one.
- "The Rowdyruff Boys" is the first 22-minute-long episode.
- According to the iTunes compilation The Best of the Powerpuff Girls (Classic), this is one of Craig McCracken's 10 favorite episodes.
- This episode marks the first time the girls seemingly come close to dying, then get revived. The second was in "Mojo Jonesin'" and the third and final time was in "Knock It Off".
- This episode is the first appearance of the Rowdyruff Boys, as well as their only appearance in Season 1. They would never appear again (outside of cameos) until Season 5's "The Boys Are Back in Town".
- This episode is the first to have characters die onscreen (the second being Bunny, third being the Broccoloids, and Dick Hardly being the last).
- When Bubbles crashes into Mr. Cooper's store and mistakenly apologizes to "Mr. Looper", this is a likely reference to Sesame Street, in which Big Bird frequently mispronounced the name of the owner of the general store, Mr. Hooper, often calling him "Mr. Pooper", "Mr. Looper", or other malapropisms.
- At around the 9-minute mark, the Giant Octopus the girls were fighting is briefly seen lying dead in the background.
- This episode is the first time we see Mojo Jojo act more like the monkey he is than a criminal mastermind, as his fit of rage upon being arrested multiple times has him screeching like a monkey, slamming his fists on the ground, and climbing on the tire swing and the bars of his cell.
- This is the only episode wherein the Rowdyruff Boys' sneakers have three rectangles; in all future episodes they have two rectangles.
- This episode premiered on the same day The Powerpuff Girls premiered in Poland.
- Escargot is a traditional dish involving snails properly prepared with a deadly level of precision in France, so it is rather peculiar how it would be on the menu of a prison cafeteria. Although, the prospect of eating snails combined with the idea of prison food does make for a clever gross-out joke in a children’s show.
- When the narrator says "Boy, oh, boy! Those boys are b-b-bad to the bone!", it references the George Thorogood song with the same title.
- Mojo Jojo evidently knows the number for the landline to he Powerpuff Girls’ house. The impressive quality to it is not that he’s able to commit the number to memory given the fact that Mojo was using a prison payphone in the prison with a keypad (because he’s a super genius with a mutated brain), but rather the fact that he actually knows the landline of his archenemies’ household.
- The irony is not lost on Telephonies, the episode where the Gangreen Gang pulls prank calls on the Girls when they somehow get ahold of their hotline number. If anything, all this proves that the girls need to either be more careful or get better security for their phones.
Goofs[]
- During the prison scene when Mojo tells the boys about the girls, Brick is on the right, Butch is in the center, and Boomer is on the left. When the boys say "Yeah!" in response to Mojo's words, Brick and Butch change positions.
- In the same scene, Butch's mouth does not move.
- When the Rowdyruff Boys throw the vehicles at the Powerpuff Girls, the shadows of the vehicles are shown approaching them in an overhead shot. After the girls take off, however, the shadows have disappeared.
- In the scene where the boys cover the girls in smoke, Blossom's mouth does not move when she coughs.
- After the boys performed the final blow, as the girls are falling; Blossom falls to the top of the video frame, Buttercup, to the bottom left, and Bubbles to the bottom right, when the boys dive bomb towards the girls, they go in the wrong direction, Brick goes to the bottom of the frame, Butch to the top left, and Boomer to the top right.
- When Boomer tackles Bubbles, she kicks him into the wall of a yellow building, and Butch is thrown into the same building seconds later.
- When Brick yells "Ballistic Barrage!", they hop out of the same building Brick crashed into, which was miscolored red.
- Boomer and Butch were near a window, but when the boys swirl to the ground Boomer is to the left of the window. Additionally, this building has doors when Bubbles kicks Boomer into it.
- When Brick is about to grab Blossom's hair, her bow disappears.
- Mojo creates the boys at night so that the moon is in proper alignment, but when the boys bust through the ceiling a minute later, it is daytime.
Production Notes[]
- Although this episode premiered in the United States on April 7, 1999, it was actually produced in 1998 according to the credits.
- This episode was finished in December of 1998.[1]