"Too Pooped to Puff" is the sixth episode of Season 2 of The Powerpuff Girls, and the 30th episode overall. It first aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on August 20, 1999.
Synopsis[]
Fed up with the citizens taking them for granted, the girls decide to go on strike until the townsfolk learn how to do things themselves.
Plot[]
The usual thing occurs in the City of Townsville: something bad happens and the Powerpuff Girls come to save the day. However, with the Girls saving the day over the years, the people come to start selfishly taking advantage of them by using them to do menial jobs such as booking perpetrators (often handled by police), walking a fire dog, changing light bulbs, and cleaning up a litter box. Even the Professor is using them to give him the TV remote just because he does not want to get it himself. Fed up with everyone taking them for granted, the Girls vent their frustrations with being reduced to menial work and leave the Professor - save for Bubbles, who grabs the remote to appear as if she will give it to him, only to throw it on the floor and follow after her sisters.
The Girls relax on a cloud while Townsville has another giant monster attacking. The people, however, are too confident that the girls will do something about it; even the Mayor is surprised when he is greeted by an answering machine on the hotline phone. Later, people find them and, to their surprise, the girls want them to handle it. Due to them having the Girls doing everything for them, the citizens have absolutely no clue on how to handle a giant monster; this leads to the citizens panicking until the monster gets stuck in electric wires. When the citizens see this, they celebrate, believing they destroyed the monster. When the Girls tell them otherwise, the people panic again.
The Girls attempt to coach the people of Townsville to defeat the monster by asking them what things do not mix well with electricity. After getting some unorthodox answers from the crowd, Blossom approaches the point from a different angle by asking them why they should not put a toaster in a bathtub. The citizens demonstrate that they cannot comprehend the effect of combining water with electricity. When Blossom changes the question to be what would happen if someone were in the bathtub, a citizen answers that they would be shocked. This leads the crowd to begin thinking of things like where they would get a fitting bathtub, a toaster, and a large amount of water for the monster. The citizens' lack of common sense leaves the Girls unable to think of any other way to teach them.
Some firefighters, getting the idea from the discussion between the people and the Girls, spray the monster with water, shocking it into its destruction. Thus, the citizens finally learn how to take care of themselves and throw a party to celebrate, except for the Mayor who asks the Girls to clean up the whole city of all the monster's mess and dismembered remains as their punishment for not helping the citizens of Townsville while he goes to the party. The Narrator ends the episode, declaring "And so once again, the day is saved, with no thanks to the Powerpuff Girls!", going on to claim that he saved the day all by himself - and not mentioning the citizens at all. The Girls are seen in their regular end-of-episode poses.
Trivia[]
- Moral: Do things yourself, be independent, and do not just depend on others for everything.
- In the episode's outro, the girls are seen in their normal appearance as found in most instances of the 1998-2001 animated episode outro. This was done because Craig McCracken, his crew, the network's executives, and the animators decided to let the regular episode outro establish itself for a few episodes before playing around with it some more.
- This episode marks the second time the Citizens of Townsville save the day in an episode. The first time was in "Collect Her".
- Some of the cheering crowd from this episode reappears in the episode "Reeking Havoc".
- TOM from Toonami thought this episode was relatable to him as he wanted Sara to do most of the work for him, to which Swayzak objected she could not now because she was offline and TOM had to deal with him.
- The scene where Blossom asks the citizens why they should not put a toaster in a bathtub full of water - with one man answering "Because your toast would get soggy!" - became a popular Internet meme.
- Beginning with this episode, Don Shank was credited alongside Craig Kellman as art director.
- Error: When the girls yell at the Professor, the remote is suddenly missing.