Town and Out

Town and Out
The Town of Citiesville
General Information
Original broadcast	January 28, 2000 (Australia) March 11, 2000 (Canada) April 30, 2000 (UK) August 18, 2000 (United States)
Details
Season	3
Episode	3
Pun	The phrase “Down and Out”
Credits
Written by	Amy Keating Rodgers
Storyboarded by	Charlie Bean
Directed by	John McIntyre Craig McCracken
Episode Guide
Previous episode	The Mane Event
Next episode	Child Fearing
Links
Gallery
Transcript
Errors

"Town and Out" is the third episode of Season 3, and the 53rd episode overall.

It was produced in 1999 but premiered on Cartoon Network in the United States on August 18, 2000.

Plot

When The Professor gets a new job, this forces the Utonium family to relocate to the Town of Citiesville, a town completely different than Townsville.

The Professor loves it, but the girls don’t. They try their best to make it just like it was for them in Townsville, but it just isn’t the same. In fact, it’s downright awful, but they're too afraid to admit to the Professor how they feel because of how happy it makes him.

Synopsis

The Utonium family moves to the town of Citiesville, which is home to the world's top research lab. The Professor was told that it's a great place to live, but the girls don't think so. The family moves into a motel room, which, the Professor thinks looks great despite it being so messy. The girls travel to school on a school bus, but all the other kids, even the driver, are nasty to them. At school, the girls notice a fire breaking out nearby, and ask the teacher if they could help. The teacher gives a displeased look and the girls are in timeout, being ignored, leaving the firefighting to the professionals. After school, the girls ask the professor what he thinks of the town. He ecstatically answers that it’s great. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, the girls lie and say they think it's great, too.

Sometime later, they try to patch things up with the mayor of the town. After which, the mayor is very occupied and receives a call from the chief of police that the bank is being robbed, but the girls are being ignored again. The girls rush to the scene of the crime, and Buttercup puts a dent into the criminals' car. The criminals head for the bridge, but the girls use their starburst ray to stop them and destroy the bridge. However, when the police arrive, they get angry at the girls for destroying the bridge.

Later that night, the girls have a serious discussion with the Mayor of Citiesville. He furiously informs them that the robbers only stole $400, while the girls cost the city three million dollars in property damage by destroying the bridge, an irreplaceable historical landmark and the main route in and out of the town, because nobody actually lives in Citiesville and that they actually commute instead. After having a brief emotional breakdown over the destruction of the bridge, the mayor angrily presents the girls with a signed bill that outlaws all uses of superpowers (including flying) in the town, then kicks them out of his office.

Rejected, ignored and fed up with Citiesville, the girls walk to their new home and tell the Professor exactly what they think of the town. They state that Citiesville is horrible, stinking and disgusting with full of self-important jerks and that they don’t want to stay in the new city forever. They try to convince the Professor to come back to Townsville because Townsville is nothing without the Powerpuff Girls. The Professor sheds tears of joy while the girls are convincing him, admitting that he hates the town just as much as they do, as his coworkers at work pick on him. Happily, the Professor is convinced by the girls who say yes, and they move back to Townsville as the episode ends.

Trivia

• Moral: If you don't like something, it's important to tell someone or you'll make it worse. It's okay to always tell someone how you feel about something. It's never okay to keep your emotions bottled up, no matter what other people say; otherwise, you'll get upset.
• This episode premiered in some countries before the United States.
  • This episode premiered in Australia on January 28, 2000.
  • This episode premiered in Canada on March 11, 2000.
  • This episode premiered in the United Kingdom on April 30, 2000.
• This is the first time since "Mime for a Change", where this episode doesn't feature the girls' home.
• There are no villains in this episode, other than the Citiesville people's antagonisms towards the Girls throughout the entire episode as well as the bank robbers and The Mayor. It could be assumed that the entire city itself and it's people are the antagonists.
• In this episode, the Narrator is barely heard at all. The only time he is heard is at the last scene of this episode (mentioning the usual intro and "...and hello City of Townsville"), as well as the January 1999 variant of the 1998-2001 animated episode outro.
• It was officially stated that this episode was meant as a deconstruction, applying the girls' brand of superheroines to a more realistic setting. Despite this however, it's one of the show's least popular episodes. Many viewers have even regarded it as one of the worst in the entire series. Some viewers have even pointed out that the "more realistic setting", is actually too cruelly unrealistic in regards to representing an actual major city. Fans of the show have even pointed out that real crime and corruption within major cities is actually significantly different than what's shown. There are even some viewers who believe that the episode was produced not to provide a more realistic setting, but just to be "mean-spirited and cruel" to the girls. Because of all the complaints, the message of "superheroes in a more realistic setting" sadly does not hit the mark, and it falls completely flat in the end.
  • One scene shows the girls being forced to stay in school while a large portion of city behind them is burning in flames. The girls want to go save the city, but their teacher tells them to go sit down. While it would be possible to assume that the teacher wouldn't be telling them to go out to save the city, it would actually be for different reasons in real life. In the more realistic scenario (even though this episode is stated that it's meant to establish superheroes in a more realistic setting); legally speaking, it would be assumed that when seeing those fires spreading, classes in that school would be immediately dismissed, and that teachers and staff of the school would possibly be calling each students' parents and guardians to come pick the students up for emergency evacuation reasons. Classes would have to be suspended and dismissed for safety, since real schools usually don't take risk of staying. Extreme city wide arsons to major skyscrapers around the school would potentially threaten the safety of all the children, and school staff themselves in the process; so here, it would be illogical for the Powerpuff Girls, the teacher, and the rest of the students to stay behind. And if, by chance, inner city schools still didn't want to release students, parents and guardians would still angirly head over to the school and pull their kids out and get home right away before more violence goes down. You would also be seeing many legal and civil repercussions go down against the school afterwards for such negligent behavior if it did occur. Also, on top of this, for extreme city wide fires of this heavy and hazardous capacity, martial law would also more than likely be issued by the federal government, as firefighters, alone, could not possibly handle putting out such major fires in more than 10 major skyscrapers (as shown in the background image of said scene). While the writers try to claim this episode is supposed to have a more realistic setting, the logic of said setting does have a lot of inaccuracies that are contradictory to real life scenarios. This is one of them.
• Animator Paul Rudish makes a cameo appearance in the newspaper the last time the Professor views it.
• This is another episode when the Powerpuff Girls do not save Townsville. Similar to how "Daylight Savings" when Professor Utonium does not let his girls save the day until the end.
• The girls accept their move to a different city despite knowing what would happen to Townsville if they ever left in the previous episode, "Speed Demon".
• The Mayor of Citiesville mentions to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup that people commute in Citiesville, rather than live there. If this was the case, they could have stayed living in Townsville.
• This is one episode where Professor Utonium gets involved in bad ideas.
• It's strange that the villains didn't take over Townsville once the girls left and that Townsville wasn't destroyed nor in shambles once the girls and the Professor moved back.

Production Notes

• Although this episode premiered in the United States on August 18, 2000, it was actually produced in 1999 according to the credits.
  • This episode was finished in December of 1999.