Town and Out

Town and Out
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
Overall	53
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

"Town and Out" is the third episode of Season 3 (and the 53rd episode overall). It first aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on August 18, 2000.

Plot

The Professor gets a new job, which forces the Utonium family to relocate from Townsville to the neighboring Citiesville, a city completely different from Townsville, with rampant crime and rude citizens. While the Professor says he loves this new life, the girls struggle to adapt to life in Citiesville, trying their best to make it just like it was for them in Townsville.

Synopsis

After Professor Utonium gets a job at the world's top research in the town of Citiesville, located in the same county as Townsville, he has to move there with the girls. The Professor believes Citiesville is a great place to live, but the girls do not think so.

After traveling to the city in a car, the family moves into a motel room, which the Professor thinks looks great despite it being extremely dirty and 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, but 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 is great. Not wanting to hurt his feelings, the girls lie and say they think it is great as well.

Sometime later, they visit the local city hall to try to patch things up with Tom, the mayor of Citiesville. When they get there, they realize Tom is a very occupied man. When Tom receives a call from the chief of police saying that the bank is being robbed, the girls are ignored again. In an attempt to prove themselves to the mayor, the girls rush to the scene of the crime, and Buttercup puts a dent into the criminals' car. When the criminals head for the Citiesville bridge, the girls use their starburst ray to stop them. After the Powerpuff Girls carry the car to safety, the police arrive to the scene. The girls assure that they stopped the robbery; however, the police are distraught but angry over the bridge's destruction.

The flag of Citiesville with an famous bridge and one of the well-known historical landmarks by Tom, the mayor of Citiesville.

After they return to the motel, the girls are dismayed to see that the Professor still thinks Citiesville is great. Later, the girls receive a phone call from Tom. But when they met up with him, Tom has a serious discussion with them. He furiously informs them that the criminals only stole $400, while the Powerpuff Girls cost the city $3,000,000 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 accidental destruction of the bridge, the mayor of Citiesville angrily presents the girls with a signed bill that outlaws all uses of superpowers in the town, then kicks them out of his office. The girls fly through the city but the police helicopter arrives, telling the girls that they're flying in a no-fly zone, so the girls are forced to walk back to the motel by foot instead.

Along the way, they end up encountering bad things, such as traffic exhaust, bird poop, bad people, and trudge through deep muddy water. As this is the final straw, the girls finally tell the Professor that they do not like Citiesville because it is filled with self-important jerks and they do not want to stay there forever. The Professor suddenly breaks down with tears of joy, admitting that he also hates Citiesville just as much as they do, as his coworkers at work picked on him. Afterwards, they happily 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 or think; 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 explicit villains in this episode, other than the bank robbers. Instead the conflict results in the Powerpuff girls not fitting in Citiesville.
• In this episode, the Narrator is barely heard at all. The only time narrator speaking 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.
• One scene in the episode shows the girls being forced to stay by their teacher in school while a large portion of city behind them is burning in flames. 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 (; 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.
• Animator Paul Rudish makes a cameo appearance in the newspaper the last time the Professor views it.
• This is another unfortunate 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". However, they might have forgotten because they flew into 50 years ahead of their time in that episode but only leave Townsville for one day in this episode.
• 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 and chaos 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.