"Uh-Oh, Dynamo" is the 24th and final episode of Season 1 of The Powerpuff Girls.
It first aired on Cartoon Network in the United States on May 26, 1999, although it was produced in 1998.
Synopsis[]
When the Professor worries for the Powerpuff Girls' safety, he builds a fifty-foot tall robot that he calls Powerpuff Dynamo. The girls have no choice but to use it when a particularly sizable monster attacks Townsville.
Plot[]
The Narrator introduces the City of Townsville as the home of almost all landmarks and fun activities (while noting Mount Rushmore as an exception). One of its most famous landmarks is Bonsai Gardens Park, a park in the Japanese-inspired district of Little Tokyo. There, the Utonium family is having a simple outing. However, all is not fun and games when the Giant Fishballoon monster interrupts their fun. The girls take on the monster, but when they take damage as the Professor watches, he starts to worry about their safety. Though the girls are successful at neutralizing the monster's threat, the professor expresses an extreme fear that he could have lost them in action. Buttercup tries to reassure him that they are okay, saying that they are supposed to save the day by fighting crime and giant monsters.
That night, at the Utonium residence, a paternal instinct drives the Professor to draft and build a giant robot and show it to the girls. This enormous mechanical suit, built in the image of the girls themselves, is what he refers to as a Dynamic Nanotechtronic Monobot; otherwise known as "Powerpuff Dynamo". He explains that it is equipped with state-of-the-art, internal teleoperated, intelligent protection; multi-layered titanium reflux-chambered shielding; a fully-loaded, defensive smart strategic combat arsenal; and an anti-aggressor exo-deflector array. As much as the girls think it is cool, Blossom explains that they do not have much use for a battle robot. The Professor explains that even though fighting criminals and kaiju are commonplace to the three of them, it does not change the fact that the girls are his family, and he will do whatever it takes to protect them if he can. So, he urges the girls to use it; Blossom begrudgingly agrees, but only conditionally for really big emergencies.
The days go by, however, and a week of fighting crime, addressing fires, and taking down other monsters leaves the Dynamo almost out of commission. Then, on Saturday, as the family enjoys the evening paper boat race at Bonsai Gardens Park, the Giant Fish Balloon shows up again, calling for its even bigger counterpart. The girls try to stop this giant fish, only to get injured and beat up. The already-big fish monster desperately sucks air to inflate itself and become even larger, before terrorizing nearby citizens and start attacking the city.
As the monster goes off destroying Tokyo Townsville, the Professor begs the girls to use the Dynamo. Albeit still weakened from that thrashing, Buttercup tries to tell him that they could still win this fight (even though they clearly got their butts handed to them by attacking this kaiju head on). Finally, the Professor has had enough of this negligence, and he threatens to ground the girls if they do not use Dynamo. Having no choice, the girls accept his demand. The girls ready the Dynamo for the battle with the Professor following behind by way of helicopter.
The monster is still razing the district of Little Tokyo, until the Dynamo shows up. The Dynamo tries to fight, but its protective safety shield activates unexpectedly. While the mech is in a defensive curl reminiscent of a hedgehog, the monster sends it smashing through numerous buildings. Blossom discovers that a safety switch had been activated by the Professor out of concern.
With its systems stabilized, the Dynamo continues to fight the monster, first by attempting to shoot missiles. However, the missiles all seem to miss the monster at point-blank range. The monster counters this by inflating itself so much that it launches the large pins on its body at high speed, hitting everything in the area. Dynamo manages to deflect many of the dumb-fire spikes, and attempts to cut the monster with its scissor-like bow. Though powerful enough to level some structures, the monster dulls the scissor-bow with a piece of debris. Knowing the monster's weakness, Dynamo grabs the sign from a bowling alley and removes the three stars from the sign, throwing them like shuriken at the monster. The sharp stars hit the monster and, like how a pin pops a balloon, cause it to deflate and fly away uncontrollably to Mount Rushmore (to the surprise of a nearby person, who says "Hey!" as the deflated monster falls above him). Despite all that had been razed in the immediate combat zone, with the monster defeated, the girls (and Dynamo) celebrate with a victory dance.
The Mayor thanks the girls for dispatching the large monster, but with the city burning among them, he also berates them for destroying the majority of Townsville with the Dynamo, and says that they should not use the Dynamo again, denouncing it as a "Bot-strosity." The rest of the town's angry citizens agree. In their defense, the girls point to the Professor in the helicopter and tells the Mayor that it is his fault because he made them use it. The Professor, nervous, escapes on his chopper to avoid the angry citizens, the Mayor, and the girls.
As the Narrator says, the day is saved - or moreso "destroyed" by the girls - the Narrator adds that just because the Professor is a genius does not make him a smart guy (noting his lack of common sense).
Trivia[]
- Morals:
- Paternal instincts: Feeling worried or scared is perfectly acceptable for anybody, especially when your progeny's careers or humanitarian activities are dangerous; but allowing them to get the better of yourself instead of trusting that your progeny knows what they are doing will only lead to more problems.
- Common Sense: When unveiling something that could be useful in any given situation, you cannot focus exclusively on its bombastic capabilities, but instead, consider how all of those bombastic capabilities will affect the people and environment around you. There is no point in building a peace-keeping device if it is just going to cause as much destruction and agony as the very thing it is designed to prevent.
- This is the first episode to contain a slow-motion animation. Two other episodes contain slow-motion, namely "Mo Job" and "Cootie Gras".
- The Dynamo is a parody of giant mecha from various Japanese media; some likely influences are the Megazord/Daizyuzin from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Kyouryuu Sentai Zyuranger, the Gundams in Mobile Suit Gundam, and Mechagodzilla from the Godzilla franchise.
- The Dynamo was never used again until "Live & Let Dynamo", but it was not piloted by the girls in that episode (but ironically, by the Mayor).
- The screaming crowd in this episode reappears in "Powerprof.".
- The meteor the girls destroy resembles the one from "Ice Sore", but in this case, the girls manage to destroy the meteor before it gets a chance to enter Earth's atmosphere as it did in the earlier episode.
- Dynamo's hairstyle is a mix of the three girls' (Buttercup's bangs, Bubbles' pigtails, and Blossom's bow.)
- Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory makes an appearance in this episode. The episode is somewhat reminiscent of the Season 2 finale of Dexter's Laboratory, "Last But Not Beast", as both episodes have giant robots fight off giant monsters.
- At the end of this episode, the usual end shot is skinny and the "hearts" background is scratched out.
- The Dynamo has also seen in Cartoon Network: Fusion Fall as a costume set when the player chooses Dexter as their guide.
- This is the first episode where the girls are seen in their swimsuits.
- According to the iTunes compilation The Best of the Powerpuff Girls (Classic), this is one of Craig McCracken's 10 favorite episodes.
- This episode was adapted from one of the four Whoopass Stew shorts Craig McCracken did at CalArts: "Monster Trouble".
- A clip of the end of this episode is shown in "Oops, I Did It Again" to show that Dynamo was not one of the Professor's best inventions.
- This episode might contain the largest number of on-screen casualties in the series. Examples include the monster stomping on a crowded section of a highway, eating an elderly woman, shaking a building and causing people to fall out, causing one of his spines to hit a blimp and cause it to crash into a crowded stadium, presumably killing everyone there; and incinerating a crowd.
Production Notes[]
- This episode was completed on December 22, 1998, but bears a 1999 copyright date in the credits to reflect when it premiered on television.[2]
- It was also the last episode completed in 1998, in addition to being the first season finale.