Pokematic reviews The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed, the 2014 PPG special

If it's not a good game or catholic...who do you call?... why Pokematic. "Hi."

Craig McCracken, Hannah-Barbara, and a student film. These were the ingredients chosen to make the perfect cartoon. But Craig McCracken added an extra ingredient to the concoction, chemical awesome. Thus the Powerpuff Girls were born. Using their broad appeal, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, have managed to stay relevant for over 15 years!

Yeah that's right, the first episode of The Powerpuff Girls aired back in 1998, 16 or so years ago at the time of writing this. 6 years ago back in 2008, they made a 10th anniversary special and released the entire series on 1 DVD box set. I actually recently bought the entire series box set and have been rematching it from the first episode. Since 1998, we've had 6 seasons, 1 origin movie, an anime series called Power Puff Girls Z which hasn't aired in the US, a 10th anniversary special, and now another special. I don't recall any other Cartoon Networks series getting this much attention, and that's because PPG is just plain awesome. I thought that PowerPuff Girls Rule! was a great way to end the series. It had a nice "walk off into the sunset" kind of feel. Many questions were answered, like "what does Ms. Bellom's face look like?," but it still left things open for more if there was going to be more. Well, now there's more.

So back in 2012, there were rumors about a PPG reboot. I remember seeing this but without the "Thoughts & Opinions."

 Like any fan with the power of the internet at his fingertips, I did a little research. All I found were rumors on cartoon forums and stuff. It wasn't until late 2012-early 2013 did we finally see an image of this reboot. And, it was this.

Needless to say, people didn't take it very well. The art style was a major change from what we were used to.

Fast forward a year, and we start seeing ads for this "reboot." Turns out, it's a 1 time special. They kept the art style, but the ads say "we didn't change the formula at all." And they were right.

Here's the low down. The girls save Townsvill, again, and the professor is going to reward them with something special. The girls decide to get Dance Pants Revolution. Unfortunately Bubbles gets addicted and this Mojo-Jojo uses this addiction in his plan to take over Townsville. Oh, and the professor has a history of dance but he was so bad at it he quit and became a man of science. OK, any more would be spoilers.

So, how does this compare to classic PPG? Quite well. Ignoring the drastic change in art style, this feels exactly like an old Powerpuff Girls episode. Most if not all of the original voice actors came back. If they weren't the originals, they did an amazing job at sounding like the originals. The girls saved the day, which caused them to engage in some sort of celebratory activity that ends up being crucial to the climax of the story. Many classic episodes followed this primes, especially Mojo-Jojo episodes. The episode focuses a little more on Bubbles like many classic PPG episodes. All the main characters (Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup, Professor, Mayor, Bellum, Mojo) had the same personality and character traits. Overall, it's almost just like a classic PPG episode.

One thing I really liked is that instead of 2 15-minute episodes, it was 1 30-minute episode. They used this extra time to develop the professor's back story. In true PPG style, the back story was ridiculous. They also used it to develop Mojo's evil plan more. I also like the Fibonacci and other math jokes. Basically this is the "Disney's Doug" of Powerpuff Girls. Read what I meant here.

OK, so saying it's "the Disney's Doug of Powerpuff Girls" is definitely the most accurate way of describing it, and that's because there is going to be lots of rage over minor changes and other "they completely ruined the Powerpuff Girls" BS. There's going to be people saying "bubbles never had freeze breath, that was blossom, buttercup would never say 'corgis are SOOO cute' and then rush off to see them," and all sorts of other nit-picking. While not exactly cannon, it's still Powerpuff Girls.

The only legitimate complaint you can have is the art style and animation. Yes, it looks REALLY different. Yes, they obviously used 3D models computer animation. Yes, it is really ugly at times. But all of that grew on me. It kind of reminded me of those old "3D city" bumps where various cartoon network characters lived together in a 3D city. What I never got used to though, was the jerky animation. It looked like Trey Parker and Matt Stone did all the mouth animation and a lot of the other animation. The only time it's smooth is when a character would turn their head or something like that. All the walking, arm moving, dancing, etc. looked like it was done by South Park studios. Come to think of it, the non-smooth animation was rather reminicent of "The Whoop-ass Girls," McCracken's low budget student film PPG is based off of. If cartoon network didn't properly fund it or Craig produced it himself like Whoop-ass Girls, then I'll understand the bad animation. However, if this was intentional, then Townsville's favorite crime fighters deserve better than this. If this does in fact become a reboot, please, do them justice.

So, The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed, the reboot/special we've been hearing about for 2 years, a special 16 years after the original Powerpuff Girls first episode, even longer if you consider The Whoop-ass Girls as part of the series; does it deserve to be considered part of this great series? Yes, yes it does. Aside from the art and animation, it's just like classic PPG. If you love the original 15 from 15 years ago, you'll likely enjoy this one. Try to look beyond the art and animation, because that's the only thing holding it back. Don't miss this special. Well this has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

What, you want more? Well, there is one last thing I could talk about. Well, 8 or so minutes before this special aired, there was a little music video thing about the Powerpuff Girls that was part of the commercial break of Adventure Time. It was basically this guy singing about how he wishes he was a Powerpuff Girl because then he's be able to wear an awesome dress and fight crime with super powers. It reminded me of the Cartoon Network Groovies that aired in like 2005 as part of the commercial break.You know, music videos like this.


PS: This is my favorite one.

Yeah, they made a music video in the same spirit as this. There were some Powerpuff Girl Groovies, and this was kind of like that. This particular short wasn't really good, but there were some actual groovies that weren't that great either. I hope they make more, because the groovies broke up the commercial breaks quite nicely. OK, now I'm done. Later.