Powerpuff Girls

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Television series
German title Powerpuff Girls
Original title The Powerpuff Girls
PPG Logo.png
Country of production United States
original language English (AE)
Year (s) 1998–2005, since 2016
length 10 to 20 minutes
Episodes 200 in 10 seasons
genre Comedy , action, sitcom, slapstick
idea Craig McCracken
music James L. Venable, Mike Reagan
First broadcast November 18, 1998 (USA)
German-language
first broadcast		 August 27, 2001
synchronization

Powerpuff Girls is a cartoon series from Cartoon Network about three little superhero women who, although they are only in kindergarten, have made it their life's mission to protect their hometown Townsville from monsters and other villains. There is now an anime version of the series by Toei Animation from 2006 as well as a reboot , which debuted in the USA on April 4, 2016.

action

“Sweet like sugar, hot like pepper and colorful like lots of beautiful things. Such were the ingredients that would be used to make the perfect little girls. But Professor Utonium accidentally added something else to the brew: the chemical X! [...] “This intro sequence of the series has not changed over the years and provides the essential information about the plot: The Powerpuff Girls, who originally were the daughters of the professor who, although not a wife, wanted to have children. were planned, are endowed with unbelievable powers by an accident already at their “birth” and decide to devote themselves fully to fighting crime. Their archenemy is the mutated chimpanzee Mojo Jojo, who has a bad habit of saying everything double and triple. He has set himself the goal of world domination and tried to achieve this with various robots and ray cannons, which are always broken down into their components by the Powerpuff Girls within a very short time. Aside from Mojo, the Powerpuff Girls fight all other types of criminals and monsters that haunt Townsville every day, always doing their job before bed.

Characters

  • Blossom : She is the leader of the Powerpuff Girls. Blossom is balanced, eager to learn, and a little opinionated. Her special ability is the ice breath. Her dress color is pink.
  • Bubbles : Bubbles loves pink unicorns and bunnies, is very sensitive and speaks all languages ​​in the world, including animal languages. Her dress is sky blue.
  • Buttercup : Buttercup is a little bully. She loves martial arts . Buttercup used to have inferiority complexes because she was the only one of the three who had no special ability. However, it turns out she's the only person in all of Townsville who can roll her tongue. Her dress is bright green.
  • Prof. Utonium : The "father" of the Powerpuff Girls, who is usually only addressed by them (and all other people) as a professor. Despite his high intelligence, he is quite naive and gullible. However, the professor is always concerned about the well-being of the girls, for whom he cares lovingly and caringly.
  • The Mayor : He is short and extremely naive (or infantile), and if there is even the slightest problem, he immediately picks up the phone to call the girls.
  • Miss Bellum : The tall mayor's secretary, whose face has never been seen. She keeps the city alive and “takes care” of the mayor.
  • Miss Kean : She's the supervisor for the Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. She is nice but strict. Sometimes, however, with her severity, she overlooks how important the girls' tasks are for the city.
  • Mojo Jojo : A monkey that has made it its goal to conquer the world. He is extremely intelligent. Since his brain is too big for his head and protrudes from it, he wears a helmet to cover it.
  • Princess : She's a rich and spoiled brat. Her father never speaks to her, but instead always pushes a wad of dollar bills into her hand in response. Princess wanted to become a Powerpuff Girl, but when they gratefully refused, Princess decided to use her wealth to get revenge on the Powerpuff Girls.
  • The Gangreen Gang : A gang consisting of five members, all of whom have green skin. The Gangreen gang is the second most common enemy of the Powerpuff Girls, even if they are mostly satisfied with comparatively minor crimes such as phone pranks and fights. In addition to the leader, Ace, the members are Little Arturo, Big Billy, Grubber and Snake.
  • The Amoeba Boys : Three oversized amoebas who would like to be successful villains, but are harmless. They only become a real threat once, when they start an epidemic in Townsville.
  • Fuzzy Lumpkins : A creature with pink fur and antennae, dressed in dungarees and often with a banjo, giving the impression of coming from a rural area. Armed with a trumpet shotgun during his occasional raids.
  • Sedusa : With her seductive looks she beguiles men and manipulates them to do what she wants. She can use the strands of her medusa-like mane like whips or snares.
  • " He ": Judging by his appearance and his place of residence, he should be the devil. Its original name is HIM (His Infernal Majesty). He is gay-inclined and has magical powers that allow, for example, to sneak into people's dreams, breathe life into inanimate ones, transform himself or appear and disappear at will. "He" is not his real name, people are just too scared of him to call him by name. His character and voice are based on the leader of the Blue Meadows from the Beatles film Yellow Submarine .
  • The Rowdyruff Boys : They are, so to speak, the evil "twin brothers" of the Powerpuff Girls, which Mojo Jojo made from a "masculized" version of the professor's recipe. Their names are Brick, Boomer and Butch. Each of them is an evil image of a Powerpuff girl: Brick (Blossom), Boomer (Bubbles), Butch (Buttercup). They love rioting and leave a trail of devastation wherever they go. The Powerpuff Girls had big problems dealing with the boys from the start as their superpowers are even stronger than the girls'. The first time around, they defeated the Hooligans by kissing them, which made them explode with shame. "He" woke them up with stronger powers and made kisses ineffective on them, now it made them even bigger, stronger and tougher. But they got a new weakness: every time the girls made fun of them, the Rowdyruff Boys shrank a bit. With their return, the three also got different personalities:
    • Brick : The leader of the Rowdyruff Boys is the most arrogant and intelligent of the three brothers. He turns the fight with the girls into a kind of brutal game in which the Powerpuff Girls are treated more like objects. In hockey, for example, he used the girls as a puck. He always makes big announcements out of his decisions, but nobody is allowed to talk to him. He is also very self-centered and likes to insult his victims.
    • Boomer : Since the character traits of the Rowdyruff Boys are even more pronounced than the Powerpuff Girls, Boomer is even more naive than Bubbles. (He doesn't understand sarcasm, for example.)
      He tries to stand out through eloquence, but his sayings and insults usually don't make sense. Despite his naivety, he is just as brutal as his brothers, and in terms of speed and strength he is in no way inferior to them.
    • Butch : He's so incredibly aggressive that he's barely in control of himself. Every time Brick announces a game, he shows this with downright animal behavior. The following applies: the more brutal the game, the better Butch likes it. He always accepts Brick's decisions and never tries to question anything like Boomer does.

Episodes

By the time the series was discontinued in 2005, 78 episodes had been completed in 6 seasons, and since 2016 there have been four more seasons with 122 episodes. Most of the episodes consist of two segments with an average length of 10 minutes, the plot of which is independent of each other. However, there are also episodes that use the entire 20 minutes of playing time for a single storyline (the fourth season consists only of such). Almost all episodes have in common that they are opened (usually by the narrator ) with the words "The City of Townsville". This, as well as the often varied ending sequence, are among the constants of the series. The same applies to the Powerpuff Girls' Christmas special, "Twas the Fight before Christmas", which, along with the film, is the only production that has exceeded the 20-minute limit.

There are also two pilot episodes that are not included in the regular episodes, and a "proto episode". The latter is a work by McCracken from 1992 , where the girls still had the name "Whoopass Girls" or "Whoopuss Girls - the greatest superhero children" only on VHS in 1994 (translate as "ass kicking girls") a name that Hanna-Barbara found too offensive and changed to today's one.

Charisma

The series is an integral part of the Cartoon Network program worldwide . The pay TV broadcaster, which was also launched in Germany in 2006, currently shows the Powerpuff Girls daily at fixed broadcast times. The subscriber can choose between the English original version and the German dubbed version. The series was shown on free TV for a long time on Super RTL , and since 2005 it has been running every Saturday mornings within the cartoon network block on kabel eins .

Movie

In addition to the numerous episodes, there is also a film about the Powerpuff Girls, which was released in theaters in the United States in 2002. Although it received broadly good reviews, the film was not commercially successful and was only released on DVD in many countries (including Germany) .

The Powerpuff Girls Movie is a prequel to the series because it recaps in detail the events that were linked to the creation of the girls and that led them to dedicate their lives to fighting crime. At the same time he tells the story of Mojo Jojo, the arch enemy of girls, whose career is closely linked to that of girls. Among other things, the audience learns that Mojo is essentially responsible for the accident with the chemical X, which gave the Powerpuff Girls their superpowers and also made Mojo what it is. These events had previously onlybeen briefly skipped overin the series opening credits and a few episodes ( e.g. Mojo Jojo - The Prodigal Son ).

Apart from that, a new character design was tried out in the film , which was then also used in the series in the following seasons.

Drawing style

By and large, the characters of the original series can be divided into two groups in terms of drawing style: angular and rounded. While the mayor and the Powerpuff Girls themselves clearly fall into the "plump" category, Mojo Jojo and Professor Utonium are among the more angular characters. There does not seem to be a connection with the characters' personality.

synchronization

The original series was set to music at Interopa Film in Berlin, directed by Stefan Fredrich .

The reboot will be dubbed at SDI Media Germany, also in Berlin, under the dialogue direction of Susanne Boetius and Ina Gerlach.

role Original speaker (1998) Original speaker (2016) German speaker (1998) German speaker (2016)
Blossom Cathy Cavadini
Gray DeLisle 		Amanda Leighton Ghadah Al-Akel Ghadah Al-Akel
Bubbles Tara Strong Kristen Li Cathlen Gawlich Peggy Pollow
Buttercup Elizabeth Daily Natalie Palamides Ilona Brokowski Ilona Brokowski
More figures from the original series (1998)
role Original speaker German speaker
Prof Utonium Tom Kane Norbert Langer
Mojo yo-yo Roger L. Jackson Michael Pan
He / Him Tom Kane Stefan Gossler
Fuzzy Lumpkin Jim Cummings Stefan Fredrich
Boss man Chuck McCann Eberhard Prüter
The mayor Tom Kenny Friedrich Georg Beckhaus
Miss Bellum Jennifer Martin
Amanda Leighton 		Arianne Borbach
teller Tom Kenny Detlef Bierstedt
Princess Morbucks Jennifer Hale
Maria Bamford
Haley Mancini
Kelsy Abbott 		Anja Rybiczka

Awards

Powerpuff Girls has been nominated multiple times for Emmy Awards and won the award in the Outstanding Individual Achievement In Animation category in 2000 and 2005.

DVD release

The first season of the Powerpuff Girls has now been released in the form of three individual DVDs.

Offshoot

Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z

The story of the anime Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z is very different from the original. Instead of the City of Townsville , the protected city is now Tokyo City . Professor Utonium is the inventor of the chemical Z, an enhanced version of the chemical X. In an accident, the three girls Momoko, Miyako and Kaoru are transformed into Magical Girls by the chemical Z. Mojo Jojo is a chemical Z-modified monkey from the Tokyo City Zoo . Besides, the girls are no longer sisters, but the professor now has a son named Ken. Another innovation is the electronic puppy "Peach", which has also come into contact with the chemical and can therefore speak and communicate with the girls.

The first opening credits were sung by Nana Kitade .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Series | Powerpuff Girls. Retrieved April 2, 2018 .
  2. ↑ German synchronous index: German synchronous index | Series | Powerpuff Girls. Retrieved April 2, 2018 .
  3. ↑ http://www.emmys.com/shows/powerpuff-girls AWARDS & NOMINATIONS