Catastrophe

(Opening shot: the city skyline in the afternoon.)

Narrator: The city of Townsville…

(A huge mountain of green slime rears up behind the buildings and screams. It has a small tuft of brown hair on top, and its eyes bug out from above a dripping mouth. Cut to street level and turn up toward the sky as people run screaming.)

 

Narrator: …IS BEING ATTACKED BY A GIANT BLOB MONSTER!

(It moves into view farther down the block, roars, and knocks the top off a building. Freeze frame.)

 

Narrator: But earlier today… (Cut back to the skyline.) The city of Townsville… (Cut to the bridge across the bay.) …enjoying a rare moment of peace.

(In the park, people are out for a jog.)

 

Narrator: Everything is running smoothly. (The skyline is seen from the park.) The sun is shining… (Turn down slightly to a busy birdbath.) …the birds are singing.

(The skyline once again.)

 

Narrator: Yes, all is well in Townsville…

(Cut to a long shot of Townsville Hall, with a red banner reading “POWERPUFF DAY” strung up in front and a cheering crowd gathered around. The girls and the Mayor are on the front steps; a large object covered with a tarp sits next to them. Zoom in as the Narrator continues.)

 

Narrator: …thanks to the continuing efforts of its denizen super-trio, the Powerpuff Girls!

(By now, the camera has arrived at a close-up of the girls. Pan to the Mayor during the next line.)

 

Mayor: On behalf of the great Mayor of Townsville— (His perspective of the crowd, panning slowly across.) —and the great citizens of Townsville— (Cut to him.) —it gives me great pleasure to stand here today and honor you— (Close-up of the girls, panning across; he continues o.c.) —the great defenders of Townsville— (Pull back to bring him into view.) —with the greatest gift of Townsville.

(Pull back to the original long shot.)

 

Mayor: And so henceforth, today will be officially declared Powerpuff Girls Day!

(Close-up of the girls, who appear quite pleased at this decree. The crowd cheers. Pull back to bring the Mayor into view again.)

 

Mayor: And to commemorate this glorious event… (jumping down, walking to covered object; camera follows) …drum roll, please.

(He takes hold of the tarp as said drum roll begins.)

 

Mayor: I am proud to unveil this… (Close-up of the tarp; he continues o.c.) …uh…

(He pulls the tarp away, revealing a bronze sculpture of the girls in a slight variation of their standard end-shot pose. Buttercup’s lowered-eyebrow expression has found its way over to Blossom’s face. The three are shown against a background of flying stars.)

 

Mayor: (from o.c.) …uh…commemorative statue!

(Pull back slightly as the crowd cheers wildly. In no time flat, a flock of pigeons comes to roost on the work. The girls, standing in its shadow, look up in awe.)

 

Girls: (softly) Wow…

[''Note: There is a bit of irony present in the entire ceremony. To catch it, back up and read the transcript of “Candy Is Dandy,” which airs immediately before this episode in the US.'']

(Blossom floats up to the microphone and clears her throat before addressing the crowd.)

 

Blossom: Thank you for this honor, Mayor. I promise all of you, as long as we’re here, evil and wrongdoers will not prevail in Townsville!

(The crowd cheers, and the girls wave to them. The mood of celebration is abruptly cut short when a long tremor shakes the camera and causes the pigeons to fly away from the sculpture in a fright. The girls are almost shaken off their feet; the Mayor is seen ducking and covering on the ground.)

 

Mayor: Oh, my!

Blossom: What’s happening?

(The city skyline is now seen for the fourth time in two minutes.)

 

Narrator: The city of Townsville…

(The slime creature rears up. Cut to the same street as before and turn up.)

 

Narrator: …IS BEING ATTACKED BY A GIANT BLOB MONSTER!

(It moves into view and smashes the same building. Other structures are given similar treatment, and the girls take off from the steps of Townsville Hall and approach the creature. They pull up in front of its face and do not look very pleased at its intrusion.)

 

Blossom: Excuse me, Mr. Monster. You’re destroying our city, and that’s not very nice—

(She gets no farther; the monster socks them with a huge, dripping fist and sends them careening down the block. They crash into three adjacent buildings. Close-up of Buttercup, stuck to the façade of one, and pan to the other two girls plastered against the brickwork—first Blossom, then Bubbles. Pan quickly back to Blossom.)

 

Blossom: Why do they always want to do it the hard way? (Pull back as she extricates herself.) Powerpuff Girls, attack! (They take off.)

(The monster moves along the street, pushing buildings over. Bubbles is the first to move in, cutting loose with her best battle cry and a flying kick. We see her approaching it from behind as it slithers across the screen, then a close-up of her slamming into the back of its head. Her momentum carries her all the way through to burst out the front; she finds herself covered with green slime, much to her dismay. Blossom follows her lead, screaming as she goes in for a diving kick on the top of the head, but ends up only sinking into the beast’s body.)

(Cut to Bubbles floating in midair, still covered with the sludge and looking unhappy with the whole situation. We hear the sound of something breaking loose from the monster, and Blossom floats into view; she is also wearing a healthy dollop. Bubbles’ voice reverberates slightly through the glop; this holds true for all upcoming instances in which the girls are encased in it.)

 

Bubbles: You too? (Blossom nods sadly.)

(Pull back to show Buttercup in the foreground.)

 

Buttercup: Nobody slimes my sisters! I’ll take care of him! (She yells and charges.)

Blossom, Bubbles: (dancing) Go, Buttercup! Go, Buttercup!

(The sound of a Powerpuff Girl connecting with slime is heard one more time, and the mood quickly changes to one of dejection. Buttercup rises into view, covered with the muck and looking very put out. Her hair hangs limp.)

 

Buttercup: Now what?

(Extreme close-up of Blossom, now cleaned up. Pull back.)

 

Blossom: ICE BREATH!

(She lets loose with a gust that connects with the side of the monster’s head and starts to frost it over. She keeps blowing for some moments and then looks down with a fiercely satisfied smile; the monster has been completely encased in ice. The crowd cheers her efforts.)

 

Blossom: (tapping ice) Well, that cooled him off! (The girls, all cleaned up, fly o.c.)

(Pan left slightly to one huge eyeball, trapped beneath a thick coating of sparkling ice. The eyelid begins to move, the frost crackling on it; pull back to show the entire creature again. Cracks appear in the ice, and it shatters away to reveal a very angry monster. The girls, in flight, look down with some anxiety.)

 

Blossom: Uh-oh.

(It goes right back to work tearing up buildings, and they gather themselves for another attack.)

 

Blossom: Heat vision!

(They train their fire on the head; after a few seconds, the slime begins to bubble and boil.)

 

Buttercup: It’s working! (Close-up of the head.)

Bubbles: (from o.c.) He’s boiling!

(The monster suddenly explodes, throwing globs of goo everywhere. The girls can do nothing but throw their arms up to protect themselves and wait out the storm. Buildings and people are splattered with the residue. In midair, the girls have again been covered with slime and Buttercup’s hair is limp once more.)

 

Buttercup: We got slimed again.

Blossom: Yeah, but this time we got him for good. (The crowd cheers.)

(Close-up of Bubbles. Part of the slime on her is now gone; what remains is on her dress, one leg, and the top of her head.)

 

Bubbles: Uh-oh! Look!

(The globs on the buildings begin to quiver and flow down toward ground level, collecting into larger clumps. In seconds, the beast has reconstituted itself and stood up, roaring. The girls—once again completely cleaned up—watch with considerable fear and uncertainty.)

 

Bubbles: Nothing is working!

Blossom: There’s one thing we haven’t tried. (Cut to her, gaining altitude.) Powerpuff Girls, form—

Buttercup: (flying across) —Furious—

Bubbles: (flying across) —Fiery—

Blossom: —Feline!

(Cut to outer space, the girls flying up from Earth. They do a sharp U-turn and charge back toward the planet in close formation. As they approach, their bodies burst into flame and they move even closer to each other, finally merging and transforming into a blazing comet with a cat’s face. The monster looks up as this nears it, then raises its arms eagerly and catches it. It smiles and hugs the comet as if welcoming a long-lost friend. When it speaks, it sounds exactly like the Infragable Krunk, one of the Justice Friends characters on Dexter’s Laboratory.)

 

Monster: Kitty! I’ve been looking all over for you!

(The flames evaporate, leaving only the girls with stunned expressions.)

 

Girls: What?

Monster: Kitty? (It swats them away; a crash shakes the camera.) WHERE’S MY KITTY?!

(The girls have embedded themselves in the side of a building.)

 

Blossom: He’s been looking for his cat this whole time.

Bubbles: Aww, he must be so sad.

Buttercup: Sad, schmad. Let’s get his stupid cat back so we can get outta here!

Blossom: Buttercup’s right. We gotta find his cat— (Long shot of the monster wrecking a building; she continues o.c.) —before he destroys all of Townsville. (as they take off, flying across) Let’s go, girls!

(Cut to them in flight.)

 

Blossom: (pointing down) There’s one!

(A small lavender cat walking down a sidewalk is promptly scooped up by the girls and carried back to the monster, which now has cars and pieces of buildings stuck to it. The cat meows piteously, and one huge eye opens to look at it; the monster’s mood instantly brightens.)

 

Monster: Kitty!

(The cat yowls in fear as it is scooped out of Blossom’s hands.)

 

Monster: I missed kitty.

Blossom: Good job, girls!

Monster: (hugging cat) I missed you, kitty! (It kisses the cat and stars to pet it.) Kitty…oh, kitty…

(Suddenly its face snaps to a puzzled expression—something wrong here?)

 

Monster: Huh?

(It sniffs the cat and looks down at it; a sad little meow is all that comes back. Now the monster becomes furious.)

 

Monster: NOT MY CAT!

(It throws the unfortunate feline for distance; a terrified yowl floats through the air. The girls gasp in shock.)

 

Bubbles: We’ll save you, kitty!

(They take off after it, and Bubbles makes the catch just before it can crash headlong into a building.)

 

Blossom, Buttercup: Phew!

(Meanwhile, the monster is trashing yet another building.)

 

Monster: I WANT KITTY! (The girls fly into view and face him.)

Blossom: What does he look like? Maybe we can help you find him.

Monster: (stomping away, camera following) I WANT MY PUSSYCAT! (Back to the girls.)

Buttercup: He’s not even listening to us!

Blossom: We’ll just have to keep looking. (Close-up of Bubbles, deep in thought.)

Buttercup: (from o.c.) But there’s gotta be millions of cats in Townsville!

(The light bulb goes on in Bubbles’ brain.)

 

Bubbles: I know what to do! (She zips down; cut to ground level as she lands.)

(She cups her hands to her mouth and begins to meow. Sound waves emanate from her and spread through the air, carrying her call to the streets of Townsville—a variation of the high-powered scream she has used in the past. Cats poke their heads up from trash cans, from fences, from alleys, and start to make their way toward the source of the sound. One even opens the window of its owner’s apartment and jumps down, knocking a flowerpot away as it does so. The doors of a pet shop burst open, and a small herd of cats stampedes into the street. The shopkeeper steps out to yell after them angrily.)

 

Shopkeeper: Go on, then! Who needs you?

(He hangs his head and goes back into the shop, the doors slamming behind him. Now cats approach from all directions and home in on Bubbles’ signal en masse. When she finally stops meowing, the girls find themselves surrounded by a dense ring of the animals. One of them makes itself at home on Buttercup’s head.)

 

Bubbles: Kitties! (She kneels to pet one of them.)

Buttercup: (sarcastically) Good job, Bubbles.

Blossom: Hopefully, one of these cats is his.

(The monster continues its rampage.)

 

Monster: WHERE’S MY KITTY?! (The cats’ meowing reaches it; it turns, smiling.) Kitty!

(It runs off down the street, arms outstretched.)

 

Monster: Kitty, kitty, kitty!

(It stops in front of the menagerie and eyes the cats. Picking them up in a huge double handful, it starts to look them over as they blink forlornly up at it. After a long moment, it throws the furballs in all directions and becomes furious again.)

 

Monster: NOT KITTY!

(They rain down from the sky; the girls gasp in fear and take off to save them. They start catching cats—singly, in pairs, in armloads, piled up on their heads—but cannot seem to get ahead of the deluge.)

 

Blossom: There’s too many!

Buttercup: (pointing down) Look!

(Camera follows one cat as it plummets toward the ground, back first. When it is just about to hit the pavement, however, it rotates its body through 180 degrees and lands on its feet. It walks away as if absolutely nothing out of the ordinary has happened.)

 

Girls: Phew! (They are no longer loaded with cats; the skies have cleared.)

Monster: WHERE’S MY CAT?! (It turns away from the camera.)

Blossom: (pointing o.c.) Hey, look!

(Long shot of the monster, seen from the side. It has a distinct butt-crack in back—and something stuck in the top of it. Zoom in until this can be seen as a rather disgruntled-looking cat. Blossom flies into view and pulls it loose, then carries it in front of the monster’s face.)

 

Blossom: Is this your kitty?

(The cat meows sadly; the monster, though, perks up again.)

 

Monster: Kitty! (taking cat) Kitty, kitty, kitty!

(Close-up of the cat as it gets a petting; it does not look thrilled, and the stroking leaves slime on its head.)

 

Monster: (from o.c.) Kitty…kitty… (Cut to the girls, looking on happily.) Kitty… (Close-up of the monster.) Kitty…

(The cat has resigned itself to its fate.)

 

Monster: We go home now. (It squelches away.)

(The girls, floating amid the destruction, look after it and turn back toward the camera with satisfied smiles on their faces. A cat hangs from the top of the screen. A cacophony of meowing shakes them out of their reverie; pull back to show cats everywhere: filling the street, sitting in the holes in the buildings, hanging from a bent streetlight, on the roof ledges.)

[Note: One of the cats in the foreground bears a distinct resemblance to the Hanna-Barbera character Top Cat.]

(The background for the end shot comes up.)

 

Narrator: And so once again the day is saved—

(The girls appear in their usual pose, but instead of stars, it is literally raining cats behind them .)

 

Narrator: —thanks to The Powerpuff Girls!

(Their confident, happy expression gives way to worry when they notice what is going on behind them.)