Oops, I Did It Again

(Opening shot: the city skyline during the day.)

Narrator: The city of Townsville! (Cut to the exterior of the girls’ house.) And it’s no accident that we are at the home of the Powerpuff Girls.

(Inside, the Professor pokes his head out from the kitchen and calls toward the second floor. He has replaced his lab coat with an apron and rolled up his shirt sleeves.)

Professor: Girls! Time for lunch!

(In their room, the girls are cleaning up. Blossom dusts, Bubbles runs the vacuum cleaner, and Buttercup carries a laundry basket of dresses intended for the washing machine.)

Girls: All right! (They are downstairs in a flash and float to the kitchen table.)

Buttercup: I can’t wait to see what he makes today!

(They take their seats; pan across the room to the counter. The Professor is slicing onions while a skillet of meat sizzles on the stove; a bottle of ketchup is set nearby. He turns to look at the girls over his shoulder, sounding a bit congested from the effects of the onions’ odor.)

Professor: Hi, girls! Have you seen my cooking hat?

(Back to them; this query puzzles them a bit.)

Bubbles: Are you okay, Professor? (Pull back to frame the stove.)

Professor: (from o.c.) Oh, I’m fine, it’s just that… (leaning into view) …oh, no! I forgot to form the meat into burger patties!

(The lunch menu is to feature hamburgers, but obviously things are not going too smoothly. The ketchup bottle has a sudden encounter with the Professor’s elbow and topples into the skillet; its contents ooze over the meat as he walks away. Close-up of a roll of paper towels on its rack; he reaches into view to get a sheet.)

Professor: (from o.c., sniffling, groaning a bit) Just a sec while I wipe these onion tears off.

(Pull back; he scrubs his face clean with the paper towel and backs toward a tray that has four buns set on it.)

Professor: (laughing a bit, sighing with relief) There we go.

(He knocks into the tray, flipping the buns off the counter, and they fall toward a trash can with a pedal-operated lid. His foot hits the pedal; the lid swings up and launches the buns, and the camera cuts to the table as one lands, open, on each girl’s plate.)

Professor: (from o.c.) Now, where’s my cooking hat? (Back to him, reaching under the counter.) Oh! There you are!

(He bends down to get it; the handle of the skillet is caught under part of his body, and the meat/ketchup mixture is flung into the air. A healthy dollop lands on each of the three buns—the man has made sloppy joes by sheer dumb luck.)

Blossom: Wow! That was great, Professor! (He stands up, now wearing a chef’s hat.)

Professor: Huh? Uh…what—what was that now? (approaching table, laughing) Well, look at that. They were supposed to be hamburgers, but I guess sloppy joes are even better.

Bubbles: Gee, Professor, this is another great accident you’ve created.

Professor: An accident? Wh—what do you mean? (Slow pan across the girls, chownig down.)

Bubbles: Everything great you’ve ever created has been by accident.

Blossom: Yep.

Buttercup: (winking) Uh-huh. And these are accidentally fantastic!

Professor: (flummoxed) By accident? You mean my inventions are all—

(He cuts himself off and gasps sharply as the camera zooms in to a close-up.)

Professor: You’re right! All my creations have been by accident!

Bubbles: You created Dynamo on purpose.

Professor: Dynamo…

(A flash of white, and we are at the end of “Uh Oh Dynamo”—the Mayor is bellowing on behalf of the town about the destruction the girls caused with that robot. The Professor has landed his helicopter behind the little man and is listening wide-eyed with uneasy nervousness  as how badly he messed things up.)

Mayor: …BUT YOU ALSO DESTROYED MY BEAUTIFUL CITY! NEVER USE THAT…THAT…BOT-STROSITY AGAIN!! (Cut to the girls in the control seats.)

Blossom: But…but it’s the Professor’s fault! (The girls point o.c. toward him.) He made us use it!

Professor: But…but, uh… (starting chopper) …eh…gotta go!

(He lifts off; behind him, a piece of a building falls apart and explodes. Flash back to him in the present.)

Professor: And you three.

(Cut to the lab and zoom in slowly on him; he has his back to the camera and is working intently. This is another moment in the past.)

Professor: (voice over) When I tried to create the perfect little girls… (Close-up of a shelf; he knocks a flask of Chemical X off it.) …I accidentally created…

(He starts in shock at his clumsiness; the flask breaks in front of him, and a whiff of gray smoke fills the screen.)

Professor: (voice over) …you! (The smoke clears; back to him in the present.) Oh dear me. It is true. I…I…I don’t know what to say.

Blossom: Oh, Professor, lots of inventions were discovered by accident.

(Cut to a hillside under a stormy sky. A young man in colonial garb flies a kite with a key tied to its string—this is Benjamin Franklin.)

Blossom: (voice over) Like electricity.

(Lightning strikes the kite and travels down the string; Franklin yells in pain from the shock. Sepia-toned, grainy freeze frame of an archeologist kneeling by a freshly dug hole in the ground, in front of a Indian dwelling in the southwestern United States. Shovel in hand, he smiles at what he has unearthed—a rotary telephone.)

Bubbles: (voice over) And the telephone.

(Close-up of a piece of Velcro stuck down on a surface. A greenish hand is poised over it.)

Buttercup: (voice over) And let’s not forget Velcro!

(The strip is torn loose; pull back. The hand belongs to an extra-terrestrial being at the control panel of a UFO.)

Buttercup: (voice over) Oh, wait—aliens gave us that. (Back to the present.)

Professor: Ohh, but that’s not half as shocking as realizing… (Extreme close-up.) …I’m an accidental Professor! (Long pause.) I’m no amazing inventor. I’ve never invented anything good on purpose.

(Pull back. He hangs his head and tosses the chef’s hat behind himself as he trudges away; the girls keep eating.)

Blossom: Cheer up, Professor. If you did everything on purpose, you wouldn’t have us.

Bubbles: Yeah! Imagine how boring your life would be if we weren’t accidents. (He pays no mind.)

Blossom: Professor?

Buttercup: (after he has left) Is he gonna finish his sloppy joe?

(Fade to black.)

(The sound of a door opening is heard, accompanied by the appearance and widening of a shaft of light to give a view of the lit hallway outside this dark room. The Professor stands and looks ahead into the blackness before turning on the lights, at which point this area is revealed as the door to the lab. He has taken off the apron and donned his lab coat. Computer beeping is heard from o.c. as he stands at the top of the stairs, lost in thought; cut to his perspective and pan across the room, then back to him. His face is as long as they come.)

Professor: Accidental. (Fierce resolve appears in his expression.) Well, not today! I’m gonna purposely create the best invention ever!

(He advances o.c. down the stairs. Cut to a piece of equipment that sparks with electricity and tilt up to follow an arc along the electrodes’ height. When it reaches the uppermost terminals, the Professor—wearing safety goggles—throws a lever and a reel-to-reel tape drive whirs to life. Now he stands at a drafting table and unwinds a length of duct tape from a roll; the hands of a wall clock start to advance very quickly through several hours.)

(Lab coat discarded, face covered with stubble, goggles propped on forehead, the man of science crosses the lab with a coffeepot in each hand and drinks from one of them. He is then seen doing some welding at a workbench; the glare plays over his face for a moment, after which there is a close-up of him as he straightens up.)

Professor: Ah. There. I’ve done it. The perfect invention!

(There is a crash and sparking from o.c., in the workbench’s direction, and bits of said invention fly past him as his face falls. Pull back.)

Professor: Oh, who am I kidding? (laying head on workbench) I’ll never invent anything great on purpose. I’m just an accidental Professor.

Blossom: (memory) Lots of inventions were discovered by accident.

Professor: I can’t do anything on purpose.

Bubbles: (memory) Imagine how boring your life would be if we weren’t accidents.

Professor: (yawning) Accidental.

Buttercup: (memory) Is he gonna finish his sloppy joe?

Professor: (very sleepy) Purpose…accidental…

(A rippling dissolve begins during the previous line, accompanied by a fade to black.)

(Fade in to him at his trusty mixing bowl; he is bright-eyed, fully attired, and pouring sugar from a box.)

Narrator: Sugar!

(Fade to black, then in to him adding spices from two shakers.)

Narrator: And spice!

(Fade to black, then in to him stirring the mixture.)

Narrator: These are the ingredients that were purposely added to create the perfect little girls. And then…

(Close-up of a canister labeled “NICE” on a shelf; As the line continues, he picks it up and empties the “everything nice” assortment into the bow. The girlish laughter from this spot in the opening sequence is heard.)

Narrator: …the Professor added another ingredient—everything nice.

(The batch explodes, throwing him across the lab; he fetches up in the corner and lies dazed for a moment. Close-up; he comes to and smiles broadly.)

Narrator: Pow!

(Cut to just behind him and zoom in on the area of the mixing bowl, which he is looking at. Standing on the counter are three girls who match the show’s title trio in hair color/style and clothing. However, these look like normal kindergarten-age girls—including the presence of visible fingers, ears, and noses—and all have bright black eyes. L to R: the counterparts of Bubbles, Blossom, and Buttercup. “Blossom” wears the usual bow; “Buttercup” smirks to herself. They stand in a spot of brilliant white light from the bowl.)

Narrator: The Run of the Mill Girls were born!

(On the next line, cut to the background for the end shot. As each girl is named, she walks into view and takes up a position similar to her Powerpuff opposite number in the usual formation. They correspond to Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, in that order.)

Narrator: Using their ultra-normal abilities, Bertha, Beatrice, and Betty have dedicated their lives to just hanging around and doing nothing extraordinary!

(Cut to the background used for the girls in flight during the opening sequence. One by one, and in the previous order, the Run of the  Mill Girls pull into view; each is riding a bicycle in her color and wearing a matching helmet. Now the Professor stands in the second-floor hallway of the house and points sternly o.c. The girls, standing before him, hang their heads sadly and walk away in that direction; pan to follow them as they reach the closed door of their bedroom and go inside.)

(They take up video game controllers in their respective colors, while a pterodactyl monster—a match to the one Bubbles faced during her level-11 training in “Bubblevicious,” except for its colors—roars at them from the TV screen. Next they are seen in the bedroom, still in their nightgowns after waking up in the morning. Bertha is painting Betty’s toenails and getting her hair brushed by Beatrice. Bertha kicks a soccer ball, Beatrice serves a volleyball, and Betty hits a baseball. In these shots, each wears the appropriate gear for her sport; Betty’s helmet bears the initials RMG, for Run of the Mill Girls.)

(The tempo of the cuts speeds up. Bertha holds up a paper with a B+ grade. Extreme close-up of her ear. Beatrice on the phone. Her hand. Mitch Mitchellson recoiling at Betty’s attempt to kiss him. Her smiling face. The girls with their game controllers. Finally the three stand triumphantly atop a pile of dirty dresses, as the real McCoys perch on a stack of defeated villains in the actual opening sequence. As  the capper to this one-off intro, we see the familiar speeding blue background against which a new logo pulls into view. It is styled after the one in the genuine opening sequence, but reads “The Run of the Mill Girls” and does not have the three stars tucked into the bottom left corner. The words “Created by the Professor” appear below it, in the same fashion as Craig McCracken’s credit.)

(Cut to the exterior of the house in the morning, then to just inside the girls’ bedroom. The Professor pokes his head on from the hallway. Everything appears as we know it. Until otherwise noted, “girls” = “Run of the Mill Girls.”)

Professor: Hurry, girls! We don’t want to be late for school…again!

(Bertha runs over to a desk and chest of drawers and looks around in a bit of a panic. She is in her nightgown.)

Bertha: Where are my books?

(Betty, also in her nightgown, looks at rows of pink and blue dresses in the closet—not a green one in the bunch.)

Betty: I don’t know what dress to wear!

(Beatrice glowers; she is dressed.)

Beatrice: Bertha, Bertha, Bertha!

(This last is delivered in the same manner as Jan Brady’s memorable “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia” outburst on The Brady Bunch. All three girls sound like their Powerpuff equivalents.)

Professor: (checking his watch) Okay, girls, I’ll help out.

(He enters the room. The girls stand by the bed; now Betty has managed to find one of her own dresses and is properly clothed. A pink dress lies on top of the blankets.)

Professor: Everyone, let’s get into your clothes. (He holds the dress up.) Here we go! Bertha!

(The redhead jumps as high as she can, but is unable to get anywhere near the clothing in his hands since she has no superpowers.)

Bertha: Uh…what are you doing?

Professor: Oh…yeah, anyway. (lowering dress) Uh, just get dressed so we aren’t late.

(Looking a bit sheepish, he heads for the door. Wipe to the kitchen, where the girls are seated at the table. He has exchanged the lab coat for his apron and rolled-up sleeves and is cooking at the stove. Bertha is now dressed.)

Professor: Hope you’re hungry! (He deposits toast and fried eggs on each plate.)

Girls: Yay! Plain eggs and white-bread toast!

Professor: Nothing but the best for my special little girls. (They start to eat.)

Bertha: I can’t wait for school. It’s Career Day!

Betty: I think Joey likes me.

Professor: (checking watch) Oh! Let’s get going, girls!

(He has now ditched the apron and donned the lab coat. The girls head for the kitchen door; Beatrice has schoolbooks tucked under her arm. Suddenly Betty stops, remembering something.)

Betty: Oh, wait, I forgot my books! Hold on!

(She turns and runs o.c. As her footsteps fade, her sisters and the Professor stand and look around the place in the manner of people who can find absolutely nothing to occupy their attention. The Professor checks his watch a bit during the silence; after some ten seconds have passed, he clears his throat and addresses Bertha and Beatrice.)

Professor: (hesitantly) Hmm. So, um…you girls ready for…another day at school?

Bertha: (ditto) Yeah. Sure. (Long pause.)

Betty: (running up with books) I got ’em! Let’s go! (He ushers them out.)

Beatrice: I got shotgun!

(Cut to the family in the car; honking is heard all around them as they sit in traffic. They seem a trifle concerned with whatever is ahead of them.)

Betty: Is the traffic being caused by another giant monster?

(The camera cuts to a long shot of the congested street, and we can see that the answer is a resounding yes. The monster in question is the one-horned, pincered beast from Bubbles’ training session in “Bubblevicious.” Buildings explode around it as it roars.)

Professor: (from inside car) Yes. Someone really should get on that.

(Cut to the exterior of Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. The car pulls up to the curb; inside, Ms. Keane stands at the front of the classroom.)

Ms. Keane: Children, today’s topic is Career Day. And today’s guest is our very own Mayor.

(He dances into view on the end of this line. The girls, seated at one desk, smile at the news.)

Bertha, Beatrice: Yeah! This is so cool!

Betty: (suddenly sullen) Oh. It’s him.

Mayor: Well, children… (dancing a bit) …being Mayor is the most exciting job in the world. Let me take you through a normal day. Ms. Bellum? My pickles, please.

(The trusty assistant steps into view next to him and hands down a jar of pickles, which he strains to open without success.)

Mayor: Darn it, I can never get these things open.

Ms. Bellum: Would anyone like to help the Mayor?

Bertha: (waving hands eagerly) Oh! Oh! Yeah! Me! Me! Pick me! Me! Me!

Betty: (still sullen) Oh, I will.

Beatrice: Yes! Yes! I do, I do!

Mayor: Well, okay, normal girls. (Bertha walks up.) Let’s see if you’ve got what it takes.

(She takes the jar and puts forth her best effort, but the lid does not budge. Giving up, she holds the container out behind herself; pan to Beatrice, who has come up and now takes hold. She tries until her  face turns red, with no luck, and passes it behind herself to Betty, pan to the third sister, who tries to pry the lid off with her teeth. She stops only when Ms. Bellum reaches into view to take the jar back.)

Ms. Bellum: (from o.c.) Nice try. Let me see that, sweetie.

(The brunette relinquishes her hold. Pan to Ms. Bellum as she takes the jar away; in an instant, she has that lid off. Cut to the Mayor as the open jar is extended to him.)

Ms. Bellum: (from o.c.) There you go, Mayor.

Mayor: Gimme! Gimme! (He takes the jar and cuddles it.) Oh, precious, Daddy’s got you. (to the o.c. girls) You girls are cute, but I wouldn’t call on you in a crisis.

(They give him a very dirty look as they slouch back to their seats. Wipe to the exterior of the building; the Professor has pulled up again to get the girls, who are in the back seat. He pulls his door shut.)

Professor: How was school today, girls?

Girls: (glumly) Fine, nothing new.

(He pulls away; cut to them in the car—again stopped in traffic, with horns blaring all around.)

Professor: Well, the weekend is here. And I’m sure we could all use a couple of relaxing days.

(The roar of a creature is heard under the end of this, and the camera cuts to a long shot like the one from that morning. This time, however, the three-headed snake beast from “Octi Evil” is wrecking the city.)

Professor: (from inside car) Oh, someone should really do something about this.

(The second-floor hallway of the house. His lab coat off, his shirt sleeves rolled up, the Professor lugs a basket full of dresses toward the closed door of the girls’ bedroom. The next three lines are heard from inside, through the door.)

Bertha: Take that, you evildoer! (He stops short.)

Betty: Come and get me, punk!

Beatrice: You’re no match for the three of us! Give up! (Cut to just inside the door; he opens it.)

Professor: Girls! What’s going on? (Pull back; they are playing a video game.)

Bertha: Just kicking major butt on Save the World III.

Beatrice: Yeah, it’s the newest video game. (Explosion sound effect.)

Bertha: Ha-ha! Gotcha!

Professor: (deflated) Oh. I thought maybe…oh, never mind. I’ll just finish the laundry. Have fun, and stay safe.

(He leaves, pulling the door shut. A telephone on the nightstand begins to ring—an ordinary rotary phone, not the familiar happy-face hotline—and draws the girls’ attention. Beatrice runs over and answers it.)

Beatrice: Hello?

Mayor: (over phone) Hello, Bubbles?

Beatrice: Uh, no, this is Beatrice.

Mayor: (over phone) I’m sorry, wrong number. (Click; she is a bit put out.)

(Cut to the kitchen. The Professor, at the sink with a stack of dirty dishes, smiles and watches the girls run out at the end of the meal. From here, dissolve to the park; Betty has taken a tumble on her bicycle, and he is bandaging her skinned knee. Dissolve to the bedroom, where Beatrice is tucked in with a thermometer in her mouth—she has taken sick. He picks up a tray with a soup bowl and milk glass on it, the remains of her dinner, and looks down with concern. Dissolve to Ms. Keane’s desk at school; he and she sit on opposite sides of it, while Bertha is at one end. The teacher speaks proudly of this pupil. Writing on the blackboard indicates that this is a parent-teacher conference. In all but the last of these four shots, he is in rolled-up shirt sleeves.)

(Dissolve to the family in a store; the girls have set up a table to sell cookies. They are dressed in Girl Scout-style uniforms, and the sign in front of them identifies them as Girl Cadets. Dissolve to the second-floor hallway at home; the Professor stands in his bathrobe by a closed door, with towel and toothbrush in hand—he is waiting to get into the bathroom. Beatrice runs out, but in no time flat Bertha has taken her place and slammed the door.)

[Note: There is no audio except for the background music during the preceding two paragraphs.)

(Cut to the bedroom. The Professor is tucking the girls in.)

Professor: Okay, girls. Good night. I’ll be working late tonight at the lab.

(As they settle in, he walks o.c. and the door is heard closing. Dissolve to a close-up of him in a new place; it is not the familiar lab, but what we can see of the area behind him looks as if it could be a similar facility. However, there is a menu board hanging from the ceiling. As the camera zooms in slowly, he adds material from a shaker to something just off the bottom edge of the screen, then carefully pours in red liquid from a flask and wipes his forehead. A telephone begins to ring; he reaches over and answers it.)

Professor: Pizza Pie Laboratory…Large pepperoni? You got it! (He hangs up.)

Voice: (adolescent) Hey, how’s that medium mushroom coming?

Professor: It’s all ready, Jimmy.

(Pull back; the phone rings again. This is, in fact, the kitchen of a take-out pizza joint, and he closes the lid of a box in front of him—the order he has just completed. The shaker held spices; the red liquid was sauce. Jimmy, the speaker just heard, leans into view; he is indeed rather young. Now the Professor takes the pizza to the counter and hands it to him on the next line.)

Jimmy: Oh, man, is there a better way to spend Friday night?

Professor: (laughing) I don’t think so, Jimmy. (Jimmy leaves; he reaches to the ringing phone.) Man, it’s gonna be busy tonight.

(Cut to just outside the front window of the place, looking in at him and the departing Jimmy. The Professor picks up the phone.)

Professor: Pizza Pie Laboratory…You got it, sir. (Inside again; he hangs up.) Man, oh, man, what an exciting job! (He laughs and stretches.) Well, maybe just a catnap before things get really busy.

(He closes his eyes and slumps toward the counter. Close-up of his head as it finally contacts the Formica—he is out like a light.)

Girls: (from o.c., echoing a bit) Professor? Professor?

(His eyes are open in an instant. Cut to the lab as we know it; he sits up into view, still looking a mess from his all-night work session, and finds himself staring into the faces of the three and only Powerpuff Girls. Now “girls” = this trio. Everything from the rippling dissolve up to this point was a dream from which he has just awakened.)

Bubbles: Are you okay?

Blossom: You’ve been down here for a while.

Professor: (a bit unhinged) Girls! It’s you! It’s really you! Oh, you’re floating! You have big eyes! No fingers! (Cut to them, bewildered; he continues o.c.) And superpowers!

Buttercup: Yep, he finally cracked. (He pulls them into a hug.)

Professor: Oh, I’m so glad to see you, girls. I like you the way you are, and the way I am—even if I can only invent things by accident.

(On the end of this, he sweeps one arm out behind himself. Pan in that direction and zoom in on a flask of Chemical X suspended in a stand. It is knocked loose and falls to the countertop in slow motion, landing near a petri dish holding some sort of microorganism. There is an explosion and cloud of black smoke when it hits; pull back across the  lab to show the Professor and the girls looking on from what they hope is a safe distance. Green light plays over them as they stare in shock; cut to them. The glare fades after a moment.)

Bubbles: Wow, Professor!

Buttercup: That’s the best thing you’ve ever invented!

Blossom: The world will be a better place.

(Close-up of him, still stunned—but he smiles and shrugs after a moment.)

Professor: Oops, I did it again!

(Everyone has a good laugh at this, and he gives them the double-pointing gesture often traded among showbiz types in movies and TV shows.)

(The background for the end shot comes up.)

Narrator: And so once again the real day is saved—not the “what-if-on-purpose” day—not that that needed to be saved, it was pretty run of the mill—thanks to…

(The Professor’s face appears at center screen; he is grinning and winking.)

Narrator: …the Professor!