Beat Your Greens is the first half of the fifth episode in the second season of The Powerpuff Girls, preceding "Down 'n' Dirty".
Plot[]
The superheroines at first refuse to eat vegetables, but when Broccoli Aliens from space invade Townsville, it's up to the Powerpuff Girls and all the children to take a bite out of crime.
Synopsis[]
The episode begins with a really strange UFO hovering over Earth. Inside are broccoli-like sapient beings called the Broccoloids who plan on complete world domination and expansion of their empire. With the stage set, a weapon is non-lethally launched towards Earth, landing in the fields of nearby Farmsville.
Meanwhile, the girls and all the other kids in Townsville are eating dinner, but are all served broccoli and refuse to eat it. As Professor Utonium shows the girls how to eat broccoli, he and every parent in town become knocked to the ground. Soon after, distress calls from the other kids bombard the girls; the most common story among them is that their parents ate some of the broccoli that they themselves would not eat, only to enter a vegetative state as their eyes glowed green.
Realizing the widespread nature of a food poisoning attack, the girls head to the Farmsville Harvest Fields not far from the city to find out what is causing this. There, they find a weird, pea-pod-like plant that Blossom confirms was loaded with spores that allow for remote hypnosis ("hypno-transmithesis") upon ingestion. The girls, noticing the spread of the said spores throughout the fields, conclude that the adults were victims of an alien hypnosis attack. Just as they are discovering it, the Broccoloids land on Earth ready to invade, but are surprised that the girls, among others, were not hypnotized.
As they advance with their own firepower, the girls first try to fight them by beating them up but being plant-based lifeforms, the Broccoloids can regenerate damaged body parts. With the help of the Professor's advice, Blossom tries to eat the Broccoloids and succeeds, realizing that they can be beaten by being eaten, and inspires her sisters to do the same as they eat through many of the hostile Broccoloids; their leader finds this behavior to be barbaric. The Broccoloid emperor warns the girls that what they faced was only the beginning as his forces invade the city.
Later, understanding what they face, the girls manage to convince all the kids in Townsville to eat broccoli to save their parents. As Broccoloid forces descend on the city, the kids and the girls attack with any weapon that they can use against them, including dousing the hostiles with cheese, peppering them, and even subjecting them to rabbits and goats when it appears that the kids cannot eat too many more of them. The kids end up surrounding the Broccoloid emperor as each of the Powerpuff Girls takes a large chomp out of him to finish him off and destroy his staff, the hypno-transmithesizer. The kids reunite with their parents who awaken from their hypnosis, victorious against the Broccoloids.
The next day, the Professor and the girls go grocery shopping, the girls end up in the produce aisle along with other kids as they eat any veggie that they could find.
The narrator credits not only the three girls saving the day but the "hungry little tykes of Townsville," too.
Cast[]
- Cathy Cavadini as Blossom and Football Mom
- Tara Strong as Bubbles and Boy
- Elizabeth Daily as Buttercup
- Tom Kane as Professor Utonium and Football Dad
- Kimberly Brooks as Mom 1, Sister and Little Brother
- Jennifer Hale as Woman
- Tom Kenny as Fat Kid and Narrator
- Frank Welker as Man
- Jeff Bennett as Broccoloids, Dad 1 and Football Jimmy
Minor roles[]
- Elmer Sglue (cameo)
Transcript[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- This episode was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program along with "Down 'n' Dirty".
- In one of the dad's attempts to feed his kid broccoli, he makes reference to the climax of the film, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
- This is the second episode to have a character die in the show, which are the Broccoloids (the first being The Rowdyruff Boys in the synonymous episode of the same name (although they're revived later on), the third being Bunny in "Twisted Sister", and the last being Dick in "Knock It Off").
- This is Craig McCracken's second favorite episode.
- During the "day is saved..." narration, when the girls appear, there are no stars falling down at all. Also, when the background is chomped to reveal some children behind the girls, it appears that the cell of the girls in their normal poses was placed on a blue background, and then the blue background was chroma-keyed off to reveal the hearts background with the children from this episode behind the girls.
- The swollen kid who has eaten "forty-seven stalks" mutters "The horror... the horror." This line is the last spoken by Marlon Brando's character "Colonel Kurtz" in the war-drama Apocalypse Now. Blossom responds with "Sit out, soldier. You've seen enough action."
- There’s a kid wearing an NWO T-shirt, a possible reference to the World Championship Wrestling stable New World Order; at the time, WCW was owned by Ted Turner (who also created Cartoon Network) but eventually became defunct in 2001.
- Dexter's Dad makes a non-speaking cameo appearance at the beginning of the episode.
- The rebellion of Townsville's youth against the invading alien forces may be a reference to the war movie Red Dawn, in which a group of Colorado teens becomes forced to fight an invasion of Soviet troops who have taken many of their friends and all of the parents/adults captive.
- Moral: Eat your vegetables.
- This episode is in the Down 'n' Dirty DVD and Birthday Bash VHS.
- Bubbles is revealed to be a vegetarian in "Collect Her", and an episode that aired before this. However, she doesn't seem to like broccoli.
Errors[]
- When Buttercup says "What?" it comes from Blossom's mouth.
External links[]
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