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Powerpuff Girls: Down 'N' Dirty, The

Warner Bros. // Unrated
List Price: $19.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]

Review by Adam Tyner | posted November 10, 2000 | E-mail the Author
Sugar...spice...and everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction -- Chemical X. Thus, the Powerpuff Girls were born! Using their ultra superpowers, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil!

The ten episodes included on "Down 'N' Dirty", one of the first two compilations of Powerpuff Girls episodes on DVD, are...
  • Birthday Bash: All of the Powerpuff Girls' imprisoned archenemies try to sabotage the girls' birthday party by sending them boobie-trapped presents.
  • Beat Your Greens: Despite having superpowers, the girls are still normal kids in a lot of ways, including an intense hatred of eating vegetables. And guess what sorts of aliens are preparing to attack Townsville?
  • School House Rocked: The Gangrene Gang are forced to enroll at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten and are immediately up to their usual hijinks, but Miss Keen thinks the girls are to blame.
  • Los Dos Mojos: After suffering a head injury, Bubbles becomes convinced that she's Mojo Jojo.
  • Stuck Up, Up, And Away: The exceptionally wealthy Princess Morebucks becomes envious of the girls' powers and stature, bent on revenge for the Powerpuff Girls not letting her into their group.
  • Dream Scheme: An overworked, burned-out Sandman decides to put the entire world to sleep...permanently!
  • Just Another Manic Mojo: The Powerpuff Girls accidentally knock a ball into Mojo Jojo's lair, and Mojo works furiously to devise a plan to destroy the girls while they wait for him to return their ball.
  • Down 'N' Dirty: Buttercup likes getting down and dirty when fighting, but her refusal to bathe afterwards makes life in Townsville unbearable.
  • Mo Job: Princess Morebucks hires Mojo Jojo to devise a plot to destroy the Powerpuff Girls -- Mojo gives the Princess superpowers and a machine to rob the girls of their abilities.
  • Major Competition: A new superhero, Major Man, comes to town, taking all the attention from the Powerpuff Girls. He's not quite as gallant as he seems though...
I've seen most of these episodes four or five times, and because of the style, wit, and imagination that goes into this series, I never get tired of watching 'em. There isn't much quality animation on television at the moment, and aside from "Batman Beyond", there's nothing as consistently entertaining to me as the Powerpuff Girls. As soon as the first two DVD collections of Powerpuff Girls episodes, this disc and "Powerpuff Bluff", arrived via the good ol' United States Postal Service, I sat down for a four-hour Powerpuff marathon, probably the most fun I've had with my DVD player in the year-plus I've owned it.

Video: Since the animation style used in the Powerpuff Girls is pretty clean and simple, I wasn't expecting much difference in the quality of the full-frame video, but the disc is noticeably sharper. Not a huge difference, but enough to get very high marks.

Audio: A marked improvement over the broadcast versions. The Dolby Surround Stereo track is much fuller and richer than what I've heard on cable, and the bass packs a much bigger punch in particular.

Supplements: The snapper case lists an extra cartoon -- an episode of "Sheep In The Big City", but instead, my disc had the first "Courage The Cowardly Dog" episode (around 22 minutes). There's also a play on the typical cast/crew bios, with brief descriptions of Professor Utonium and Mojo Jojo, along with a trivia game. The DVD-ROM portion includes some more games as well.

Conclusion: "The Powerpuff Girls" is probably the best animated program on television right now, and although the episode selection on "Down 'N' Dirty" doesn't quite match up with those on "Powerpuff Bluff", it's hard to look at a very reasonably priced collection of so many great episodes presented in such high quality and not give it a collector series rating. Go out and buy both Powerpuff Girls discs right now. Now.

Although this may be a sort of odd compliment to make, I really liked the fact that selecting "play all" only went through the opening sequence once. Very nice use of branching.
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