Town and Out (The Powerpuff Girls, 1998)

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"Town and Out"
Or you can call this episode "Citiesville Sucks"!
Series: The Powerpuff Girls Part of Season: 3 Episode Number: Overall: 53 Season: 3 (2a) Air Date: August 18, 2000 Writer: Amy Keating Rogers Director: Genndy Tartakovsky Craig McCracken Previous episode: The Mane Event Next episode: Child Faring

Town and Out (The Powerpuff Girls, 1998) is the first half of the 2nd episode of Season 3 of The Powerpuff Girls (1998).

Plot

The Professor gets a new job, and the Utonium family moves to the Town of Citiesville. The Professor loves it, but the girls don't. They try their best to make it just like it was for them in Townsville, but it just isn’t the same it's downright awful.

Why Citiesville Goes Out of Town

1. The Town of Citiesville is a gross-out town filled with garbage and nasty people.
2. This episode is cruel to the Girls, as they get laughed at by the kids at their new school, stared down by a nasty teacher (who has terrible voice acting), and forbidden from using their powers.
3. Professor Utonium is completely out of character. Instead of being an intelligent and loving father, he's a bumbling idiot who fakes being happy for the Girls, even though they are miserable.
4. Plot holes:
   • How did the villains not take over Townsville when the Girls moved away?
   • At Citiesville, why would Professor Utonium move in into a very poorly-maintained room at Shady Inn Motel instead of a house? Couldn't he at least afford any money to move in into a semi-decent house in Citiesville?
   • Adding to that point, it contradicts the events of the episode "Speed Demon" from season two, which shows what would happen if the Powerpuff Girls left Townsville, and begged the Professor to never leave town. Not helping is the fact both episodes are written by Amy Keating Rogers.
5. The episode itself is supposed to apply the girls' brand of super-heroics to a more realistic setting, but many pieces of the plot felt more like they're designed to abuse and torment our heroines as much as possible. Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt did a much better concept than this!
6. The whole episode is full of mean-spirited scenes:
   • Everyone in Citiesville is such jerks toward the Girls, and none of them ever got punished for their cruel actions towards the Girls, with the biggest offenders being the teacher (who was voiced by Jeff Bennett and he has a terrible voice acting, as mentioned before) and the mayor of Citiesville.
   • The Girls are forced to walk by a helicopter because Citiesville has a No Flying Zone policy.
7. "Town and Out" is overall a completely wasted concept of an otherwise bad episode. An episode where the Girls move into a new city was a good idea and could have utilized some interesting writing like the Girls seeing how the People of Citiesville go with their daily lives as well as them encountering others to befriend them. While the Girls would still struggle in adapting to their new environment, it also could have probably included some light-hearted moments like the Girls befriending some at Citiesville (as mentioned before), but instead, this whole episode is nothing but being cruel towards the Girls (see WIS #1).
8. Hypocrisy: This episode completely contradicts the episode "Speed Demon" as it establishes that the girls should never leave Townsville even if it’s for a vacation if they either move or go on vacation then the villains will make Townsville damaged beyond repair. While that episode teaches a bad moral to kids that moving away from your hometown is wrong, that moral is contradicted in this episode due to the girls moving to another town without consequence.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The idea of the Girls severely struggling to adapt in Citiesville is very relatable to audiences (especially children) since people (especially children) struggling in a new city they have moved to because of job opportunities is a common occurrence in real life, albeit executed poorly due to being too overly mean-spirited.
2. The twist ending where the Professor confessed to the Girls that he, too, hated Citesville was pretty good.
3. At least they left Citiesville and moved back to Townsville at the end of the episode.

Reception

• This episode was meant as a deconstruction, applying the girls' brand of super-heroics to a more realistic setting. Despite this, it was one of the show's worst-received episodes.

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