| Beat Your Greens | |
| Episode name pun on: Eat your greens | |
|---|---|
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| Airdate: | September 10, 1999 |
| Credits | |
| Director: | Randy Myers Craig McCracken |
| Story: | Paul Rudish |
| Writer(s): | John McIntyre and Amy Keating Rodgers |
| See also | |
| episode transcript |
image gallery |
| Episodes | |
| Previous "You Snooze, You Lose" |
Next "Down 'n' Dirty" |
| Rating | |
Beat Your Greens is the first half of the fifth episode in the second season of The Powerpuff Girls, preceding "Down 'n' Dirty."
Main Article: Beat Your Greens Transcript
Synopsis
The episode begins with a really strange UFO hovering over earth. Inside are broccoli beings, who plan on complete world domination. Meanwhile, the girls and every kid in town are eating dinner. They are all served broccoli, but refuse to eat it. Professor Utonium shows the girls how to eat broccoli, but in the process, the broccoli had been planted with a mind control device that knocks the professor and every parent in town to the ground. The girls head to the Townsville Harvest Field to find out what is causing this. They find a weird, pea-pod like plant. Just as they are discovering it, the broccoli aliens land on earth. The girls first try to fight them by beating them up, but it causes them to regenerate their body parts in the process after each hit. Blossom begins to realize that the girls must defeat the broccoli by eating the broccoli, and with the help of the professor's advice, Blossom and the girls eat a bunch of the alien broccoli. The broccoli king declares war against the girls and Townsville, and begins to invade the city. The girls manage to convince all the kids in Townsville to eat for their parents. The war begins and the kids and girls attack the broccoli with any weapon that they can use against them, including cheese, pepper, rabbits and even goats. The kids end up surrounding the broccoli king and all 3 girls take a giant chomp out of him. The kids had become the victor of this battle and reunite with their parents. The next day, the professor and the girls go food shopping, the girls end up in the produce aisle along with other kids as they attack any veggie that they could find.
The narrator credits not only the three girls for saving the day, but the "hungry little tykes of Townsville," too.
Trivia
- This episode was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award of 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 Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
- This is the second episode to have a character die in the show, which is Broccolids, (the first being The Rowdyruff Boys in the synonymous episode of the same name, the second 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 cel 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."
- Dexters Dad Makes a non speaking cameo apperance in the beginning of the epsiode.
- 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 are forced to fight an invasion of Soviet troops who have taken many of their friends and all of the parents/adults captive.
- When Buttercup says "What?", it comes from Blossom's mouth.
- Moral: Eat your vegetables.
- This episode is in the Down 'n' Dirty DVD and Birthday Bash VHS.