I wrote this back in April 2025 (so more than a year ago!) but wasn’t strong enough to post it until now. I also don’t remember if I finished this or not, and I’m not about to go back and rewatch something I hated just to add in more opinions (if I didn’t mention it here it was probably something I really don’t care strongly about). So… behold, my ranting be upon ye:
I finally subjected myself to that Jellystone CN crossover thing that came out a while ago and my thoughts are under the cut (future note in 2026: I deleted the cut, I’m subjecting you all to this).
Let's begin by addressing the Bubbles-sized elephant in the room: obviously Bubbles slamming reboot Bubbles into the pavement for literally no reason whatsoever was stupid and trite, but you all knew I thought that was cringe and OOC. 🙄 So I won’t repeat myself on that!
I will point out one thing I thought was ironic about it. Everybody got sooooo pissed off about old and tired memes being shoved in the 2016 Powerpuff Girls reboot because it was out of character (rightfully so). But when an old and tired fandom meme of the Powerpuff Girls beating up their reboot characters is added, oh! Well! That’s completely in character! 🤪 Wild how Craig McCracken apparently hated the reboot enough to request whoever made this to do the same exact thing the reboot did, and for a number of original series fans to go gaga for something they were very vocally upset about in the reboot they disliked. I also thought it was interesting how they had a part of the Billy and Mandy section allude to how different versions of a character fighting themselves is kinda stupid… while doing that exact same thing as an “Easter egg.”
Aside from that, here are some of the things I liked:
✅ original voice actors/actresses
✅ ….I liked that the girls kind of had their weird little squat baby designs. That was fun.
And I also ✅ liked this ONE SINGULAR SHOT… this was good. I liked it. I want more of this in my life.
Now here is what I did not like:
❌ … I mean, look, I don’t like this show to begin with. 🤣 I never even heard about Jellystone until the crossover (maybe I did? I don’t remember), I don’t care for it, and I’m clearly just not the target audience for it. I love the old Hanna-Barbera characters, but in this iteration, they… aren’t the characters I love (genderbent lady Jabberjaw initially gave me whiplash lmao). They’re kind of like the reboot Powerpuff Girls, in a way: zombie corpses of their original counterparts with a new art style stuffed with modern, edgy personalities. Just not my jam and that’s okay!
❌ I’m adding this in as an edit in 2026 but I remember not really enjoying the fight sequences with the girls. I think there were a couple of things that I liked about them, but there were some instances where the girls were just moving way too slow and it was irritating me. This is more of a nitpick than like a whole “arrrrgghhh they ruined ittttt” sort of thing. I’m pretty sure I didn’t mention this in my original post because it wasn’t something that really bugged me or anything. Anyway…
❌ Of course, they had to go with Mojo‘s Dobby the House Elf character design. Using that character design is a sure-fire way to communicate to me that something Powerpuff Girls related is going to be bad. This is how they tricked me into believing that the 2016 reboot might actually be good. 🤣
Like, what is going on with his face? This looks so bad! Why is that middle bridge so far down?! I hate it!
Speaking of my sweet, perfect, wonderful son… ❌ it literally was the most out of character I think I’ve ever seen Mojo in my entire life. I cringed viscerally. Painfully. Just… not much was good. I was very sad. Also, I think if someone writes Mojo where every other word out of his mouth is “Mojo” or his full legal name of “Mojo Jojo,” they need to be arrested (note: this is hyperbole). It isn’t illegal for him to use first person pronouns once in a while! Who, oh who will ever be able to properly write the dialogue for my boy?! 😩
❌ I’m not even going to talk about the whole entire love interest thing because it made me just want to phase into oblivion. 🫥 I will say, however, that that part was for better or for worse… SIGH… in character (and even then I do have a few nitpicks about it but… yeah). 😮💨 But here is the thing about Mojo in love: I like to see him in love, but I love to see him suffer even more. I don’t want to see him in an actual relationship! I want his heart to be crushed! I want him to never get what he wants! I want him to have to go to multiple therapy sessions because of it! He is the villain! He deserves nothing!
❌ Also, it kind of irritates me that you can just throw the original voice actresses in there and people go nuts, like it's something that can just shield the episode from any other valid criticism. There were a lot of bad optics with the reboot replacing the original voice actresses, but the OTHER issue with that was that the girls were written completely OOC. You can’t just bring back original actors/actresses and expect the fans will drool over something when you still don’t have the characters act like themselves (case in point: S5-S6 of the original run of the show) (..then again, as I reread this and remember the general reaction to the episode... there were quite a few people who did drool over it despite the OOC stuff, so... [insert my agitated, hopeless sigh here]).
All of this is to say that, if Craig McCracken gave his blessing for this when he didn’t give it to the 2016 reboot… let’s just say that I am not confident about any future reboots that blessing goes to.
