The Powerpuff Girls (2016): The Reboot That Crashed and Burned (Part 4)
We're finally at the last part of this retrospective!
And to start this off, we'll be looking at.....
According to the crew, the goal of The Powerpuff Girls reboot was to spread positive messages, particular for female empowerment.
As well as making the characters more stronger than they originally were.
But before anyone who has watched the reboot, I'm certain you're all currently saying....
In the case of the latter two points.
Not only is the comment of making the original characters stronger in the reboot kinda disingenuous, it's also completely untrue.
As I've pointed out with the last two parts, literally every character from the original series has been more or less flanderized and made more one-dimensional when compared to their original counterparts.
And in terms of female empowerment....
As I stated in the second part, the girls themselves are constantly portrayed as being borderline incompetent and always either need help to take down whatever threat or need saving themselves, despite being the ones with actual superpowers.
Plus the fact how 95% of their interactions of this series is just them being at each other's throats really doesn't do much for the supposedly positive portrayal of sisterhood.
Not helping with how often they literally backstab each other for their own benefit.
For God's sake, in the episode "Our Brand is Chaos", Bubbles and Buttercup purposely SELL the soul of Blossom to HIM for the sake of a DOLLAR because they were one short away from buying a popular sled they wanted!
Bro even Mr. Krabs wouldn't be that greedy!
And going back to the topic of female empowerment, it's also not a good look when just about every prominent female character is portrayed as being very easily prone to bickering and very overreactive.
It's not much better with the males either, as just about every prominent male character is some variation of being an oblivious, incompetent moron.
And it when comes to the messages, I don't think I've a seen a show nearly consistently fail at trying to send a positive message as much as the PPG reboot.
One of the best examples would have to be the episode "Once Upon a Townsville".
Despite being one of the earliest episodes of the series, it's already gone down as earliest one of the worst!
In a pretty piss poor parody of fairy tale tropes and Disney, the girls help out a princess name Bluebell, who keeps putting herself in life-threatening situations in order for her prince to come and rescue her.
Essentially she's trying to commit suicide but with extra steps.
This understandably got under a lot of people's skins since suicide is a very touchy and serious subject.
But here, the reboot, which is a show made for families, portray these glorified suicide attempts as a JOKE!
Honestly, I've been wanting to say this for the retrospective.....
As I rewatched and looked back at the reboot, it honestly feels like what The Powerpuff Girls would've been like if it was made by BUTCH HARTMAN!
Which is pretty fucked up to think about since he was also a Hanna-Barbera veteran and had worked previously with Craig McCracken.
Like, the show low-key has a bit of that Fairly OddParents energy (once again, Bob Boyle was a writer on that show).
Having comedy that’s kinda overly mean-spirited and somewhat cynical.
And very questionable ways of portraying messages.
Not helped when you consider some of the show's most infamous episodes....
And Butch's....less than savory stances on stuff like suicide and mental health.
But back to "Once Upon a Townsville", the real nail in the coffin to the episode's messaging comes when after Bluebell saves the girls from the dragon that chased her into their world.
But after saving them, Bluebell berates the girls for not respecting her as a person....
Bitch. They were literally trying to HELP YOU! Especially since you are actively trying to put yourself in mortal danger for the sake of a guy who was NEVER gonna come!
The episode was clearly trying to go for a message of female empowerment and independence, but was told in such a piss poor way.
This also extends to recurring characters as well.
Like Bliss, who was created to be a Powerpuff Girl with dark skin, (at first) is portrayed as being mentally and emotionally unstable and has no qualms about abandoning her family.
And Manboy who.....honestly speaks for himself.
Contrast that to the original series, which had several episodes that taught important and positive messages.
And were far better handled.
"Bubblevicious", which showed that having a soft side doesn't make you weak, which Bubbles learned after going on a destructive streak due to feeling insecure about being seen as a softie.
"Paste Makes Waste", which showed just because someone may be weird in some way, doesn't mean they deserved to be bullied or mocked, which Buttercup learned after constantly bullying Elmer, a kid who ate paste.
"Moral Decay", which showed the corrupting effect of personal gain and how actions will have consequences, which Buttercup learned after she went on a rampage in order to get teeth for the sake of money, literally assaulting villains that weren't even doing anything and the time, and it even reach to the point where she assaulted Bubbles to get her teeth!
And perhaps two of the best examples, "Equal Fights" and "Members Only".
The former see the girls dealing with a new villain in town: Femme Fatale.
A female villain who claims to be on the side of feminism, but in reality, is actually a misandrist.
She actively discriminates against, steals from, and exploits men solely based on their gender.
And she constantly uses the prejudice that women have faced throughout history (and presumably from her own life experience) to justify her crimes.
The girls stop and apprehend her as usual, but as they're flying her to jail, FF tells the girls about how there's hardly any female superheroes or villains in an attempt to convince them to let her go.
And unfortunately, it worked.
This manipulation results in the girls adopting FF's misandrist mindset.
They threatened the boys of their schoolswhen they're simply playing with the other girls, prompting them to all cry.
They chew out The Professor when he asks them to clean their rooms, after haven done most of the chores around the house.
And they even refuse to accept The Mayor's call for help when FF's crime spree continues on.
This results in Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane sitting the girls down for a serious discussion.
They tell them that their viewpoint is not right and constantly bring up very good counterparts to their arguments.
But when the girls still aren't convinced, the real turning point comes when three other female figures come in to tell the girls about how they were each negatively affected by Femme Fatale.
A bank accountant who was robbed of Susan B. Anthony coins (which is what FF has been stealing exclusively).
A police officer who was assaulted and had her arm broken by FF when they were trying to apprehend her.
And a teenager who had her hairstyle ripped off by FF.
This scene perfectly showcased's FF's hypocrisy.
Despite claiming to be fighting for women, she has no qualms about harming them for her own gain.
This revelation causes the girls to realize what they've been doing was wrong and they decided to stop FF once and for all.
When confronting her again, the girls use the story of Susan B. Anthony to showcase what real feminism is truly like.
And in the end, they defeat her and take her to jail.
It's funny to think about how controversial this episode used to be and how most of the crew hated it because they felt like they weren't fit to touch in this kind of topic.
But in reality, they did it really well.
And if anything, "Equal Fights" has aged like absolute wine.
Since misandry is still very much a problem, since today with the rise of social media taking away anyone having goddamn filter anymore.
Not helping how it's often portrayed as being feminism.
But don't think this show doesn't touch on misogyny either, because it does in the episode "Members Only".
In that episode, the girls want to join The Association of World Super Men, who they admire and look up to.
But despite proving themselves in three trials, the association refused to accept them because they're females.
But things take a major turn when the association is attack by a powerful space warlord named Mascumax, who absolutely thrashes the girls.
In spite of how they were treated, the girls decide to be the bigger people and return to help them.
And after driving Mascumax off, the association show gratitude to the girls saving them and even ask if they could join their club!
While it isn't as thematically strong as "Equal Fights", it still does a decent job getting its theme across.
Plus I do like the scene where when Major Glory (from Dexter's Laboratory, who's the leader of the association) lists the chores and jobs that are typically done by women, the girls response by saying that The Professor usually does them.
As it has this underlying subtle message that he's more of real man than the association, as he has no problems of doing typically "feminine" chores.
But overall, the ways most of the messages are handled in the reboot is very much piss poor.
There are a few episodes that actually done a good job with its messages.
The most notable episode is "Home, Sweet Homesick," one of the VERY FEW episodes of the reboot that's actually good.
This episode sees the girls going to space camp, which excites Blossom given she has a passion for space.
But as you would expect, she quickly finds out that it's not what she thought it would be.
However, that all changed when she finds an old rocket that still manages to operate and used it to fly into space.
But spite of her finally achieving her goal, Blossom slowly realizes just lonely space can truly be.
All while accompanied by a song that's clear homage to David Bowie's Space Oddity, which is actually pretty good.
Soon enough, Blossom finds a video recording from her idol, who says that you should enjoy your childhood while you still can.
Since you only get one chance at it.
And so, Blossom returns to Earth and joins her sisters to have fun with them.
Once again, it's so weird because most of the time, the reboot fails miserably at important themes.
And the constant failing at themes is only made worse by......
This is probably the part you've all been waiting for the most.
When talking about The Powerpuff Girls reboot, you can not ignore the ridiculous amount of controversies it found itself in.
And these controversies weren't just exclusive to cartoon community circles of discourse.
These made NEWS headlines!
The first controversy came just almost a year before the reboot even premiered, as in June of 2015, it was announced that the girls would have new voices for the reboot.
Blossom would be voiced Amanda Leighton, Bubbles would be voiced by Kristen Li, and Buttercup would be voiced by Natalie Palamides.
Replacing the original voices: Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong and EG Daily respectively.
When asked about this, Nick Jennings revealed that the producers made this decision in order to bring new energy to the roles.
Now while it definitely hurt that the original VAs weren't being brought back, at least they'll be recasting most of the other characters as well in order to continue that new energy.
Which is the exact fucking opposite of what happened!
Yeah, the reboot brought back pretty much all the voices for the other returning characters.
Tom Kane as The Professor and HIM.
Roger L. Jackson as Mojo Jojo.
Tom Kenny as The Mayor and The Narrator
And Jennifer Hale as Ms. Keane.
Not for Princess Morbucks though!
She's instead voiced by Haley Mancini, who's also one of the main writers of the reboot.
And if you hadn't noticed already, out of the returning actors from the original series, 3 of the 4 are males.
As if the show's constant failed attempts to push a positive feminist message weren't already bad enough, the fact that they purposely recasted nearly all the female characters while keeping the original VAs for the male characters is not a good look.
Not helping with these three facts.
1#) Although Fuzzy Lumpkins and Ace were reduced to glorified cameos for the series, for the few times they did talk, they were voiced by their original VAs: Jim Cummings and Jeff Bennett! What kind of message is that sending?! That getting back the original voices for the characters you purposely made into background characters was more important than the original voices of your titular protagonists?!
2#) The original VAs revealed that they weren't even notified about being recasted!
3#) The voices of the other characters and their reputation.
The voices of the girls and Morbucks, while they did have roles prior to the reboot, they were mostly either very minor or one-time roles.
And in the case of Haley, she usually served more of a production role.
Hell, the reboot is probably their first real breakout roles.
But while their performances are decent, they just don't have the same chemistry as the OG voices.
Plus they kinda clash with the other OG characters, since they're voiced by their original actors, who all have decades of experience under their belts!
Even with Jennifer Hale coming back to at least voice Ms. Keane, the fact that they didn't allow her to voice Morbucks again is still a dick move.
And with how little she appears in the reboot, bring her back just felt pretty pointless.
It's not much better with the other prominent characters.
Most of them are voiced by actors who didn't really have many roles prior to the reboot, particularly in acting.
And even if they did, they were either one-time or very minor.
Along with that, they were not very well-known prior to the reboot.
In fact, I'm certain they're still not very well-known after literally a decade!
The only prominent characters voiced by actual big notable names are Bliss (voiced by Olivia Olson), Manboy and Pug-Face Paulie (voiced Maurice LaMarche), Allegro (voiced by Eric Bauza) and Silico and Packrat (voiced by Jason Spisak).
As you could tell, most of these roles are with male characters.
Virtually none of the prominent female characters are voiced by actually notable actresses besides Bliss and Ms. Keane.
But with how little they appear in the series, it still doesn't help.
And in the topic of voices, the reboot really skimmed out on that.
Not just for the major and recurring characters.
But also with the minor characters.
Most of them seem to be voiced by crew members or the very few notable voice actors that are already on the show.
If there's any notable voice among the minor characters, it's most likely being done by Tom Kenny, Eric Bauza, or the Regular Show favorite: Roger Craig Smith.
This is major far cry from the original.
Where just about every character (from major to minor) was voiced by a notable voice actor.
And apart from the ones I just mentioned, the original had the likes of Kath Soucie, Rob Paulsen, Kevin Michael Richardson, Dee Bradley Baker, Frank Welker, Kimberly Brooks, Scott Menville, Grey Griffin, the late Christine Cavanaugh and so many more!
I don't know why the reboot skimmed out on having actual notable professional voice actors in the prominent roles.
I can't help but feel like this might've been a budgetary thing.
Next we come to Ms. Bellum.
In the original series, Bellum was the highly intelligent, calm, and "brains behind the man" secretary to The Mayor. She is a nurturing yet witty and sarcastic mentor to the girls, often acting as the true leader of Townsville while maintaining a fiercely loyal, professional, and protective demeanor despite her boss’s ineptitude.
One of the most famous aspects of her character was how we never saw her face.
Which was intentionally done as a joke about how most people usually focused on her attractive figure as opposed to her intelligence.
Hell, her name is even a pun of her brains.
In the reboot, they notoriously wrote her out.
While they at least gave an in-universe for her absence (being that she's accumulated 1,000 days of vacation and has decided to use them), this didn't sit well with anyone.
She was one of the major characters of the original series and played an important role in the girls' lives.
When asked about this, Nick Jennings said....
"We felt like Ms. Bellum wasn’t quite indicative of the kind of messaging we wanted to be giving out at this time, so we sort of had her move on. And that was a good choice I think on our part."
Now this response is incredibly vague and doesn't really answer the question.
Specifically why they'd remove her.
Now it's very likely it was because of her attractive figure and the fact that we never saw her face.
Which honestly speaks volumes just how much they really understood the original series and where their positive feminist agenda really was.
Ms. Bellum was a well-rounded and well-realized character who just so happened to be attractive.
And the fact that we never saw what she looked like was a JOKE.
Essentially, the crew reduced her to nothing but her body, which is completely antithetical to her character.
And once again, showcases where their priorities for the positive feminist agenda really was.
Not helped when you remember that she was the one basically running Townsville!
Since The Mayor is an incompetent doofus.
So yeah, it's apparently better for an incompetent man who isn't quite fit for the job to be in power, while the woman who's actually competent and fit for the job shouldn't.
Plus, it's also sad to think how the girls in the reboot have no real guidance or people to look up to.
Ms. Bellum is gone and Ms. Keane is hardly around.
The only real "guidance" the girls have now is The Professor, but with how much of a bumbling fool he is here, that's not exactly doing any favors for them.
Speaking of Ms. Keane, a lot of people pointed how they removed her breasts in the reboot.
Which is admittedly really weird.
Was her having visible breasts really that much of a problem?
Seriously, it feels like this show was being made by fear-mongering parents.
Imagine if they ever had to work on Animaniacs!
And it's also pretty rich for them to think that Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane's designs are too sexual....
But then design Bianca Bikini and Bluebell like this.
Giving them thinner waists, wider hips, and thicker legs and thighs.
Because apparently that isn't attractive whatsoever!
I'm pretty sure anyone who has ever seen Dexter's Laboratory would call bullshit on that.
And just to add salt to the wound, the reboot didn't even get Bellum's original voice: Jennifer Martin, to reprise her role for her sole appearance.
That was instead done by Jennifer Hale.
Whether it was because she was unavailable at the time or they just didn't bother to bring her back is up for debate.
Though I wouldn't be surprised if it was the latter, given literally everything I just mentioned.
Now if these two controversies weren't already bad enough, things get even worse with the next two.
So you guys remember Donny? And how I said his debut caused a massive stir?
Well, that was because of his debut episode "Horn, Sweet Horn".
In the episode, Donnie is presented as a regular pony who believes he's a unicorn deep down.
So he undergoes a transmogrifying experiment via The Professor in order to finally become a real unicorn.
Unfortunately, it ends up backfiring and Donnie gets turned into monster, this leading him to go on a rampage in his panic and rage.
This episode was especially hyped up for the fact that it was going to feature explicit trans representation.
Which sounds like an interesting topic for the reboot to explore.
Too bad they didn't do it that well!
"Horn, Sweet Horn" is notorious for how borderline offensive it is, receiving understandable and rightful scorn from the LGBTQ+ community.
In the context of the transgender experience, having a character literally transform into a grotesque monster because they sought to physically align with their identity and then trying to say that it's all their fault is not at all a good look for spreading a positive transgender message.
This also flys in the face of the episode's messaging about self-acceptance and identifying on the inside.
Only made worse by the cop-out ending that revealed that Donnie was a unicorn the whole time, his horn was just hidden under his hair.....
And lastly, Bubbles came across as incredibly selfish here, forcing Donny into experimental procedures, completly against his full understanding, not because she genuinely wanted to help him.
It was because she wanted to be able to show everyone else at school up, since they had mocked her for believing in unicorns.
And when things went wrong, she showed very little remorse for it!
And now we come to not only the last controversy, but also the most infamous as well.
In the episode, "A Star is Blossom", it infamously featured two scenes that caught a lot of people's attention, and not for good reasons.
The first was a fantasy scene from Blossom, who was excited to star in the school play with Jared Shapiro.
And thus, we're greeted by this.
A musclebound version of a character who is canonically a child, but fawned over by another character who is canonically a child.
And if that wasn't bad enough, we also got this parody poster of Phantom of the Opera, from a montage of other parody posters.
As if the posing and the expressions of the couple weren't already bad enough, the fact they referenced a story famous for overt sexual undertones and placed it on, once again, two child characters is the icing to all this!
This understandably got a lot of people mad.
But what made this all worse was the fact that just about everyone quickly realized that Jared bared a striking resemblance to a major writer on show: Jake Goldman.
Who also just so happened to be the voice of Jared as well.
And so, this led pretty much everyone to believe that Jared was a self-insert of Jake in order to satisfy his supposed crush on Blossom.
Which is not a good look since as you can see, Jake is clearly a grown-ass man while Blossom is canonically around the ages of 5-6!
Not helping was that this occured right around the height of the MeToo Movement.
Which revealed the dark and disgusting sides of many people in the entertainment industry.
Including those in children's entertainment.
Not only that, but also how much they really put themselves in their works.
From Dan Schneider and his barely disguised love for teenage girls' feet.
To John Kricfalusi and his barely disguised love for....teenage girls.
To this day, even after 9 years, people still believe that Jared was a self-insert.
And it's one of the first things that come to mind when anyone ever thinks of the reboot.
But the truth is.....Jared is not a self-insert.
His resemblance to Jake Goldman was simply done as a joke on the part of the crew, as revealed by several members.
And Jake basically rolled with the fact that the character he voiced looked like him.
And this isn't all too surprising, as the reboot already had a habit of inserting crew members as background characters and even using their names for background gags.
So essentially, this was all just the result of what was thought to be a funny joke, with a major lack of pretty obvious foresight.
Like seriously, how did they think this wouldn't backfire horribly on them?
But even then, you would think that the show would retire Jared because of the controversy to stay on the safe side.
But surprisingly, they didn't.
As he kept making appearances regularly after "A Star is Blossom", still being voiced by Jake Goldman.
Now although Jared might not be a self-insert, there's still one elephant in the room to acknowledge.
And it's not because of his aforementioned resemblance to Jakey boy.
It's because of how he looks when compared to Blossom.
Jared looks considerably older than her.
He looks like he's about 10 or 11.
Which is WAY too old for Blossom.
Now this wouldn't be bad if it was a case where Blossom had a crush on Jared and he wasn't interested because he knew she was too young for him.
Like Mac and Frankie in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends or Dipper and Wendy in Gravity Falls.
But it's been shown a few times that Jared does like Blossom back!
There's no way in hell that little shit is 5-6 years old!
But I guess I shouldn't be too surprised since this is the same show that couldn't be bothered to say the name of the school that's one of the major settings of the series out loud!
And the only time it's ever mentioned is through a certificate with a pretty glaring spelling error.
And additionally feature students that do not belong in an elementary school!
So that was The Powerpuff Girls reboot.
And it's not hard to see why.
Just about every aspect of the reboot is heavily flawed in some regard.
The stories and plots are either poorly executed or painfully boring and generic.
The animation is adequate (when it's not being plagued with obvious animation errors) and the character designs are the most basic bitch ones you can think of for a 2010s cartoon.
The superheroics and action is practically non-existent (which pretty baffling given both the original series and the time this reboot was made, when superheroes DOMINATED the cultural landscape)!
The characters are all either one-note, annoying or both.
The humor is genuinely painful to endure, as it's trying way to hard to be hip with the kids.
And it continually failed to push any sort of positive messages in a way that wasn't either contradictory or borderline offensive.
But overall, I think the greatest flaw of The Powerpuff Girls reboot is it overall lack of a identity.
As a reboot of the original series, it's an undisputed FAILURE.
It more or less removes pretty much everything that made the original so iconic in the first place, and everything it added is very poorly done.
And even as it own thing, it's still not good.
For the reasons I just listed.
With all this said, you gotta ask, why was this show even made?
It ultimately ended up being for nothing given how how universally reviled it was and how much it quickly fell off a cliff in the ratings halfway through season one.
Leading to seasons two and three to be aired with no promotion whatsoever.
Not helped with the fact that they didn't really have any of the crew members of the original series.
So why was this reboot even made?
Well like I said in the first part, it was made in order to ride of the success of Teen Titans GO!
But another major reason for its existence was, in the words of Bootlick.....
The Powerpuff Girls reboot was not made out of a genuine desire to promote positive themes.
Or put a new and interesting spin on the characters.
Or even introduce them to a new generation of viewers.
It was only made to milk the franchise for all it was worth.
And with that context, it's no surprise that out of all the Cartoon Network shows to reboot, they ultimately chose the one that was such a merchandising powerhouse.
That's also certainly the reason why Ben 10 got the reboot treatment as well.
And with the context, it makes all the flaws of the reboot look exceptionally worse.
Especially the constant failings of positive messages.
Because there was really never any sincerity behind it.
Which is honestly the worst way to ever come at a project.
The show actually being good was simply a bonus, not the actual goal.
Now yes, we've had plenty of shows before that were largely created for the sake of profit.
Especially during the 1980s.
But even then, a decent chunk of them was able to turn out good and have a lot of effort put into them.
Transformers, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
All these shows were initially created for the sake of profit, but they were handled with so much care and effort.
And they added so much to their respective franchise that are still be used to this day in subsequent iterations.
Can you see ANYTHING from the reboot being used in any future iteration of the PPG?
And as I looked through the few interviews this series had, I could see that the PPG reboot really had no real creative voice or vision.
Something that you can tell with most other shows.
In fact, the reboot very much feels like it was more driven by the higher ups and executives at Cartoon Network than any of the actual crew.
I mean, given the fact that this show was their idea, that shouldn't be too surprising.
The Powerpuff Girls reboot is hands down the worst original series that Cartoon Network has ever put out.
Yes, even worse than this!
At least with The Problem Solverz, you could tell that it came from a place of genuine creative integrity.
And overall, the reboot is not only a massive insult to the original series and the people who loved it, but more importantly, the people who worked on it.
Lauren Faust, Genndy Tartakovsky, Craig Kellman, Paul Rudish, James L. Venable, John McIntyre, Amy Keating Rogers, Jason Butler Rote, and most importantly, Craig McCracken.
Speaking of Craig, you remember how in the first part, I said even after finishing up Wander Over Yonder, Craig never went on to join the crew of the reboot, despite being able to do so?
Well, that was because he didn't want to.
While he hasn't been the most vocal about it, in the few times he has, Craig has made it clear that he is not fond of the reboot.
And it's not hard to see why.
Like, being a fan of The Powerpuff Girls would be genuinely hell given how the reboot turned out.
With how much it completely misses everything that made it so great.
Imagine what it must feel like to be the creator of the damn thing?!
Additionally, Craig had mentioned that he knew damn well why the reboot was made and was adamantly against it.
With that context, plus the reason for the show's existence, you can honestly see the reboot as being everything that Craig and the original crew all feared the original series COULD'VE been and everything they were against in the creative side of animation.
Remember, they got their starts in the 1990s.
That was the decade that revolutionized television animation.
As animated shows during that decade were starting to be made by cartoonists with actual creative visions instead of toy companies for the sake of profit.
So for Craig to see his own creation being brought back for the very mindset he stood against really had to hurt.
And funnily enough, the original series lowkey predicted what would've eventually happened.
As I said before, The Powerpuff Girls reboot was an absolute failure.
Not only for critics, audiences and especially fans, but also Cartoon Network itself.
With the aforementioned non-existent promotion for the second and third season due to the abysmally low ratings from the reboot's poor quality and constant controversies.
And around 2018, most merchandising for the show had stop.
But in spite of that, this show ran for 119 episodes with a three year run from April 4th, 2016 to June 16th, 2019.
Though you gotta wonder why though, given how dreadful the ratings were.
I can only assume it was for tax-related reasons and contractual obligations.
Cartoon Network probably greenlit three seasons from the start.
And although the ratings and reception were telling them to end the series at season 1, they ultimately had to do the next two seasons unless they wanted to get the lawyers on their asses.
But ever since the series end, it's become increasingly clear just how much Cartoon Network utterly regrets this show.
Just about all the merchandising for the franchise has gone back to utilizing the designs from the original series.
Whenever there's any post from the channel's official social media, which celebrates their long and storied history, there's no mention of the reboot at all.
And then there are the moments where they make their blatant regret far more obvious.
Such as in the Jellystone special: Crisis on Infinite Mirths, which was a massive crossover featuring the characters of Cartoon Network.
Yes, you're eyes aren't deceiving you.
In the crossover battle scene, you can see reboot Bubbles getting fucking mollywhopped by OG Bubbles!
If that wasn't enough proof that CN regrets the reboot, then I don't know what is.
And this is made even funnier and more cathartic when you remember that series creator C.H. Greenblatt (my beloved) is also a big fan of the original series and has worked closely with many of its crew members before.
Including Craig McCracken himself!
So yeah, that's the story of The Powerpuff Girls reboot.
It brought a lot of things to the table.....none of which were done really well.
Only existed for the sake of profit and didn't really do that good of a job with that.
And it's now viewed as a joke, an embarrassment and a disgrace by its channel, its original creator and crew, its original voice actors, most of the wider animation industry, its fanbase, pretty much the entire viewing audience......
And considering how little they talk about this show, even its own producers and crew.
The legacy of this series can be best summarized as.
Also, if you want to feel really sad.
Reboot Professor Utonium would be one of Tom Kane's final roles before his abrupt retirement, and eventually, his tragic passing.
And with how much of a bastardization this version is when compared to the much more beloved original, that's a really rough way to go out on your career.
Also, I forgot to mention this earlier.
But even though he does return for the reboot, The Narrator appears very infrequently throughout season 1.
And by season 2, he's completely written out.
Even though this reboot is terrible, I guess we should be thankful this was all we got.
Because shortly after it kicked the bucket, we would soon find out that this franchise could've possibly been brought....even lower.
