#og Professor utonium was such a great dad in classic PPG!

[gch1995]

I just did a rewatch of the classic PPG cartoon, and Professor Utonium is such a Dad™️ to the girls. It alternates between being beautifully heartwarming and endearingly embarrassing with just how doting, loving, and protective of the girls Professor Utonium is.

There are just not enough genuinely good dads in cartoon sitcoms.

[gch1995]

I’m 25 going on 26 now, and I grew up loving the classic Powerpuff Girls cartoon series when I was a kid. Even now when I rewatch it as an adult, it’s still a cute and funny cartoon, especially now that I’m old enough to recognize all of the adult jokes. Like, there’s no way it was a coincidence that Professor Utonium’s despicably dishonest, greedy, lazy, manipulative, selfish, and sleazy former roommate from college was given the name Professor Dick Hardly by accident.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup actually are pretty relatable little girls who have believable flaws and insecurities. They make believable bad choices for little girls. Those issues actually get dealt with seriously, rather than just being brushed aside as no big deal with no negative consequences. They are still endearing and sympathetic in spite of their flaws.

While he had a few OOC moments of bad parenting in some bad episodes here and there, generally speaking, Professor Utonium from the classic Powerpuff Girls is actually one of the best dads in cartoons that I’ve ever seen, which is sadly pretty rare in most cartoon sitcoms, even the ones that are actually aimed at a children audience.

Most cartoon dads are abusive, lazy, neglectful, selfish, and stupid oafs. Granted, those type of dads in cartoon sitcoms can actually be entertaining and funny to watch when they are actually being well-written as shitty and slow-witted, but still essentially well-meaning people in regards to their families, such as S1-S8 Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and even S1-S3 Peter Griffin from Family Guy. However, the entertainment quality of those shitty, but well-meaning cartoon dads was mostly lost when the writers flanderdized their negative traits to the point of making Homer and especially Peter downright despicable with little to no redeeming or sympathetic qualities much of the time anymore. They went from being shitty, but essentially well-meaning parents and husbands to downright bratty and spoiled man-children who were much more intentionally abusive, childish, cruel, neglectful, petty, and selfish in regards to their families and others around them with little to no sympathetic or redeeming qualities much of the time anymore, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why The Simpsons went downhill in quality after S8, and why Family Guy went downhill in quality after S3.

Nonetheless, even as they were originally written on their shows pre-flanderdization when they were still well-meaning, but misguided parents and spouses, cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, weren’t good dads on the whole. There were still plenty of recurring plot lines and/or gags of them being abusive, lazy, neglectful, reckless, and selfish. Back in early seasons pre-flanderdization, it was more forgivable, though, because they also still had their fair share of kind and selfless moments with their families, and their shittiness as parents wasn’t intentionally abusive, malicious, premeditated, and selfish in nature, which balanced them out enough to still be entertaining and likable characters in spite of their flaws.

Realistically speaking, though, dads like Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson would be better off having their kids taken away from them by CPS. Their good qualities and lack of malicious intent, particularly in earlier seasons pre-flanderdization, would still not hold up as legitimate excuse as to why they should be allowed to keep their kids. Bart would have bruises all over his neck, fractures in his neck, and he could possibly be killed if Homer strangled him hard enough to actually break his neck and/or cut off his air supply long enough in real life just once. Meg, Chris, and even Stewie would not only be injured, but actually outright killed in real life from some of the abuse and neglect that Peter and Lois put them through in later seasons of FG. All of these kids, especially Meg, would have serious self-esteem issues for the rest of their lives because Peter, Lois’, and Homer’s abuse and neglect of their kids went beyond just a pattern of being physical in nature, but emotionally and verbally abusive as well.

So yeah, Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson are really not good fathers who you’d ever want to deal with for a parent in real life, even pre-flanderdization. The major reoccurrence of the abusive, bumbling, idiotic, lazy, drunken, neglectful, and selfish dad trope in cartoon sitcoms is exactly why I really love Professor Utonium from the classic PPG cartoon. I don’t necessarily mind it in absurdist cartoon sitcoms when it’s done well as a trope, but I’m also getting tired of mostly just seeing bad and stupid dads in cartoon sitcoms, and not enough good ones.

For the most part, the OG Professor Utonium is a great dad who goes above and beyond to make sure Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are happy, healthy, disciplined, and safe. He’s usually the parent most of us wish we could have in real life, if we don’t already. It’s refreshing to actually see a good dad in an animated sitcom for once.

Professor Utonium in the classic PPG cartoon is generally a very kind, loving, selfless, and supportive dad to girls. However, he also knows when he has to discipline them and be strict without ever being mean about it. He gives them good advice. He’s very selfless, and even though the girls are superheroes with superhuman abilities, he’ll still risk and/or sacrifice anything to protect them when they’re unable to protect themselves with their powers, including his own life. He didn’t need to be the stereotypical cartoon sitcom abusive, bumbling, dumb, and neglectful dad in order to be funny either. He was funny because he could sometimes be overprotective of the girls, and he could sometimes embarrass them by calling them sickly sweet terms of endearment and telling embarrassing stories that he shouldn’t have about them in public. He was socially awkward. These are relatable flaws in parents that even the best ones have.

While the girls don’t have a mother, Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane were very brave, kind, and intelligent strong women who were good role models.

Also, the Professor did many activities with the girls and chores around the house that get gender-coded as “mother’s work.” Some of these things include begrudgingly playing dress up as Bubbles to make her happy when she was playing PowerPuff Girls with Buttercup and Blossom on a rainy day inside of no crime when he saw that she was upset that no one wanted to be her, cooking, cleaning, and actually sitting down to talk with the girls, listen to them, emotionally support them, and give them advice. He’s also not afraid to be openly affectionate, doting, and emotional with the girls. There’s just not enough good dads in cartoon sitcoms, which is why I really like Professor Utonium from the OG PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie. He mostly defied all the bad dad stereotypes, and was a really great one to the girls more often than not.

The main villains from the classic PowerPuff Girls cartoon are incredibly entertaining, especially MoJo JoJo. Him was always the creepiest to me because he was the most devious, insidious, and manipulative one. All of the psychological abuse and manipulation he put the girls and Townsville through was always the scariest to me when I was a kid because out of all the villains on the show, the torment that he wreaked upon the girls and Townsville by brainwashing them, gaslighting them, and/or exploiting their fears and insecurities often was played as dead serious with really scary results, especially in early seasons of classic PPG. While Him had a few human moments here and there, for the most part, he was pretty consistently played off as being seriously scary and dangerous.

MoJo JoJo was an egomaniacal asshole hellbent on destroying the PowerPuff Girls and world domination, and on a few occasions, he actually came close to succeeding. On a few occasions, he genuinely was more scary than camp evil. But he still had a lot of humorous, human, fallible, and relatable moments, too. My favorite MoJo moments are the ones where he is making jokes, irritably going grocery shopping to get eggs, getting too frustrated by the girls antics and childish behaviors and reactions to actually go through with his plans to destroy them at certain points, and getting angry and jealous enough to actually destroy the alien/robot invader from another planet who was destroying Townsville in all the evil ways that he always wanted to himself. He was highly intelligent at coming up with clever schemes and inventions with all his science and technology to take over the world, destroy Townsville, and/or destroy the PowerPuff Girls. However, his arrogance, impatience, and impulsivity always doomed him to fail to succeed in the end, though he did come pretty close on a few occasions, especially in the 2002 prequel origin story movie, and he did actually get to rule the world in “The PowerPuff Girls Rule the World!” Surprisingly, he actually was a kindhearted ruler who did good things, but then he gave it all up and went back to being evil because he got bored.

Originally, MoJo was a well-intentioned extremist who wanted to create a utopia ruled by primates where they would never be controlled or rejected by humans again. As much as Professor Utonium’s irritation with JoJo for being a destructive chimp lab assistant was completely justified, it’s also hard not to feel kind of sorry for Mojo Jojo and understand where he’s coming from in his motivations to become evil, particularly in the 2002 prequel movie because originally all he really wanted was to be loved by his owner, too. He understandably felt rejected when Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup became the center of his universe instead. Of course, that doesn’t excuse him for choosing to respond to the Professor’s rejection by becoming an arrogant, evil, cruel, hateful, hypocritical, domineering, manipulative, petty, selfish, and vengeful villain going on a quest for world domination, attempting to commit homicide several times, probably committing voluntary manslaughter of citizens several times that we didn’t see on screen when destroying Townsville all those times, turning the rest of the world into dogs to try to take over the world, and trying to destroy the girls. However, you understand why Mojo became the villain he did with his backstory. He’s relatable. Occasionally, he does have some genuinely sympathetic moments where he’s actually willing to be friendly with the girls, team up with them, and do the right thing.

HIM was just the personification of evil for no other reason than the fact that he was satan. While MoJo was a complex, human, and relatable anti-villain with his origin story as the Professor’s lab chimp, who gained genius-level human intellect from having Chemical X splashed on his brain, and then chose to become evil after feeling rejected by the Professor when he saw how he pretty much forget about him once the girls became the center of his universe instead, HIM was evil, manipulative, and hateful for no other reason than the fact that those traits were a part of his nature as the very embodiment of evil. Many times, a fictional villain being portrayed as one-dimensional with no sympathetic qualities or relatable motivations will annoy me, but with HIM being evil just because that’s who he is, it actually works because he is literally Satan. There doesn’t need to be a deeper sympathetic story behind why he is evil. Committing crimes, wreaking havoc, corrupting people, manipulating people, turning people against others, exploiting the fears of others, and deceiving others for his own amusement is just who he is, and in the early seasons of classic PPG in particular, that made him really scary to me when I was a six year old little girl watching the cartoon on TV.

You get the idea...The classic PowerPuff Girls was a fantastic cartoon, particularly the first four seasons. Granted, there was some series seasonal rot going on in the writing in S5 and S6 after the 2002 prequel movie, and Craig Mcracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure from the crew. Like, the characterizations of the characters and/or storylines in S5 and S6 felt comparably flanderdized, ooc, immature, inconsistent, pointless, shallow, and underwhelming at certain times to fit the plot, such as in the episodes “Keen on Keane,” “Pee Pee G’s,” “Seed No Evil,” “Reeking Havoc,” “Toast of the Town,” “Say Uncle,” “City of Clipsville,” “”Bubble Boy,” A Made Up Story,” “Mo’linguish,” and “Simian Says.” Even the good episodes of S5-S6 still didn’t ever reach the same level of greatness of the ones from S1-S4. However, the seasonal rot in the classic PPG cartoon of S5-S6 after Craig McCracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure still wasn’t nearly as bad as the seasonal rot on The Simpsons after S8, Family Guy after S3, and SpongeBob SquarePants post S3–S4 ish, so I’m still willing to consider most of S5-S6 of classic PPG legit canon.

However, it sounds like the 2016 PPG reboot fucked up everything that was originally good about it to go for a more slapstick comedic feel without substance without consistency, depth, and intelligence. Now, I hear that the CW is making a live-action TV show spin-off of the PowerPuff Girls being jaded and resentful young women who’ve given up crime fighting as result! No, no, no! Why? Why does the CW keep making dark, nitty, and gritty live action teen soap operas out of beloved childhood cartoons?

Yeah, the original PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie had dark moments. The girls could be bratty and make bad choices sometimes. However, it was still very much a fun show about normal little girls born with superpowers, which they chose to use to defend their father, their city, and on some occasions, the whole world, from crime. No one ultimately forced them to be superheroes for everyone in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. They chose to do it because they had brave and selfless hearts. There was ultimately no obligation for them to be superheroes in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. Sure, they got tired of fighting crime at times, but they still ultimately enjoyed doing it when push came to shove. They weren’t weighed down by the darkness of the world, hatred, and resentment. They still were relatively normal little girls with happy, peaceful, and normal lives of little girls whenever they weren’t fighting crime after the events of the prequel movie about their origins. That’s what made the PowerPuff Girls classic cartoon so special.

By turning Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup into jaded young women, who have given up on being superheroes because they’ve grown resentful of “losing the normal childhood to crime fighting” that they basically are shown to have in the original series for the most part in their spare time aside from having superpowers that they chose to use to fight crime to defend their dad and Townsville from, anyway, where is the fun in that?

[gch1995]

I’m actually watching the 2016 PPG reboot. While in some ways it is actually nice to see the girls hanging out and interacting more like sisters in slice of life scenarios, it is irritating that they aren’t really doing a ton of saving the day.

Remember the occasional flaw in the writing for the OG cartoon of Buttercup getting subject to mean spirited centrics where she and/or her loved ones were subject to character derailment in order for her to be punished, suffer, and/or get double standards? Well, that’s not a problem in the 2016 reboot anymore? She does most of the saving, and gets a most of the attention in the reboot.

Unfortunately, they’ve created a new problem by focusing too much on Buttercup in the reboot, however. Now, Blossom and Bubbles don’t have much relevance.

While the OG PPG classic cartoon was a great show overall, I won’t deny that there were bad episodes and ooc moments here and there, but what have they done to the girls personalities here in the reboot on the whole, though?

Blossom has become a butt-monkey, a Yandere, and a neat freak. She still likes getting good grades, but she’s more bossy and naggy than the intelligent, mature, and resilient leader she was in original.

Bubbles has become “cute, but psycho” trope most of the time in the reboot, whereas in the OG cartoon, “Bubblevicious” was mostly just a one time thing when she went off the rails because she wanted to stop being seen as a “baby.”

Buttercup originally was the “toughest fighter” with a tomboyish personality and a bit of an instigator side, but like, she had restraint and common sense most of the time. Here in the reboot, she destroys an entire state fair and accidentally gives Bubbles a black eye because a villain called her “Princess.” Really? WTF? Also, she just seems to have become much more openly obnoxious and bratty. Like, why would she make fun of Ms. Keane for teaching a grammar lesson? Why would she steal Octi from Bubbles without provocation? She didn’t always respect authority in the original cartoon, and she did like to mess with Bubbles in the OG cartoon. However, she’d never been this petty and disrespectful in the og cartoon.

Don’t get me started on how wrong the writers got the Professor in the 2016 reboot...It’s probably the worst character assassination in the reboot, actually. While he had some OOC moments in the original cartoon of bad parenting in some bad episodes that didn’t make any sense, such as “Moral Decay,” “Daylight Savings,” and “Keen on Keane,” for the most part, Professor Utonium from the OG cartoon was a really great dad to the girls. He was attentive, brave, kind, caring, intelligent, reasonably strict, protective, and selfless more often than not in the og cartoon “Boogie Frights,” “PowerProf,” “Collect Her,” “Knock it Off,” “Beat Your Greens,” “Little Miss Interprets,” the 2002 prequel movie, “Film Flam,” “Get Back Jojo,” “Nano of the North,” “Helter Shelter,” “Supper Villain,” “Just Desserts,” “The PowerPuff Girls Best Rainy Day Adventure,” “Pet Feud,” “The Mane Event,” “Stray Bullet,” “Meet The Beat-Alls,” “Octi-Gone,” “Oops, I did it Again,” and “Members Only” showed just how much he loved those girls, and just how great of a dad he could be. Sometimes he could be an absent-minded, overprotective, and embarrassingly cheesy Dad™️ in episodes like “Uh Oh, Dynamo” and “Powerprof.” However, he really did love Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup more than anything, and would risk anything to protect them. He really loved to hang out with them, and he usually took a genuine interest in what they were doing.

In the 2016 reboot, however, the Professor is more often than not a completely idiotic, insensitive, neglectful, reckless, and selfish manchild. Whenever he has centrics, the girls actually parent him more than he actually parents them. He barely seems to care about them at all. He is such an idiot that he actively endangers them by locking them up all in a room together where they can’t escape when he thinks one of them is about to turn into a monster, rather than isolating them all in separate chambers, which is something that the OG Professor never would have ever done before with any of the girls, not even in his most OOC moments. In the original cartoon, Professor Utonium created the girls because he wanted to raise some kids, and make the world a better place. In the reboot, he actually created a PowerPuff Girl before Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup called Bliss, just because he wanted to win a science fair. Really?

While there were occasional hints that Buttercup was kind of the black sheep of the family in the OG cartoon, mostly thanks to the writers not knowing how to write centrics around a tomboy in a positive light, in my opinion, rather than the characters themselves, Professor Utonium never once told any of the girls he had any favorites between them. In the reboot, he lets it slip that Bliss was “his favorite daughter,” which instantly makes Buttercup feel hurt. Though he tries to reassure that he doesn’t actually have any favorites, the damage is already kind of done. In the reboot, when Blossom is concerned about not ever leveling up in her powers like her sisters, the Professor actually makes it worse by telling her that she might never level up in her powers, and might just become a normal little girl. In the OG cartoon, if the girls ever confided in the Professor, he was never this insensitive and stupid.

Also, why did they take out the backstory of Mojo’s connection to the girls in the reboot? Now, he’s just a boring one-note chimpanzee villain with a big brain, who talks in the third person, and who acts stupid more often than not. It also just makes the Professor look more incompetent than he originally was in the og cartoon.

However, I’m going to get through this whole thing, no matter how stupid and insulting to the original it gets.