I don’t want to be that guy, but I feel like I’m going to have to be when giving my opinion on the first episode of the new Powerpuff Girls cartoon. The original Powerpuff Girls was in the sweet spot of Cartoon Network along side such great cartoons as Dexters Laboratory and Johnny Bravo. The cartoon showed three genetically created little girls who fought evil in the city of Townsville and lived with their create, The Professor. If you didn’t know that going into the cartoon the intro would explain that to you along side showing some of the other side characters and villains. The show was filled with adult innuendo, but it had it’s run and then it was taken off the air.
The announcement of a new Powerpuff Girls show came in the form of a trailer showing a three colored streak flying across multiple Cartoon Network shows. The streak was comprised of green, blue and red which was the colors of each of the Powerpuff Girls.
The premiere was set for April 4, 2016 but on March 16, 2016 the first episode went live for free to download on itunes. The single episode was about 11 minutes and only resembled the original cartoon with it’s art style. All the original voices were gone and the intro and theme song sound like a songs The Runaways would do. For viewers of the original cartoon this may be ok, but for new watchers who don’t have a clue about who these girls are or how they got powers there may be some confusion. The episode did start with the very familiar narrator voice from the original cartoon, but as soon as the Powerpuff Girls were introduced and they spoke I became a little disappointed. I miss the voices of Catherine Cavadini, E.G. Daily and Tara Strong, and the worst part is that the new voice actors try to make it sound like the original but it’s not the same. The rest of the episode brings in no original characters and the villain they fight is a boy who can grow and control a beard. His motif is of a manly lumberjack so everything has to be as manly as possible, and just like Samson cutting his beard removed all his power. The ending was the worst part of the cartoon, because at the bottom of the screen under the credits there are version of the girls as characters from It’s A Small World.
Teen Titans did a reboot and it worked perfectly, because it become a little sillier and kept the voices. Powerpuff Girls kept the same ammount of silliness, lost the voice actors, and it may seem pity but that was a huge strong point for them. The voices made the girls and with the new voices nothing is sounding right, which takes me completely out of the cartoon. I only hope they bring back some original villains with their original voices.