Cartoon fans I was a kid of the nineties and that means the show that i'm about to review for you all is a show that I grew up watching. I'll admit that I didn't watch this show all the time mostly because I was busy watching other shows but other time this show has started to grow on me and well I thought that since i've reviewed both the reboot and the movie it only makes sense for me to review the original so here is my review of the 98 version of The Powerpuff Girls.
The premise of the series is basically three girls with superpowers fight crime and protect the town and people of Townsville. As my summery will suggest this show is episodic so you don't really need to watch episode one to understand say episode ten you can watch any of the episodes and get the personality of each of the girls and while I do think having this be an episodic show works for this show I still would have liked it to have a long running story just to make things a bit more interesting.
Starring in the show was Catherine Cavadini as Blossom , Tara Strong as Bubbles and E. G. Daily as Buttercup. Since there are quite a few characters in the show i'm not going to name who played every single so I chose just to name who played the three girls because it would save me alot of time and because let's be real that's all you really wanted to know. I will say tho that there are alot of great voice actors in this series so it's worth watching just to hear who pops up as what character.
In terms of what i thought about the voice acting in general it's alot better the acting in the reboot mostly because every actor in this feels like there actually trying where as in the reboot all of the returning actors just feel like there putting in the minimum amount of effort. It goes without saying that the actresses playing the three girls do a great job since all of the actresses are voice acting legends and all three are perfectly cast in this show.
The show had two animation studios working on it during it's run with the animation for the first four seasons being done by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons and the final two seasons being done by Cartoon Network Studios. Your guess is as good as mine as to why they switched studios halfway through maybe Cartoon Network wanted more control over the series or HB wanted more money per-episode regardless the animation remains top notch all throughout the series run.
Now there was no way I could review this series and not talk about the design of the girls while the designs are indeed iconic. That's not to say that the designs aren't creepy as hell because trust me they are but this show makes them work and it somehow makes them adorable and that's not something that many shows pull off. I will say tho that the thick lines can be quite distracting but given that this was a late nineties show thick lines are to expected.
This show had a total of six seasons , three specials one of which was a christmas special and a theatrical movie. In total there were seventy eight episodes of the show made which given the premise to me is really shocking since at most this should have been a two or three season show but the fact they managed to get as much out of it as they did is true testament to the creative team and really everyone involved.
Now there's a chance that this could be wrong but during production of the show there was a hiatus which I think happened in season 4 and that was because the crew stopped working on the show to work on the movie. In my opinion I really don't see why they couldn't have hired more people to work on both that way they could have had the show airing as the movie came out but I guess that they wanted to make the movie feel more like the show.
One of the many things that this show does better then the reboot is the fact that it actually includes strong female characters and not just say there about female empowerment. To me and I think many others one of those characters is Miss Bellum here is a character that is beautiful but she's also smart and skilled fighter among many other things. So why she was not included in the reboot is beyond me since she is everything the makers of that show wanted there version to be.
Now I will admit that this series had one episode which to me felt like it was trying to hard to push a feminist agenda and that's the episode "The Boys Are Back in Town" where the girls learn that in order to defeat the Rowdyruff Boys they have to make there masculinity feel threatened. To me that seemed like it was trying to hard to push a feminist agenda onto people and if every other episode of the show was like that I wouldn't mind it since it would feel out of place but this is the only episode that really does it and it stands out by a mile.
Another thing that this show did better then the original was the fact that it actually has action scenes in it. I know that's hard to believe an action cartoon actually having action scenes who would have thought of it all joking aside tho the action in this series is honestly really well done you can tell that the team put alot of effort into these scenes and it's because of that that I have to wonder if this was a storyboard driven show or not. Also I will admit there are a few action scenes which go to far even for my tastes like in episode one where the girls are transformed into dogs and they have a fight with other dogs and we see every punch and kick thrown but as someone who's a dog lover that was just to much for me.
I have to say tho that not all is good with the show since there are alot of episodes that just go know where and that did start to get really frustrating for me personally just because they seemed like really fun episodes but then without any reason they'd just end. If i'm being honest this is one of the few things that the reboot does better then the original show just because in the reboot they at least tell complete stories.
To get back to the positives tho this show does have a great sense of honour and I did find myself laughing alot of the time. Alot of the jokes in the show aren't just from what the characters there from what's seen in the background like for the fact the registration plate on the Professors car is pretty good joke and who honestly doesn't love evil Bubbles that whole concept is just freaking funny at least in my opinion.
Overall this show is miles better then the reboot and is honestly everything the reboot should have been. It's not a perfect show tho by any means in fact I think i've listed all of the problems with the show but if there's anymore then please let me know and it's those problems that keep the show from being a perfect ten so it gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.