Japanese Title: Pippi and the Moon Stone
Original Airdate: May 6, 1997
US Airdate: September 15, 1998
The one where... Ash references the macarena.
While traveling from Pewter to Cerulean City Ash and friends pass through Mt. Moon. They run into a scientist named Seymour who studies the Clefairy who live in the area. He purports that Clefairy actually come from space, the evidence of this being a huge boulder called the Moon Stone deep in Mt. Moon.
He believes that humans are trying to take this stone, noting the electric lights strung through the cave and signs of excavation. It is quickly revealed to be the work of Team Rocket when Meowth appears to take a small stone that a passing Clefairy is carrying. He claims that they are going to use the Moon Stone to make their Pokémon more powerful.
Team Rocket begins a Pokémon battle with Ash and Brock while Seymour and Misty follow Meowth who is tracking Clefairy. After repelling Team Rocket, the group takes a quick rest before a Clefairy shows them the location of the giant Moon Stone, which is surrounded by smaller fragments the Clefairy have gathered. The Clefairy begin to dance around it. Team Rocket shows up again and successfully steals the Moon Stone, but are stopped when the Clefairy attacked them with a group Metronome. Afterwards, many of them evolve into Clefable.
Ash, Brock, and Misty continue on to Cerulean City while Seymour stays behind to live with the Clefairy and Clefable.
Tropes
- Alien Animals: Seymour suggests that Clefairy, who are apparently normal Pokémon, are actually from outer space.
- Character Development: Just a couple episodes ago Ash was refusing help in fighting Team Rocket because double-battles were not Pokémon League sanctioned. Evidently he has become less Stupid Good at this point because he readily fights along side Brock against Jessie and James in this episode. Either that or he does not feel like he need to prove anything this time.
- Early-Installment Weirdness
- Clefairy spends much of the episode holding on to the Moon Stone with nothing happening. Contrast this with later episodes, where only brief contact starts the evolution.
- Ash makes a passing mention of the Macarena in the dub. Later installments of the franchise would eschew any real-life pop-culture so as not to cheapen the appeal of its world-building.
- Eye Catch: The featured Who's That Pokémon? is Clefairy.
- Foreshadowing: Misty's unwillingness to travel to Cerulean City is seen briefly at the end of the episode when Ash and Brock come across a sign directing them to said city. Misty has a This Is Gonna Suck look on her face.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: Ash attempts to catch Clefairy when he first sees it, since it is clearly a rare Pokémon, but Seymour talks him out of it. It does not cross his mind to catch the other Pokémon in the area for some reason, and when he realized that Brock took the opportunity to snag a Zubat he complains that he did not think of catching one as well.
- Inflating Body Gag: Misty defeats Meowth this way during their first encounter, via ordering her Staryu to use Water Gun on the Cat Pokémon while his mouth was open causing him to inflate like a water balloon and flies off into the sky while deflating.
- I Shall Taunt You: "Gary was here! Ash is a loser!" The Japanese version goes further by having an image of Gary doing an Eyelid Pull Taunt superimposed on the phrase "Shigeru is the best! Satoshi is an idiot!"
- Kilroy Was Here: After Ash and friends leave Mt. Moon, they find a sign pointing towards Cerulean City. Brock finds something written underneath the arrow, which Ash comments to be just some children writing stuff down for fun. And then he reads the writing which says:
Gary was here, Ash is a loser.
Needlessly to say, Ash becomes enraged and runs off to Cerulean City to chase after his rival. - Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: Brock manages to captured a Zubat from the swarm that attacked Seymour, even though the scene in question never hinted at it.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Apparently Koffing is strong enough to ram into Onix hard enough to knock it out (though Koffing also knocked itself out in the process). Who would've thought that the little guy had so much power?
- Quaking with Fear: As Seymour tries to protect the Clefairy from Team Rocket, Team Rocket notices that he is shivering in fear.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Seymour, especially after Ash saves him from the Zubat.
- Shout-Out: As Pikachu is attempting to explain what the Clefairy are doing through pantomime, Ash interprets one action as "...they...do the Macarena."
- Strictly Formula: With Brock officially joining last episode and the classical trio now formed, this episode sets up the structure of a typical Pokémon episode for the rest of the show. This is also the first episode since “Pokémon Emergency” where Team Rocket is not focused on capturing Pikachu, instead opting for their first typical scheme of stealing the MacGuffin of the day, which in this case is a giant Moon Stone.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: This marks the first occurrence of this after Team Rocket blasting off AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIINNNNN!!! (Ding!) In the dub it's also the first time that line is spoken, though only by Jessie and James here.
- Why Didn't I Think of That?: When Brock reveals that he captured one of the Zubat that were terrorizing Seymour, Ash bemoans that he should've done the same.
- The Xenophile: Seymour is obsessed with Clefairy, believing them to be aliens. He thinks the Moon Stone is meant to send humans into space and he wants to go.
