Original air date: 9/15/2000
Production code: PPG-304
Bubblevision: Bubbles needs glasses when her vision goes bad, but they quickly make her the source of ridicule by her sisters.
Bought and Scold: Daddy Morbucks buys Townsville from the Mayor, and Princess uses her new power to legalize crime to put the girls out of business.
Bubblevision provides examples of:
- Accidentally Broke the MacGuffin: At the end of the episode, the girls are telling the whole story of what Bubbles did to the Professor and Buttercup shoots a laser eye beam to prove what she did; said beam hits Bubbles in the face, destroying her glasses and making her eyesight come right back to normal and better than ever, as part of a corrective laser surgery.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Said by Blossom as they attack the ant from various angles. Unfortunately, the ant apparently has no weak spot.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: A giant ant is the enemy in this episode.
- Blind Without 'Em: Bubbles in this episode. The Narrator even points it out.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: To "Bubblevicious".
- Failure Montage: Bubbles' eye exams in the Professor's lab, all of which end with humorous failures.
- Forgot the Call: When Buttercup and Blossom realize something is not right with Bubbles, they immediately take her home, completely ignoring the giant ant they were supposed to fight. Bubbles even lampshades this.
- Hand Gagging: The Professor does one to Blossom right before calling Bubbles a nerd.
- Here We Go Again!: A few moments after Bubbles is able to see without glasses again, she starts having problems with her hearing. This prompts the Professor to invent something else.
- Impairment Shot: Bubbles gets rather blurry point-of-view shots due to her poor eyesight.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Blossom and Buttercup spend most of the episode laughing at Bubbles and mocking her for her glasses, and end up trapped in the ant's mandibles and covered in the ant's goop.
- Mirror Reveal: The second Bubbles' glasses are on and her sisters begin giggling, Bubbles goes to the mirror and sees her reflection, realizing she does look like a dork.
- Nerd Glasses: As soon as she has glasses, Buttercup and Blossom start calling Bubbles "Nerd" among other insults because of how Bubbles looks like with them on. The Professor, however, does not laugh at her and tells her not to let their insults get to her.
- Only Sane Man: The Professor is the only one who does not laugh at Bubbles' glasses, and he says they make her look special.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Blossom and Buttercup scream, "USE! YOUR! GLASSES!" when trapped in the giant ant's mandibles and Bubbles' poor vision keeps missing it.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Professor. He is the only one who does not laugh at Bubbles' glasses or tease her, and tells her that what her sisters say shouldn't matter as she has to be out fighting crime, and she shouldn't let what they say get to her. In addition, he has to shut Blossom up before she says "nerd", and unlike them, he thinks Bubbles' glasses make her look super.
- Reflective Eyes: While the Professor is examining Bubbles after her eye exams fail, we get a realistic extreme close-up of her eye and he is reflected in her pupil.
- Single-Episode Handicap: Bubbles' bad eye sight came entirely out of nowhere since she never had any trouble seeing before, and gets resolved by the end of the episode.
- Solar-Powered Magnifying Glass: Bubbles' glasses have this effect on her laser eye beams, which finally allows her to defeat the giant ant (which was unharmed by the girls' regular eye beams).
- Status Quo Is God: By the end of the episode, Bubbles' vision is restored thanks to Buttercup accidentally hitting her with her eye beams, performing an improvised laser surgery.
- Tempting Fate: The Professor tells Bubbles to not let anything her sisters say get to her; naturally, she does.
- Unwanted Glasses Plot: The plot of this episode, with Bubbles as the one who needs glasses.
- Too Dumb to Live: Despite the Professor giving Bubbles glasses to see better (due to her poor vision), she decides she doesn't need them and can see just fine which leads to her bumping into trees and all sorts of obstacles and mistakes two vent caps (that have similar silhouettes) for her sisters.
Bought and Scold provides examples of:
- Ahem: The only thing we hear Princess' father say the entire series.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Princess when asking the girls for help once her mansion is cleaned out.
- Bad "Bad Acting": After cleaning up the town, the girls do this when informing Princess that they just couldn't find the crooks who stole her stuff. The moment Bubbles lets out a little giggle, Princess realize that they stole her stuff, only because crime was still legal at the time.
- Belly Flop Crushing: The four smaller members of the Gangreen Gang suffer this courtesy of Big Billy after Buttercup tosses him to the jungle gym with the rest of the gang.
- Big "NEVER!": Princess shouts this when told she'll only get her property back if she gives up control of the town, but she quickly caves, because her father is about to get up.
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: The three prisoners that are released from jail (and eventually have to get back in).
- The Cameo: Roach Coach, The Rowdyruff Boys, Abra Cadaver, the Broccoloids, the Boogieman, and the evil cat, none of whom have been seen since their debut episodes (and none of whom actually play a part in this episode), all have cameos in a montage of villains at the start of the episode. Also, Quackor the Fowl - a villain from the Dexter's Laboratory episode of the same name - appears in the same montage, despite never actually fighting the girls - ever.
- Corporal Punishment: It’s implied Princess suffered this fate at the end, as Daddy stands there brandishing a rolled up newspaper while she tries to explain herself. It then cuts to the Girls flying away, so we don’t get to see what happened, but we do hear her crying.
- Delayed "Oh, Crap!": It takes a rather long time for Princess to notice that all the stuff in her mansion has disappeared.
- Didn't Think This Through: Princess just recklessly made crime legal without considering that she and her father can also be victims of legalized crime. She pays for this later.
- "Eureka!" Moment: After Bubbles mentions how they would have to be bad if they want to be good, this gives Blossom the idea to turn the tables on Princess by robbing her house so she will be forced to make crime illegal again.
- Everyone Has Standards: This episode reveals that, despite spoiling his daughter rotten, Princess' father isn't above disciplining her. Princess is deathly afraid of being scolded by him and it's implied he's threatened to cut her off at least once. At the end of the episode, it's heavily implied that he spanks Princess with a rolled-up newspaper as punishment for indirectly allowing their house to be robbed.
- Face Palm: Ms. Bellum gives the mayor one after he sells Townsville for a room full of Turkish Delight.
- The Gadfly: The girls could've simply told outright Princess they were the ones who stole her stuff and then made their demands, but they opted to make her sweat for a while first and even claimed they just couldn't find whoever was responsible. It takes Bubbles giggling for Princess to realize how she was duped.
- Grounded Forever: Princess fears this will happen to her if her dad finds out that their house has been robbed. She is so afraid of this that she is willing to make crime illegal again and step down as Mayor if the girls help her get everything back before her dad finds out.
- Hoist by Her Own Petard: Princess makes crime legal to spite the girls. In response, the girls steal all of Princess's stuff to make her give the town back to the mayor and undo the legalization of crime.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Even though Princess gets her stuff back, her father still finds out about his house getting robbed. He is about as mad as you'd expect, and what punishment he gives Princess is anybody's guess. Princess herself believes she'll get scolded and/or cut off while the rolled-up newspaper in her father's hands implies corporal punishment.
- Legalized Evil: Princess officially makes crime legal in Townsville once she becomes mayor. Currently the trope image.
- Loophole Abuse: The girls are unable to stop the villains because of the Princess’ legalization of crime, but Bubbles gives Blossom an idea when she points out in order to make crime illegal again, they'll have to be bad since the law didn't say anything about them committing crimes themselves. When her house is ransacked the next day, she makes crime illegal again so the girls can catch the thieves. When Princess finds out that the trio robbed her and threatens to arrest them, they quickly point out that crime was still legal when they did so, so they can’t be prosecuted for it.Bubbles: If we do good, we'll be bad and we'll have to be bad if we want to be good.
- Mayor Pain: Princess deliberately becomes one of these after buying Townsville, by making crime legal.
- Mood Whiplash: The Professor alternates between trying to give a typical Rousing Speech to the girls and pleading with the crooks to stop taking his stuff.
- Mooning: Arturo does this to the viewer in the opening of the episode.
- Never My Fault: This exchange basically sums up Princess' attitude:Princess: (wailing) And they took all of it! Everything, and if Daddy finds out, I’ll be grounded forever, and just ’cause I begged him to buy me Townsville and make me Mayor, he’ll say it’s my responsibility and he’ll blame me and think it’s all my fault!Princess: THAT'S NOT THE POINT! What’s important is you going out and getting whoever took Daddy’s stuff! (begging) Please! I’ll do anything!
- Offscreen Karma: While the ending makes it clear that Princess is not getting off the hook for allowing the house to get robbed, we cut to the girls flying away before we could see the punishment.
- "Oh, Crap!" Smile: Ace's expression towards the girls after showing him the paper saying that crime is illegal again. Cue subsequent ass-kicking.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Princess' father usually spoils her rotten, but once he finds his belongings outside their mansion, he actually takes the time to discipline his child. In addition, an earlier scene implies that he was hesitant to buy her Townsville since she's too young to rule a city.
- Original Position Fallacy: It evidently never dawned on Princess that making crime legal would make her a prime target for theft, but sure enough...
- Revenge Before Reason: Princess hates the girls so much that she (the richest kid in town) made crime legal. She prevents them from saving the day, never once realizing how this could backfire on her. The girls ultimately realize they can play to this stunt to get things back to normal since crime is legal to everyone.
- Rogues Gallery: The beginning of the episode begins with displaying nearly every villain the girls have faced, described as...
- Accursed (Mojo Jojo)
- Ill-conditioned (Fuzzy Lumpkins)
- Infernal (HIM)
- Unprincipled (Gangreen Gang)
- Spineless (Amoeba Boys)
- Monstrous (a random monster)
- Distasteful (Broccoloids)
- Felonious (The evil cat)
- Gross (Roach Coach)
- Dark (Boogieman)
- Naughty (Sedusa)
- Foul (Quackor the Fowl)
- Grave (Abracadaver)
- Miscreated (The Rowdyruff Boys)
- And spoiled (Princess Morbucks).
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Two robbers happily enter a bank to steal more money, only to be informed by Blossom that crime is illegal again. The two robbers just as quickly try to walk back out, though they're stopped by Buttercup and Bubbles.
- Shout-Out: Quackor the Fowl appears as part of the Rogues Gallery at the beginning of the episode.
- Skewed Priorities: Played with. When the girls ask Princess to return the key back to the Mayor and Ms. Bellum, she refuses (without even considering her father at the time). She does cave in quickly, though.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Due to crime being legal at the time the girls stole Princess' belongings, Princess' stuff technically belonged to the girls. This forces Princess to make crime illegal again (mostly to avoid getting in trouble with her father) and then give back Townsville to the Mayor so she can get back her stuff. Even when Princess' stuff was returned, her father was still able to find out that he was robbed and is furious.
- Threat Backfire: The girls' retort to Princess' threat of having them arrested is to remind her that crime was legal when they robbed her, so they can’t be prosecuted for it.
- The Voiceless: The Gangreen Gang appear in this episode, but have no dialog.
- Wretched Hive: Princess turns Townsville into one of these.
- "You!" Exclamation: Princess when she realizes the girls were the ones who robbed her.
