Original air date: 12/1/2000
Production code: PPG-309
Hot Air Buffoon: The Mayor tries to save Townsville after being criticized by the nighttime cleaning staff woman for doing nothing.
Ploys R' Us: When the Professor starts sleepwalking and begins stealing toys for the girls, the girls gladly allow him to continue rather than report it.
Hot Air Buffoon provides examples of:
- Action Politician: The Mayor vows to become this after realizing the cleaning lady is right about him relying on the Powerpuff Girls for everything.
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The Mayor slips into this during his string of calling the Powerpuff Girls.Mayor: Powerpuff Girls, help! The bank is being burgled by barefoot bandits! Oh, thanks. Powerpuff Girls, help! A dinosaur is destroying downtown! Eh, thank you. Powerpuff Girls, help! Jewels are being jacked by Jill! Eh, thanks.
- All Crimes Are Equal: No matter what crime you commit, whether it is stealing a car or simply littering, the Mayor will smack you with his Extendo Boxing Glove for it.
- Appliance Defenestration: The Mayor angrily destroys the Powerpuff Hotline after being called out on his actions by the cleaning lady. He then proceeds to angrily smash up his office.
- Big Red Button: The Mayor ends up hitting one with his boxing glove, which starts the launch sequence of a series of military missiles.
- Calling the Old Man Out: The cleaning lady is absolutely not afraid to speak her mind, and gives the mayor a massive "The Reason You Suck" Speech about how he relies solely on the girls to keep Townsville safe.
- Didn't Think This Through: Mrs. Bellum points out flaw after flaw in the Mayor's new approach to protecting Townville, like how his balloon is entirely at the mercy of the wind, making it impossible to determine where to go next. Or how he even targets people that didn’t commit any crimes.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: One of the villains the Girls defeat in the beginning is a dinosaur that breathes fire.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The Mayor gives this to anyone for even the pettiest behavior with his spring-loaded boxing glove atop his balloon.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: The Mayor ends up convinced that all he ever does is rely on the Girls, and wants to prove he can do more than that if people are just going to complain.
- Expy: The Barefoot Bandits from the beginning bear resemblance to Fred and Barney.
- Extendo Boxing Glove: The Mayor's weapon of choice while trying to fight crime. He calls it “the Equalizer”.
- Hero with an F in Good: The Mayor. He gets so caught up in fighting crime he starts attacking everyone in sight, even innocents. Not to mention how, in the climax of the episode, he ends up accidentally launching a series of missiles, and just when it looks like the girls stopped them all and saved Townsville, the Mayor ends up detonating the final one.
- Identical Stranger: Subverted; the nighttime cleaner dresses exactly like Miss Bellum and has the exact same hair, so when seen from behind it looks like this trope. However, she is much fatter and we do get to see her (less than pleasant) face, which is absolutely nothing like Miss Bellum's.
- I Take Offense to That Last One: While the Mayor is deeply ashamed by what the cleaning lady tells him, it’s her casual remark of “P.S., I didn’t vote for you” just before leaving his office that proves to be the final straw.
- Jerkass: The Cleaning Lady for unfairly criticizing the Mayor. She doesn’t even consider that the Mayor doesn’t have any superpowers like the girls do, so it makes sense that he really can’t do anything when it comes to fighting crime and stopping bad guys.
- Knight Templar: The Mayor punishes not only villains and legit criminals, but basically anyone for even the pettiest of behavior, believing he's just as doing a good crime-fighting job as the Powerpuff Girls.
- The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: The Mayor is called out on the fact that he never actually does anything to help Townsville, but relies solely on the Powerpuff Girls to do this for him. This prompts him to start crime-fighting himself.
- Sanity Slippage: The Mayor after being told he's too dependable on the girls and when he lets his "crime-fighting" go to his head.The Narrator: Oh, no! The Mayor's gone stark-raving mad! Where are the Powerpuff Girls when you need them?
- Small Role, Big Impact: The cleaning lady has only 30 seconds of screen time, but her criticism on the Mayor's laziness and sheer dependence on the Powerpuff Girls to protect Townsville (and the last remark saying that she didn't vote for him) is what motivated him into fighting crime for himself the wrong way.
- Tranquil Fury: When the Mayor catches himself about to call the Powerpuff Girls to do his bidding again, he stops, then slowly hangs the phone up with an unamused look on his face as he realizes the cleaning lady was right about him. Subverted in that a Beat later, he starts trashing his office in a rage.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: The cleaning lady criticized the Mayor, caused his behavior in this episode with harsh words.
Ploys R' Us provides examples of:
- An Aesop: Stealing is a crime, no matter what the circumstances.
- Aesop Amnesia: The girls, especially Blossom, learn how wrong thievery is in "A Very Special Blossom". Apparently, they forgot or, in this case, decide to exploit the Professor's sleep stealing. It takes a Scare 'Em Straight tactic from the Mayor to remind them it's still wrong.
- Bloodless Carnage: Justified, as the Professor wasn’t actually shot with real bullets.
- Bowdlerisation: On CITV in the UK, the scene where the Professor is seemingly shot and killed by a police squadron is shortened.
- Disney Death: The Professor in the climax; he is seemingly shot and killed by a police squadron, however it’s revealed that this was part of a plan he cooked up with them and the police officers used fake guns.
- Foreshadowing: The guns the Professor and the police use during the shootout at the end are colored red instead of what the guns would normally be colored.
- Good-Times Montage: The girls waking up, playing with the toys they got, the hotline ringing, the girls visiting the store where the toys were robbed, manipulating the Professor's sleepwalking, then the sequence starts over again.
- Hostage Situation: When confronted by the police during his last heist, the Professor quickly takes the mayor hostage. However, this was all part of their plan to scare the girls straight.
- I've Heard of That — What Is It?:Blossom: I think he's [the Professor] a somnambulist.
Bubbles: HE'S A SOMNAMBULIST!!...Hey, what's a somnambulist? - I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: At the beginning of the episode, when the girls wake up, Bubbles sleepily mumbles "Just five more minutes?"
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Subverted; when the professor grows suspicious of where the girls got all these new toys from, the girls briefly consider stopping him. However, they quickly decide to continue.
- Loophole Abuse: The girls figure the Professor is not really a thief, since he stole all those toys while sleepwalking. Which means he has no control over his actions, nor remembers any of it when he wakes up.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The Professor's face when he wakes up in the middle of the toy store during one of his sleep walking toy raids says it all.
- The girls have this after the professor is seemingly killed in the raid on the toy store (luckily we soon learn it was faked).
Girls: [all three cry uncontrollably] IT'S ALL OUR FAULT! IT'S ALL OUR FAULT! - Never Wake Up a Sleepwalker: Averted; the girls never try to wake the Professor, but that is purely because they want him to keep getting more toys, not because they are afraid of any negative consequences of waking him up. And when the Professor eventually does wake up in the middle of one of his sleepwalks, he is at worst only a little confused, but quickly realizes what is going on.
- Not So Above It All: After the girls first learn all the toys they received were stolen, Blossom and Buttercup conclude the Professor stole them, while Bubbles insists there must be another explanation. When they see him leaving the house again that night, Bubbles instantly switches to, "That good for nothing crook! Follow him!"
- Silence Is Golden: The montage of the girls using the Professor's sleepwalking to rob toys for them is completely silent, with no dialogue nor sound effects, just music.
- Shoplift and Die: In the climax, it looks like this fate befalls the Professor when during his latest night time shoplifting spree, he is ambushed and shot down by a group of police officers. However, it turns out this was all staged by the Professor and the officers to teach the girls a lesson.
- Sleepwalking: The professor suffers from this in this episode.
- Villain Protagonist: The girls' decision to exploit the Professor's sleep stealing makes them the episode's true villains. The narrator even declares the day is saved from them.
