Recap / The Powerpuff Girls S 4 EP 4

Him Diddle Riddle

Original air date: 6/21/2002 (produced in 2001)

Production code: PPG-404

HIM gives the girls a time limit and a set of 9 riddles. The various tasks test both the girls' physical and mental faculties. However, if they fail to complete them all on time, HIM promises the girls that "the professor will pay".

Him Diddle Riddle provides examples of:

• Achievements in Ignorance: The seventh riddle involves a school exam, with the typical multiple choice questions and four blank dots that require you to color the one matching the correct answer. Bubbles however simply colors the dots at random to form the pattern of a flower...which ironically gives her the best test score and helps the girls pass the riddle. She does it again during the eighth riddle, when she carelessly throws away a Banana Peel which in turn causes the giant monster they were fighting to slip and fall.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Despite all the girls efforts, they fail to solve the final riddle in time and the professor has to pay... full price for his breakfast.
• The Bet: HIM had a bet with the professor that the girls couldn’t solve the riddles in time, with HIM having to give the professor his breakfast for free if the girls succeeded.
• Big "NO!": Done by HIM after the girls solve the eighth riddle in time. And by the professor when the girls fail to solve the final riddle in time.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Blossom is the one to start the episode off with "the city of Townsville" instead of the Narrator.
• Brought Down to Badass: The eight riddle involves the girls having to beat a giant monster, without using any of their super powers. Their solution; Buttercup attacks it with a helicopter, Blossom makes her way to the top of the clock tower so she can jump on the monsters head and pull its hair out, and Bubbles accidently causes the monster to slip on a Banana Peel and fall on top of a taxi, which proceeds to drive the monster out of Townsville.
• Death Glare: Both Bubbles and Buttercup give one to Blossom when her bragging inspires HIM to make the seventh riddle a school test.
• Deus ex Machina:
  • The Mayor conveniently shows up to solve HIM's final riddle, and does so with uncharacteristic intelligence.
  • Buttercup somehow finds an assault helicopter to attack the giant monster in the eight riddle, not that it does her much good.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Sorta. Blossom's reasoning in the sixth riddle is correct, but in that case she should have gone with #1 Ms. Keane instead of #2. Likely a writer's goof since Him doesn't say she's wrong.
• Exact Words: The Professor did pay for the girls' failure. For breakfast.
• Extra Eyes: The first riddle involves something big and yellow, with 65 eyes. The girls first answer is a giant, yellow monster covered in eyes. However, when Bubbles counts them, it turns out to have only 60 eyes. The actual answer is a school bus with 32 kids and a bus driver with an eye patch.
• Gainax Ending: The Girls wear a thoroughly perplexed look◊ at the end, and even the Narrator doesn't know what to say. Cue happy action-packed music!
• Go-Karting with Bowser: Not only it is revealed that HIM runs his own restaurant business, but the Professor has no qualms in being his customer (save for the expensive flapjacks) and even agrees to a friendly bet.
• Greasy Spoon: Him's dinner, as well as the restaurant on the other side of the street.
• Green Around the Gills: Buttercup after she tries to beat a kaiju with a helicopter, but the monster simply grabs the helicopters’ propellers causing the helicopter itself to start spinning around.
• Hammerspace: To solve the train problem, Blossom pulls an abacus out of nowhere.
• Honor Before Reason: Blossom prevents Buttercup from copying her test answers even though the Professor's life is on the line and HIM didn't expressly forbid doing so.
• Knights and Knaves: The sixth riddle involves this type of puzzle, with a real and a fake Mrs. Keane as the truth speaker and the liar respectively. Blossom is able to solve it, though when she explains her logic, it just leaves everyone confused. In the end, HIM just shrugs and admits she chose correctly. ^note  Hypothetically, Buttercup's sarcastic suggestion about asking which one "wants a knuckle sandwich" may have been able to answer it as well. Unless both were masochists, the real one would've obviously said "no", while the liar would've said "yes".
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: In order to stand a better chance of reaching a pay phone in time without flying, the girls split up and each of them tries a different method of getting there. Buttercup tries the subway, Bubbles the bus and a horse, and Blossom by hitching a ride in a truck.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: HIM winning the bet with the Professor counts at this, since the Professor immediately decides he's never eating at HIM's diner again. The episode actually ends with HIM begging the Professor to come back and saying he'll make his prices cheaper!
• Mood Whiplash: Right after that very odd twist ending...cue that action-packed happy credits music folks!
• Never Say "Die": Double subverted in a very confusing way. HIM saying that the Professor "will pay" throughout the episode is clearly meant to be synonymous with saying that he'll kill Professor Utonium. As it turns out, the ending reveals that the Professor will actually pay... full price for his breakfast.
• Noodle Incident: We don't know what the fifth riddle entailed, but at the very least it involved a monkey giving the girls ice cream to deliver to HIM.
• Not so Dire: It turns out that the plot of the episode was instigated off of the price of Professor Utonium's breakfast order.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The girls solve the fifth riddle off screen, during the commercial break. Because it didn't have to be animated or explained at all, the riddle is extremely abstract and the only clue we have to its nature is that the punchline includes ice cream.
• Parents in Distress: Subverted. Throughout the entire episode, the girls and the viewer are under the impression that HIM will kill (or at least harm) the professor if the girls fail to solve the riddles. However, in the end, it turns out Him was actually referring to the flapjacks the professor ordered at HIM’s diner earlier that day, which he has to pay the full price for if the girls fail.
• Punny Name: The girls suspect the professor is at the Rite On Time Diner, meaning they're right on time, but it turns out he's actually at the Otto Time Diner, meaning they're out of time, as the Twist Ending is explained.
• Race Against the Clock: Each riddle has an unspecified time limit to solve. The fifth one took two minutes and forty-five seconds, which is the actual length of the commercial break!
• Red Herring: The final riddle finishes the girls at the Rite on Time Dinner, where they think the Professor is. But when he isn't there and they hear his screams, they discover he's really at the Otto Time Diner which is right across the street.
• Riddle Me This: Done nine times by HIM.
• Riddle for the Ages: Downplayed: The first half of the episode ends with HIM giving a particularly confusing riddle. And even though it's revealed at the start of the second half of the episode that the solution to it was an ice cream cone, we never get shown exactly how the girls reached that conclusion:
  HIM: In the ear of corn, you will find happiness, joy, and the ties that bind. Squirrels store nuts and birds sing songs, but in the Cave of Eternity, everyone’s wrong. On the limb of a tree there’s a monkey who’s free, and there he will give you something for me.
• Roadside Wave: One of HIM's riddles is to bring tears to the eyes of every citizen of Townsville. While Buttercup beats the citizens up and Bubbles tells them her puppy's lost to make them cry, Blossom gets splashed with water by a passing car, which Bubbles mistakes for her crying. Blossom then gets the idea for the girls to make a rain cloud to rain on the citizens of Townsville, since HIM only said they had to bring tears to their eyes, not make them come from them.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: The Professor was never in any danger to begin with, meaning the girls solved all those difficult challenges only to give him a chance to get free food.
• Shark Pool: The two Mrs. Keane’s from the sixth riddle are suspended above one, and will both be dropped in if the girls can’t figure out in time which of the 2 is the real Mrs. Keane. The pools are also boiling!
• Shockingly Expensive Bill: Not so shocking as most examples, but HIM’s flapjacks are definitely overpriced. HIM offers to lower his prices if the professor is willing to come back again.
• Smart Ball: The Mayor, who is usually at best a ditz and at worst downright moronic, firmly grabs the ball this episode and actually helps the girls solve the final riddle about "the place where it's boiling and freezing at the same time". His answer: converting the boiling and freezing points of water into geographical coordinates points to an intersection in Townsville. Too bad the girls still screwed up by targeting the wrong diner once they go there.
  Blossom: (anxious) "Boiling and freezing"... "boiling and freezing"...
  Buttercup: (sighs) What could that mean?
  The Mayor: (offscreen) It's coordinates.
  The Girls: (turn to see the Mayor next to them) Huh?
  The Mayor: Sure, it’s code. (fast) The freezing point of water is thirty-two degrees Fahrenheit, while the boiling point is two hundred twelve degrees. (brief shot of the girls looking shocked) Two hundred twelve degrees west of the Greenwich Mean Time on the longitudinal axis, by thirty-two degrees north of the equator on the latitudinal axis, maps a specific point on the globe, that point being right here in the city of Townsville, the intersection of Lincoln and Main, to be exact. (Beat; normally) Or it could be there’s an ice cream truck on fire somewhere. (leaves) Have a nice day, girls!
• Spot the Imposter: The sixth riddle involves the girls having to figure out which of 2 Mrs. Keane’s is the real one. With the extra catch that the girls can only ask them one question which the real Mrs. Keane will answer honestly, but the fake Mrs. Keane will answer with a lie.
• Stating the Simple Solution:
  • After spending too long trying to solve the Train Problem on her abacus, Blossom decides it would be quicker to go to where the two trains are about to collide and stop the crash.
  • Annoyed in having to pay full price for his breakfast, Professor Utonium decides to start going to the diner across the street.
• Subverted Catchphrase: The Narrator is too confused by the whole Gainax Ending to even close the episode with his catchphrase.
• Too Clever by Half: Despite being clever enough to figure out a few riddles on her own, Blossom scores the lowest in the seventh riddle, which is a basic SAT.
• Train Problem: The fourth riddle involves this, as quoted:
  HIM: Train A left Pokey Oaks train station at eleven-forty, at a hundred miles per hour. Train B left Norwalk station ten minutes later, at ninety miles per hour heading towards Train A. (coldly) Where will they collide?
  • Blossom spends a good chunk of time trying to do the math on an abacus before deciding to just stop the (presumed hypothetical) collision in the first place.^note It's worth pointing out that since HIM never stated a distance, Blossom would never have figured it out through math.
• Trainstopping: The girls’ solution to the above problem is to simply grab both engines and grind them to a halt.
• Twist Ending: Turns out if the girls fail to solve the riddles in time, the professor will pay...for the dinner he ordered at the diner Him set up. The girls were completely dumbfounded, even the narrator was totally confused as they are.
• Villains Out Shopping: We learn in this episode that HIM runs his own diner when not cooking up evil plans.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: This happens to Buttercup after being spun around a lot whilst driving a helicopter.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The Train Problem in the fourth riddle is actually unsolvable if one doesn't know the distance between the two stations, which is never specified. This may have been intentional since Blossom just stops uselessly calculating around and tells her sisters to prevent the collision themselves.
• You Are Too Late: The girls don’t solve the final riddle in time since they found the right place, but the wrong diner.

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