Original air date: 4/16/2004
Production code: PPG-601
Prime Mates: Back when Mojo tried to take over the world with primates, there was one monkey who didn't get his due: Mopey Popo. Now, Mopey is back to try and be evil just as Mojo intended, if only he could get something right.
Coupe D'Etat: When Professor Utonium tries to upgrade his car, the girls realize that it is taking the Professor away from them, both figuratively and literally.
Prime Mates provides examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch: In the flashback to the events of the movie, we see a gorilla breaking out of his glass container and wreaking havoc, strongly implying that he is the monkey currently holding Mojo hostage. Nope, he’s not. Another monkey whose brain popped out of his head due to the gorilla’s antics is.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Mojo says he should have kicked Mopey out "back in scene 61".
- The Cameo: Monkey from Dial M For Monkey (a spin-off of Dexter's Laboratory) appears as a stuffed toy on Mojo Jojo’s bed.
- Continuity Nod: to The Powerpuff Girls Movie, making this the first episode of the series to acknowledge the events from the movie.
- Emerging from the Shadows: Mopey Popo’s introduction.
- Harmless Villain: Mopey Popo lack what it takes to be a real menace.
- Remember the New Guy?: Apparently, Mopey Popo was around during the events from The Movie, yet we never saw him then. Justified since Mojo flushed him into the sewers just before starting his plan.
- Riddle for the Ages: How did Mopey capture the Powerpuff Girls? Mojo tries to get an answer to this question out of him as he's leaving, but never gets one.
- Spanner in the Works: Mopey Popo to Mojo, as his clumsiness and attempts to prove himself keep screwing up Mojo’s plans.
- Villain Episode: Mojo Jojo and Mopey Popo are the central focus of the episode. The girls don’t even appear until well over two thirds of the way through.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Inverted, we finally get an answer to what became of at least one of the monkeys in Mojo’s army from The Movie.
- Who Even Needs a Brain?: Mopey Popo is a Type II: he doesn’t have a brain anymore due to an accident during his transformation, and became his slow witted clumsy self because of it.
Coupe D’Etat provides examples of.
- Calling the Old Man Out: When the Professor sees with his own eyes that KARR tries to kill the girls, the girls finally call him out on his behavior and new looks. He comes to realize that the girls are right.Blossom: All you do anymore is spend all your time with that car.Bubbles: You used to read us bedtime stories, and tuck us in, and take us to the beach and stuff.Buttercup: You love that car more than you love us and the worst part is that outfit you wear. You look like some bad 80s TV show or something.
- Car Fu: being a car himself, this is one of KARR’s primary forms of attack.
- Children Are Tender-Hearted: All three of the Powerpuff Girls (and the Professor) cry with KARR when he tearfully tells them that he just wants to be loved.
- Cool Car: There is no denying that the Professors’ modifications made the car the epitome of this.
- Didn't Think This Through: The Professor eventually lets KARR go to live his own life… and then Blossom points out this means they don’t have a car anymore.
- Ejection Seat: Professor Utonium installed one of these in KARR. It ends up saving him when KARR takes him hostage.
- Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis: The Professor has all the symptoms in this episode, including getting a Mid-Life Crisis Car, and changing his looks to appear more youthful.
- Hostage Situation: KARR takes the professor hostage after the girls make him realize he has gone too far with his obsession.
- Mid-Life Crisis Car: What the Professor turns his car into.
- No-Sell: KARR is immune to the Engine Stop 2000 the girls try to use against him.
- Sentient Vehicle: KARR.
- Shout-Out: Several to Christine'.
- Tragic Villain: KARR eventually breaks down in tears and admits he did what he did because he was feeling left out. Touched by this, the Professor creates a robotic double of himself to be KARR’s companion.
- Transforming Vehicle / Transforming Mecha: KARR can transform into a tank, an airplane, and a Humongous Mecha.
- Vehicular Sabotage: the Girls’ first action when they realize KARR is sentient and evil is to sabotage him. It fails.
- Villainous Breakdown: It’s no joke after KARR took it too far.
