Dance Pantsed
Original air date: 1/20/2014 (produced in 2013)
The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed is a special for The Powerpuff Girls.
The premise of the special is that Mojo Jojo kidnaps three celebrities visiting Townsville. He creates a trap where he replaces one of the girls' video games (a rhythm game) with a contraption that transforms them into dancing, mind controlled robots. After all three are transformed, Professor Utonium has to save the girls by doing a dance off with Ms. Bellum and the Mayor.
Dance Pantsed uses a different art style from the series itself. Most of the characters look the same, however the titular trio and Mojo Jojo received minor redesigns. The special was done using CGI instead of the traditional animation of the original series, or with Adobe Flash, as was used for the previous special, Powerpuff Girls Rule!!.
This special contains examples of:
- '80s Hair: Professor Utonium had a mullet in the 80s flashback.
- Adaptation Dye-Job:
- Bubbles' hair is a softer shade of blonde than before.
- Mojo Jojo has red eyes instead of pink pupils with Black Bead Eyes.
- All-CGI Cartoon: In contrast to both the original cartoon and the 2016 reboot, this special uses CGI stylized in a way that resembles 2D animation.
- Butt-Monkey: Buttercup and Bubbles both get struck down by the Humongous Mecha, but while the latter just lands on soft pillows, Buttercup gets painfully sent through the ground and the Earth's fiery core all the way to China. She even lampshades the unfairness.
- Dancing Is Serious Business: Very serious. The climax involves dance battling instead of physical battling.
- Denser and Wackier: While the original show was comedic, dance battling wasn't really something that came up.
- Digging to China: When Buttercup gets knocked into the ground, she gets sent straight through the center of the Earth and ends up in China.
- Ditzy Genius: Blossom is normally very smart, but somehow she can't figure out how to get a pickle jar off a shelf without Bubbles.
- End of an Era: This was the final special in which the girls were voiced by their original actresses before they were replaced in the 2016 reboot for being "too old".
- Genius Bonus: Along with his name, Fibonacci Sequins has a house shaped like a Fibonacci spiral, and calls out Fibonacci numbers as he falls down the stairs (also a Fibonacci spiral).
- Good Angel, Bad Angel: Buttercup and Blossom appear as figments of Bubbles' subconscious. Bubbles being Bubbles worries that they're dead. Subverted in that they're both the "good angel" and they both give her bad advice.
- Goo-Goo-Godlike: Five year olds throwing temper tantrums because they want a toy is a common occurrence, though most five year olds don't have super-strength. The girls destroy the toy store when they start crying for a video game.
- Meaningful Name: Lampshaded when Utonium is told that with his surname, being a scientist will be easy.
- Messy Hair: It's less noticeable than in the 2016 reboot, but Buttercup's hair is messy. It signifies her as the most rambunctious sister.
- Multiple-Choice Past: This version of Utonium's past is in conflict with the one from Get Mojo Back, where the girls travel back in time to his childhood to find Mojo Jojo. In that episode the Professor decided to become a scientist after his daughters saved him.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It was Bubbles' fault that she took the game "Dance Pantsed R"EVIL"ution 2" , inside and she unboxed it thus making it come to life and kidnap her and turn her and her sisters into evil robots under Mojo's control.
- Pac Man Fever: As is the norm, this is averted. Dance Pants Revolution looks like a mix of DanceDanceRevolution and Guitar Hero, and is played on a normal looking Nintendo Wii.
- Punny Name: Fibonacci Sequins is a play on Fibonacci Sequence
. - Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Big Bad Mojo Jojo has red eyes instead of his normal Black Bead Eyes.
- Retcon: Bubbles has ice-breath in the special instead of Blossom.
- Sequel Gap: The special came out several years after the cartoon finished.
- Setting Update: The girls own a Wii instead of a Nintendo 64. The special explicitly takes place after 2007.
- Shifted to CGI: The short is the first, and thus far only, installment in the cartoon to be all-cgi.
- Shout-Out:
- Dance Pants Revolution is a parody of DanceDanceRevolution.
- Soul Train gets a reference in Soul Hayride.
- Silent Treatment: Ms. Bellum apparently gave the Mayor this due to something he said earlier in the special.
- Stock "Yuck!": As in the series, Buttercup hates broccoli. Her sisters don't seem to mind though.
- Sucks at Dancing: Utonium had came to Townsville to be a famous dancer but his dancing skills were too subpar and he was kicked off of Soul Hayride. Still, at the end he dances pretty well so maybe he's gotten better with time.
- Tears of Awe: Blossom gives a speech about how Townsville needs all three Powerpuff Girls to defend the city. Buttercup is so moved by her words that she tears up a little.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Mojo turns the Powerpuff Girls into dancing cyborgs via "Dance Pantsed R'Evil-lution 2" to kidnap a badger, an opera singer and a mathematician named Fibonacci Sequins.
- Vocal Evolution: Buttercup's voice is a bit deeper than originally.
- Wrench Wench: Buttercup can apparently rebuild car engines at her young age.
- You Don't Look Like You: Downplayed with the girls, who have more angular redesigns but otherwise look the same.
