Recap / The Powerpuff Girls (S2E4): "Beat Your Greens"/"Down N' Dirty"

Original air date: 9/10/1999

Production code: PPG-205

Beat Your Greens: A race of broccoli-like aliens invade Earth and quickly incapacitate all adults by poisoning Earth’s broccoli. Only the Powerpuff Girls and the other children of Townsville are left to fight them off.

Down N' Dirty: Buttercup keeps refusing to take a bath, which eventually causes her to get so dirty nobody wants her around anymore. Not even the monsters.

Beat Your Greens provides examples of:

• An Aesop: Eating greens, especially broccoli, is good for you and could make you a healthier kid.
• Alien Invasion: The antagonists in the episode are aliens.
• All There in the Script: According to the official transcript, the freckled football player with the 12 on his jersey is named Football Jimmy.
• Anti-Regeneration: The Broccoloids can regenerate From a Single Cell, but not if they're eaten in their entirely. Why they don't just regenerate inside the eater isn't really covered.
• Balloon Belly: One determined kid eats so many of the Broccoloids that he swells up to the size of a balloon and becomes unable to move.
  Kid: 47 stalks...the horror...the horror...
• Big Damn Heroes: When Football Jimmy is pinned down by a Broccoloid soldier, Bubbles saves him by opening a nearby cage of rabbits, which promptly eat the attacker.
• Broken Aesop: While "eat your greens" is a valid message, the fact remains that if the children of Earth had eaten their broccoli at the beginning like their parents wanted, they'd have been incapacitated just like the adults and the Broccoloid invasion would have succeeded.
• The Cavalry: When the girls and the rest of the kids start to get full from eating the invading army and can't eat much more, a pair of kids arrive riding on goats like motorcycles. This is lampshaded by the Narrator upon their arrival.
  Narrator: Oho! Here comes the hungry cavalry!
• Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion: The only real advantage the Broccoli aliens have is the fact that they took out the adult population of Townsville beforehand through food poisoning. Once the kids of Townsville start fighting back, the aliens are very quickly dealt with.
• Eaten Alive: The only effective way to defeat the broccoli aliens, since they can easily regenerate from any other kind of damage.
• Eating the Enemy: The broccoli aliens are defeated by being eaten. This episode currently provides the page image.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Broccoloids were quite shocked to first witness Blossom devouring one of their soldiers.
  Broccoloid Leader: Barbarians!
• Exposed Extraterrestrials: The Broccoloids don't wear clothes, with the exception of their leader, who wears a red cape and a jeweled belt.
• Finishing Stomp: After eating the Broccoloids' leader, Blossom destroys the mind-control scepter by stomping it into mush.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: The broccoli aliens can easily regenerate any body part the girls chop off, rendering their usual fighting style useless.
• Green Around the Gills: All victims of the broccoli aliens' hypnosis get a green skin and their eyes start glowing green.
• Greens Precede Sweets: The Girls are ordered by the Professor to eat their broccoli or no dessert, but the Girls still refuse, apparently agreeing to forgo dessert. Townsville winds up being invaded by broccoli aliens that resist all attempts besides eating to get rid of them.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: Blossom chops an alien in half, but due to their regeneration abilities both halves instantly reform into two new aliens.
• Henpecked Husband: When an athlete boy says he hates vegetables, his burly muscled father agrees. Then he looks at his wife glaring at him while holding a bowl of vegetables, and he opens his mouth to get forkfed some broccoli.
• Jerk Jock: Subverted—when the girls are trying to convince the children of Townsville to help them eat the Broccoloids, Football Jimmy refuses because he thinks it's just a trick to get them to eat their vegetables. However, he caves after a well-placed "The Reason You Suck" Speech from Buttercup, and exclaims, "Let's do it for the folks!"
• Kid Hero: Besides the girls themselves, all other children in Townsville join the fight.
• Killer Rabbit: Played with; the rabbits Bubbles unleashes onto one of the aliens are just regular, harmless rabbits, but from the aliens' perspective they fit this trope since they eat him within seconds. Same goes for the goats that two other kids unleash upon the aliens.
• Logical Weakness: While the Broccoloids can regenerate From a Single Cell, they can't come back if nothing is left of them to regenerate from—thus, eating every bit of a Broccoloid is the only way to keep it from coming back.
• Plant Person: The broccoli aliens.
• Real Men Eat Meat: Football Jimmy, a football player with a coach dad, believes this.
  "Eating the flesh of lesser beasts makes you stronger!"
• Rousing Speech: The girls give one to the kids of Townsville to convince them to help fight off the invasion. When the athlete boy refuses, Buttercup gives a particular speech to him that's both this and "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Shout-Out:
  • The athlete boy's mom resembles an older Velma Dinkley.
  • Dexter's Dad, can be spotted in a control room.
• Stock "Yuck!": The reason the kids in Townsville are unaffected by the aliens' mind control spores is because they didn't eat any of the infected broccoli, since they hate broccoli. They have to overcome their revulsion of broccoli to defeat the aliens.
• Tampering with Food and Drink: The broccoli aliens infect all of Townsville's broccoli with mind control spores that allow them to hypnotize whomever ate it into falling into a comatose state.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Buttercup delivers one to Football Jimmy when he refuses to eat the Broccoloids to help save the planet, which changes his mind and spurs him into action.
  Blossom: So you see, the only way to save the Earth is by eating broccoli!
  Football Jimmy: Aw, don’t believe her! This is just some kinda trick to get us to eat vegetables!
  Buttercup: (very angry) What? You doubt the word of a Powerpuff? Or maybe you’re just scared to eat vegetables. Tell you what: Why don’t you just run on home to your mama and see if she’ll make you a baloney sandwich?! Oh, wait! You know what? She can’t, ’cause she’s been zapnotized by alien invaders! But you don’t want to help save her ’cause you don’t feel like eating a few vegetables!
• This Means Warpaint: The kids of Townsville dress themselves up with various kitchen items in preparation of the fight.
• Totem Pole Trench: The Girls do this with a scarecrow to hide from the aliens when they first land.
• Trapped at the Dinner Table: When the Girls are refusing to eat their broccoli, the Professor states that they won't be allowed to leave the table until they've finished it. He doesn't get to follow through with his punishment because, a few seconds later, the mind-controlling spores inside the broccoli he just ate put him into a hypnotic state, as part of the Broccoloid aliens' plan to conquer the planet.
  Professor Utonium: Now, girls, eat your broccoli. It's exactly what growing superheroes need to charge up their powers! (flexes his muscles) Oh, it's packed with all kinds of vitamins and minerals, and mmm-mmm! It's so good for you!
  Buttercup: Too bad it tastes so nasty.
  Bubbles: You haven't even tasted it yet.
  Blossom and Buttercup: Shhh!
  Professor Utonium: Well, you're not leaving the table until your broccoli is all gone. And the only way to get rid of broccoli is to eat it all up, like this! (lifts broccoli toward his mouth with his fork)
  Girls: EW! Professor! No!
• Trojan Veggies: The children of Townsville are fighting an alien invasion of Broccoloids, which are broccoli-like aliens that can only be destroyed by eating them. When the Broccoloids invade the town, the children pour giant vats of melted cheese all over them before devouring them alive.
• Villains Want Mercy: When the alien leader is surrounded by the kids and the girls descend on him to devour him like the rest of his army, he shakes in fear while begging them to leave him alone.
• Wacky Sound Effect: When two kids arrive riding on goats to help eat the Broccoloids, their presence is signaled by the sound of a roaring motorcycle.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: The girls devour the first wave of Broccoloid soldiers they meet in the broccoli field, only to discover that an entire fleet of ships is about to descend upon the Earth.
  Broccoloid Leader: What? You’re getting full already? But that was just an appetizer. Here comes the main course! (laughs evilly)
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: In the last scene, the adults at the grocery store stare in disbelief, as the kids willingly eat every single vegetable in sight to root out any Broccoloids that were left behind.

Down N' Dirty provides examples of:

• An Aesop: You can't live your life without good hygiene.
• Angry Mob: The citizens of Townsville eventually form one (complete with torches) to try and force Buttercup into taking a bath.
• Baths Are Fun: Bubbles and Blossom both love taking baths.
• Big "SHUT UP!": After her bath, Buttercup shouts this when Bubbles asks if she feels better now that she's clean.
• Big "WHAT?!": Buttercup screams this in frustration when a monster refuses to fight her because she stinks so badly.
• Bowdlerisation: On CITV in the UK, the part where goo ruptures from one of the elephant monster's eyes after Buttercup kicks it is replaced with a close-up of Blossom and Bubbles looking horrified.^note This shot is taken from earlier in the scene, when Blossom says "Ugh! This is gonna get nasty!"
• Editorial Synaesthesia: When Buttercup’s smell gets particularly bad, she starts leaving behind a visible aura of stench.
• Everyone Has Standards: When Buttercup goes to a back alley inhabited by similarly smelly hobos, Buttercup's odor proves to be too much for them to tolerate, making then run off.
• Eye Scream: During a battle with a giant elephant-like monster, Buttercup kicks one of its eyes, and goo ruptures from it.
• Fire Alarm Distraction: Buttercup has gotten extremely stinky because she has not bathed in several days due to her dislike of baths. When she arrives at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten after battling a monster, her odor disgusts Ms. Keane and the other students. Ms. Keane pulls the fire alarm and tells the students that there's a fire drill and they need to leave the school. The students all run out cheering because they don't have to smell Buttercup's odor, and Ms. Keane tells Buttercup to stay behind.
• Green Is Gross: Buttercup refuses to bathe, and throughout the episode, she is enshrouded by a green cloud of stink to represent her B.O.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: During a battle with a giant cyclops, Buttercup manages to decapitate the monster only for the body to become two separate monsters with eyes over their shoulders and mouths under their armpits who continue to try to attack her.
• Hates Baths: Buttercup. She is only willing to take one eventually when even the monsters don't want to fight her anymore because of her smell.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: Buttercup states that big, fat sissies take baths, to which Bubbles remarks, "I’m not fat."
• The Pig-Pen: Taken to the logical extreme with Buttercup when she repeatedly refuses to take a bath, leaving her so dirty and smelly that she's kicked out of her home, run out of town, and even the monsters find her repulsive.
• Remembered I Could Fly: Buttercup at first flees from the angry mob on foot, before realizing she can fly and zooming off into the distance.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Buttercup has become so filthy that an attacking monster opts to go back home rather than be around her for a second longer.
• Space Whale Aesop: Remember to keep up with your personal hygiene or you'll be so dirty that not even monsters will want to be near you.
• Squashed Flat: After Buttercup decapitates the cyclops monster, the body splits in half and slams her in between its hands, flattening her. She then falls to the ground, after which she is back into shape.
• Suddenly Shouting: At the front of the mob, the Mayor calmly talks to Buttercup before screaming that she stinks.
• Tempting Fate: Buttercup when she vows to never take a bath as long as she can still fight monsters. When one confronts her and then gives up because of how much she reeks, that finally breaks her and forces her into doing what she refused to do moments earlier.
• Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: A water monster sucks Buttercup into its nose, only to blow her out because of how much she smells. When it refuses to fight anymore because of this, Buttercup snaps and finally decides to take a bath.
• Tornado Move: Buttercup uses one of these to send the muck monster into space.

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