Referenced By / The Powerpuff Girls (1998)

"OK, we keep flying, we never head back, we never talk about this again."

References to The Powerpuff Girls in other media.

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Anime & Manga

• A Suspiciously Similar Substitute Blossom doll appears in a panel of Chi's Sweet Home, used to disguise the eponymous cat from nosy neighbors as she's looking out the window.

Comic Books

• During Kevin Smith's run of Green Arrow, Mia Dearden (later the second Speedy) was seen watching The Powerpoof Girls, though one of the girls' legs were shown on the TV.

Comic Strips

• Off the Mark: This strip◊ has Santa mistakenly deliver a Bubbles doll to a little boy.

Fan Works

• In PreCure in a Nutshell, Cure Blossom gets the parody name of Cure Powerpuff.

Films

• In Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022), after Chip and Dale save all the bootlegged cartoon characters, a bootlegged version of Bubbles can been seen sitting between Phineas and Toby.
• In Elf, when one of the children tries to convince the town to believe in Santa, he reads a list of items that children have asked him for. The first one mentioned is a Powerpuff Girl doll.
• In Scooby-Doo, Scrappy-Doo says "I'm as cute as a Powerpuff Girl!"
• In Unbreakable, David Dunn's son is watching the episode "Mommy Fearest" before he checked the news.

Live-Action TV

• The Middle:
  • In the episode "Valentine's Day", Frankie mentions Powerpuff Girls valentines among the valentines that Brick can choose from.
  • In the episode "Mother's Day II", Sue calls her stuffed octopus "Octi", which is also the name of Bubbles' stuffed octopus.

Music

• In the music video for Vanessa Carlton's "A Thousand Miles" some Powerpuff Girl dolls can be seen as prizes in a carnival game.

Web Animation

• Fazbear and Friends (ZAMination): The plot of the episode "VANNY is in LOVE?" is based on the episode "Collect Her", with Vanny being a Five Nights at Freddy's fan who ends up kidnapping Freddy, Bonnie, Chica and Foxy including Scott Cawton, similar to how the Powerpuff Girls are kidnapped by Lenny Baxter who is fan of them.
• The Amazing Digital Circus: One of GLITCH Productions' images posted as extra material for the series depicts four edited screenshots out of the 1998 PPG series' intro sequence putting Caine in Professor Utonium's place.

Webcomics

• In the And Shine Heaven Now storyline 'Eurekon' Professor Utonium is shown attending the titular mad scientist convention (and resents the idea that all mad scientists are evil). Meanwhile, the Demashita versions of Bubbles and Buttercup are among the magical girls that drive Incognito back to hell.
• Everything is Fine: The t-shirt that Bob and Linda's son is wearing has clear outlines of Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup on it.

Web Original

• The Nostalgia Critic:
  • In his review of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, the Critic asks if the Town of Cityville is where the Powerpuff Girls fight crime, only for his audience to tell him that it's the City of Townsville. He then tells his audience that he was joking.
  • The Critic has reviewed The Powerpuff Girls Movie.
• SuperMarioLogan:
  • In "Bowser's New Son", Bowser Junior wants a new little brother to play with, so Bowser suggests to Chef Pee Pee to make one from ingredients like Professor Utonium did with the Powerpuff Girls.
  • In "Luigi's Mansion Episode 7", Mojo Jojo is one of the many evil people on Craig the Devil's hall of fame.
  • At the beginning of "Forsaken", Junior, Joseph, and Cody watch an episode of the 2016 series.
  • In "Jeffy's Halloween!", Cody dresses up as Mojo Jojo for Halloween.
  • In "Black Yoshi's SuperPowers!", Black Yoshi gains superpowers after eating radioactive KFC chicken. When he uses his Super-Speed to steal a PlayStation 4 from Best Buy, Mario tells him to use his powers for good instead of evil by returning the PS4. Upon hearing this, Black Yoshi tells him, "This ain't The Powderpuff Girls!"
  • In "The Film Project!", the movie Junior films for Y U Dumb? Elementary School's student film's festival involves a dinosaur destroying the City of Townsville because the Powerpuff Girls went on vacation.

Western Animation

• American Dad!: In "The Longest-Distance Relationship", Jeff Fischer and Sinbad end up in an Art Shift sequence, where they end up drawn in the art style of the show, among many others. Jeff is drawn like one of the girls while Sinbad is drawn like Professor Utonium.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "The Dad Who Knew Too Little", Homer and Lisa are framed for a crime and go on the run. They use a black hair gel to disguise themselves, and Lisa comments that she looks like a Powerpuff Girl, complete with Buttercup's hairline◊.
  • In "Bart vs. Itchy and Scratchy", Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are seen on Lisa's timeline of Cartoon Women's history, along with Betty Boop, Miss Grundy, Daria, and Louise Belcher.
  • In "Lisa's Belly", Marge and Lisa journey into the latter's subconscious via hypnotherapy, and Marge realizes just how much her calling Lisa "chunky" hurt when she sees the huge word "CHUNKY" taking up so much space. She's especially horrified to see the Powerpuff Girls crushed underneath it.
• MAD:
  • The sketch "2 Broke Powerpuff Girls" is a mix of this show and 2 Broke Girls. Tara Strong and Tom Kane reprise their roles as Bubbles and HIM.
  • In a special monkey-themed episode, Mojo Jojo appears as a contestant on The Celebrity Ape-prentice.
• Robot Chicken:
  • A three-second skit from "Celebrity Rocket" has Professor Utonium say "All thanks to stem cell research!", with the girls concurring with him.
  • A sketch from "I Love Her" shows what happens if cocaine was added into the ingredients to create the girls.
  • A sketch from "May Cause a Squeakquel" has the girls blame the Mayor for not funding the punitive justice system that would have allowed Townsville's villains to rehabilitate so they wouldn't have to imprison them time after time and beat him up as retribution.
• Chowder:
  • Ms. Bellum appears in "The Hot Date".
  • In "The Heist", after Mung tastes a sugar sapphire, his head turns into that of Bubbles, who says, "Wow, that's sweet!" Tara Strong reprises her role as Bubbles.
• Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, also created by Craig McCracken, has many shout-outs to the series:
  • Mac is likely based on the one-time character Mike Believe from "Imaginary Fiend", who had a mischievous imaginary friend of his own.
  • In the pilot episode, Mojo Jojo ^note Or rather an imaginary friend clone, created by a kid who just copied what he or she saw on television appears as one of the imaginary friends Wilt introduces Mac and Bloo to. In The Stinger of the first part, Bloo changes the channels on Mac's TV until he comes to an episode of The Powerpuff Girls.
  • Frankie's midriff-baring T-shirt has silhouettes of Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup on it, each color corresponding with their eyes and dress.
  • In the episode, "Land of the Flea", one of the fleas living on Eduardo resembles and sounds like the Mayor. It doubles as an Actor Allusion, since Tom Kenny voiced both the Mayor and Eduardo.
  • In the episode, "Say It Isn't Sew", when Bloo looks through some stickers, one of them is of Blossom's head.
  • In the episode, "Nightmare on Wilson Way", Oscar (The big green friend) decides to go Trick or Treating as Blossom, only to find out that Frankie has decided to go Trick or Treating as Blossom as well, which leads to him walking away muttering, "I should have gone as Bubbles...". In all later scenes he appears in, he's dressed as Bubbles. Also in the same episode, Bloo is dressed as Mojo Jojo in a flashback.
  • In the episode, "Challenge of the Superfriends", Mac and Bloo meet a superhero imaginary friend named Imaginary Man who looks like a cross between Major Man and Major Glory from Dexter's Laboratory. The episode in general has many references to the series, as it begins with a narrator saying "The City" the way he would at the beginning of each episode, and ends with Bloo saying, "And so once again the day is saved". Also, whenever Imaginary Man and his enemy sister Nemisisister flew, they would make the same sounds and leave behind streaks of light the way the Powerpuff Girls do.
  • In "A Lost Claus", one of the gifts that Mac receives for Christmas is a book called The Art of the Powerpuff Girls.
• At the end of the The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy episode "My Fair Mandy", Mandy smiling for the first time messes with the natural order and sends her, Grim, and Billy to the Powerpuff Girls' dimension. Grim is dressed as Blossom, Mandy is dressed as Bubbles, and Billy is dressed as Buttercup (pictured above), and Professor Utonium tells them that Mojo Jojo snuck into a movie theater without paying. In The Stinger, Irwin is seen in Mojo's evil lair, dressed as Mojo himself.
• A poster showing the girls is seen in the Valkyries' palace in the Courage the Cowardly Dog episode "The Ride of the Valkyries".
• At the end of "The Boy Wander", an episode of Wander over Yonder (another show by McCracken), Wander and Sylvia save the day. After Lord Hater asks what happens, Commander Peppers states that "Once again, the day is saved thanks to... Wander and Sylvia." Topped off with the pair being shown in front of a similar backdrop to the ending (but with yellow stars instead of pink hearts) and the fact that Peepers is voiced by Tom Kenny.
• In the Evil Con Carne episode, "Ultimate Evil", as part of Hector and General Skarr's plan to make Boskov more evil, Boskov watches an episode of The Powerpuff Girls while strapped to a chair with his eyes open a la A Clockwork Orange.
• In the Baby Looney Tunes episode "A Mid-Autumn Night's Scream", the Super Sunshine Girls are a clear parody of the Powerpuff Girls.
• An episode of King of the Hill is titled "The Powder Puff Boys".
• X-Men: Evolution has an episode where Blob and Toad are watching Ersatz-parodies of the Girls during breakfast. They're even fighting an andromorphic monkey based on Mojo!
• In the Drawn Together episode "Foxxy vs. the Board of Education", Bubbles can be seen in the hospital, alongside Joe Camel, who's in an iron lung due to smoking, and Sonny the Cuckoo Bird, who's in a straightjacket.

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