What An Idiot / The Powerpuff Girls (1998)

They’re stronger than your average elementary schooler, but sometimes The Powerpuff Girls, as well as many other characters including the adults, show that they're as smart as that level, or even below it.

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• In General: Professor Utonium accidentally added Chemical X when making the girls, but had the foresight to write down the formula.
  You'd Expect: He would use the volume of the flask that contained it which shouldn't be too hard since it was spherical, and someone as knowledgeable as him would know the volume of a sphere is V=(4/3)πr^3 and the hole was small enough that the radius could still be measured.
  Instead: He uses the far more subjective measure of "an accidental dose of Chemical X".
  As A Result: Any attempt to recreate them has a wildcard effect.
• "Cop Out: Mike Browski is fired by the chief of police.
  You'd expect: for him to have turn into his gun.
  Instead:He's allowed to keep it as a souvenir.
  However:: Mike never uses his gun.
  
• "Candy is Dandy": Mojo Jojo had just got out of jail so the Powerpuff Girls could get free candy by "stopping" his crimes.
  You'd expect: That Mojo Jojo would be smart enough to realize that the girls accept candy as bribery and exploit it for all it's worth.
  Instead: After having his "fun" for a while he steals their candy, just to break their hearts. This decision would likely have been his death had the girls not stop to reflect on their actions after beating him to a pulp.
• "Cootie Gras": Mojo Jojo throws the girls into a pit along with Harry, a dirty boy with cooties, that the girls are mortally afraid of.
  You'd expect: For the girls to remember they could just fly out of the pit.
  Instead: They run from Harry around the pit. Only when they realize that their fears of him were completely illogical do they fly out of the pit to beat Mojo Jojo.
• In "Slumbering with the Enemy", Mojo Jojo infiltrates the Powerpuffs’ slumber party to steal Antidote X and nullify their powers, since it was the thing that led to his defeat in the movie when he was a giant ape monster. After various paranoia from the girls over his identity as Mojesha, they decide to have fun until they sleep, while Mojo gets the Antidote X and uses it on the girls. This causes concern from their friends, one of which asks Mojesha in a similar way to Cindy Lou Who.
  You’d Expect: Mojo to come up with a convincing lie and peacefully give the Girls' friends one last thing before leaving the slumber party like a glass of water while preparing a new plan to take over Townsville tomorrow now that the girls have none of their powers to stop him with. If the Grinch can lie perfectly, then so can Mojo Jojo.
  Or: For Mojo to pull out a deadly laser gun that he would sneak into the party, then shoot the Girls with it right away once he used the Antidote X on them, killing all three of them, since their powers have been taken away from them, therefore making them vulnerable to the laser, then hastily leave the slumber party immediately after the deed is done.
  Instead: He reveals himself and brags about how the Powerpuff Girls are powerless now, and how Townsville is now his for the taking, while their normal friends can’t defeat him.
  The Result: He gets a major ass whooping from a pillow fight while the Powerpuff Girls eventually get their powers back for the next episode.
• "Bubblevision": Bubbles is suffering poor eyesight and the Professor says she needs glasses. Because of how Bubbles looks like with them on, Blossom and Buttercup begin laughing at her and calling her names like "nerd" and "dork". The Professor, however, does not laugh at her and tells her she shouldn't care what her sisters say about her and what's important is they fight crime, and to not let what they say get to her.
  You'd expect: Bubbles to ignore Blossom and Buttercup's insults, as that's what the Professor told her and there are people who choose to laugh at her and others who accept her for the way she is.
  Instead: She just lets it all get to her and screams at them for them assuming they were kidding when they weren't. The sisters soon get what they deserved when trapped by the giant ant.
• "Mommy Fearest":
  • After Ima Goodlady confines the girls to their bedroom, the hotline rings and they fly out of their windows to fight crime when they've been told they're not allowed to.
    You'd Expect: The girls to fly into the house through the bedroom windows after fighting crime.
    Instead: They enter the house through the front door, get caught, and end up grounded. Sedusa's only exposed when she tries to steal the Mayor's jewels and ends up getting arrested.
  • At the climax of the episode, Sedusa goes to steal the Mayor's jewels.
    You'd Expect: Sedusa would knock out or kill the mayor to prevent him from calling the girls.
    Or: Sedusa to run somewhere where the girls wouldn't be able to find her.
    Instead: She doesn't do either of the above, allowing the Mayor to call the girls and Blossom to put all the pieces together, realizing the coincidence of Ima grounding them while Sedusa robs the jewels, and goes back to the Utonium household where the girls catch her and expose her true identity.
    Now you'd expect: Sedusa would make a break for it now that the girls know who she is.
    Instead: She decides to just try and trick The Professor again and engages in a fight with the girls and as a result, when The Professor returns, he doesn't fall for her trick and has her sent to jail for what she did.
• In the episode "Powerpuff Bluff", three inmates disguise themselves as the Powerpuff Girls to escape from jail.
  You'd Expect: The guard would easily see their disguises. They're literally six times their height and their voices are completely different to the girls, who end up on TV often enough due to fighting crime.
  Instead: He lets the criminals out, allowing them to rob the bank, the jewelry store, and the mayor's office. After they beat the mayor up, Ms. Bellum, points out that they were men disguised as the Powerpuff Girls.
  You'd Then Expect: The mayor would call the girls and tell them that the same men they recently stopped three times have escaped from prison, are dressed up as the girls, and are still at large.
  Instead: He misinterprets what Ms. Bellum told him and calls the chief of police to arrest the Powerpuff Girls. Nice going, Mayor!
  Extra Points: Even after the deception is revealed and the girls are proven innocent, the Mayor tells the girls they have to go back to jail for breaking out. He's serious.
• In the climax of "Mo-Job", Princess is given Chemical X powers by Mojo and attempts to zap the girls with a Power Nullifier, but they dodge its attacks and use it against her.
  You'd Expect: Princess to fly out of the beam's path.
  Instead: She tries to outrun the beam, but isn't fast enough.
  The result: The beam hits her, and she's Brought Down to Normal.
• In the episode "Daylight Savings", the girls start falling asleep in class, causing the Professor to start taking the whole "Saving the world before bedtime" thing seriously. This leads to the villains taking advantage of this, plunging the town into chaos at night.
  You'd Expect: The Professor to make an exception in extreme cases.
  Instead: Even after watching news reports about the absolute hell on Earth occurring at the time, he still refuses to wake the girls up.
  Luckily: The professor quickly realizes that it was Daylight Savings Time and he forgot to set the clocks back, and he quickly wakes the girls up to save the town.
• In "Just Another Manic Mojo", the girls lose their baseball in Mojo Jojo's observatory and ask him if they could have it back. Mojo decides to use their lost ball to his advantage to trick the girls into waiting long enough so he can use his new Giganto-Destructo-Powerpuffo Ray to destroy them.
  You'd Expect: For Mojo to add some restraints to the couch (ie. gluing the girls to the seat or strapping them in) to keep the girls still so they don't wander off before the laser is fired.
  Instead: He never thinks of this.
  The Result: Every time Mojo gets ready to fire, the girls either leave the couch or get distracted somewhat by something in the room, prompting him to stop them.
  Later On: The instant the girls are finally under control, Mojo prepares the laser to fire, but Bubbles has disappeared — she has left to touch a fragile Ming Dynasty vase, which was the first thing he ever stole.
  You'd Expect: After Bubbles returns to the couch, for Mojo to quickly return to behind the laser before it fires.
  Instead: He takes the time to stand before the girls and chastise Bubbles for disobeying in the time of the laser's countdown.
  The Result: Mojo is hit with his own laser (albeit non-fatally), and the vase breaks anyway. It is to the point Mojo has had enough of the girls' antics that he gives them their ball back and shoos them out.
• In the episode "Moral Decay", Buttercup spends the next few weeks fighting crime and knocking teeth out of many criminals (and even a monster's), making hundreds of dollars. Eventually, no crime happens for a day.
  You'd Expect: Having lots of money, she would consider what she wanted to buy and either buy the punching bag, which she probably has more than enough to afford, or spend the day buying whatever she wants, as she would have all day to do that.
  Instead: She continues to wait for more crime to occur, until she loses her patience and decides to beat up Mojo Jojo, the Gangreen Gang Team, Fuzzy Lumpkins, and Him (without any provocation on their end) to steal their teeth.
  As a Result: The villains call Blossom and Bubbles and tell them what Buttercup had done to them and the two of them gather all of the villains that had their teeth knocked out to beat up Buttercup and knock most of her teeth, causing her to pay all of the money that she had earned to pay for her dental bills.
• "Knock It Off":
  • When Dick Hardly sees the girls' potential for money and outright declares them as such right in front of Professor Utonium, the Professor realizes just how much of a douchebag Dick really is.
    You'd Expect: That after kicking Dick out, the Professor tell the girls that Dick is not someone to be trusted and should be avoided as much as possible.
    Instead: He doesn't do this, giving the girls no reason to suspect Dick's true intentions.
  • Dick later arrives at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, offering the girls a ride home, and starts telling them about how much evil there is in the world. Then he asks what the girls are made of.
    You'd Expect: That one of the girls would just say they can't tell him anything.
    Or: For all three to realize they're potentially dealing with a stalker and get the hell out of there or threaten to call the police.
    Instead: Not only do they tell him anyway, but they actually get the Chemical X for him.
    As A Result: Dick attempts to mass-produce Powerpuff Girls to make a profit. Most of the results end up horribly deformed.
  • The girls finally decide to confront Dick at his laboratory after seeing an infomercial on the Powerpuff Girls Xtreme. When they ask him to give them back the Chemical X that they gave him earlier in the episode, he snatches the bottle of Chemical X and they back him into a corner.
    You'd Expect: That the girls would either snatch it from him or destroy it using their Eye Beams.
    Instead: They keep verbally trying to get him to hand it over.
    As A Result: Dick panics, swallows the Chemical X, transforms into a monster, and nearly kills the girls.
  • In the climax, the Professor comes into Dick's lab and sees the knock-offs before witnessing the girls being drained of their Chemical X. In a panic, he begs Dick to release the girls and offers to give him all the Chemical X he wants.
    You'd Expect: Dick to see the benefits of having lots of Chemical X and release the girls.
    Instead: He coldly brushes this off and tries to get them both, resulting in his creations turning on him and killing him.
• In the episode "Schoolhouse Rocked", the Ganggreen Gang is sent to Pokey Oaks Kindergarten. During milk and cookies, they bully the other children and the Powerpuff Girls draw Ms. Keane's attention.
  You'd Expect: The girls to step aside and let Ms. Keane have a word with the Ganggreen Gang.
  Instead: Buttercup persuades the girls into dishing out the justice themselves and they start beating the gang up. Ms. Keane reminds the girls that no fighting is allowed in class and punishes them while letting the Ganggreen Gang off easy.
  However: After seeing the Ganggreen Gang play dodgeball to hurt their classmates, Ms. Keane decides to let the girls play dodgeball against the Ganggreen Gang, leading to their defeat without breaking the "No fighting in class" rule.
• In "Gettin' Twiggy With It", Ms. Keane lets one of her students take the class hamster, Twiggy, home for the weekend.
  You'd Expect: Ms. Keane to let a responsible student handle Twiggy.
  Instead: She gives the hamster to Mitch Mitchelson, forgetting how much of a jerk he is and blindly trusting him to care for Twiggy.
  As a result: Mitch is left alone at his house to torture the poor creature For the Evulz. Granted, he does get punished at the end, but still, Ms. Keane knows Mitch well enough not to leave a small creature in the hands of her Jerkass student. If not for the girls, Twiggy would've been seriously injured.
• In "Fuzzy Logic", Fuzzy Lumpkins is going on a rampage because he's upset with the people of Townsville touching his property.
  You'd expect: The Townsville citizens to direct Fuzzy over to his belongings and point them out without touching them. That way, he can pick up his things and go on his merry way.
  Instead: They continue to pick up his belongings and Fuzzy becomes increasingly pissed off, repeatedly screaming at everyone to keep their hands off his property.
• In "The Boys Are Back In Town", the Rowdyruff Boys get resurrected by HIM and proceed to attack the Powerpuff Girls. They decide to use their feminine wiles and kiss them to make them explode like they did last time, but to no avail as their Spear Counterparts grow bigger.
  You'd Expect: For the girls to stop after they saw that it wasn't working the first time, and think of a different method like, oh, how about finding Antidote X and dousing them in it to make them powerless?
  Instead: The girls continue kissing them until they're literally giants, enabling them to beat the shit out of them, until the Girls discover their enemies' new weakness. One can't help but agree with Brick saying that they never learn.
• In "Twas The Fight Before Christmas", Princess Morbucks breaks into Santa's computer and sees that once again, she's on the naughty list, while everyone else is nice. So she switches it around.
  You'd Expect: Santa to be suspicious that the list shows ALL the children in the world are naughty, (including the Powerpuff Girls who he is a huge fan of) except for the one girl that has always been on the naughty list, and do an investigation.
  Instead: Santa believes the tampered list, and falls into a depression.
  • Soon after, Santa learns that Princess's Christmas wish is to be a Powerpuff Girl.
    You'd Expect: By mentioning the Powerpuff Girls, Santa would realize that THEY are on the naughty list, therefore something must be wrong with it.
    Instead: It doesn't occur to him.
  • The girls finally convince Santa that the list is wrong, as they are the Powerpuff Girls, and that there's no way they should be on the naughty side. They also point out that Princess is naughty.
    You'd Expect: For Princess to be on her best behavior while defending herself.
    Instead: Upon hearing Santa compliment how nice the Powerpuff Girls always are due to them being superheroes, she becomes so jealous of the Powerpuff Girls once again that she ends up throwing a violent temper tantrum in front of everybody, insulting Santa and furiously demanding that he gives her whatever she wants for Christmas, even at the cost of making every other kid in the world miserable as a result, or she'll have her father build a parking lot all over the North Pole, proving the Powerpuff Girls right.
    As A Result: Seeing Princess for the Spoiled Brat she truly is, and realizing that she deceived him by altering his lists, Santa is furious. He puts her name on the Permanent Naughty Plaque, takes away her powers when she escapes the North Pole to tell her dad, and has the Powerpuff Girls take her to jail. And since the girls (and even Princess) know that Princess' name is on the Permanent Naughty Plaque, she'll never get anything she wants for Christmas and will get nothing but coal every year. Forever.
• "Bought & Scold":
  • Princess' father buys Townsville for his bratty daughter, and Princess passes a bill to make crime legal. This means that people can commit crime with no intervention from the police and/or the Powerpuff Girls whatsoever. This also means that Princess herself can be a victim of crime.
    You'd Expect: For Princess to edit the bill legalizing crime, but only making crime illegal if said crimes are committed against her and her father. This would have kept the girls from exploiting the bill against her.
    Or: Have the bill be about severely punishing vigilantism so that the girls can't do anything without her permission.
    Instead: She doesn't, which causes the Powerpuff Girls to steal her and her father's belongings.
    As A Result: To avoid getting in trouble with her father, Princess is forced to make crime illegal again and to give back Townsville to the Mayor and Ms. Bellum. Even after this, she still gets some Laser-Guided Karma from her father.
  • Princess' father also counts even off-screen. Princess wants to buy Townsville from the Mayor so she can control the town and make the rules.
    You'd Expect: For Princess' father to realize that letting a 5-6 year old girl owning a town would be asking for trouble, since kindergarten-aged children aren't even old or mature enough to run a city.
    Instead: He buys the town for Princess, and due to Princess' impulsive behavior, his mansion gets robbed.
    As A Result: He (albeit justifiably) gets angry at Princess for recklessly making crime legal, and punishes her off-screen.
• In "Fallen Arches", a group of elderly criminals has just appeared to rob a bank with the girls being ready to stop them. However, Blossom is hesitant on hurting them under the belief that they should "respect the elders".
  You'd Expect: For the girls to simply grab and send the criminals to jail without hurting them.
  Instead: Blossom decides to recruit retired and old superheroes that aren't just old but are in a strained relationship with one another. This results in all the associates in the conflict being badly injured with everyone, including Bubbles and Buttercup blaming Blossom for her idiotic and foolish plan.
• "Twisted Sister":
  • The girls, exhausted from constantly saving the day, conclude that only three of them isn't enough and decided they need another sister.
    You'd Expect: They tell the professor their problems, so that he could either make another sister, or come up with an alternative solution.
    Instead: They try to make a new girl themselves, with the wrong ingredients (artificial sweetener for sugar, dirt and twigs for spice, and multiple items they consider to be "everything nice").
    The Result: They create a deformed Powerpuff Girl who at the end of the episode explodes due to being unstable.
  • Also,
    You'd Expect: The girls would teach Bunny how to fight crime, since she had only just been made and would logically have no idea what she's doing.
    Instead: They send Bunny off on her own to fight crime with no guidance or prior training and expect her to get it right.
    The Result: She (understandably) mistakes the police for bad guys and throws them in jail whilst releasing the criminals.
• In "Superfriends," the girls and their friend Robin is walking to school. Princess approaches them in a limo and offers the girls a ride to school in the condition that they let her be a Powerpuff Girl. They refuse. After this, Robin ask the girls who Princess was.
  You'd Expect: For the girls to warn Robin about Princess and tell the former that Princess is a Spoiled Brat who isn't to be trusted.
  Instead: Blossom just tells Robin that Princess is harmless.
  The Result: This just leads to Robin getting used by Princess as a pawn to get the latter to join the Powerpuff Girls (by tricking Robin into stealing, no less).
• In "Get Back Jojo", Mojo Jojo has decided to use Professor Utonium's presentation of his time machine at Pokey Oaks School to go back in time to when the Professor first became interested in science and prevent the Professor from ever making the Powerpuff Girls in the first place. There are multiple problems with this...
  You'd Expect, For One: That Mojo, evil genius that he is, would realize doing so would erase his own existence as he is, since his current life is tied to the Powerpuff Girls being born due to his running amok when he was just a normal monkey making life hell for Professor Utonium, and without them, he will cease to exist along with everything else tied to them if he succeeds.
  Instead: Mojo does not apparently think of this, and instead acts on this plan as if the only thing that will be stopped by his actions is the Powerpuff Girls creation.
  Secondly, You'd Expect: That upon going through with this plan, he would take the time to ask the Professor what specifically inspired him to get into the field of science, so as to both more effectively prevent it, and avoid the possibility of a Stable Time Loop, which the Professor had just demonstrated was possible with his machine.
  Instead: Mojo does not ask anything like this, and goes through portal, apparently intending to simply keep the young Professor from having anything happen to him that day by any means necessary, including killing him by throwing him into an active volcano.
  The Result: The Powerpuff Girls, having followed him into the past, save the young Utonium, which, surprise-surprise, was the thing that inspired him to become a scientist and create the Powerpuff Girls all along.
  Even Worse: When Mojo Jojo kidnaps the young Utonium, he asks him what inspired him to create the Powerpuff Girls, apparently thinking that somehow the past version of the Professor, who hasn't had such a thing happen to him yet, would know what will happen to do so, and doesn't believe him when the young Professor tries to tell him he has no idea what he's talking about.
• In "Aspirations": Sedusa tricks the Gangreen Gang into helping her steal a bunch of artifacts needed to become all powerful, by promising them a reward. Once she has them, the Gang ask for their "reward".
  You'd Expect: For Sedusa to eaither 1) keep playing along by promising to reward them after the Girls are defeated, 2) give the gang a reward of some kind, or 3) kill the Gangreen Gang there and then.
  Instead: She admits she was lying, and tells them to scram.
  The Result: The Gangreen Gang help the Girls by telling them how to defeat Sedusa.