Season 3

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Episode #3-1-1: Fallen Arches

• Captain Righteous and Lefty are probably Captain America and Bucky. [ALPH]
• Visually, the Captain and his sidekick are based on Joe Barbera (Captain) and the late Bill Hanna (Lefty). [CJA]
• The reunion of Captain Righteous and Lefty is similar to the plot of Neil Simon's comedy The Sunshine Boys. In the play, two comedians, one of whom has pictures all over his apartment of the two of them during their years together in their comedy act, end their partnership on sour terms but need to reunite when they're old men—just as Captain Righteous and Lefty parted on bad terms and Lefty has pictures in his apartment of him and Captain Righteous together in their superhero days. Further, in The Sunshine Boys, something happens to the comic who had the pictures all over his apartment that helps reunite the two comics; in "Fallen Arches," of course, Lefty is injured, causing Captain Righteous to change his tune about them working together again. [Nate *]
  Not being that familiar with Simon's work (The Odd Couple is about the extent of my knowledge), I can't give you the names of the characters, which one had all the pictures, etc. Feel free to fill me in on any details Nate and I may have missed. [CJA]
   

Episode #3-1-2: The Mane Event

• A rough drawing of a Smurf appears on the girls' bedroom wall. [Justin VanNingen]
• Bubbles and Buttercup hide behind a "Lawlaid" school bus, a takeoff on the "Laidlaw" buses frequently seen in Los Angeles during the school year. [CJA]

Episode #3-2-1: Town and Out

• Citiesville's mayor's receptionist is the David Spade snooty receptionist character from Saturday Night Live. [Collin]
• The police car is "Car 54"—a reference to the old TV show Car 54, Where Are You? [Collin]
• In the sequence where the robbers are being chased by the police, the chase passes by a wall with The Saint's stick-figure-with-halo logo spray-painted on it. (Simon Templar—The Saint—was created by British author Leslie Charteris in the 1930s. Several movies have been made about the character, the most recent one starring Val Kilmer, and a TV series, featuring Roger Moore, appeared in the 1960s.) [CJA]

Episode #3-2-2: Child Fearing

• The Mayor is playing the Nintendo 64 game "Zelda 64: The Ocarina of Time." [Legion1979, Arnold Kim]
• Mojo Jojo prepares dinner for the girls in the style of the Japanese chefs from the famous Benihana restaurants. [Collin]
• Blarney the Singing Sea Serpent is probably based on a combination of Barney the purple dinosaur and Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent, one of the characters on Bob Clampett's pioneering TV cartoon Beany and Cecil. [ALPH, Adam Stephanides]
• This episode has many parallels with the Adam Sandler film Big Daddy: (1) Julian, the little boy Sonny Koufax (Sandler) gets stuck with in BD, and the PPG are all five years old; (2) Julian pesters Koufax to be allowed to watch a kids' show on TV, just as the girls do with Mojo; (3)the music in Julian's show is similar to that on Blarney the Singing Sea Serpent. [PuffToTheCore]
  These may actually be coincidental references. Could someone confirm these? [CJA]

Episode #3-3: Criss Cross Crisis

• "Heisenberg compensators" that the Professor throws into his technobabble is from Star Trek (those things that make the transporters able to ignore the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). [Collin]
• Another Trek reference: the person who finds himself inhabiting Fuzzy Lumkins' body is an Englishman who claims to have been doing nothing but drinking "tea, Earl Grey, hot," the favorite drink of Captain Jean-Luc Picard. [CJA]
• One of the characters at the bank looks like Totoro from My Neighbor Totoro. [Collin]
• The cinema is showing Freakin' Friday, a reference to Freaky Friday, in which a mother and daughter swap bodies for a day. [ALPH]
• Mojo the Fish says "Unbelievable" with the same intonation as the Sicilian (Wallace Shawn) says "Inconceivable" in The Princess Bride. [ALPH]
• In the quick-change sequence, Ms Bellum becomes Dexter at one point. [ALPH]
• The Gangreen Gang, now inhabited by teenage girls, squeal about "Leo" being "so dreamy." Undoubtedly a reference to Leonardo DiCaprio. [Justin VanNingen]

Episode #3-4-1: Bubblevision

Episode #3-4-2: Bought and Scold

• The opening sequence includes a shot of Quackor, the villain in the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Dial M for Monkey." [ALPH]
• The offering of Turkish delights to corrupt the Mayor is a possible reference to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. [Princess Neko Tsukimi]
• As a rolled up rug is being carried out of the PpG household the Professor makes a comment about how "that really tied the room together." This is from The Big Lebowski. [Tecumpseh, Barimen]

Episode #3-5-1: Gettin' Twiggy With It

• Title references the Will Smith song "Gettin' Jiggy Wit' It." [CJA]
• Twiggy is named for the tall, thin British model of the 1960s. [CJA]
• The transformation by radioactive gloop is based on the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. [ALPH]

Episode #3-5-2: Cop Out

• The "cop music" that appears throughout the episode is a parody of the theme to Hill Street Blues. [Ryan Mead]
• The first box of donuts comes from "Windy's," possibly based on Wendy's. [ALPH]
• Officer Perez refers to a "211" in progress, a reference to any one of numerous cop shows set in California, where that section of the penal code refers to armed robbery. [CJA]
• The license plate on Perez and Brickowski's cruiser includes an "E" in an octagon. Older California license plates with this logo were issued to government vehicles and others exempt from state license and registration fees. (Newer plates simply say "CA EXEMPT" at the top.) [CJA]
• The officer who says "Try all the buttons" sounds like Barney Fife (Don Knotts) on The Andy Griffith Show. [raymia]
• Brickowski's accent and attitude are reminiscent of Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) on NYPD Blue. [Fred Crouse]

Episode #3-6-1: Jewel of the Aisle

• Title plays on the movie The Jewel of the Nile. [CJA]
• Mech-Animals is a takeoff on Beast Machines. [Cynthia Chan]
• "Generally Food" is a play on "General Foods." [CJA]
• The cereal "Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets" combines a parody of the animated spokes-characters of Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms (Lucky the Leprechaun), the Trix Rabbit and King Vitaman. [King Vitaman, a cereal composed of sweet corn-based crown shapes, is apparently still being made, but few seem to have seen or heard of it in a long time.] The slogan "Ridiculous Lucky Captain Rabbit King! Lucky Captain Rabbit King Nuggets are for the youth!" parodies the Trix slogan "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids." The cereal and the recitation of its bits are along the lines of Lucky Charms. [Cynthia Chan, Frank Lhota, others]
• When the robber first comes to the girls' house in his "Lucky Captain Rabbit King" outfit, he refers to himself as "The Captain and Tennille," which was a soft-rock act from the '70s. [Justin VanNingen]
• One of the tricks the robber pulls draws from "Little Red Riding Hood" with the robber dressed as Grandma, and the girls taking turns with the insightful questions. [Cynthia Chan]
• The lawn mower is a "Joe Dear," a play on John Deere. [ALPH]

Episode #3-6-2: Super Zeros

• Liberty Belle, Harmony Bunny, and Mange are takeoffs on the girls' favorite superheroes, Freedom Gal, Chiisai Banii Banii (of the manga Chiisai Banii Banii no Kawaii Booken Monogatari—Little Bunny Bunny's Cute Adventure Tale) and Spore, which are in turn takeoffs of Wonder Woman, (possibly) Hello Kitty and Spawn (possibly mixed a little with Batman, given the ears). [Cynthia Chan, Kyle Thomas Pope]
  UPDATE: Apparently, Blossom isn't the original Liberty Belle—there was a DC Comics character by that name during World War II. [Spitfire]
• The Mayor is wearing a watch depicting the Pokémon Jigglypuff character. [CJA]
• Monster Island is where Godzilla and friends live in the Toho films.[ALPH]
• Harmony Bunny's battle cry "When trouble is near I am not slow, for it's hop, hop, hop, and away I go!" is a variation of Underdog's various battle cries. One example: "When the country's in trouble I am not slow, its hip, hip, hip and away I go." [Adam Stephanides]
• The comic strip the Professor reads, Dr. Atom Magnum, M.D., Ph.D., Wizard, is a parody of Rex Morgan, M.D. [Adam Stephanides]
• The design of Steve, the rampaging but surprisingly insightful monster, is based on Hedorah, aka the Smog Monster, from Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. [John Cassidy, Bryan Costin]

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Episode #3-7-1: Three Girls and a Monster

• Title refers to the movie Three Men and a Baby. [Adam Stephanides]
• The monster and its appearance from the jetty are from the recent remake of Godzilla. [ALPH]
• The ripples in the glass and the close-up on the Mayor's eye are from Jurassic Park. [ALPH]

Episode #3-7-2: Monkey See, Doggy Two

Episode #3-8-1: Candy Is Dandy

• Title comes from the Ogden Nash advice about seduction: "Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker." [Illudium Phosdex]
• The girls' reaction to candy is reminiscent of a device involving the character Snuffles the dog on Quick Draw McGraw, among other sources. [Evan Hammerman, Illudium Phosdex]
• In the girls' room, while they are waiting for the phone to ring, so they can get more candy, we see a plushie of Blue from Nickelodeon's Blue's Clues. [Evan Hammerman]
• After the girls have eaten the candy offered by the Mayor, they say "Mmmm," "Ahhh," and "Ohhh." This is an old catchphrase for Pillsbury "Pop-n-Fresh" dough: "Mmm... Ahhh... Ohhh, Pop-n-Fresh dough!" [MegaRouge]
   

Episode #3-8-2: Catastrophe

• After the monster explodes, it reforms like the terminator in Terminator 2. [ALPH]
• Some of the first cats to respond to Bubbles' call are Top Cat and his gang. They also appear along the bottom of the screen in the final frame. [ALPH]
• The girls do their "Furious Fiery Feline" maneuver, a takeoff on the "Fiery Phoenix" from Battle of the Planets (which in turn is an English-language version of the Japanese cartoon, Gatchaman), which turned their ship, the Phoenix, into a fiery version of itself. [Chris J]

Episode #3-9-1: Hot Air Buffoon

• Blossom riding the missile and yelling "Yee-haw" is reminiscent of "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) riding the H-bomb at the end of Dr. Strangelove. [CJA]
• The barefoot bank robbers are Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. [ALPH]

Episode #3-9-2: Ploys R' Us

• Title plays on the Toys "R" Us toy store chain. [CJA]
• Numerous toys snatched by the Professor are recognizable. Among them are: a Hoppity-Hop, a Bubbles doll, a robot from "Bubblevicious," a red Pikachu, a "Dial M for Monkey" doll, Dexter and Dee Dee dolls, the robot from Lost in Space (TV version) and a Flintstones pinball. [ALPH, Zobovor]
• In the scene where Bubbles pops out of a pile of toys, she holds a Dexter doll in one hand, and in the other hand, she holds a cute red robot thing, which is from the tokusatsu kids' series Keep Trying Robocon (Ganbare! Robokon, Toei, 1974), created by Shoutarou Ishinomori. [John Cassidy]

Episode #3-10: Powerprof

Episode #3-11-1: The Headsucker's Moxy

• Title parodies the movie The Hudsucker Proxy. [Ryan Mead]
• The girls refer to the villain as a "robbing leech," which is a play on the name of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous host Robin Leach. [Ryan Mead]

Episode #3-11-2: Equal Fights

Episode #3-12-1: Moral Decay

Episode #3-12-2: Meet the Beat-Alls
Alan Back has posted a comprehensive list of Beatles references in this episode at PPGWorld, along with a complete set of transcripts for every episode and The Powerpuff Girls Movie. Here are the references we got:

• The title refers to the album Meet the Beatles. [CJA]
• We see John, Paul, George and Ringo's cartoon versions from the movie Yellow Submarine when Mojo and Moko scream at each other. [Cynthia Chan]
• Blossom calls Michelle's trainer over by yelling "Hey Jude!", referencing the song with that title. [Cynthia Chan]
• The sergeant (reference to Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), saying "Help! we need somebody! Help! not just anybody! Help! we need the Powerpuff Girls!" was derived from the song "Help" (see also references in "Mo Job"). [Cynthia Chan]
• The shot of the villains just after they form the Beat-Alls, half in light and half in shadow, comes from the cover of With the Beatles. [CJA]
• Him's suggestion of "Silver Beatles" for the name of the supervillain group was the name the Beatles used just before becoming simply the Beatles. [CJA]
• The scene in which the Beat-Alls cross the street is a takeoff of the Abbey Road cover. [CJA]
• The Professor's pep talk references, among other songs, "Yesterday" ("All our troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay"), "Get Back" ("Mojo Jojo was a man who thought he was a loner, but he knew it couldn't last"), and "A Day in the Life" ("I read the news today! Oh, boy!"). [Cynthia Chan, CJA]
• Mojo's going to the grocery store to buy white stuff is a reference to John Lennon and Yoko Ono's frequent use of white as a symbol of peace. Examples include Lennon's white piano in the video for "Imagine," Ono's work "White Chess" (which consisted of a chess set with only white pieces), and the "Declaration of Nutopia" (in which the imaginary country's flag was declared to be white Kleenex). [Chemical-Ya]
• "Annoyance Crime #9" is a takeoff of "Revolution No. 9." The "crime" itself, parking a bed in the middle of an intersection, refers to Lennon and Ono's "bed-in" for peace. [Michael S. Cooper]
• The address of the National Trust Bank is also "No. 9." [CJA]
• Judy's dialogue with Michelle/Moko includes a corruption of the line "'Michelle, ma belle' sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble" from "Michelle." People commonly mistake the actual lyric for "Someday monkey won't play piano song"; Judy uses the latter phrase. [CJA, Cynthia Chan]
• The chord at the end of the episode comes from the end of "A Day in the Life." [CJA]
• The episode was first shown in the US on the anniversary of the Beatles' appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. [Evan Hammerman]
• Lyric reference: "The love you take is equal to..." from Abbey Road. [Michael S. Cooper]
• Lyric reference: "He's going nowhere, man!" from "Nowhere Man." [Robert Huchinson]
• The Performance Crime, with the ladder, small message, and magnifying glass was a takeoff on an exhibit put together by Yoko Ono. [Michael S. Cooper]
• The group on the rooftop is a reference to a Beatles concert stunt, and Him echoes a quote by John Lennon on one of the Beatles' songs: "Thank you, and on behalf of the group, I hope we passed the audition." [Michael S. Cooper]
• Moko Jono is a reference to Yoko Ono. [Arnold Kim]
• The Beat-Alls are shown robbing the National Trust Bank. The lyrics to "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" refer to the "National Trust." [Adam Stephanides] (The National Trust is a British non-profit organization that preserves and maintains historical sites throughout the United Kingdom. [CJA])
• Stuart Best, the narrator of the documentary on the Beat Alls, is a combination of Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best, two former members of the Beatles. [Michael Hartenberger]
• Stuart Best refers to Fuzzy as "the shy one." In their teenybopper phase, the Beatles were referred to individually as "the shy one," "the cute one," etc. (although the sources I looked at disagreed whether George or Ringo was "the shy one"). [Adam Stephanides]

Episode #3-13-1: Helter Shelter

• The title is reminiscent of the Beatles song. [Adam Stephanides]

Episode #3-13-2: Power Lunch

• Ace's line "Let's kick it up a notch" is, of course, one of Emeril Lagasse's signature sayings. [CJA]

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