"Gettin' Twiggy With It" is the eighth episode in the third season of The Powerpuff Girls, and the 58th episode overall.
Plot[]
When Twiggy, the class pet hamster, is taken home by Mitch Michelson, a typical class bully, he promises to be nice to her, but the girls don't trust on Mitch's niceness and soon Twiggy is turned into a monster. In the end, Mitch is punished for his abusiveness and the tables are turned rapidly.
Synopsis[]
On a Friday at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten, Ms. Keane asks Mitch Michelson to take care of Twiggy, the class pet hamster, even as he seems to be torturing her. The girls try to convince her not to let him, having witnessed his cruelty, but when they look at him he looks innocent. Just when class is dismissed, Mitch leaves school on bike and returns home (or trailer) while the girls follow him closely.
Back at Mitch's house, which he shares with his grandmother, the girls look through the window in surveillance. Mitch picks Twiggy up and appears to be cuddling her and offering her some hamster food, at least so the girls would not need to look at him, but Mitch puts the entire jar of hamster food into Twiggy's mouth. Then, he puts Twiggy into a remote-controlled car and drives her all over the room. Having seen enough, the Powerpuff Girls stop him when Twiggy is about to fall down from stairs. Mitch again promises to be nice to her, and then they leave his room. Buttercup, however, still suggests that they monitor him, even if they have to secretly look through the door's keyhole for further activity.
Later, while Mitch initially appears to be stroking her, the girls notice a pair of electrical wires, where it turns out he's about to electrocute her. The girls intervene right in time, right as the leads reach Twiggy. Mitch starts crying and states that he is lonely and has never had a pet. The girls give him Twiggy and again appears to take care of her. But then, in one final act of derangement, Mitch straps her to a rocket and launches it. The rocket flies all over the house and lands in the toilet of the bathroom, and Mitch sadistically flushes Twiggy down the toilet into the sewers of Townsville's underworld where a large drum of radioactive waste awaits her.
Back in the bathroom, the angry girls ask why Mitch flushed her, only for him to say in his defense that it was an accident. Before the girls can interrogate him further, the house shakes, the floor cracks, and an irradiated, mutated Twiggy comes out from below them, targeting Mitch of his abuse of her.
Mitch quickly escapes from his home, but as fast as he can pedal his bike, Twiggy follows him closely. Reluctant about helping the abusive Mitch Mitchelson, the girls fly behind them. Then Twiggy catches up to Mitch's bike, snagging one of his tires, and the girls grab him before she could eat him. Mitch thanks them for helping him, only to realize that the girls are actually helping Twiggy and punishing him for his misdeeds. He begs for his life and says he'll do anything to avoid this fate.
Coming to an agreement, the girls and Ms. Keane punish him for not taking good care of Twiggy; Ms. Keane herself apologizes for not trusting the girls' judgment. The punishment, creative by their standards, includes making him run on a large hamster wheel with the mutant Twiggy chasing after him.
Characters[]
- The Powerpuff Girls
- Mitch Mitchelson
- Twiggy
- Ms. Keane
- Elmer Sglue (cameo)
- Harry Pitt (cameo)
- Julie Bean (cameo)
Trivia[]
- This episode premiered in some countries before the United States.[1]
- This episode premiered in Australia on March 17, 2000.
- This episode premiered in Canada on June 10, 2000.
- This episode premiered in the United Kingdom on July 2, 2000.
- Speed Buggy makes a cameo appearance as a remote control car.
- There's an anime Pokémon episode of the same name.
- Twiggy transforming into a monster is similar to Peepi from the Invader Zim episode "Hamstergeddon".
- Twiggy is constantly referred to as a girl. But once when the girls first see Mitch torturing Twiggy, Blossom says that if Mitch isn't nice, they're taking him away.
- When Mitch let out an evil laugh, it's very reminiscent of Popeye's signature laugh from the Popeye franchise. In a Cartoon Network bumper, "Mitch Rocks", Mitch deemed Popeye to "rocks" that he's a fan of the Popeye cartoons.
- Blossom called Mitch an "accident", after he sadistically flushed Twiggy down to the toilet when she and her sisters were about to attack him to avenged Twiggy. This could mean she views Mitch's birth as an accident or a mistake made by his parents, that he should never been born in the first place, so Twiggy wouldn't be in such abusive, tormenting, and sadistic care.
- It's unknown if the Powerpuff Girls were going feed Mitch to the giant transmuted Twiggy or they were teaching him a lesson in humility, responsibility, kindness, respect, and the ethical treatment of animals.
- This is second time Ms. Keane didn't take the girls' judgment, which they turned out to be right and regretted for not taking it in the first place. The first time was in "Schoolhouse Rocked", knowing that the Gangreen Gang would be nothing but trouble when they attend to Pokey Oaks Kindergarten on their first and last day. Ms. Keane doesn't believe them, until she sees the Gangreen Gang had beating up all of the other students in recess playing dodgeball.
- When Mitch tries to flee from Twiggy who has been mutated, a crash sound effect from Thomas the Tank Engine was heard when Twiggy destroyed a house.
- MsMojo ranked this as the #4 darkest episode of The Powerpuff Girls series.
- This episode was disliked by fans due to Mitch's mistreatment of Twiggy.
- Getting jiggy with it: The title of this episode is a reference to the 1997 rap song by Will Smith.
- Morals: Be kind to everybody, especially to animals. Also, take a task from school at home seriously and responsibly, and try and treat animals the right way.
Goofs[]
- Animation error: When the girls stop outside Mitch's home and peer into the window to see what he is doing with Twiggy, Buttercup is on the left, Bubbles is in the middle and Blossom is on the right. When it cuts to the next scene, Buttercup and Bubbles have swapped positions, but when it goes back to them outside the window, they are in their original positions again.
- When Ms. Keane says "How about Mitch Mitchelson", Elmer disappears at one point.
- Mitch says he has never had any pets, yet there is clearly a snake in a tank in his bedroom.