It’s not quite clear why The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed exists, as the Powerpuff Girls could be Powerpuff Teens by now. Yet, Cartoon Network went to great lengths reassembling a good portion of the crew that made The Powerpuff Girls possible for previous specials—though, notably, creator Craig McCracken and writer Lauren Faust (My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic) aren’t attached to Dance Pantsed. That could be a harbinger of doom—nothing sets off warning bells quite like a network resurrecting a media property that the creator doesn’t want anymore—and certainly, Dance Pantsed looks very different from McCracken’s original creation.
But The Powerpuff Girls: Dance Pantsed is a delight. Once the novelty of the computer-generated animation wears off, it feels like classic Powerpuff Girls. The new special manages to hit the sweet spot between broad gags for kids and sly winks to the adults in the audience. Regular-run episodes of classic Powerpuff Girls often packed two 15-minute stories into the show’s allotted half-hour, to accommodate kids’ shorter attention spans. Dance Pantsed rarely lags, even though the same story runs the full half-hour. Instead, it’s stuffed with story. There are so many intertwining plotlines that the special requires at least one good rewatch to catch them all, from the pickle jar running gag to the multiple references to the Fibonacci sequence.
The story is what it always is—Mojo Jojo has a sinister (if harebrained) plan for Townsville and the Powerpuff Girls are called upon to stop him. Except that this time Mojo Jojo’s plan preys upon Bubbles’ weakness for video game, Dance Pants Revolution. The plot makes sense, as Bubbles always was the cornerstone of the show’s appeal, even though it seems like she was designed to be a more peripheral Powerpuff Girl. Her sweetness almost always trumps force, and, voiced by Tara Strong, she steals the show. Dance Pantsed pre-empts this by putting Bubbles at the center of the story. There’s a full five minutes or so where Bubbles is the only Powerpuff Girl on-screen, and those are the five minutes in which Dance Pantsed finds its rhythm, moving from good to great. Bubbles’ stuffed octopus Octi makes an appearance, as does “Dance Pants R-EVIL-ution 2.” To say anymore is to spoil a few priceless jokes. It’s too bad the other two girls get short shrift—especially Buttercup—but as the show’s trying to hit its best notes, it’s also not surprising.
The visuals are the biggest departure—much effort is put into rendering the original backgrounds and characters into their new and improved CGI skins, but Dance Pantsed is also going for a different feel. The result is inspired a little by the jagged haircuts and action sequences of anime and a little by the cutout animation that distinguishes South Park. And while some computer animation can fall into the uncanny valley, the animation in Dance Pantsed serves mostly to update what is now a rather dated style. CGI lets the animators do a lot more with scenery and lighting—it’s much easier to give surfaces texture, and the range of colors available is much broader. The colors are brighter in the old version, but it’s often to compensate for a lack of options. After about 10 minutes, it’s difficult to remember exactly what the old Powerpuff Girls looked like.