‘The Powerpuff Girls’ Turns 25, and the Franchise Is Still Going Strong

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup zoomed onto TV screens 25 years ago, as Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls debuted on November 18, 1998. Created by Craig McCracken, the animated series told how one professor’s quest to concoct the “perfect little girl” went awry with the accidental addition of Chemical X, turning three kindergarten-aged girls into super-powered crimefighters.

These days, the Powerpuff Girls live on only in reruns and streaming libraries — a recent live-action adaptation never made it past the pilot stage, unfortunately. But with new comic books and even a new TV show in the pipeline, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup will be back with new stories faster than you can say “Fuzzy Lumpkins.” Here’s a breakdown of the franchise so far…

The original series

In Cartoon Network’s The Powerpuff Girls — which aired six seasons between 1998 and 2005 — Tara Strong, E.G. Daily, and Cathy Cavadini voiced Bubbles, Buttercup, and Blossom, with those three girls respectively representing “sugar, spice, and everything nice.”

The Powerpuff Girls Movie

A Powerpuff Girls film hit theaters on July 3, 2003, directed by McCracken and telling the trio’s origin tale: how they gained their superpowers and took on the supervillain Jojo in a bid for redemption in their hometown of Townsville. Despite positive reviews, the film only made $16.4 million on a budget of $11 million.

Powerpuff Girls Z

International viewers got to see Toei Animation’s Powerpuff Girls Z, a Japanese anime version of the story, which ran for two volumes between 2006 and 2007. Instead of Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup, Powerpuff Girls Z followed Hyper Blossom, Rolling Bubbles, and Powered Buttercup.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Uo-0hNMm8s

Video games

A number of Powerpuff Girls video games came out for consoles, handheld devices, and computers in the 2000s and 2010s. Those games included Bad Mojo Jojo, Paint the Townsville Green, and Battle HIM for Game Boy Color; Mojo Jojo A-Go-Go and HIM and Seek for Game Boy Advance; Chemical X-Traction for Nintendo 64 and Playstation; and Relish Rampage for GameCube and PlayStation 2.

The Powerpuff Girls reboot

Cartoon Network brought the girls back for a 2016 reboot, developed by Nick Jennings and Bob Boyle and starring Amanda Leighton as Blossom, Kristen Li as Bubbles, and Natalie Palamides as Buttercup. McCracken wasn’t involved, nor was the original cast. (Strong, for her part, called the reboot “a stab in the heart.”)

The canceled live-action Powerpuff

Early this decade, The CW was developing Powerpuff, a live-action version of the animated series, with Chloe Bennet as Blossom, Dove Cameron as Bubbles, and Yana Perrault as Buttercup — now in their 20s and disillusioned with crimefighting — and Diablo Cody as the screenwriter. But after a first pilot “didn’t work” and Bennet had schedule conflicts, the project fizzled out at the CW and at studio Warner Bros. Television, as TVLine reported.

James Acomb/The CW

Comic books

Both DC Comics and IDW Publishing released Powerpuff Girls comic books over the years. And last month, Dynamite announced a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery to publish new comic book series based on popular Warner franchises, Powerpuff included, according to ComicBook.

 

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The future

In 2022, Deadline announced that McCracken was developing reboots of both The Powerpuff Girls and Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, another Cartoon Network series of his, at Hannah-Barbera Studios Europe. The new version “visits and expands upon the world of the original series as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup face off against a gallery of villains comprised of familiar foes and new threats,” according to the site.