Recap / The Powerpuff Girls S 5 EP 6 Save Mojo Substitute Creature

Following

Original air date: 9/26/2003

Production code: PPG-509

Save Mojo: When the Powerpuff Girls try to stop Mojo Jojo from doing a crime, an animal activist group comes to his rescue protesting that the Powerpuff Girls can't harm him because he is an endangered animal.

Substitute Creature: When Ms. Keane gets sick, she hires a substitute teacher named Mr. Green to run the class in her absence. Unfortunately, because of his monstrous appearance, the girls assume he is a bad guy and try to save their classmates from him.

Save Mojo provides examples of:

• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Mojo even attacks the girls’ own home to steal some of the professors’ equipment.
• Animal Wrongs Group: The animal activists; they actively prevent the girls from “harassing" Mojo Jojo”, not caring that Mojo is clearly a villain committing crimes and the girls merely want to stop him. The girls eventually turn it against Mojo by helping the activists move Mojo into the wild.
• Asinine Activist Group: The Powerpuffs' efforts to fight Mojo Jojo are impeded by an animal rights activists group who accuse them of harming an endangered creature. This is despite Mojo being a dangerous supervillain who frequently attacks the city, which the dimwitted group excuses as him "following his natural instincts". The girls eventually turn this on Mojo by convincing the activists to let them dump Mojo on an island with other primates where he has access to no technology to harm or threaten people with.
• Comically Missing the Point The animal activists don't seem to see that Mojo is obviously plotting evil.
• Crocodile Tears: Mojo happily pretends to be a helpless animal in order to gain the sympathy, and thus protection, from the activists.
  Mojo: [cries] I'm being oppressed.
• Last One's Ploy: Mojo gleefully exploits his status as an endangered animal to receive protection from the activists.
• Mama Bear: The episode ends with Mojo getting pummeled by a hulking Killer Gorilla after harming her two babies.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: The animal activists all look like these.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Mojo’s disguise at the beginning of the episode. The narrator even lampshades it, calling it pathetic.
• Take That! This episode is one at Animal Wrongs Groups and at the people who said PPG promotes animal abuse by having the girls beat up Mojo.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: One of the activists wears an undone vest that barely covers any of his otherwise bare chest.
• Waving Signs Around: The animal activists wave signs as a part of their protest.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: While Mojo is preparing his destruction device, he notes he plans on doing this to the activist hippies when he enacts his plan on taking over Townsville.

Substitute Creature provides examples of:

• Alpha Bitch: Parodied in one of the fantasy sequences, Susie's tone of voice and attitude upon seeing Blossom gives hints she is supposed to be one of these.
• Art Shift: The imagine spots for Mr. Green are drawn in the style of an 80s black-and-white manga.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Mr. Green may look like a villain from a 70's anime with his fiery cape and his eyepatch, but he is actually a good substitute teacher.
• Expressive Accessory: Blossom's bow droops when Mr. Green asks her to give the kids cookies.
• Friend to All Children: Mr. Green is certainly so, but the girls think he's evil, until they are convinced by the kids he played with.
• Fun with Acronyms: According to the song at the beginning, the letters in Keane stand for Kindhearted, Evenhanded, At Any Expense, Never late we never wait for class at 8, and Excellence.
• Imagine Spot: The girls repeatedly imagine Mr. Green doing horrible things to Mrs. Keane and their classmates, but none of these fantasies ever come true.
• Heel Realization: The girls realize they were the bad guys here for wrongfully assuming that Mr. Green was a threat.

• Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Occurs while the girls are inside on time-out in the class while everyone is out playing, and they hear three kids meeting Mr. Green, who ask about doing something for them on the playground; one kid named Julie asks to be pushed, one kid named Elmer asks to be spun, and one named Harry asks for playing in mud; this leads to the girls thinking that Mr. Green is hurting them, but when they finally see for themselves, they learn that Mr. Green was merely playing with them too; pushing Julie on the swing, giving Elmer a ride on the merry-go-round, and letting Harry play in the sandbox, respectively.
• Pet the Dog: Although it's revealed that he never was a bad guy to begin with, Mr. Green deciding to give cookies to the class, asking Blossom to do so, was pretty nice of him.
• Reluctant Monster: Mr. Green looks like a demon, but truly likes children and wants to be a good teacher.
• Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: A variant occurs when Mr. Green attempts to pull out something from his shirt pocket, which the girls think is a sword or weapon, but it's soon revealed he was pulling out some chalk.
• Spelling Song: "K-E-A-N-E", sung by the students of Pokey Oaks Kindergarten at the beginning over their admiration of Ms. Keane.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Mr. Green has white hair, but the Black Heart part is eventually averted as the girls learn he is not evil.
• Wham Line: "Powerpuff Girls, no! Mr. Green is nice!"