Silent Treatment

Episode name pun on: A term of the same name used for a method of ignoring someone.

### Director

John McIntyre

"**Silent Treatment**" is the next-to-last Season 5 episode of The Powerpuff Girls.

## Characters

* The Powerpuff Girls (Blossom, Bubbles, Buttercup)
* Professor Utonium
* Max Von Nitrate
* Mitch Mitchelson (mentioned)

## Synopsis

Utonium decides to take the Powerpuff Girls to see a silent movie called *For Once He Is Speechless* rather than taking them to the state-of-the-art megaplex that everybody else is going to. The girls reluctantly settle into their seats as the Professor goes to get popcorn. The movie, starring Max Von Nitrate, begins. In the film, an evil man carries a kidnapped woman into a room and throws her on a chair, cackling gleefully. Tired with the movie's poor quality, the girls all blow raspberries at the screen. Angry and fed up with the girls' constant heckling, Von Nitrate reveals that his kidnapped damsel is none other than Utonium himself.

Von Nitrate tells the girls he wants to steal Utonium's voice. The girls enter the film through the projector's light. Trying to chase Von Nitrate, they quickly find that their powers don't work. On foot, they chase Von Nitrate out of the building, but he throws Utonium into a car and speeds away. The girls call a police station, and soon, a police wagon picks them up and they continue after Utonium. Von Nitrate arrives at a field with an airplane, which he starts up. However, as he takes off, the girls grab onto the wheel strut and are lifted into the air, with the policemen holding onto them. As the plane flies over Africa, a gorilla jumps on and throws the policemen, the girls, and Von Nitrate off and flies away with the Professor. As they're plummeting to the ground, Bubbles exclaims she doesn't like the movie and tugs at the corner of the screen. She pulls the film off the reel and it snaps; and so, the girls are thrown out onto the floor of the theater.

The trio rush up to the projectionist's booth to corner Max, but find that the projectionist really is the old movie star. Once famous, his career ended when sound became the norm (as he has a ridiculous voice). When he had heard the Professor's voice, he decided that he would steal it. He breaks down, saying he didn't mean to hurt anybody, and, feeling sorry for him, the Powerpuff Girls decide to get him a new voice using computers.

Later, the girls and Max watch a new movie, starring Max with Utonium's voice. The Professor also acts in the movie as a butler with Max's voice. Everybody in the cinema laughs at the Professor's ridiculous voice as he implores the girls to help him.

## Quotes

*[first lines]*
**Narrator**: The city of Townsville has a multi-megaplex theater where everyone goes on a Saturday afternoon to see the very latest in state-of-the-art widescreen motion picture entertainment. That is everyone except the Powerpuff Girls.
**Buttercup**: Aw, have a heart, Professor. Every kid in town is over at the multiplex and you decide to take us to a silent movie theater.
**Blossom**: Yeah, nobody cool ever comes here.
**Bubbles**: And the popcorn is as stale as their dumb old movies.
**Professor**: Silent films are where all movies come from.
**Buttercup**: But, Professor, we like our movies with color and sound.
**Blossom**: Yeah, and car crashes.
**Bubbles**: And explosions.
**Girls**: And in a really cool theater!
**Professor**: That's all well and good, girls, but you can go to the multiplex any day of the week. Today is the day you learn all about the history of motion pictures.
**Girls**: Oh, alright.
## Trivia

* The character name "Max Von Nitrate" is a reference to Nitrate Films. Cellulose nitrate based films were produced in the early 20th century until 1952. They were developed to replace glass plate negatives, and used for black and white motion pictures. Nitrate film was incredibly flammable and caused some major fires in movie theaters.
* Several silent movies and silent-era stars are referenced:
	+ During the car chase, both cars nearly run over a Charlie Chaplin lookalike.
	+ The police car drives past a man hanging from a clock face in a manner reminiscent of Harold Lloyd in *Safety Last!*.
	+ Max Von Nitrate's fading to obscurity mirrors many silent movie stars' own careers ruined after talkies became widespread (such as John Gilbert).
	+ Cecil B. Centipede is a reference to film director Cecil B. DeMille.
* Even though the film is black and white (set in the style of the Pat Sullivan Felix the Cat cartoons, which has no full range of gray tones in the film), the girls are slightly colored at times, especially around their eyes.
* When the girls are watching the movie in the theater and doing their own commentary, it seems to be a reference to *Mystery Science Theater 3000*.
* At the end of this episode, the 2002-2005 animated episode outro is in black and white, it is already-formed, the girls are in different positions, the outro then cuts to a silent movie-style slide reading "And so once again the day is saved, thanks to the Powerpuff Girls!" (the Narrator does not say that phrase at all in this episode), and for the first time since "Documentary", the "THE END" sign does not appear at all.
	+ This means that the Narrator can only be heard at the very beginning of this episode.
* When the girls are laughing, the sides of their heads make them look like Pac-Man.
* This is another episode where Professor Utonium gets involved in bad ideas.
* It revealed that "The Girls" hate the old black-and-white silent films.

## Notes

* This episode and "Sweet 'N Sour" are the first episodes produced in 2004. They are also the only episodes of the fifth season to be produced in 2004. Every other episode of the season was produced the previous year, in 2003.

## References

1. ↑ https://powerpuffgirls.fandom.com/wiki/Silent\_Treatment