Beyond Good and Evil

It’s a good arrangement. Everybody benefits. The creators, the corporations, the consumers. McCracken has bought a house and is moving in with his girlfriend, a Powerpuffstoryboard artist. Cartoon Network, which owns the characters, reaps the financial benefits of a bona fide phenomenon. I get to own a Pool Party Bubbles. (Well, my wife does, but I get to play with it.)

And there are cartoons! There are Powerpuff Girls cartoons! It’s a funny thing to love a cartoon. How can you love a cartoon? Human movie stars are at least real people — you can run into them at the supermarket. You can learn all about their private lives and personal thoughts. Mojo Jojo may relax in a bubble bath when he’s not fomenting chaos and trying to conquer the world, but when he’s not in a cartoon, he’s nowhere at all.

And yet they live. They are superpowered on the screen, but they’re magic for real. Pictures that move! Drawings that speak! Impossible things! They are constituted to make you happy, these cartoon kindergartners, even while they are knocking the teeth from a villain’s mouth. There may not be a five-eyed snot-spewing elephant monster or giant alligator at your door, but who hasn’t needed rescue at some time? From the bills in the mail, the boss at your shoulder, the mean kid on the corner, the aphids on the roses, the clog in the sink, and all the various grown-up voices of sensibility nattering in your head? Relief is only a cartoon away. Pleasing colors! Pretty shapes! Hearts and flowers and rainbows and guts and gore! Once again — and again and again — the Powerpuff Girls save the day!