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The Powerpuff Girls: The Complete First Season (1997) Starring: Cathy Cavadini, Tara Strong, Elizabeth Daily, Tom Kane, Tom Kenny Director: Various Category: Animation

Years before Cartoon Network launched their adults-only animation block, Craig McCracken and Genndy Tartakovsky were busy creating classics like “Dexter’s Laboratory” and “The Powerpuff Girls.” Sure, the half-hour comedies are perhaps best known for the merchandise blitzkrieg that exploited fad-crazy teenyboppers all over the country, but there’s something to be said of the fact that both shows originally aired late at night. Laced with enough pop-culture references and adult humor to make the guys over at Pixar blush, “The Powerpuff Girls” may not have delivered the same bite later found in most of Adult Swim’s programming, but it certainly helped in revolutionizing mature cartoons as we know them.

“The Powerpuff Girls” features the self-titled trio of pint-sized superheroes as they save the city of Townsville from a constant onslaught of criminals, creatures and supervillains, as well as the Mayor’s own incompetence. Created by Professor Utonium in an attempt to produce the perfect little girl, the experiment goes wrong when he accidentally adds Chemical X to the mix, thus transforming Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup into superhuman kindergartners. It’s for the better, really, since villains like Mojo Dojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins and the über-creepy Him (best described as a sadomasochistic cross between Satan and Dr. Frank-N-Furter of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”) are hell-bent on world domination.

Despite the fact that several of the show’s best moments don’t come until later in the series, the first season has its share of classic episodes, including “Mr. Mojo’s Rising,” where the mad scientist monkey uncovers his past as the Professor’s former assistant; “Mime for a Change,” where Rainbow the Clown sucks the color out of Townsville; and “The Rowdyruff Boys,” where Mojo creates boy versions of the Powerpuff Girls using strands of their hair. Unfortunately, we only get one Him-themed episode on the two-disc set, while Princess Morbucks doesn’t even appear until season two.

While it certainly would have made sense for “Dexter’s Laboratory” to make the jump to DVD first, the two-disc release of “The Powerpuff Girls” has been a long time coming. All 13 episodes appear, along with a decent collection of special features including the short that started it all (“The Whoopass Girls”), animatics and pencil tests for the aforementioned student project, and Craig McCracken’s appearance on “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.” While it would have been nice if McCracken and Tartakovsky had recorded some audio commentaries for the box set, the addition of the show’s debut episodes (“Meet Fuzzy Lumkins” and “Crime 101”) is certainly a nice treat.

Smart, funny and blisteringly fast-paced, “The Powerpuff Girls” may seem at first glance like a cartoon for the ADD generation, but it’s so much more. A clever blending of 1950s American pop art and Japanese Tokusatsu (think “Ultraman”), creator Craig McCracken’s little student-film-that-could is not only one of the most original cartoons ever made, but also spotlights the best working team in animation since Hanna-Barbera. “The Powerpuff Girls” helped turned the industry on its head with a unique approach to both animation and humor, and there’s not a single person who could deny it.