@@DuskTillShawnI am pretty sure this is canon, if I’m not mistaken there was a time traveling episode where mojo tries to get the professor when he was the girls age and if I’m not mistaken I swear I remeber at his house there was a picture of that girl implying it is his mom or grandma
By the music score and clothing this was probably pretty early in the 1900s. Back then they didnt really have automatic autopsies or the like. I would not at all be surprised if the detective said "Not my problem, let's hit the speakeasy"
He should be able to come back then. A lich should have some type of soul artifact which contain their soul so they could be resurrected after their body have been destroyed
@@user-uw9io4hl5g not from my understanding. A lich is (typically) a wizard that has magically bound his soul to his own corpse, effectively cheating death. Because it's his own body, brain, and soul he retains everything he was before death. He's just deathless now. Never heard anything about an artifact, but I never researched that deep into it either
@@whatface1278 Its on the wiki and you'll find some liches in media that do that. For example voldemort from harry potter counts as a lich with his horcruxes being the soul artifacts that I mentioned. I guess your understanding of liches still counts but i'm not sure and it doesn't say so on the wiki
You forgot to talk about the fact that Al died in one of the most horrific ways possible and then was just left to rot in that abandoned building. I mean, did he even get a funeral?
I thought about that while I was editing this video... It's really messed up. The Mayor says that the laughter quickly turned to tears, but apparently the tears were short lived as everyone left and seemingly forgot to call the coroner... There was no funeral. There was no service. Apparently they just condemned the building and never cleaned up the scene.
I mean sure he was a fraud but he didn't deserve to be left to rot in the building. Unless they were traumatized by what they had just witnessed and decided to leave without saying a word.
This episode made me uncomfortable as a kid, but I was more bothered that Cadaver had the most hatred for the little girl. She didn't humiliate him on purpose. She just wanted her stuffed bear back since he made it disappear and was too busy enjoying the applause to bring it back.
I mean, yeah, of course we as outside observers think that is extreme, but put yourself in Al's rotten shoes. This girl revealed you as a "phony" which led to everyone laughing at you until your last breath. She's directly responsible. Even if it was an accident, you spent decades rotting in an abandoned theater alone with nothing, but your shame, anger and frustration and who was responsible for that? The little girl who wanted her bear back. Of course, he hates her most. To be fair, Al may have even made the bear reappear had she not freaked out and pantsed him we'll never know.
So the townsfolk left Al to rot in a functional iron maiden in an abandoned theatre for decades instead of giving him a proper burial? Even without the humiliation aspect, they kinda did him dirty.
@@155chipmunkz Especially the Mayor who ordered his men to demolish the building as if he were dancing on his grave. Yeah, like he said, that was disgusting. That's what I was trying to tell everyone about Craig McCracken. Why does he like to make his characters so incredibly unlikeable like he's Butch Hartman or something ?
@@aidanhever3369Well, to be fair, Mayor IS kinda supposed to be a bit of a dingus, but in general a good hearted sort regardless. Here, I think it was solely for the plot that he acted the way he did. Also, I can't quite recall but how old was the Mayor back when this had happened? If he was a kid, I don't think there was anything he could've done at the time nor would it have been his responsibility. Whoever was in charge back then should've seen that Al had been put to rest properly.
@@oceanberserker That is true, however, they should've did a full inspection to make sure no one was there. That being said, this show takes place in an earlier time period where rules and regulations were more lax than it is now.
I think Abracadaver magically switched places with Blossom to give one last hurrah, one final magic trick so he could be put to rest after finally being taken seriously again.
honestly it would make the most sense, hypnotize blossom to go along with the act it'd explain why bubbles wasnt in the bag and why blossom thought she was, after all if blossom planned the magic trick then she would have known bubbles wouldnt be there
I think Abra Cadaver had unfinished business and just wanted to finish his act. Being a vengeful soul, he was blinded by revenge and it wasn't until he saw Blossom that he regained some of his memory. So I'm guessing Abra Cadaver wanted to move on and needed Blossom to help him finish his final act before he could rest. So, being a magician and not wanting to ruin the act, he kept playing the part of the villain before Blossom revealed they switched places.
For me, the most disturbing part is the fact that they just left his body there on that stage to decay for decades rather than burying or cremating him.
And nobody called an ambulance for this guy? A morgue even? Just left him in that iron maiden to rot. I think his revenge is kinda justified at that point.
So have you covered this one! He used to scare me so much as a kid. And I think a big reason for that is just because out of all the villains, he just looked genuinely terrifying, with the tattered skin and dirty clothing with the bones showing and his skin decaying. Not only that his high level of aggression and the fact alone that he was that close to killing the girls and in such brutal ways too, just makes him some of the most scariest villains ever. Especially when the girls themselves were afraid of him at first, just shows you his high-level threat. Another thing that scared me was just the way he died. The fact that he just got crushed by Spikes genuinely unnerved me. A big reason also would be the tone of the episode, he has a very aggressive and his unsettling tone, especially when he comes on screen. I gotta say it’s one of the best episodes for that alone with his dark promise.
Because apparently everythng nowadays needs to be big story split across multitude of episodes, while stand-alone episodes "Should not exist", i guess... Um, i'm not criticizing you, i like your opinion, it is indeed a good episode to make a big arc. Still it reminded me that nowadays every cartoon has a big plot, which made people to not appreciate standalone episodics...
@@KeyleeTamirianplease ignore the asshat who doesn’t respect autistic people. You have a very good point 😅 not everyone respects episodic shows now given how common the story focused stuff is these days, I get it 🤷♀️ but there’s also nothing wrong with liking both 😊
OP, why does everything need to have an overarching story? It doesn't make the story itself any much better and it'd be nice to have more episodic shows. It's part of the reason I still enjoy shows like Smile Precure and the sort. It helps it stick out among contemporaries
It's funny that often, when people discuss the scariest Powerpuff Girls episodes, they rarely mention this one, which feels unusual by virtue of the fact that this was one of the first truly scary Powerpuff Girls episodes. It's interesting to note likewise that the Powerpuffs were legitimately scared of Abracadaver, more so when one considers the fact that they were not scared of other ominous villains, such as Him or the giant monsters who often rampage on the city; this seems to show how much impact he made on them as a villain and overall threat.
Personally, I think it was simply one of the few times (if not the only time, I don't know much about the Powerpuff Girls, I just remember seeing this episode and, like, a handful of others as a kid) that they had to deal with someone who wasn't doing what they were doing because they thought it was fun, or because they wanted something out of it, but rather was doing what they were doing out of just pure, hateful malice. Abracadaver wasn't simply entertaining themselves, they weren't out for money or recognition or power or whatever else they could gain from attacking the city, they were just taking revenge on a city that in their half-rotted brain, killed them, left their corpse to rot in an abandoned building, and then was about to tear down that building, the only thing that still proved Cadaver had existed at all.
I genuinely feel bad for Al. I mean Oml they just left him in there all alone for that long. He was done wrong by everyone here, which was justified in him taking out his anger on the city… but sheesh. Kinda bummed that honestly he should have been permitted to pass on peacefully.
This ep haunted me as a kid. The zombie design was a big part of it, but for some reason what scared me most was the resentment he had for the little girl, & how he projected it onto blossom (who was my fav & the 1 I most identified with). The idea of a grown man hating a child so much that he'd murder a different child just for looking like her scared me to death.
The closest I can come to a 'logical' explanation for the twist at the end is that Al wasn't that malevolent after all. Most of his magic was much like his act when he was alive, being just harmless 'parlor tricks'. Nobody was really explicitly harmed by anything he did. So maybe the tricks he performed on the girls were also harmless, and he placed himself back into the iron maiden knowing that he wouldn't really be harmed by it. Performing one final successful magic act could be a sort of redemption for him and let him be at peace. Of course this is all a bit of a reach, but deep down we all know that the only reason the episode ended the way it did was because it was written that way. It was never supposed to be logical lol
I love Powerpuff Girls but there were times I had a mean spirited (in a good way, part the charm) sense of humor with villains that I jsut felt bad for. This being one of them. Another I felt bad for was the clown, he got into an accident that turned him evil, when he was restored he was thankful for being saved and then they just beat the shit out of him. I love clowns so it made me sad.
At least a few episodes later they invited Rainbow to their birthday party. 😂 I actually felt sorry for Princess: her father is the one who turned her into the brat she is; her mother is nowhere to be seen. Her father never even talks to her, he just gives her money, toys, etc.
This episode always terrified me as a child. But I also always wondered how the ending occurred. How Blossom managed to switch places with Abracadaver and how Bubbles escaped the bag and ended up in the other half of the box with Buttercup.
I like the fantheory that someone else commented It's actually Al that swapped places with Blossom, he just wanted to be taken seriously one last time before passing on
Funny enough, as big of a coward I was as a kid, this episode never really scared me but it did leave an impact on me seeing as this is one of the most memorable episodes of the series for me. I haven’t watched this episode in years but seeing the clips in the video made me recognize everything from the episode as I did when I saw it as a kid. I definitely do think this is one of my favorite episodes of PPG for how morbid it is. I love that kind of stuff in kids media, just seeing how far you can push the limits.
This episode TERRIFIED me as a kid. I would always skip past it on my 10th anniversary DVD set to the point where it refuses to actually play the episode anymore
I never saw the full episode when younger but when I was I saw a clip of when that monster hypnotized blossom, threw bubbles in a tank and had buttercup almost get cut in half. Holy cow that scared my soul out of me.
I really hope Abracadaver will come back in the 2nd reboot that has Craig McCracken behind it. Dude was utterly wasted with appearing in one episode only and then to cameos onwards. They could've made a whole episode chain where the magician zombie tries to off Blossom and every time he comes closer to it until a series of events results in him finally finding eternal peace.
This one scared me a bit too, but the one that scared me the most was Speed Demon. All the zombie Townsville people chanting “your fault” still sticks in my brain.
That episode is just pure Hitchcock. I really think that maybe that could have benefitted from a sequel of sorts - like, how everything gradually went to shit during the girl's absence.
Wait a minute. How was Al a fraud? HE LITERALLY MADE THAT BEAR DISSAPPEARED AND TURNED A RABBIT INTO A PLANT?! Uh, he also had a rabbit, cards, and literally magic objects escape his tiby pants. Sham, my butt! I think the mayor wanted to justify a reason as to why nobody cared to give Al a proper burial!
That is a creepy episode for sure but HIM still scared me the most in powerpuff girls. Besides that, I really liked how you covered this episode and I enjoy how you talk about all the 90s cartoons many people grew up with.
The music that played in the background when the mayor first seen that old poster of him looking over the city before telling his story was a dark foreshadow. In some ways he’s scarier than Him, a phony turned undead dark Magician all because he was laughed at in his final moments. Also leaving his dead body in a abandoned theatre for decades pretty messed up
This episode probably scared me more than most horror movies I've ever watched... those zombies, man! Decaying flesh and bone, very gnarly... and maybe I'm missremembering but the ones in the film the girls watch look even more horrifying that Abracadaver and his bus/rabbit, one has his brain expossed, I think other even has an eye dangling (my theory is that the animator could get away with such gory imaginery because it was in a "movie" within the cartoon so they weren't "real" dead people)
Powerpuff Girls is a weird show to me. I remember liking it when I was little, then I hated it when I was school age, late teens I forgot about its existence, and now I'm looking at it like an underrated gem.
This episode gave me nightmares when I was a kid. One part that really sold it was how the music swells when Al puts himself back together. The horrifying, haunting realization of a foe they can never beat because he’ll just put himself back together.
This episode definitely scared me as a kid and yeah, I definitely think it was one of the darkest for its bleak ending. I ended up feeling sorry for the villain… years later, I decided to create a companion for him, as a nice way to wrap things up in a bow and give a magician a stage assistant, lol. This character does return in the comics, once with a whole zombie army hopped up on soda, and another time he teamed up with Sedusa.
The interesting thing, I think Al seems to have actually had actual magical powers to begin with. Wirh how all his magic trick stuff just flew out of his pants the way they did.
When I was a little little kid I didn’t really get attached to shows since there were so many people in my household - we were always fighting for the remote lol. This and HIM’s episode when he tried to get to Bubbles stuck with me, and The Powerpuff Girls was no longer *just another show* on Foxtel. The perfect legacy.
(Not a cartoon but,) IMO, the most disturbing depiction of zombies comes from SplatterHouse 2. They're not even that gorey or dismembered like other enemies. They're *just* withered old bodies dressed in tattered rags. They look so empty. But the blank eyes, bared teeth, and shambling gait do so much to make them look like hungry, feral creatures.
Darkest episode? There is both the Bunny episode and the one where Professor Utonium's college friend used the PPG recipe to make his own (albeit vastly inferior) Powerpuffs.
I thought Blossom was of the little girl's reincarnation of sorts as a little kid but I also feel bad for Al due to the fact that they laughed and him before he died and then left his corpse there for I'm guessing 70 to 80 years then years later destroying the building that brought him happiness which you never do when it comes to the afterlife you don't disturb the resting place of the dead like an idiot.
While I like the episode, it feels like they wrote themselves into a corner for that ending. Also it feels like the real horror wasn't the magician, but the town itself. The town just not caring that a person literally died on stage in an iron maiden? That a body was left in a theater that proceeded to rot for ages? That the the theater became abandoned and never used by anyone else? I can't even really be happy that the "villain" was defeated because he wasn't really one. He was just a guy whose career and life was ruined.
I'm sorry, do you not think getting turned into a sentient tree is scary? They still had their eyes, they could see everything but do nothing! Talk about "I have no mouth and I must scream!" levels of scary! It would drive anybody insane!
This was a personal favorite episode of mine growing up. Even though I was incredibly frightened of just about everything, because I was very sheltered and timid, this PPG episode was always cool to me.
When I was younger I thought that miss bellum was ruth but she can’t be she would be as old as the mayor if that was the case. But the fact that ruth resembles the powerpuff girls has to be mean something in my opinion.
This episode is amazing. Wish they'd beaten Abra in an actual cool way though, instead of "Uhhh we beat him cuz... Shut up, it's magic." Abra's so cool man, he deserved to be defeated properly. Tiny gripe aside, this episode is dope.
I wonder how the girl who looked like Blossom whose toy got vanished and she pulled the magician's pant was doing as an adult, was she even alive at that point? If so she would be as old as the Mayor...
@@MrAjking808 over 20 years of curiosity about this XD, I saw a ppg vid after a long time and brought back so much memories, I remember thinking all that way back then, so much has changed since then...
Y'know it's been a long time since i saw this episode, i had remembered that Ms Bellum was telling the story and the little girl had been her, but now it turns out the the mayor was there too as a kid so it couldn't have been Ms Bellum and the little girl was just someone else.
Wild thing, I loved the scary & morbid stuff as a kid(as well as to this day). Everytime someone brings up the CGI Courage the Cowardly Dog episode about the slab. I just remembered how annoyed & bored I was seeing it for the first time. Unlike the "you're not perfect" bit. Instead it was the violin girl with the jumpscare, that had me up for days. However, this episode of the PPG got me, BECAUSE of the zombies. This is coming from someone who was just getting into RE2 at the same time. So it did a number & freaked me out proper. So for once, I can actually relate & say; Yes, this was a terrifically terrifying memorable work of art.
I was always terrified of the episode, probably because I was terrified of zombies. But a magical zombie made it scarier for me. That fear is what makes this episode really good. Just making an already scary thing even more scary.
i would have loved it if they revealed that the zombie magician had hypnotized blossom in order to get her to act along on his last and greatest illusion trick which would have fooled all of townsville into thinking he really had killed the girls when they were really safe all along thus fulfilling his desire to be seen as a great magician and letting him eternally rest which would also explain why blossom thought that bubbles would be inside the bag
I think the reason why people don't talk about this episode as much as they do the other spooky episodes is simple: the ending is a confusing letdown. Yeah, it's magic and crazy unexplainable stuff is supposed to happen in magic, but Blossom was put in a position that was straight-up impossible to get out of thanks to the hypnosis and the wrapping. So it's revealed that Blossom is alright, it doesn't feel like a clever trick. It feels like the writer of the episode just didn't think of a good way to get Blossom out of that death trap and just pulled "Magic!" out of his ass. I still love the episode, but I think the ending kinda marks it as not so great since, if all this other cool stuff in the episode just led up to a dumb ending, then what's the point of enjoying the episode? And before you say it, yeah, it's a cartoon. Wacky shit happens and characters get out of wacky shit easily. But characters also aren't set up in a situation where it's sure they're gonna die, they die...only to reveal that their ok because... Yeah.
17:11 I agree with that. Maybe to she would've told him that she had no intention to pants him & simply wanted her bear back. She never wanted to humiliate him & ruin not only his career but his life to.
This episode scared me so much as a kid, like no joke. I was terrified. His death was burned into my brain. Years later and I got goosebumps when I saw your thumbnail.
The random party canon shout out was unexpected but not unwelcome. A fellow metal enthusiast in the recommended tonight. Also yeah this episode freaked the ever loving shit out of child me
So excited to see this pop up on my feed today! This episode scared the absolute shit out of me when I was a little one. Just the "realness" of it all. Like what if there WAS a man who accidentally got trapped in an abandoned building and died there? That could happen! Little-me was spiraling lmao There don't even need to be zombies involved for that thought to be chilling.
Wow, i actually completely forgot about this episode existing. This is crazy and awsome at the same time! You somehow always make me feel so seen with the deep nostalgia 😂
I’m sure it’s episodes like this that caused Ace to leave Townsville and join the Gorillaz while Murdoc was in prison/missing. Also goes to show you kids can handle dark material if it’s done well. Man, I miss old cartoons.
I remember YMS or someone did a thing inviting people to talk about horrifying moments that traumatized people as kids. I will admit had I joined in, I'd probably talk about this episode. I Think one of the things that cemented the horror theme of it is when the magician reaches out of his coffin and per-cures a black rose. Though rose petals are falling from it, they are still which looked unnatural and unnerving in itself.
We know Shawn. We just complain hoping advertisers and YT employees see it. I'm still irked that one of the Adpocalypses was caused by YT bot vetting commercials, yet they still don't vet commercials. I get so many "the government is giving free money away" commercials that it makes me sick. I also once had a commercial that had a cult try to prove some insane mumbling by a "new mathematical formula he invented" which was just 10th grade math done poorly.
I like your calm tone of voice, anyway I'm shocked with how dark this show could get with all the implied deaths (and I'm not just talking about the villains). I would like to see your thoughts on that episode with Dick Hardly.
This episode always freaked me out as a kid, but i loved it all the same! Im not a fan of horror in the slightest, but episodes of cartoons like this always had me excited for when they'd come out!
i remember this episode! it terrified me to no end, I think I may have changed the channel because I was an easily scared child. Zombie Island scared me to death too, Im pretty sure that movie alone lead most of my fear honestly, plus the fact that my parents loved to watch moves that im pretty sure I had no right watching at that young of an age. (nothing sexual but extremely violent in nature). Im honestly shocked how BRUTAL this episode is looking back. An Iron Maiden is a cruel death and to kill someone like that in a kids show? Dear lord.... Also the fact that they LEFT HIM THERE!?!??! I kinda agree with Al here man..... The townsfolk kinda deserve some retribution for that....
I'm pretty sure if it were possible, we'd all like to go back in time & save AL Lusion from his death. He really didn't need that to happen & he deserves much better. If he didn't die in his show, he could've went on to greater feets, only question is how old do you think he could've been?
Abracadaver is my favorite episode of The Powerpuff Girls! It stands out among the rest of the season 1 episodes. Even its sibling episode, Boogie Frights, is nowhere near as unsettling as it. Season 5’s Power Noia is another well-done creepy episode. Something I like about Abracadaver is that it’s one of the few times (or probably the only time) where the girls outright _refused_ to take action upon getting the call from Mayor, because they were just _that_ afraid of zombies that they didn’t want to confront one, in spite of Townsville being in danger. The scene where Blossom slowly opens the door and peeks her head outside in caution before she and the others fly off sticks out to me, due to the setting of the scene: it’s just a pitch black night with nothing but the howl of a wolf for noise. This episode is also the only one where the face on the Powerpuff Hotline changes its expression, turning from a cheerful smile to a frightened frown. Also, this episode may have been the most gruesome imagery in the series history. Not only was Blossom wrapped into a string of handkerchiefs and tossed into a spiky tomb while hypnotized, Buttercup was being sown in half and, perhaps most gruesomely, Bubbles was trapped into a bag and thrown into a water tank to drown. You can even see her punching the bag in desperation to escape. I have no guesses as to how Blossom turned the tables on Abracadaver, but something tells me her hypnotization must’ve played a part in that. And how did Bubbles find herself locked inside the sowing box that Buttercup was trapped in? There are more questions than answers, but I think that adds to the mystery of the girls’ abilities and the unsettling nature of the episode. Just as how Abracadver’s dark magic leaves an impression on you, so does The Powerpuff Girls’ abilities to perform that magic reversal. Even weirder is that for the rest of the series, they never perform that kind of magic again. On a smaller note, I loved the Zom-B-Gone! flash game on the Cartoon Network website. It was themed after this episode and it was my favorite PPG flash game on the CN site. That game was actually my introduction to Abracadaver. I’m glad you covered this episode! It’s a very memorable one.
"The scene where Blossom slowly opens the door and peeks her head outside in caution before she and the others fly off sticks out to me, due to the setting of the scene: it’s just a pitch black night with nothing but the howl of a wolf for noise". This is one of my favorite details about this episode. It is incredible how it's possible to make a scary scene with few movement and sound, even more after a lot of gruesome image. It was almost like the episode is saying that even during the calm moments, there is no rest.
Even as a kid I felt sympathy of AI dying gruesomely in an unfortunate accident after being humiliated publicly and then just left there for literal decades, no one being arsed enough to give him a proper burial. Or even just some kind of burial. No wonder dude came back as a vengeful revenant.
Oddly enough I never found this one very scary. Recalling back the ones that got me to on that wavelength were Him related episodes like when he was talking to Bubbles or when he made everyone hate the girls.
I remember as a kid, i was at awe that they managed to get away with sawing the Buttercup, drowning Bubbles, and then IRON MAIDEN BLOSSOM?!?! I was quite impressed before the reveal. But it was also quite wild when they showed the arm in the Iron Maiden.
To me this is the canonical end of one Powerpuff Girls universe, similar to that one where the girls travel in time, but in this case Al managed to kill the girls and reign over the city/world. However, the show had to use a deus ex machina to give it a nice end, which is fine but does not alter what truly happened. Dark but satisfying story.
The poor guy dies and nobody did anything afterwards? Instead, they chose to never call the police, abandon the theater with the body still inside, and leave it like that for how many years? That's so messed up! I'm surprised the thing wasn't heavily vandalized.
The trick to actually getting hypnotized is that you want to be or you are susceptible to it. Actual hypnosis is a thing, I recommend researching the concept itself it’s fascinating.
You should look it up then because it's actually bupkis. It's not real. You can't hypnotize people. I have first hand experience. I was at a rennasance (sp?) faire and this guy tried to hypnotize the audience. I still recall some of what he said. He asked us to close our eyes and to imagine we were on a beach. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen but when he told us to feel the sand all I could feel was grass. I recall walking away so confused. I was a kid at the time.
I'd like to think the little girl was the Professor's mom and her appearance inspired how the girls turned out.
I love this theory! That's a really clever idea and would explain this really well.
@@DuskTillShawnI am pretty sure this is canon, if I’m not mistaken there was a time traveling episode where mojo tries to get the professor when he was the girls age and if I’m not mistaken I swear I remeber at his house there was a picture of that girl implying it is his mom or grandma
I don't know I highly doubted.
Would make sense. I'm pretty sure Professor might've added a sample of his DNA into the mix.
I don't think the Professor can control how the girls look. Mojo Jojo created the Rowdy Ruff Boys and they look identical to the Power Puff Girls.
Honestly, the idea of a dead body being left inside an abandoned, run-down building is TERRIFYING.
Right, that's the part that unnerved me😨, that no one thought to remove the body and bury it properly
By the music score and clothing this was probably pretty early in the 1900s. Back then they didnt really have automatic autopsies or the like. I would not at all be surprised if the detective said "Not my problem, let's hit the speakeasy"
Reminds me of that McDonalds in Italy that still has a skeleton in it.
micheal dont leave me here
@@155chipmunkz Rumour has it that they were regular customers. Very regular customers.
When you think about it, he's not a zombie. He's a lich. He has his intellect, memories, and retains his magical powers. He is by definition, a lich
Might be a revenant, they're known to be vindictive
He should be able to come back then. A lich should have some type of soul artifact which contain their soul so they could be resurrected after their body have been destroyed
@@user-uw9io4hl5g not from my understanding. A lich is (typically) a wizard that has magically bound his soul to his own corpse, effectively cheating death. Because it's his own body, brain, and soul he retains everything he was before death. He's just deathless now. Never heard anything about an artifact, but I never researched that deep into it either
@@whatface1278 Its on the wiki and you'll find some liches in media that do that. For example voldemort from harry potter counts as a lich with his horcruxes being the soul artifacts that I mentioned. I guess your understanding of liches still counts but i'm not sure and it doesn't say so on the wiki
@@user-uw9io4hl5gphilactory is the term. It isn't required to be a necromancer but you'd be a pretty foolish necromancer to not have them.
You forgot to talk about the fact that Al died in one of the most horrific ways possible and then was just left to rot in that abandoned building. I mean, did he even get a funeral?
I thought about that while I was editing this video... It's really messed up. The Mayor says that the laughter quickly turned to tears, but apparently the tears were short lived as everyone left and seemingly forgot to call the coroner... There was no funeral. There was no service. Apparently they just condemned the building and never cleaned up the scene.
@@DuskTillShawnwell considering it’s the mayor…..yeah I’m not that surprised 😅
From the looks of it they didn't even see if he was dead let alone ok. They just all got up and left.
I mean sure he was a fraud but he didn't deserve to be left to rot in the building. Unless they were traumatized by what they had just witnessed and decided to leave without saying a word.
@@kidprime6863Uh, that what stage magic IS. There's a reason why it's called 'smoke and mirrors' and why 'a good magician never reveals his tricks.'
This episode made me uncomfortable as a kid, but I was more bothered that Cadaver had the most hatred for the little girl. She didn't humiliate him on purpose. She just wanted her stuffed bear back since he made it disappear and was too busy enjoying the applause to bring it back.
Still, she kinda caused his death..so it's not surprising he had hatred for that dam girl😒😂
Little c*nt deserved it
I mean, yeah, of course we as outside observers think that is extreme, but put yourself in Al's rotten shoes. This girl revealed you as a "phony" which led to everyone laughing at you until your last breath. She's directly responsible. Even if it was an accident, you spent decades rotting in an abandoned theater alone with nothing, but your shame, anger and frustration and who was responsible for that? The little girl who wanted her bear back. Of course, he hates her most. To be fair, Al may have even made the bear reappear had she not freaked out and pantsed him we'll never know.
@@sillau9he didn't have much of a choice
So the townsfolk left Al to rot in a functional iron maiden in an abandoned theatre for decades instead of giving him a proper burial? Even without the humiliation aspect, they kinda did him dirty.
What did you expect ? It's Townsville ! The land of morons !
No wonder he was so pissed.
@@155chipmunkz Especially the Mayor who ordered his men to demolish the building as if he were dancing on his grave. Yeah, like he said, that was disgusting. That's what I was trying to tell everyone about Craig McCracken. Why does he like to make his characters so incredibly unlikeable like he's Butch Hartman or something ?
@@aidanhever3369Well, to be fair, Mayor IS kinda supposed to be a bit of a dingus, but in general a good hearted sort regardless. Here, I think it was solely for the plot that he acted the way he did. Also, I can't quite recall but how old was the Mayor back when this had happened? If he was a kid, I don't think there was anything he could've done at the time nor would it have been his responsibility. Whoever was in charge back then should've seen that Al had been put to rest properly.
@@oceanberserker That is true, however, they should've did a full inspection to make sure no one was there. That being said, this show takes place in an earlier time period where rules and regulations were more lax than it is now.
I think Abracadaver magically switched places with Blossom to give one last hurrah, one final magic trick so he could be put to rest after finally being taken seriously again.
Agreed 😢 he deserved better😭🙏🏻🕊
So the whole thing was planned by al?
@@Guessnought I mean he got his revenge so might as well go with a perfect trick
That actually makes sense, he can find peace being respected again.
honestly it would make the most sense, hypnotize blossom to go along with the act
it'd explain why bubbles wasnt in the bag and why blossom thought she was, after all if blossom planned the magic trick then she would have known bubbles wouldnt be there
I think Abra Cadaver had unfinished business and just wanted to finish his act. Being a vengeful soul, he was blinded by revenge and it wasn't until he saw Blossom that he regained some of his memory. So I'm guessing Abra Cadaver wanted to move on and needed Blossom to help him finish his final act before he could rest. So, being a magician and not wanting to ruin the act, he kept playing the part of the villain before Blossom revealed they switched places.
Exactly what I'm thinking
For me, the most disturbing part is the fact that they just left his body there on that stage to decay for decades rather than burying or cremating him.
No wonder he's angry. Not just because they laughed at him but they left him to rot.
You're both making more sense
I think they couldn’t get him out so they just left him, not sure why they didn’t just bury the iron maiden with him in it.
"Abracadaver, the Magical Zombie". It really sounded like the name of a Yugioh Card. I liked it!
Well time to make a zombie and spellcaster support card
And nobody called an ambulance for this guy? A morgue even? Just left him in that iron maiden to rot. I think his revenge is kinda justified at that point.
So have you covered this one! He used to scare me so much as a kid.
And I think a big reason for that is just because out of all the villains, he just looked genuinely terrifying, with the tattered skin and dirty clothing with the bones showing and his skin decaying. Not only that his high level of aggression and the fact alone that he was that close to killing the girls and in such brutal ways too, just makes him some of the most scariest villains ever.
Especially when the girls themselves were afraid of him at first, just shows you his high-level threat.
Another thing that scared me was just the way he died. The fact that he just got crushed by Spikes genuinely unnerved me. A big reason also would be the tone of the episode, he has a very aggressive and his unsettling tone, especially when he comes on screen.
I gotta say it’s one of the best episodes for that alone with his dark promise.
If this wasnt a 90s episodic low budget children show, this would probably have been the begining of a story arc about the girls family
Because apparently everythng nowadays needs to be big story split across multitude of episodes, while stand-alone episodes "Should not exist", i guess...
Um, i'm not criticizing you, i like your opinion, it is indeed a good episode to make a big arc. Still it reminded me that nowadays every cartoon has a big plot, which made people to not appreciate standalone episodics...
@@KeyleeTamirianDon't get all autistic about it
@@KeyleeTamirianplease ignore the asshat who doesn’t respect autistic people. You have a very good point 😅 not everyone respects episodic shows now given how common the story focused stuff is these days, I get it 🤷♀️ but there’s also nothing wrong with liking both 😊
@@gracekim1998 Yep, i like both. This is why i love monster-of-the-week format, a perfect balance of episodic and story ^^
OP, why does everything need to have an overarching story? It doesn't make the story itself any much better and it'd be nice to have more episodic shows. It's part of the reason I still enjoy shows like Smile Precure and the sort. It helps it stick out among contemporaries
It's funny that often, when people discuss the scariest Powerpuff Girls episodes, they rarely mention this one, which feels unusual by virtue of the fact that this was one of the first truly scary Powerpuff Girls episodes.
It's interesting to note likewise that the Powerpuffs were legitimately scared of Abracadaver, more so when one considers the fact that they were not scared of other ominous villains, such as Him or the giant monsters who often rampage on the city; this seems to show how much impact he made on them as a villain and overall threat.
To be fair, Him’s more of a psychological threat than physical.
@@155chipmunkz Such is quite true.
Or it could be the psychological effects of those zombie movies they watched before that fight.
@@ajstudios9210 Such is very likely so.
Personally, I think it was simply one of the few times (if not the only time, I don't know much about the Powerpuff Girls, I just remember seeing this episode and, like, a handful of others as a kid) that they had to deal with someone who wasn't doing what they were doing because they thought it was fun, or because they wanted something out of it, but rather was doing what they were doing out of just pure, hateful malice. Abracadaver wasn't simply entertaining themselves, they weren't out for money or recognition or power or whatever else they could gain from attacking the city, they were just taking revenge on a city that in their half-rotted brain, killed them, left their corpse to rot in an abandoned building, and then was about to tear down that building, the only thing that still proved Cadaver had existed at all.
Abrabra Cadava was decaying for decades and still had flesh on hs bones, there's real magic in this episode.
My only question is how he acquired real magic in the first place. A deal with the devil?
@@kidprime6863 It worked for Slade.
Body decays differently when you're not put into the ground. Example: mummies
I am 30 years old.
To this day, even watching this episode makes me wildly uncomfortable.
Same, and same. Holy hell this guy could inspire nightmares 😭
Same here, I'm also 30 and I'm still haunted by this episode. The way he died and the crowd laughing, it was traumatizing.
I genuinely feel bad for Al. I mean Oml they just left him in there all alone for that long.
He was done wrong by everyone here, which was justified in him taking out his anger on the city… but sheesh.
Kinda bummed that honestly he should have been permitted to pass on peacefully.
He's definitely a tragic villain with an understandable motivation
There’s a comic where he gets resurrected with cola, like in Simpsons Hit & Run. This time he had a whole zombie army.
He did. He was finally respected again, so he gave the PPGs the last hurrah.
This ep haunted me as a kid. The zombie design was a big part of it, but for some reason what scared me most was the resentment he had for the little girl, & how he projected it onto blossom (who was my fav & the 1 I most identified with). The idea of a grown man hating a child so much that he'd murder a different child just for looking like her scared me to death.
The closest I can come to a 'logical' explanation for the twist at the end is that Al wasn't that malevolent after all. Most of his magic was much like his act when he was alive, being just harmless 'parlor tricks'. Nobody was really explicitly harmed by anything he did. So maybe the tricks he performed on the girls were also harmless, and he placed himself back into the iron maiden knowing that he wouldn't really be harmed by it. Performing one final successful magic act could be a sort of redemption for him and let him be at peace.
Of course this is all a bit of a reach, but deep down we all know that the only reason the episode ended the way it did was because it was written that way. It was never supposed to be logical lol
I was expecting worse, this feels pretty light compared to Zim stealing people’s organs.
Lol I remember that episode the most out of all of them
I feel Abracadaver at least should have been given a proper burial. That might stop him from coming back a second time.
Fun Fact: The episode name "Abracadaver" is also the name of a Tales from the Crypt episode!
I remember this episode. So crazy how it ended lol. Felt like a typical super hero episode but the magic trick at the end threw me for a loop.
When I first saw this episode, I didn't expect the ending!
yeah I wasn't expecting how it ends, fantastic
I love Powerpuff Girls but there were times I had a mean spirited (in a good way, part the charm) sense of humor with villains that I jsut felt bad for. This being one of them. Another I felt bad for was the clown, he got into an accident that turned him evil, when he was restored he was thankful for being saved and then they just beat the shit out of him. I love clowns so it made me sad.
At least a few episodes later they invited Rainbow to their birthday party. 😂
I actually felt sorry for Princess: her father is the one who turned her into the brat she is; her mother is nowhere to be seen. Her father never even talks to her, he just gives her money, toys, etc.
Slave the Day also comes to mind.
This episode always terrified me as a child. But I also always wondered how the ending occurred. How Blossom managed to switch places with Abracadaver and how Bubbles escaped the bag and ended up in the other half of the box with Buttercup.
Magic 🪄 lol
I like the fantheory that someone else commented
It's actually Al that swapped places with Blossom, he just wanted to be taken seriously one last time before passing on
Superspeed, they did a quicksilver from x-men qnd just blitzed him to the coffin, speed really helps with sleight of hand tricks.
@@dewmdoomie1730nope
Funny enough, as big of a coward I was as a kid, this episode never really scared me but it did leave an impact on me seeing as this is one of the most memorable episodes of the series for me. I haven’t watched this episode in years but seeing the clips in the video made me recognize everything from the episode as I did when I saw it as a kid. I definitely do think this is one of my favorite episodes of PPG for how morbid it is. I love that kind of stuff in kids media, just seeing how far you can push the limits.
This episode TERRIFIED me as a kid. I would always skip past it on my 10th anniversary DVD set to the point where it refuses to actually play the episode anymore
This episode, the mimic episode and that one where Him made everyone in Townsville hate the girls are the most disturbing episodes of the show ngl
I never saw the full episode when younger but when I was I saw a clip of when that monster hypnotized blossom, threw bubbles in a tank and had buttercup almost get cut in half. Holy cow that scared my soul out of me.
I really hope Abracadaver will come back in the 2nd reboot that has Craig McCracken behind it.
Dude was utterly wasted with appearing in one episode only and then to cameos onwards. They could've made a whole episode chain where the magician zombie tries to off Blossom and every time he comes closer to it until a series of events results in him finally finding eternal peace.
This one scared me a bit too, but the one that scared me the most was Speed Demon. All the zombie Townsville people chanting “your fault” still sticks in my brain.
That episode is just pure Hitchcock. I really think that maybe that could have benefitted from a sequel of sorts - like, how everything gradually went to shit during the girl's absence.
Wait a minute. How was Al a fraud? HE LITERALLY MADE THAT BEAR DISSAPPEARED AND TURNED A RABBIT INTO A PLANT?!
Uh, he also had a rabbit, cards, and literally magic objects escape his tiby pants.
Sham, my butt! I think the mayor wanted to justify a reason as to why nobody cared to give Al a proper burial!
This is one of my favorite powerpuff girls episodes, and abracadaver is a great villain too imo.
That is a creepy episode for sure but HIM still scared me the most in powerpuff girls. Besides that, I really liked how you covered this episode and I enjoy how you talk about all the 90s cartoons many people grew up with.
Even if Blossom really did get shut inside the iron maiden, she would've just broken out and be fine. The powerpuff girls are mini Supermen
Yeah the only was to actually cause real damage to them were basically themselves and each other or just really powerful things
The music that played in the background when the mayor first seen that old poster of him looking over the city before telling his story was a dark foreshadow.
In some ways he’s scarier than Him, a phony turned undead dark Magician all because he was laughed at in his final moments. Also leaving his dead body in a abandoned theatre for decades pretty messed up
Speed Demon was a pretty dark episode of the show. It still gets me to this day.
It was, in my opinion, the evilest episode!
This episode probably scared me more than most horror movies I've ever watched... those zombies, man! Decaying flesh and bone, very gnarly... and maybe I'm missremembering but the ones in the film the girls watch look even more horrifying that Abracadaver and his bus/rabbit, one has his brain expossed, I think other even has an eye dangling (my theory is that the animator could get away with such gory imaginery because it was in a "movie" within the cartoon so they weren't "real" dead people)
I'm still confused to how they did the switcheroo, poor magician.
Powerpuff Girls is a weird show to me. I remember liking it when I was little, then I hated it when I was school age, late teens I forgot about its existence, and now I'm looking at it like an underrated gem.
It really was such an underrated gem, that's for sure!
@@DuskTillShawnagree
I mean I like the anime and the 2016 reboot, but this was my childhood.
I hated it when I was little, but didn't mind it later.
I loved this show as a kid! I was raised as a Jehovah's witness
But, am shocked I was allowed to watch this
This episode gave me nightmares when I was a kid. One part that really sold it was how the music swells when Al puts himself back together. The horrifying, haunting realization of a foe they can never beat because he’ll just put himself back together.
This episode definitely scared me as a kid and yeah, I definitely think it was one of the darkest for its bleak ending. I ended up feeling sorry for the villain… years later, I decided to create a companion for him, as a nice way to wrap things up in a bow and give a magician a stage assistant, lol.
This character does return in the comics, once with a whole zombie army hopped up on soda, and another time he teamed up with Sedusa.
Omg, I also have a character like that, but I made the assistant his wife.
"I just stood there and waved good bye...." That episode still sticks with me...
The interesting thing, I think Al seems to have actually had actual magical powers to begin with. Wirh how all his magic trick stuff just flew out of his pants the way they did.
When I was a little little kid I didn’t really get attached to shows since there were so many people in my household - we were always fighting for the remote lol. This and HIM’s episode when he tried to get to Bubbles stuck with me, and The Powerpuff Girls was no longer *just another show* on Foxtel. The perfect legacy.
(Not a cartoon but,) IMO, the most disturbing depiction of zombies comes from SplatterHouse 2. They're not even that gorey or dismembered like other enemies. They're *just* withered old bodies dressed in tattered rags. They look so empty. But the blank eyes, bared teeth, and shambling gait do so much to make them look like hungry, feral creatures.
Imagine being scare of zombies when you have super strength, laser vision, in blossoms case freeze breathe, flight and super durability.
When you put it like that... 🤣 hahahahaha
I mean they’re still children 😂 but yeah I see the humour in this statement
Blossom wasn't even scared of him when he was yelling at her.
@@mr.checkyourself4672 was talking about the movie
@@Kidapollo92 Oh well be more specific
Darkest episode? There is both the Bunny episode and the one where Professor Utonium's college friend used the PPG recipe to make his own (albeit vastly inferior) Powerpuffs.
Or where the obsessed fan kidnapped them
@@sapphiresupernova oh yeah, I forgot that also happened. XD
I remember being sad for al when i saw this. But i've always been a person that was really empathetic towards others even as a small child.
I thought Blossom was of the little girl's reincarnation of sorts as a little kid but I also feel bad for Al due to the fact that they laughed and him before he died and then left his corpse there for I'm guessing 70 to 80 years then years later destroying the building that brought him happiness which you never do when it comes to the afterlife you don't disturb the resting place of the dead like an idiot.
I remember being terrified of this episode as a small child. I felt paranoid for days.
While I like the episode, it feels like they wrote themselves into a corner for that ending. Also it feels like the real horror wasn't the magician, but the town itself.
The town just not caring that a person literally died on stage in an iron maiden? That a body was left in a theater that proceeded to rot for ages? That the the theater became abandoned and never used by anyone else?
I can't even really be happy that the "villain" was defeated because he wasn't really one. He was just a guy whose career and life was ruined.
Absolutely, it's sad how an entertainer was left for years and willingly forgotten by the town.
It was really messed-up.
I'm sorry, do you not think getting turned into a sentient tree is scary? They still had their eyes, they could see everything but do nothing! Talk about "I have no mouth and I must scream!" levels of scary! It would drive anybody insane!
And they don’t even change back.
This was a personal favorite episode of mine growing up. Even though I was incredibly frightened of just about everything, because I was very sheltered and timid, this PPG episode was always cool to me.
When I was younger I thought that miss bellum was ruth but she can’t be she would be as old as the mayor if that was the case. But the fact that ruth resembles the powerpuff girls has to be mean something in my opinion.
She was probably their grandmother!
Abracadaver was an Awesome Episode of PPG. It was Magically Terrifying at the same time
This episode is amazing. Wish they'd beaten Abra in an actual cool way though, instead of "Uhhh we beat him cuz... Shut up, it's magic." Abra's so cool man, he deserved to be defeated properly.
Tiny gripe aside, this episode is dope.
I wonder how the girl who looked like Blossom whose toy got vanished and she pulled the magician's pant was doing as an adult, was she even alive at that point? If so she would be as old as the Mayor...
Did she ever get her bear back? 🤔
@@gothtarrare well we would never know....
@@gothtarrare This is one of the best episode ever, wish we could interview Craig McCracken about it....
It’s for the plot lol y’all think too deep over a kids show
@@MrAjking808 over 20 years of curiosity about this XD, I saw a ppg vid after a long time and brought back so much memories, I remember thinking all that way back then, so much has changed since then...
I actually sympathized with Al when I was a kid. I don't blame him at all
Soo... him attempting to murder a child by impaling her is justified?
Y'know it's been a long time since i saw this episode, i had remembered that Ms Bellum was telling the story and the little girl had been her, but now it turns out the the mayor was there too as a kid so it couldn't have been Ms Bellum and the little girl was just someone else.
This episode gave me nightmares as a kid. I remember I couldn’t walk down the hallways at school by myself after watching it😅
This episode stayed stained to my brain as a child and even as an adult , definitely one of my favorite episodes.
Wild thing, I loved the scary & morbid stuff as a kid(as well as to this day). Everytime someone brings up the CGI Courage the Cowardly Dog episode about the slab. I just remembered how annoyed & bored I was seeing it for the first time. Unlike the "you're not perfect" bit. Instead it was the violin girl with the jumpscare, that had me up for days.
However, this episode of the PPG got me, BECAUSE of the zombies. This is coming from someone who was just getting into RE2 at the same time. So it did a number & freaked me out proper. So for once, I can actually relate & say; Yes, this was a terrifically terrifying memorable work of art.
I was always terrified of the episode, probably because I was terrified of zombies. But a magical zombie made it scarier for me. That fear is what makes this episode really good. Just making an already scary thing even more scary.
i would have loved it if they revealed that the zombie magician had hypnotized blossom in order to get her to act along on his last and greatest illusion trick which would have fooled all of townsville into thinking he really had killed the girls when they were really safe all along thus fulfilling his desire to be seen as a great magician and letting him eternally rest
which would also explain why blossom thought that bubbles would be inside the bag
I think the reason why people don't talk about this episode as much as they do the other spooky episodes is simple: the ending is a confusing letdown. Yeah, it's magic and crazy unexplainable stuff is supposed to happen in magic, but Blossom was put in a position that was straight-up impossible to get out of thanks to the hypnosis and the wrapping. So it's revealed that Blossom is alright, it doesn't feel like a clever trick. It feels like the writer of the episode just didn't think of a good way to get Blossom out of that death trap and just pulled "Magic!" out of his ass.
I still love the episode, but I think the ending kinda marks it as not so great since, if all this other cool stuff in the episode just led up to a dumb ending, then what's the point of enjoying the episode?
And before you say it, yeah, it's a cartoon. Wacky shit happens and characters get out of wacky shit easily. But characters also aren't set up in a situation where it's sure they're gonna die, they die...only to reveal that their ok because... Yeah.
17:11
I agree with that. Maybe to she would've told him that she had no intention to pants him & simply wanted her bear back. She never wanted to humiliate him & ruin not only his career but his life to.
This episode scared me so much as a kid, like no joke. I was terrified. His death was burned into my brain. Years later and I got goosebumps when I saw your thumbnail.
The random party canon shout out was unexpected but not unwelcome. A fellow metal enthusiast in the recommended tonight. Also yeah this episode freaked the ever loving shit out of child me
The fact that the police and everybody just left his body there for decades man, that's another creepy thought when it comes to this episode.
So excited to see this pop up on my feed today! This episode scared the absolute shit out of me when I was a little one. Just the "realness" of it all. Like what if there WAS a man who accidentally got trapped in an abandoned building and died there? That could happen! Little-me was spiraling lmao There don't even need to be zombies involved for that thought to be chilling.
Wow, i actually completely forgot about this episode existing. This is crazy and awsome at the same time!
You somehow always make me feel so seen with the deep nostalgia 😂
Back then cartoons had much more freedom.
I remember this was such a scary episode when I saw it as a kid
I’m sure it’s episodes like this that caused Ace to leave Townsville and join the Gorillaz while Murdoc was in prison/missing. Also goes to show you kids can handle dark material if it’s done well. Man, I miss old cartoons.
I remember YMS or someone did a thing inviting people to talk about horrifying moments that traumatized people as kids. I will admit had I joined in, I'd probably talk about this episode.
I Think one of the things that cemented the horror theme of it is when the magician reaches out of his coffin and per-cures a black rose. Though rose petals are falling from it, they are still which looked unnatural and unnerving in itself.
This episode always freaked me out when I was a kid. I always thought it was messed up how he was just left there after dying horrifically
One of the most terrifying narration intros is. "THE CITY OF TOWNSVILLE IS ON FIIIIIRRRRRRE!"
In what dystopia we live, where you have to put disclaimers not for viewers but for RUclips itself to make it do what it's supposed to.
Ughhh, don't get me started lol.
This is the same company that thinks it’s okay to show South Park, gore, and pee fetishes to children, yet demonetizes people for showing boobs.
We know Shawn. We just complain hoping advertisers and YT employees see it. I'm still irked that one of the Adpocalypses was caused by YT bot vetting commercials, yet they still don't vet commercials.
I get so many "the government is giving free money away" commercials that it makes me sick. I also once had a commercial that had a cult try to prove some insane mumbling by a "new mathematical formula he invented" which was just 10th grade math done poorly.
@user-wc8j7dc3n I love that you said "dystopia" instead of the overused "society "
@@155chipmunkz huh?😅 why would they show SOUTH PARK to children?😳
I like your calm tone of voice, anyway I'm shocked with how dark this show could get with all the implied deaths (and I'm not just talking about the villains). I would like to see your thoughts on that episode with Dick Hardly.
This episode always freaked me out as a kid, but i loved it all the same! Im not a fan of horror in the slightest, but episodes of cartoons like this always had me excited for when they'd come out!
i remember this episode! it terrified me to no end, I think I may have changed the channel because I was an easily scared child. Zombie Island scared me to death too, Im pretty sure that movie alone lead most of my fear honestly, plus the fact that my parents loved to watch moves that im pretty sure I had no right watching at that young of an age. (nothing sexual but extremely violent in nature).
Im honestly shocked how BRUTAL this episode is looking back. An Iron Maiden is a cruel death and to kill someone like that in a kids show? Dear lord.... Also the fact that they LEFT HIM THERE!?!??! I kinda agree with Al here man..... The townsfolk kinda deserve some retribution for that....
I'm pretty sure if it were possible, we'd all like to go back in time & save AL Lusion from his death. He really didn't need that to happen & he deserves much better. If he didn't die in his show, he could've went on to greater feets, only question is how old do you think he could've been?
Abracadaver is my favorite episode of The Powerpuff Girls! It stands out among the rest of the season 1 episodes. Even its sibling episode, Boogie Frights, is nowhere near as unsettling as it. Season 5’s Power Noia is another well-done creepy episode.
Something I like about Abracadaver is that it’s one of the few times (or probably the only time) where the girls outright _refused_ to take action upon getting the call from Mayor, because they were just _that_ afraid of zombies that they didn’t want to confront one, in spite of Townsville being in danger. The scene where Blossom slowly opens the door and peeks her head outside in caution before she and the others fly off sticks out to me, due to the setting of the scene: it’s just a pitch black night with nothing but the howl of a wolf for noise.
This episode is also the only one where the face on the Powerpuff Hotline changes its expression, turning from a cheerful smile to a frightened frown.
Also, this episode may have been the most gruesome imagery in the series history. Not only was Blossom wrapped into a string of handkerchiefs and tossed into a spiky tomb while hypnotized, Buttercup was being sown in half and, perhaps most gruesomely, Bubbles was trapped into a bag and thrown into a water tank to drown. You can even see her punching the bag in desperation to escape.
I have no guesses as to how Blossom turned the tables on Abracadaver, but something tells me her hypnotization must’ve played a part in that. And how did Bubbles find herself locked inside the sowing box that Buttercup was trapped in? There are more questions than answers, but I think that adds to the mystery of the girls’ abilities and the unsettling nature of the episode. Just as how Abracadver’s dark magic leaves an impression on you, so does The Powerpuff Girls’ abilities to perform that magic reversal. Even weirder is that for the rest of the series, they never perform that kind of magic again.
On a smaller note, I loved the Zom-B-Gone! flash game on the Cartoon Network website. It was themed after this episode and it was my favorite PPG flash game on the CN site. That game was actually my introduction to Abracadaver.
I’m glad you covered this episode! It’s a very memorable one.
"The scene where Blossom slowly opens the door and peeks her head outside in caution before she and the others fly off sticks out to me, due to the setting of the scene: it’s just a pitch black night with nothing but the howl of a wolf for noise".
This is one of my favorite details about this episode. It is incredible how it's possible to make a scary scene with few movement and sound, even more after a lot of gruesome image.
It was almost like the episode is saying that even during the calm moments, there is no rest.
I loved that game too! Glad other people remember it.
Finally someone talks about this creepy episode! This one scared me so bad as a kid, i could never finish it.
I remember there used to be a flash game based on this episode,It gave me nightmares
Blossom really used a substitution jutsu
Even as a kid I felt sympathy of AI dying gruesomely in an unfortunate accident after being humiliated publicly and then just left there for literal decades, no one being arsed enough to give him a proper burial. Or even just some kind of burial.
No wonder dude came back as a vengeful revenant.
Oddly enough I never found this one very scary. Recalling back the ones that got me to on that wavelength were Him related episodes like when he was talking to Bubbles or when he made everyone hate the girls.
The powerpuff girls flash game based on this episode (Zom-b-gone!) was my favorite!
I remember as a kid, i was at awe that they managed to get away with sawing the Buttercup, drowning Bubbles, and then IRON MAIDEN BLOSSOM?!?! I was quite impressed before the reveal. But it was also quite wild when they showed the arm in the Iron Maiden.
To me this is the canonical end of one Powerpuff Girls universe, similar to that one where the girls travel in time, but in this case Al managed to kill the girls and reign over the city/world. However, the show had to use a deus ex machina to give it a nice end, which is fine but does not alter what truly happened. Dark but satisfying story.
The poor guy dies and nobody did anything afterwards? Instead, they chose to never call the police, abandon the theater with the body still inside, and leave it like that for how many years?
That's so messed up! I'm surprised the thing wasn't heavily vandalized.
13:53: AL His anger about his past may have been justified, but I still wouldn’t want to excuse his crimes he puts on modern Townsville
Was always creeped out by the Mime in that one episode that stole color from things.
Mr. Mime. Should’ve called him Master Mime in my opinion.
The episode that creeped me out was this and the little guy that bites heads and sucks memories
" it's magic i don't have to explain it"
-Linkara
“I am the light-bringer”
-Linkara
What nostalgia. I remember really enjoying this episode.
The trick to actually getting hypnotized is that you want to be or you are susceptible to it. Actual hypnosis is a thing, I recommend researching the concept itself it’s fascinating.
You should look it up then because it's actually bupkis. It's not real. You can't hypnotize people. I have first hand experience. I was at a rennasance (sp?) faire and this guy tried to hypnotize the audience. I still recall some of what he said. He asked us to close our eyes and to imagine we were on a beach. I'm not sure what was supposed to happen but when he told us to feel the sand all I could feel was grass. I recall walking away so confused. I was a kid at the time.
So, the girls just straight up murder that zombie a second time and the narrator just laughed as they did something funny and adorable???