Entertainment
Badass Millennial Series Everyone Pretended Was Just For Girls Now Streaming For Free
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
For geeks of a certain age, there’s a sublime, nostalgic pleasure in revisiting the cartoons of your childhood. Watching an episode or two is a powerful way to micro-dose those days when life was so simple, and the future was full of endless possibilities. Outside of anime, probably the most influential cartoon of my generation was The Powerpuff Girls, which transformed three little ladies into the ultimate superhero team of the ‘90s. With slick character designs, smooth animation, and hilariously tongue-in-cheek writing, this show effectively served as a watershed moment for American animation.
Over the years, there have been failed attempts to recapture the old magic, including a disappointing anime adaptation (Powerpuff Girls Z) and a (mercifully) canceled live-action show. Decades later, it seems like it might be impossible for any new series to capture the unique energy and attitude that made the earlier show so special. Fortunately, you can return to the glory days of this Emmy-winning animation at the touch of a button, because The Powerpuff Girls is now streaming for free on Tubi!
Catching Lightning In A Bottle
The Power Puff Girls was created by Craig McCracken, the visionary creator who had previously worked with fellow legendary animator Genndy Tartakovsky on Dexter’s Laboratory. Originally, McCracken conceived of a slightly more adult show. His crimefighting trio originally went by the name “The Whoopass Girls” in an old short, and they got their powers from a can of whoopass. Cartoon Network was interested in the show, but they required McCracken to change the name to the more family-friendly Powerpuff Girls.
During early screenings for his first short, test audiences (mostly comprised of preadolescent boys) really hated the show and hated the characters’ designs. Fortunately, McCracken (with encouragement from Cartoon Network exec Mike Lazzo) stuck to his guns, keeping the original look of the Powerpuff Girls. The show ultimately became a primetime hit for Cartoon Network, winning three Emmys and fully solidifying itself as a foundational part of Millennial pop culture.
Unforgettable Characters, Unforgettable Art
It’s a good thing that Craig McCracken kept the original look of our titular trio because the art style of The Powerpuff Girls is instantly iconic. At its heart, the art of this show provides a hilarious visual juxtaposition. With their wide eyes and expressive faces, the titular trio looks like they might be trying to sell Girl Scout cookies in an idyllic suburban community. Instead, they are superheroes who serve as the first, last, and only line of defense for Townsville, a bustling ‘berg that is always being attacked by everything from killer kaijus to snarling supervillains.
Fortunately, the design of Townsville is as bold and bright as the design of the Powerpuff Girls. It’s also filled with other stylishly designed characters, including the diminutive mayor and his Amazonian assistant, the mad monkey Mojo Jojo, and the Rowdy Ruff Boys, the Girls’ evil counterparts. Each character design is unique, giving the entire cartoon cast a vibrancy and vividness that brings them to life before they have even said a word.
From Broccoli To Beatles
Fortunately for fans, The Powerpuff Girls was more than just a pretty face. The show boasted some of the smartest writing in animation history, and episodes often subverted our expectations in the funniest possible way. For example, one episode has the girls refusing to eat broccoli. But when Townsville is invaded by broccoli aliens, the Powerpuff Girls eat their enemies, using cannibalism to drive away an extraterrestrial invasion. Another episode features a mime sucking color from the world who learns his lesson at the end, but this doesn’t keep the girls from beating him up and tossing him in jail.
The list goes on, really. My favorite “meta” episode is “Meet the Beat-Alls,” which has the Powerpuff Girls’ most infamous villains form a super group whose name is a reference to the Beatles. In fact, the whole episode is filled with winking nods to the most famous band in musical history. “Meet the Beat-Alls” may be the best example of the show’s greatest strength: that it provides all the colorful action and silly humor kids want while throwing in insanely clever writing that only their parents can really appreciate.
Take it from me: rewatching The Powerpuff Girls is effectively Chicken Soup for the Millennial Soul. Everyone who grew up watching this killer cartoon is overworked, underpaid, and trudging through life on nothing but caffeine and vibes. Returning to Townsville is a way of returning to a simpler time, reliving the best days of your childhood as you relive the glory days of American animation.
Plus, there’s no time like the present to share this awesome animation with your own children. Do you want to get them away from YouTube brain rot, or maybe you’re just sick of Bluey reruns? Fear not, fair reader: The Powerpuff Girls is only a click away. Even better, you can watch it for free on Tubi, proving once more that nostalgia is just about the only thing that hasn’t grown more expensive!
The Powerpuff Girls SCORE
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 19, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
The edge.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
BRINK
Mashable Top Stories
Hurdle Word 2 hint
Moody.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
POUTY
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
Hurdle Word 3 hint
America’s bird.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
EAGLE
Hurdle Word 4 hint
A platform.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
FORUM
Final Hurdle hint
Cheapskate.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
MISER
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Star Trek’s Most Ambitious Villain Helped Create The Franchise’s Most Complex Hero
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When Star Trek: Voyager first came out, the most fascinating character was the Doctor. While Robert Picardo’s performance was superb, it’s fair to say this character was mostly fascinating on a conceptual level. We had seen things like hypercompetent Starfleet captains and exotic aliens before, but what we hadn’t seen was a fully holographic chief medical officer. Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram seemed like the perfect embodiment of the Star Trek ethos. He’s a technological strange new world and new life, all rolled into one.
However, what casual audiences didn’t realize is that the Doctor wasn’t completely unique. Long before Picardo’s character ever sawed bones in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Picard dealt with another extraordinary hologram: Moriarty, the brilliant foe of the famous investigator Sherlock Holmes. Over on The Next Generation, Geordi LaForge accidentally created this villain as a sentient hologram when he asked the holodeck to create a challenge worthy of the android Data. Later, Star Trek: Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor revealed that, in-universe, the holographic Doctor was created because Starfleet took advantage of the same accidental breakthrough that created Moriarty!
It all started in “Elementary, My Dear Data,” the Next Generation episode in which the titular android and Geordi LaForge recreated Sherlock Holmes’ adventures on the holodeck. Thanks to his positronic brain and his encyclopedic knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes novels, Data is able to easily solve every mystery that is thrown at him. That’s when Geordi makes a seemingly simple request. He asks the Enterprise computer to develop a holodeck foe that could actually defeat Data, one of the smartest beings in the entire galaxy.
The computer obliges and creates a sentient version of Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’ greatest foe. Following Geordi’s instructions, the Enterprise computer included much of Data’s vast programming, which resulted in the holographic character becoming self-aware. Moriarty ended up threatening the Enterprise on two different occasions, and Picard eventually got rid of him by trapping the unknowing villain in a simulation where he thought he had left the holodeck and could explore the stars. This was meant to be a happy ending for Moriarty, but in the show’s typically bleak fashion, Star Trek: Picard later showed us a different, more hostile version of this character created by a malevolent Section 31 AI.
How A Villain Created A Hero
What does all of this have to do with Robert Picardo’s holographic Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager? Elementary, my dear reader! Very early in Voyager’s development (the show didn’t even have a name yet), executive producer Jeri Taylor was inspired by Moriarty to create a new character. As reported in A Vision of the Future-Star Trek: Voyager, Taylor wrote down notes for a holographic doctor “who, like Moriarty, has ‘awareness’ of himself as a holodeck fiction. He longs for the time when he can walk free of the Holodeck.”
A few days later, she wrote down additional notes that contain a startling bit of Star Trek lore. “The Holo-Doctor represents a new, state-of-the-art technology which has capitalized on the serendipitous incident which created Moriarty, and has programmed a holographic character which has self-awareness of his situation and limitations.” While Moriarty is name-dropped on Voyager a couple of times, the show never mentioned what Taylor’s notes seem to confirm: that Lewis Zimmerman could never have created the Emergency Medical Hologram program if not for Geordi LaForge accidentally creating Moriarty on the holodeck.
From Villain To Leading Man?
If that’s not strange enough, there was a period of time when Voyager’s producers were considering making Moriarty a mainstay character on the show. As reported in Star Trek–Where No One Has Gone Before, Taylor’s notes mentioned that “everyone agreed that was a little too broad, and we couldn’t figure out why anyone would take him along.” After dismissing the idea, they decided “that having a holographic doctor with the full consciousness of being a hologram might be fun, and we’d never done anything like that before, except for Moriarty.”
There you have it, gentle reader. Without the character of Moriarty on Star Trek: The Next Generation, we’d never have the Doctor on Voyager. In this way, Trek’s most ambitious villain helped create the franchise’s most complex hero. Thanks to Jeri Taylor’s notes, we also know that, in-universe, Lewis Zimmerman would never have been able to create the Doctor if not for Geordi accidentally creating a sentient Moriarty so Data could have fun. In retrospect, this does make Zimmerman’s arrogance that much weirder. After all, he has a lot of attitude for someone who owes his entire career to the two biggest book nerds in the galaxy!
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 19
After days of almost (and complete) darkness, the Moon is finally starting to reappear. We’re currently in the Waxing Crescent phase of the lunar cycle, which means each night until the Full Moon we’ll see it get more illuminated from the right side.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Sunday, April 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 5% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Despite more of it now being illuminated, the percentage of surface is still too little to be able to spot any surface details. Check again tomorrow.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
NASA states that the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit Earth, during which it passes through eight distinct phases. We always see the same side of the Moon, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes as it moves along its orbit, creating the familiar pattern of full, partial, and crescent shapes. We call these the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
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