ENGLISH NAME	JAPANESE NAME	POKEMOPOLIS NAME	DODGINESS RATING	ANIMATION	STORY	TEAM ROCKET	MORAL LEARNT
012: Here Comes the Squirtle Squad	012: Zenigame-gundan Tojo!	Tough Little Squirts			Ash completes his starter set with a gangster turtle	Card Carrying Members Of The NRA!	All bad boy outlaws secretly crave submission to an authority figure

Today starts with a recap of Ash meeting and eventually capturing Bulbasaur and Charmander, making for 2 out of 3 of the Starter Pokémon set. But as Ash struts (seriously!) down the dirt road - Misty and Brock walking behind looking bemused and resigned to their fates - the narrator warns that maybe he's being a little TOO confident. Indeed it seems to be the case, as his foot suddenly sinks into the ground and everybody pauses for a second before the earth collapses beneath them and down they go!



They stagger to their feet, wondering who is responsible for such a rotten trick. The answer is obvious even this early in the series, of course. It's obviously Team.... Squirtle? Five of the little blue turtles poke their heads over the rim of the hole, laughing at the kids’ fate. They just laugh harder when the kids complain that this was a dangerous prank to play, and withdraw to laugh some more as the kids climb out and check them out with Ash's Pokédex. He gets excited at the notion of capturing a Squirtle and thus showing Gary (what?), so sends in Pikachu to fight. Pikachu is more than happy to; after all it kicks the shit out of them type-wise. A blast of Thunderbolt is aimed directly at the slightly larger, boss-Squirtle with different sunglasses to his underlings. But one of those underlings leaps into the way, taking the hit and getting knocked out.

Boss Squirtle is left to face Pikachu, and tries to put on a brave face as Western music plays and Pikachu - despite being smaller - is clearly the more confident of the two, knowing that type-wise he can kill the shit out of the "tiny turtle" Pokémon. But the underlings shout out a warning and together they haul up the knocked out one and they cheese it the hell out of there. The kids are slightly confused, but the reason becomes clear as Officer Jenny suddenly pulls up in her motorbike. Ash is pleased to see her again, but in what is ALREADY becoming a tired repeated joke, she points out that - like the Joys - all the members of her family look identical and have the same name.

That's either incredibly stupid or incredibly disturbing.

They head to the Police Station, where she explains that the Squirtles they bumped into call themselves The Squirtle Squad and that they.... hang on a second. THEY call themselves The Squirtle Squad? How the fuck does anyone know what THEY call themselves? Surely THEY call themselves Squirtle Squirtle Squirt Squirt Squirtle or something along those lines? Regardless, they've been up to all kinds of socially irresponsible behaviour recently, almost as if they weren't human beings and don't understand the social contract! She says they're all abandoned Pokémon - their trainers dumped them and they ended up grouping together.

Ash is saddened to hear of yet ANOTHER Pokémon to be abandoned. But as they leave the police station, they're watched by three villains who might not share his morality. It's Team Rocket, concentrating on Pikachu of course... or at least Jesse is - James and Meowth seem more concerned about getting a bite to eat, complaining about wanting something different to pizza and suggesting Chinese or maybe tacos. A furious Jesse smacks them around, not because they're Japanese and she thinks they shouldn't want that foreign muck, but because it's business time and they need to be thinking about world domination... and that means capturing a fat yellow rat! But then [b]HER[/b] belly rumbles and so she rather sheepishly agrees that now it [b]IS[/b] time to eat.

She picks up a picnic basket and they all happily prepare to eat, till they realise they're being eyed up by five Squirtles wearing sunglasses. Meowth translates their ramblings, it seems that they want the food basket... or else! Jesse and James are bemused by the threat, and grab their Pokéballs and step forward to show them what for... and fall immediately into a hole prepared for them!

Soon Team Rocket are tied up to a nearby tree (Meowth dangling from a rope) as the Squirtle gobble down the food in the basket. It's pretty clearly sushi, but Team Rocket is so incensed that they mistakenly call them jelly doughnuts, éclairs and sandwiches. James weeps in horror at what he is seeing, but then Jesse gets their attention by asking them to do a job for them - how about capturing Pikachu from the three kids? Their Boss will make it worth their while. The lead Squirtle waves them off dismissively, telling Meowth that humans can't be trusted. Meowth has an idea though, a brilliant idea, a genius idea!



Kick James in the face!

Telling the Squirtles that Jesse and James are his pets, trained to do his bidding but so stupid that they sometimes speak up. A few kicks makes Boss Squirtle smile, and he lets Meowth down and unties him. Meowth settles down to eat beside the Squirtles, and tells a complaining Jesse and James to be quiet and let him build up trust with the Squirtles.

A short time later, Misty is fishing happily from the bank of a river as Ash and Pikachu relax beside her and Brock is splayed out enjoying the sun. A bob on Misty's line catches her attention and she happily announces she has caught something, at which point a Squirtle underling emerges and blasts all of them with water. Angrily, Pikachu rushes down to Thunderbolt the Squirtle, but thanks to all the water over the kids, they get blasted as well. Laughing, the Squirtle gets out of the water and onto the road, and the kids rush to face it. Pikachu prepares to attack but Squirtle hides in its shell and spins about, smacking into Pikachu and knocking him into the river. Pikachu emerges on the surface, looking relatively okay, but Misty shouts out a warning that there is a Goldeen in there and look out for its horn. Apparently Pikachu's fat ass is too much for the lipsticked fish to resist, and it zips through the water and slams into Pikachu, sending the rat flying out of the river and crashing to the ground. Horrified, Ash tries to run and pick him up, but a lasso suddenly wraps around him and the other two kids and several Squirtle zip around them in a circle, wrapping them up tight.

Soon the kids and Pikachu are in a cave - presumably The Squirtle Squad's hangout - where Meowth taunts Ash about what will happen when his "pets" return. He flicks his tail in Ash's face to emphasize his points.... and Ash takes a big ol' bite! He screams and launches into the air, and Ash tries to explain to the Squirtles that Meowth is lying to them. Meowth yells at Ash to shut up and scratches his face, and asks the Squirtles if they'll believe a human over a Pokémon? Of course they won't, they know humans aren't to be trusted.

Brock points out to Ash that Pikachu - in a cage they just so happened to have - is sick and needs treatment. He says they can get a Super Potion in town that will do the trick, and Ash begs the Squirtles to let him go and get one. Boss Squirtle laughs and shakes his head, not believing anything Ash says until he lowers his head and tears start to flow. Squirtle seems to take this as a sign of legitimacy, and not long after Ash has been untied but Misty and Brock left captive.

He's warned that if he's not back by noon tomorrow, the red-haired girl will have her hair dyed purple. A furious Misty kicks angrily at Meowth, but Ash has no time for any of this - he promises he'll be back in a flash and then he's out of the cave and charging down the road back towards town. A little over-enthusiastic, he quickly trips over and falls flat on his face, but staggers back up with the image of the hurt Pikachu in his head. He continues onwards as fast as he can, forgetting that his time limit was imposed by tiny little turtles with stubby legs who probably have a far different concept of distance to him. Arriving at a rickety wooden bridge, he tries to hold back his impatience as he carefully crosses, planks of wood breaking and falling away beneath him. The bridge - badly maintained and with no safety warnings anywhere - sways as he moves, and planks beneath him break away and fall into the deep gorge with a river running along the bottom. Ash clings on to the ropes and sighs with relief... and then the ropes holding the far end of the bridge up snap and down he plunges, hundreds of feet to his inevitable and inescapable death.

But no! Before the show can be cancelled and Nintendo Animation Concern turned into a dogfood factory, it seems he survived the fall.... AND got his ass blasted by another Goldeen! He bursts out of the water with a squeal, and a short time later staggers with the aid of a walking stick into the ghostly looking, dusty town. Spotting the shop ahead of him, he's delighted and heads straight for the front door, reaching out with his hand for the knob and... getting smacked directly in the face as it opens from the other side and Gary Oak steps out and heads away, completely ignorant of what he's just done, leaving behind a KO'ed Ash. That day fades away and the night comes in, and Pikachu still lies hurt in the cage as Misty tries to offer encouragement that Ash will be back soon. Meowth, meanwhile, is starting to sweat a little as he ponders just where the hell Jesse and James are.

The answer?



Straight up armed robbery!

A new day has dawned and Team Rocket have burst in with a bazooka and some kind of sub-machine gun which they claim are ice-guns. It's a stick-up, and Jesse is revealing a well-known truth - holding a gun makes you cool and attractive! They demand all the Flash Powder the store has (and some dental floss!) and reveal the reason they want it is to solve the town's Squirtle Squad problem... and for good dental health! Getting what they want, they retreat out of the store, firing the bazooka which lets loose a blast of.... flower petals? The people in the store say it is snowing, and in the confusion Team Rocket escapes and take off in their big Meowth-faced balloon. Ash looks up and realises that it is Team Rocket (no shit, Sherlock!) and that he has to get back to Pikachu before them. He prepares to take off, then remembers the Super Potion and rushes into the shop... and into several pissed off, belated people with guns drawn ready to blow him away.

"I don't need... a new gun...." Ash stammers, and then Officer Jenny rushes up (far too late) to tell them that Ash isn't a member of Team Rocket. A second later, we see him on her motorbike as they zip down the road towards the cave, Ash warning that they have to get there before noon.... except she doesn't know that the bridge is out. Pulling to a stop, she has to turn and head along the side of the gorge, while Team Rocket sail serenely overhead, preparing the Flash Powder into bombs.

Jenny pulls up beside a small hole in the rock and tells Ash that this is the "secret" entrance to the Squirtle Squad cave - indicating that she not only knows [b]EXACTLY[/b] where the local gang of troublemakers live, but has intimate knowledge of secret tunnels leading in there. But Ash doesn't question her incompetence/laziness, nor her suggestion that the tunnel is too small for an adult to pass through (then how does she know where it goes?) but he should be just fine. He heads inside, moving through the narrow confines that an adult COULD fit into, just not comfortably. It gets dark though and he can't see, so he calls out Charmander to light the way for him. Soon he gets to the other end and slips through, but there is no sign of anybody and the ropes are lying loose. He can only assume that they gave up on waiting for him, and he imagines Misty being tossed down into a bottomless hole. He rushes outside in a panic and finds Meowth and the Squirtle Squad, and demands to know where Pikachu, Misty and Brock are? He told them he'd be back before noon and he is!

Where are they? Right there! Misty and Brock are standing over with Pikachu just to the side of the cave entrance. Ash has the wind taken somewhat out of his sails by their apparent good health and freedom, and then they all remember Pikachu and quickly get out the Super Potion to apply it as a magical cure-all to Pikachu's woes. She sprays Pikachu and Ash notes that Misty's hair isn't purple, and she grins and says that while the Squirtle Squad might enjoy playing pranks, they'd never mess with a girl's natural hair colour! But as they all (Squirtles included) have a grin/laugh, an explosion gets all their attention - Ash forgot to warn them about Team Rocket!

"To protect the world from devastation!"
"To unite all peoples within our nation!"
"To denounce the evils of truth and love! To extend our reach to the stars above!" they say together.
"Jesse!"
"James!"
"Squirtle Squad," grins Jesse,"It's payback time for insulting Team Rocket!"
"Bombs away!" they say together, and toss down bombs before dropping a rope ladder and telling Meowth to grab Pikachu and come up. For some reason, the kids do nothing to stop Meowth hauling up Pikachu, and they take off as the kids and the Squirtles rush away to hide in the cave. But Boss Squirtle is on the back of his shell and can't get upright, flailing his stubby limbs about in a panic. Ash rushes to the rescue, leaping on top of him to shield the Pokémon with a built-in bomb shelter with his soft, fleshy body. A bomb lands nearby and explodes, but when it clears they seem to only be a little dusty. Ash and Squirtle both seem exhausted though, and Ash asks if the happy Pokémon is okay before warning it to save itself as two more bombs drop. Squirtle then reminds Ash that it is a creature with goddamn superpowers, as it hauls him up and drags him away at speed.



God DAMN, Squirtle!

An explosion knocks them through the air and crashing into the entrance of the cave, the other Squirtles, Brock and Misty. Team Rocket's balloon sails in overhead and they're delighted to see no sign of the Squirtles, figuring they killed them all and now the town will give them a medal (they town they robbed at gunpoint). But then Ash and Squirtle appear on the grass up above the cave entrance, startling Team Rocket who have no idea about the rear exit. Ash has Squirtle use Water Gun on the balloon, and apparently it is at high enough pressure to cut right through the canvas. Meowth loses his grip on Pikachu who falls through the air as Team Rocket are sent blasting off again! Ash rushes down the side of the cliff and then leaps through the air, catching Pikachu and landing safely.

But a fire has been set in the forest by the falling bombs, and Officer Jenny manages to arrive after all the work has done to point out a new problem for other people to solve - the forest fire! Ash has an idea though, he tells the Squirtles to use their Water Guns collectively to put out the fire. They quickly set to, and before long the flames are out and the town is safe - it was safe before too, but [b]EVENTUALLY[/b] the fire might have reached it, once it figured out how to cross the gorge that there wasn't a bridge on anymore.

Delighted, Officer Jenny announced to the town that The Squirtle Squad has saved them, and the grateful townspeople give them little robes. Jenny announces that they are now the town's official firefighters (they'll work for food!), and they pose bravely against the background of the rising sun - JAPAN!

With the kids' work done, they head away from the town, fat little Pikachu happily strutting his stuff in the lead. Misty notices that Boss Squirtle is following them, and a happy Ash asks if it wants to join them. Delighted, Boss Squirtle removes his sunglasses that helped distinguish him from his buddies, and with wobbly-eyed delight rushes up to Ash and leaps into his arms. Ash hugs Squirtle, and tells everybody that he "caught" another Pokémon. Misty grumpily points out that he hardly caught it, but Ash happily asks what's the difference, Squirtle is on their side.

Ash got his full starter set!

BEST QUOTES

"Am I the only member of this team who thinks world domination is more important than what's for lunch?"

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