The Powerpuff Girls Movie brought Craig McCracken's Townsville trio to theaters in 2002, a leap from their Cartoon Network series to the big screen courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures. The film served as an origin story, explaining how Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup came to be, and its marketing push included theatrical trailers that introduced a new generation of moviegoers to the network's signature style of action and humor. The trailer itself stands as a marker of Cartoon Network's expanding ambitions at the time, extending its television properties into feature-length releases.
This cell preserves a Cartoon Network logo card, the kind of frame that opens or bridges a theatrical trailer to identify the originating network behind the production. Such cards are a staple of trailer reels from this era, functioning as a brand signature rather than a story beat, placed to remind audiences exactly whose universe they are entering before the footage begins. For collectors of Cartoon Network and Powerpuff Girls material, these identifying cells hold appeal as artifacts of the network's broader multimedia push, tying a single movie trailer back to the larger corporate and creative identity it represents.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm release print of The Powerpuff Girls Movie trailer (2002).
Gauge
35mm: four perforations span each frame along both edges, and the strip holds three complete frames plus a sliver of a fourth at the right edge.
Perforations
Four per frame on both the top and bottom edges, evenly spaced, rounded-rectangle, cleanly punched with no visible tearing; the bottom edge sits partly under the sound area.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track appears as a dual (stereo) pair of waveforms between the picture and the lower perforations, with a dashed line above it and a speckled Dolby Digital data block in each gap between the lower perforations.
Edge print
Faint, partly legible lettering sits along the top edge at the upper right, too indistinct to quote; no key numbers or other codes are clearly readable.
Base & colour
Pale blue-cyan tinted base with a neutral-to-warm dye image; no obvious fading or red shift is visible in this capture.
Projection history
No scratches, splices or cue marks are seen at this size; the frames look clean, with only a small dark smudge on the middle frame that is likely a camera reflection.
Picture
Positive image; the three frames run consecutively as one near-identical shot, and the Cartoon Network logo matches the network credit expected on a Powerpuff Girls Movie trailer.
Era check
Consistent with an early-2000s release print: stereo variable-area optical track plus Dolby Digital data blocks on a blue-tinted base fit a 2002 theatrical trailer.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000071071
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
