It's Mr. Mime Time
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ポケモンサーカスのバリヤード Barrierd from the Pokémon Circus
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First broadcast
Japan
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September 24, 1998
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United States
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September 27, 1999
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English themes
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Japanese themes
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Credits
Animation
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Team Ota
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Screenplay
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園田英樹 Hideki Sonoda
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Storyboard
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井上修 Osamu Inoue
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Assistant director
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井上修 Osamu Inoue
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Animation director
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梶浦紳一郎 Shin'ichirō Kajiura
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Additional credits
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It's Mr. Mime Time (Japanese: ポケモンサーカスのバリヤード Barrierd from the Pokémon Circus) is the 64th episode of the Pokémon animated series. It was first broadcast in Japan on September 24, 1998, and in the United States on September 27, 1999.
Blurb
On their way back to Pallet Town, Ash, Brock and Misty encounter a runaway Mr. Mime. Ash disguises himself as a Mr. Mime in an attempt to lure it back to its trainer. As always, Team Rocket is intent on stealing this rare Pokémon for themselves—will they catch the right one?
Plot
As Ash and his friends near Pallet Town, Ash leaves Delia a message prior to their arrival. As he runs towards home, he suddenly crashes into an invisible wall created by a Mr. Mime, which is now climbing it. Just then, a girl named Stella, who is a circus Ring Master, shows up to try to catch the Mr. Mime. Ash protests that he was going to catch it, but Brock holds him back because he thinks Stella is beautiful. The commotion allows the Mr. Mime to get away.
Stella brings the group to the circus, where she has her Pokémon perform tricks for the show. The star of the show is her own Mr. Mime, but it will no longer perform because of her harsh training methods. Indeed, the group finds it lying around lazily and eating snacks. Brock tells Stella that he will get a Mr. Mime for her. When Ash is confused as to how Brock would catch the Mr. Mime, Brock tells him that someone should dress up as Mr. Mime and perform in the circus with the hopes that Stella's Mr. Mime will see this and get jealous. They hope it will lead to Mr. Mime wanting to perform in the circus once again.
At the same time, Jessie, James, and Meowth arrive at the Team Rocket HQ. Their boss chastises them for the incident at the Viridian Gym, but they hastily apologize and get away. As they sit in their balloon thinking of a way to get rare Pokémon, a flyer for the Pokémon Circus flies by. They pick it up and hatch a new plan.
Brock's plan is revealed to be dressing Ash up as Mr. Mime. Stella pulls out her whip and puts Ash into training before the show, during which he realizes that her training is indeed very harsh, and empathizes with Stella's Mr. Mime. Eventually, the circus show begins and Ash, in the Mr. Mime costume, comes out for the entry parade and waves to the crowd, including his own mother. Suddenly, the lights go off and Team Rocket arrives. After performing their motto, they capture Ash with a net and leave, believing he is a Mr. Mime. Delia enters the ring, confronts Brock and Misty, and asks if Ash was in the Mr. Mime costume. Though they confirm it, she optimistically responds that Ash will be released once Team Rocket realizes that he isn't the Mr. Mime they were after. Delia invites them over to her house in the meantime.
In a wood cabin, Team Rocket sits around a meal and talks about how they are going to present their catch to the boss. Meanwhile, Ash unties and unmasks himself, horrifying and infuriating Team Rocket. He escapes and steals Team Rocket's Meowth balloon, further enraging the trio. Meanwhile, Delia waves Brock, Misty, and Stella goodbye after having lunch. Just as they are leaving, the wild Mr. Mime from before comes knocking on her window. Delia mistakes it for Ash and allows him in for a snack. The real Ash arrives in the Meowth balloon, causing Delia to realize that her visitor was a real Mr. Mime. Delia asks Mr. Mime to help Ash, offering him a big dessert if it does, and it agrees.
Later, Team Rocket bursts out with a rubber tank, trapping the circus employees and Pokémon with nets. Stella and her Mr. Mime try to escape, but Team Rocket turns around and hones in on them. As they are about capture them too, Ash intervenes, ordering Pikachu to use Thunderbolt on the tank, but it has no effect due to Team Rocket's use of rubber. Ash tries to send out Charizard, but it doesn't obey him. Delia tells her Mr. Mime to help, and it builds a wall to block the trio. Stella's Mr. Mime sees this and, when the tank turns around, builds another wall to block them from the other side. The two Mr. Mimes eventually surround Team Rocket with a tower of walls. The trio tries to blow the walls out with their missiles, but end up blasting themselves off again.
Ash and his friends return to his house for dinner, prepared by the wild Mr. Mime, now nicknamed Mimey, who has decided to stay with Delia and become a helping hand around the house. Stella agrees to give up her harsh training. In return, her Mr. Mime forgives her and agrees to perform in the circus again.
Major events
- For a list of all major events in Pokémon the Series: The Beginning, please see the timeline page.
Debuts
Pokémon debuts
TV episode debuts
Characters
Humans
Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?: Jynx (US and international), Mr. Mime (Japan)
Trivia
- Professor Oak's Pokémon Lecture:
- Pokémon senryū summary: Muk, when becoming friends, doesn't stink.
- This episode is followed by Holiday Hi-Jynx and Snow Way Out!.
- This is the second of three episodes (the first being The Battle of the Badge and the third being Showdown at the Po-ké Corral) to feature Mewtwo in scenes that preludes to the first movie.
- This is despite the animated series going on a four-month hiatus as a result of the seizures caused by EP038, and the three Mewtwo episodes subsequently ending up airing after the movie premiere on July 18, 1998.
- Of these three episodes, this is the only one not to have scenes also shown in the movie. However, the shot of Mewtwo shown from the bottom upwards uses the same animation as the scene in the movie's prologue, where Mewtwo is first shown in his armor. Because of this, Mewtwo's appearance in this episode is less cartoonish than the previous episode, and its "chin" is now covered by its armor.
- Music from Mewtwo Strikes Back is played during the episode. This is also the first English dub episode to feature music from that movie's original Japanese soundtrack.
- The Jynx in the Who's That Pokémon? segment displays the species' old color design before the skin color was changed to purple due to the controversy surrounding the issue.
- When the two Mr. Mime are making a tower of mirrors to catch Team Rocket and their tank, Team Rocket says, "That's wall folks." This could be a reference to the catchphrase "That's all folks" from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons.
- This is the first episode to mark the debut of a Pokémon in the main series that has already previously appeared in a Pikachu short.
- The episode's English dub title is a reference to the "Mime Time" segment from Animaniacs.
Errors
- In the scene before Ash and Stella walk out onstage, the blue marking on the front of Togepi's shell is missing.
- When Team Rocket runs out of their cabin, Meowth's tail passes through a wall.
- When Team Rocket is in their tank, their gloves disappear when they are shown talking in the bubbles.
- Just after Pikachu shocks Team Rocket's tank, Jessie says that no Electric attacks will work because the tank is made of rubber. However, in the next scene, it can be clearly seen that the tank is metal.
- In the English dub, the title card displays the name for this episode as It's Mr. Mimie Time, although the title card's voiceover pronounces it as It's Mr. Mime Time.
Togepi's missing blue mark
Jessie and James's missing gloves
Dub edits
- Pikachu's Jukebox: 2.B.A. Master (US DVD box set), What Kind of Pokémon Are You? (Pokémon TV)
- In the dub, Stella thinks Mr. Mime left because she was such a tough trainer. However, in the original, she thinks it left because she spoiled it too much. This loses a bit of character development from the original as she has to realize why it really left.
- The "Brock the Rock" joke was originally a reference to the Japanese proverb "reliable as a big ship". Misty jokes about the "rocks in his head" in the dub, but she just asks if he is okay in the original version.
- Ash originally quotes the first two lines of Team Rocket's Japanese motto when unmasking himself from his Mr. Mime costume. Also, the jokes about how a mime should be acting like they're trapped in a bubble and shouldn't be able to talk were dub-added.
- Delia asks Mimey to help her son in both versions but doesn't bribe him with dessert in the original. Ash's response is also different: he believes Delia is taking over his duties as a Pokémon Trainer in the dub, and believes Mimey is sucking up to Delia in the original.
- James introduces Team Rocket's new mecha in the original using a fast, TV announcer-like voice but in the dub he simply talks normally. Also, he didn't originally reference the fact that Ash stole his balloon.
In other languages