Year: 2003

In the Vacuum of Television, aboard the Star Ship Cartoon Cartoon O, Captain Dexter, boy genius, was giving his latest farewell address to his team of toon defenders.

Cow, with a tissue to her nose, sniffled. "Oh, do you really have to go, Cap-i-tan Dexter sir?"

"I'm afraid I must—a boy genius such as myself has many obligations back on Earth."

"But you can't leave now!" cried Otto Osworth. "We are going to take on the Great Orange Empire itself in just a few days!"

"I understand this is a bad time," Dexter said. "But I do not have a choice."

"Aww!" Bubbles sighed.

She and Cow, like the rest of the crew, were either sad that, or like most of the guys, annoyed with Dexter as he prepared to abandon them for the third time.

"Look, you are right to be upset with me," Dexter confessed. "I know I said I would never leave you again. I know it has been a rough two years, losing Lieutenants Mike, and Sheep-"

"Good riddance," Chicken muttered.

"That chick never shut up!" Eddy chimed in.

"And with Sheep, it was always 'Baah' this and 'Baah' that. It's like, 'For Pete's sake, learn ENGLISH!'"

Eddy kicked his feet up on the control panel and folded his hands over his lap. "Hope they turned him into a lamb burger."

"... The Boomerang has already saved many of our allies in the Barbara O sector," Dexter went on, "But we are rapidly losing numbers. A shipment of new recruits is on its way, but I must return home and monitor the progress of Samurai Jack against an black, alien force of evil known as Aku before he takes over the world. Should he be outnumbered, I must prevent him from peril. If we lose him, it is worse than if we lose the war of the universe: We lose home."

"But what if..." Cow paused, gazing to her left and right, then looking back with glistening eyes "...What if you don't come back this time?"

"Do not worry about me," Dexter ordered as he stepped onto the teleportation pad in the back of the ship. "I have a substitute captain ready to take over while I am gone. I will be back shortly after your victory with the Great Orange Empire. Good luck," he declared, thrusting his pointer finger high into the air, "And farewell!"

With those last mighty words, their esteemed Captain faded into the blue as a static silhouette, and with white bolts that bounced off every corner of the ship, the solid image of Dexter faded away before everyone's eyes.

Aside from an odd sniffle or two, and Cow waving her handkerchief, there was a tense moment with everyone staring at the empty teleporter before I. R. Baboon broke the silence. "Eeeh... now what?"

Dexter's computer's voice inside the ship's mainframe broke in with a beep over the intercom. "Now activating substitute Captain."

"Activating?" Courage asked with worry.

The ominous static and white lights of the teleporter reappeared, and everybody turned to the back. On the large blue pad, a sea-green tinted, circular chamber had taken form.

"Ooo..." said Cow, Bubbles, and a few of the guys.

There was a whoosh as the two overlapping doors of the chamber slid apart, releasing a faint white steam into the room. Once cleared, a sharply defined figure was revealed. A large pair of metallic boots, ending at a small box, sat right under a much larger box with a round top and wires jutting from the left and right. On either side as well, two thin, parallel poles were sharply bent at the top and connected to the small box.

From the top box, two great beams of yellow dimmed on, and ever slowly, a pair of gold pupils came to the surface.

With the sight, courage's fur stood on end. "OO-oooo!" he howled as he shuddered in fright.

The metallic creature, chassis painted red and black, stepped out of the chamber, speaking in a deep computer monotone. "Hello, Cartoon Cartoons."

"What is that?"

"My name is Robot Jones," the machine uttered, his eyes flashing in place of lip movement, "And I have been activated to serve you for this mission."

"That's our sub-Captain?"

"It's just a hunk a' junk!" yelled Chicken from his chair.

Robot stuck up his claw with a content smile. "Correction: A sophisticated, experimental hunk of junk."

"Wait a minute," said Johnny, "You can't be the captain—you haven't even reached tenure."

"And besides, you are just a teenager," Weasel added, "What do you know about running a Star ship?"

"Oh, I beg to differ," Double D said, politely raising his hand, then folding his palms over folded knees. "Adolescents can be very competent leaders. Why, history has shown that teenagers were some of the greatest leaders in history: Pharaoh Tutankhamun, for example, was honored-"

"Thank you, Commander D," Robot broke in, "But assistance is really unnecessary."

Double D narrowed his eyes. "...Well..."

"If the tin can is the boss," Eddy, sitting next to him with his arms folded behind his head, remarked, "I'm Goddess of The Milky Way."

Chicken swung his chair around. "Alright," he put his wings to his hips, "Who's second in charge, here?"

A chair on the far left swiveled away from the window, revealing an eager faced, bright eyed Dee Dee. "ME-EEEEEE!" she waved.

Chicken's slapped his face. "Oh... perfect."

Dee Dee folded her hands on her lap and kicked her feet. "I was always here," she giggled. "But Dexter told me to stay 'covert'. But I guess now that he's gone, I can be REAL LOUD!"

Double D swiveled back to the window and propped his chin up in his hands. "And yet," he said, deadpan, "I was made navigator."

"Now, I want you to know I sympathize with the situation," Robot continued. "I understand that it is not easy adjusting to a new Captain. I know that usually in Dexter's absence, you are used to carrying out your missions by yourselves. But my design makes me highly efficient for this task of Captain, and I am all about peace and teamwork. My expectations are clear and simple—all I need is your cooperation, and mine will follow suit."

"Cooperation-smoperation," muttered Buck Tuddrussel under his breath.

A bored Johnny slightly bobbed his head in a nod. "Like that's ever gonna happen."

Three Weeks Later...

"Mmm-mm-mm-mmm, mmm-mm-mmm, mmn—mmm-"

"Bubbles, would you stop humming already!"

The blond Powerpuff girl closed her eyes and folded her arms at Buttercup. "Well, I'm sorry, but humming helps me think."

"What's there to think that hard about? You're coloring!"

"Blue skies, and rainbows, and green frogs," she held up her picture of a frog on a Lilly pad, snatching a fly. "See? His name is Froggy, and it's because of enhanced concentration."

"I call it annoying."

"Sure," Bubbles put down the picture, "But your morning workout videos do not bother anybody-AT FOUR A.M?" she asked at the top of her sweet little voice.

"Hey, that's the golden time!" Buttercup flexed her muscular arm, bringing out her biceps. "See that? Now that's an arm! You can't get that from afternoon exercise."

Bubbles planted herself back down on the floor, belly down, and continued drawing with her eyes closed. "I don't hear anyone else complaining about my humming."

"Well, don't look now, Kahlo, but your doodling on the floor."

"I-" she looked down, and noticed the long, green marker line on the floor by her paper. "Oops."

"Concentration," Buttercup repeated. "Hmph."

Meanwhile, in his swivel chair by the window, Johnny was keeping busy admiring himself in Bubbles little blue, hand held mirror.

"Hey, beautiful," he said, running his fingers across his gelled hairline. "How's about you and me go out for some Golactic Pizza, eh?"

SWIPE!

Suddenly, Johnny's hand was empty and the mirror was gone. "Huh-hey!"

Johnny swiveled his chair facing his neighbor, Eddy,

"Quit hogging the mirror, pops," the little thief smirked, flipping himself over on the swivel chair, upside down and shoving Johnny, by the face, away with his free hand. "It's my turn, anyway."

Johnny frowned, cocking an eyebrow. "Hmm..."

"Mirror, mirror, in my hand," he said to himself gazing up at the tool, "Tell me I ain't somethin' grand."

"Bha-ha-ha-ha!" Johnny laughed. "Priceless!"

Eddy moved the little mirror from in front of his face to scowl up at Johnny. "So, I was thinking," he soon tried again, "You, me, a walk through the stars. What do you say?" Eddy puckered his lips at the mirror.

"Careful, junior. We only got one of those on the ship—you don't wanna stare at it too long and break it."

"Why, you-!" Eddy lunged at Johnny but, but the adult quickly slipped out of his reach. "Come back here and I'll put those black lenses right through your eyes!"

Watching Eddy chase Johnny around the deck, sitting in the fancy, elevated captain's chair in the middle of the deck, the teenage automaton captain had his head propped up in his arm.

"How much longer until we arrive at our destination?" asked Robot.

"We're getting close now," reported Double D. "Just a few more days."

"Great," a lazy Chicken said from his chair. "If I die, it'll still be better than spending another minute on this ship with you-"

Suddenly, a tremendous force brought the ship to a halt, slowly rocking it onto its starboard side, sending everyone except the floating Powerpuffs slipping out of their chairs and rolling to the side of the deck, piling on top of each other.

"Oh!"

"OW!

"ARG!"

"AGH!"

"OW!"

"OWCH!"

"OW!"

"OW!"

"OMPH!" was the collective sound when, at last, Cow topped the crew sandwich.

"What was that?" asked Chicken after worming his head free from the mountain of crew mates.

From a space view, the great white, somewhat rectangular vessel with a pointed front with tinted back windows and double-sized back sat unsteady on its wing. As it began to tip itself back onto its bottom, Bubbles and Buttercup came to the crew's rescue, flying over, picking up them up by one under the arms and setting them back on their feet. Meanwhile, the lights in the ship began to flicker rapidly, slowing until they almost shut off completely.

"We're under attack!" Cow screamed. "MOO-OOOOOOO!"

"Everyone get to your stations!" Robot commanded. "Let's see what we are up against."

Quickly, the toons headed back to their chairs. The lights continued to flicker, but strangely, never completely went out.

But just as they sat down, the ship started to shake.

"Th-i-i-i-i-s-s i-i-i-i-s-s c-r-a-a-a-z-y-y!" Otto screamed.

Without warning, the ship did a sharp, but much less drastic tip into its nose. This time, everyone thought fast and clutched onto the arms and backs of their chairs to keep from slowly slipping off. And nearly as soon as it first occurred, the ship fixed itself level again.

Robot landed hard on his steel rear, jamming his eyes shut before slightly cracking them open again. "What the-?"

Before the captain could even ask, the ship abruptly nosedived again then after a moment, tipped back an equal angle onto its back. Then back onto its nose. The ship bounced back and forth on either end like an extreme low rider.

"Omph! Omph! Omph!" the crew complained as they were smacked back and forth against their chairs, a rap beat momentarily emerging from nowhere in the background.

"You know," Chicken said through the discomfort, "If hydraulics were supposed to be a ship feature, this would be pretty cool..."

"Whoa-Whoa-Wha-"

The ship jutted to the left, then the right. Then left again, then right.

"Whhhooooooooaaaaaaa!"

The Star Ship spun like a top, creating narrow streaks of white around it as it whirled non-stop.

After a torturous twenty seconds of hyper-speed spinning, the ship halted. Everybody still in their chairs was briefly pulled by their shoulders by the momentum of the ship in the opposite direction of the spin, then harshly pushed back.

Robot's pupils rolled in opposite directions around the rim of his eyes.

"Ugggghhh..." I.R. Baboon moaned, having being tossed from his chair—onto his face.

Robot furiously shook his head, his pupils drained to the same yellow as the rest of the eyes. Everyone who had fallen to the floor slowly picked themselves back up on wobbly legs. Even the two Powerpuffs were winded, their hair disheveled and white bubbles and stars popping around their heads. Half of the crew was green in the face.

"Oh, man," Chicken, holding his stomach, said to an equally sick looking Courage, "I'm gonna toss my pork butts..."

Buttercup, nauseous and hot faced, glared at him, "Never... say... pork... or... butt... again"

"What is the meaning of this?" Double D asked. "I can't seem to find the source of these attacks on my radar."

"Duh!" said Eddy, jumping onto the back of Double D's chair by his hat, making him gasp as he cupped his hands over the navigator's neck to get a look at the radar screen. "There's nobody but us out here!"

Double D gasped. "Eddy, could you release my windpipe from your sweaty, questionable hands, please?" the habitually clean navigator asked him softly and kindly.

"No one else?" questioned the robotic captain about the radar. "Impossible..."

And again, the ship trembled.

But this time no one made a sound, and when all settled down, a faint clicking could be made out.

"Wait, do you hear that?" Bubbles asked her team mates with regular hearing abilities.

Weasel put a finger to his chin. "It sounded like it was coming from..." he pointed to the the far end of the wrap-around control panel, near the back, "... Over there!"

There, by the switch box, was a wide chair with a tall back, similar to the captain's chair, but free rolling.

Buttercup flew over, grabbed the top of the chair and swung it around ninety degrees, revealing the profile of a familiar tall girl with blond pigtails, poking the keyboard in the open switch box.

"Dee Dee!" everyone scolded simultaneously.

"Whoops," the ballerina spun around and faced the group, pulled her finger up to her pink face. "Did I do that? He-he-he..." she giggled awkwardly.

Robot shook his head. "Never mind. Let's keep-"

And then out of nowhere, a subtle rumble trembled throughout the ship.

Double D glanced up and down. "What was-?"

Another tremble, this one larger. Bubbles' dropped crayons started to rock back and forth on the floor.

"Whoa," the robot exclaimed.

Those who were standing had to spread their legs and shift their weight back and forth on either foot to keep their balance. Some reached out and grabbed the nearest stationary object.

"Itwasn'tme," Dee Dee quickly assured, throwing up her hands as soon as the motion stopped.

Buttercup and Bubbles flew to the windshield on the far left of the nose and stared out. Bubbles used her super powered vision to see far out into space, while Buttercup gazed downward at the ship and nearly jumped with a sight. "Uh... oh..."

"'Uh oh' what?"

"Captain, I think we got a problem."

Robot hopped out of the chair and dashed over to see for himself. Looking at the nose, it was impossible for Robot and the Powerpuffs to miss the great scorch marks on the eggshell white steel.

"Now that's no fooling," Buttercup remarked.

Others of the crew ran over to the window to see the damage.

Another rumble. This time, it came with a crash. Then an increasingly loud groan of steel.

"That sounded like an engine was hit," Weasel stated.

"I sure hope not, or we'll be stuck out here," said Double D.

From the window, half the crew watched as super fast beams of red light zoomed right towards them. I. R. saw the beams bouncing off of the skin of the ship, some of them looking like they were coming close to the window, and ducked under the window to protect himself.

"They're firing lasers at us!" Bubbles exclaimed.

"I. R. not want to die. I.R. not see Stonehenge—I not even pay off car yet!"

Cow clasped her hooves to her face and frantically looked left and right. "We really are under attack this time!" she cried. "Moo-HMM!"

Dee Dee threw her hand over Cow's mouth, pinching her lips shut. "Shush!" she whispered in her ear. "If they can't hear us, maybe they'll leave us alone."

"Commander Chicken," Robot ordered, "Activate the defenses."

"Uh... you mean the torpedoes, and the lasers, and all that?"

"Yes," Robot replied, as another blow to the ship sent him sliding to the side of his chair, "That would be most helpful right now."

"Umm... yeah... I kind of... was saving to go outside and put them in for when we got to the planet-"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN you were saving them until we got there?" yelled Buttercup in his face, "THERE'S SOMEONE OUT HERE TRYING TO KILL US! What kind of feather brain are you?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" Chicken cried. "I put it off, and then I forgot about 'em! How was I supposed to know we'd get attacked before we even got there—Nothin' like this has ever happened before!" In a rare occurrence, the fowl boy, in his terror, released a loud and clear 'BOCK!'

"That's enough." Tuddrussel stood up, grabbed Chicken and hoisted him out of his seat and in the air, shaking him like one of his yellow, rubber counterparts. "Are you a man or a chicken? Stop being chicken and be a man!"

"But I... I... I AM A CHICKEN!" he cried. "OH... I'm sorry, guys! I doomed us all."

"This is probably all your fault anyway, Buttercup," said Otto, coming to Chicken's defense.

"What?" she turned her head, somewhat surprised that he, the most politely reserved of all of them, would speak now against her, "How is this my fault?"

"If you hadn't have got in a fight with those truckers back at the refueling stop, maybe we wouldn't be writing our wills right now!"

"Oh, please," the back haired Powerpuff rolled her eyes, "Those wusses wouldn't come after us—not after what I did to their faces."

"You bought the last bag of chips, made fun of their mullets, and hocked a loogie at their windows."

"They called me 'scruffy'—you think I'm going to sit back and take that?"

"As if it were a lie..." Chicken managed to comment in his shaken daze.

"Whatever it is that is wrong," chimed in I.R. Baboon, pointing a long, silver finger across the room, "I blame Eddy."

The teen sat up straight in his chair with offense. "What the heck did I do?"

"What didn't you do?" I. R. asked, folding his arms. "With your fail-ed 'scams'."

Eddy gritted his teeth. "Got something to say a little closer, Lieutenant Shiny Cheeks?"

Soon, the air of the ship was overtaken with threats, accusations, and the distinct noise of Cow pacing about the deck, crying and mooing.

Robot raised his claw, prepared several times to intervene into one of the arguments, but when he finally realized it wouldn't do any good, drooped his head and frowned, then took on a look of deep annoyance. With the end of the bickering seeming nowhere in sight, he hooped standing onto the tall captain's chair. "EVERYBODY, PLEASE QUIET!"

Surprised that their monotone captain he had raised his voice, the stunned crew politely obeyed..

"When I became your captain, I expressed to you that I expected peace and cooperation, and that is exactly how we are going to handle this."

The crew glanced back and forth at each other with guilt, and slight apology.

"We are not going to flee. If this thing wants to make itself an enemy, we must approach it, and if need be, we shall return fire."

As the blasts continued to occasionally rattle the ship, Robot pointed to his crew at the control panel.

"Commander Bravo, keep moving forward—slowly."

Johnny took a moment, then nodded. "On it, metal man mini." He grabbed the wheel of the ship, and gingerly tipped it forward. The jets in the back lit back to life with tiny flames, and with a gentle start-up hum, the ship inched forward.

"Lieutenant Weasel, as soon is it comes into range, get us locked on this thing."

"As you say, Captain."

"Commander Chicken, Lieutenants Courage, Baboon, find something around here we can hit them with."

"Find what?" asked I. R.

"Anything. Any sort of lose object we can use as a weapon."

"Uh..." the baboon reached into a suddenly appearing pocket on his shirt, and pulled out a utensil. "... this fork is kinda sharp..."

Robot's eyes curiously rolled to the right as the blubbering bovine came around his chair. He 'bit his lip' as her uniquely intense sobs pounded his sensitive antennae. "And please, for the love of microbites, stop crying, Commander Cow," he asked her kindly, "It is rattling my head components."

"Sowwy, Captain sir," she responded, drying her tears.

Floating at the window, Bubbles and Buttercup gazed into the stars far before the ship. "There it is!" Bubbles exclaimed.

"Where? I just have to see!" Cow suddenly toughed up, pulling out her binoculars and taking the Powerpuffs' place as lookout.

"Lieutenants Buttercup and Bubbles," Robot told the girls, "I need not remind you, but as the super powered team mates, should all go wrong, you are our only defense. Know that your powers are to be used as a last resort."

"Got it."

"Sí, Capitan."

The girls flew over to the back by the hangers on the wall to suit up in case of an emergency outside ship defense.

"Wait, I think there's been a connection," said Weasel at his seat. "The other ship is trying to feed us a transmission!"

Robot anxiously leaned forward in his seat. "Lower the screen!"

On the Captain's command, Dexter's computer, with a hiss, cracked open a long, narrow hatch on the ceiling, and the ship's huge monitor slowly descended. Once lowered, the screen activated, showing nothing but snow and static.

"I can't get a good signal," said Weasel, fiddling with his instrument panel. "They aren't close enough."

"What do they want to talk to us for?" Eddy demanded. "They just attacked us!"

"Captain!" Cow cried from the window, looking out her binoculars. "Unidentified object, straight ahead!" she danced on her toes.

Before much longer, the attacking ship was close enough for everyone to see. And the size was unbelievable. The crew watched in stunned silence as the vessel five times the size of the star ship quietly approached.

As it drew intimidatingly close to the window, Johnny pinched the side of his glasses. "Holy mother of Mamma..."

Baboon, wearing a determined expression, backed away from the windshield with fork in hand like a dart. "Huuh-uhh!" he tossed it forward to the window, where on bounced off the thick, tinted glass without a scratch, and landed on the floor.

Eddy poked his head into the shot with a satisfied smirk. "Nice job, Monkey Moron."

In the captain's chair, Robot sat uneasy, narrowing his eyes. "That ship's tags are untraceable, but the design is so familiar... "

"It's the mother ship!" space-experienced Otto pointed.

"Mother ship?" the robotic captain jumped to the edge in his seat. "Oh, no..."

Chicken swiveled around in his seat to the huge monitor. "What's the—AAH!" he chocked.

The snow on the screen finally cleared, and revealed the image of a pink metal head with small light bulbs on either side, and a red sensor in the middle of the face. "Robot Jones!"

Courage's white eyes ballooned out of his head. "OOOOO!"

"What in Golly G is that?" asked Weasel.

"You are in some great trouble, little Robot," the female robot on the monitor scolded.

"Hey, she kinda bears a funny resemblance to you, don't she, Cap'in," Johnny noted.

"Wait a second-" Chicken whipped his head around, "We're being attacked by the Captain's mommy?"

"Just kill me..." Eddy muttered, slapping his hand over his eyes.

I.R. Baboon scratched his head. "Uh... I.R. confused. I.R. thought mommies were supposed to kiss boo-boos, not cause them."

"So this is where you have been hiding from me," Mrs. Jones nagged, "Your father and I have been worried sick..."

Feeling the weight of guilt and humiliation as his mother unit deployed every possible parental cliché, Robot grimaced and grimaced harder and sank deep into the Captain's chair.

"... you have chores to do, and you are out playing games in space? We have been looking everywhere for you!"

"You left for outer space for nearly a month," Buttercup, in her space attire, asked after she removed her helmet, "Just because you didn't want to do chores?"

Robot shrugged. "It seemed like a smart idea at the time."

Suddenly, Tuddrussel grabbed the arms of his chair and jerked to the right side of his seat, staring hard at the background of the monitor. "... Ay! Is that you, Larry?"

The skinny, sarcastic robot's head emerged on the screen from the bottom. "Yes, it is me, Buck," he unenthusiastically said into the camera.

Otto waved his tiny arm frantically. "Hey, Larry! Long time no see! What are you doing over there?"

"Yes," Robot said worriedly, "That's what I would like to know as well."

"Well, unfortunately," Larry explained, "Since Dexter also understood the concept of time travel, my primary function unofficially been dubbed obsolete."

Larry raised a basket of dirty laundry to the screen.

"Now I am on temporary reassignment with Mrs. Jones."

"Aww, you should be here with us!" Otto complained.

"I do sincerely wish I could," the lean robot assured the child, "But my failure to comply with the rules could result in mortal consequences—and I can't for the life of me get these pudding stains out!" he said, holding up a soiled navy sweater.

Eddy and Johnny couldn't contain their snickers.

Mrs. Jones politely took back the camera focus from Larry 3000. "Enough foolishness, little Robot. It is time to come home."

"But... Moooooom," Robot moaned like a regular teenager, clinging onto the arms of his huge chair, "I'm leading the crew into battle! We are about to take on the Empire!"

"No 'buts,' young man. Say goodbye to your little friends, march yourself up to that pad and teleport yourself onto this ship this instant."

Robot drooped his head and sighed. "Alright." He turned to the gang. "I'm sorry, guys." With the monotone restriction suddenly vanished, he reluctantly pushed himself off of the chair. "I gotta go."

"What? You mean, you're just going to leave? Leave us here in the middle of space?" asked Johnny.

"I have it taken care of," Robot said. "I would not dream of leaving you all marooned. I have initiated the emergency protocol."

As their substitute captain lumbered up to the teleporter in the back, the crew couldn't refrain from making their comments.

"See?" Weasel argued, "This is why we shouldn't got kids running the ship."

"Better his mom than ours," Chicken told Cow.

Johnny leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh. "Ditto."

"So what are we supposed to do now?" Buttercup inquired with folded arms.

"Your replacement Captain has already been contacted," Robot said as he stepped onto the circular pad in the back, "She should be here momentarily."

"She?" everybody asked.

Before they could get an explanation, the blue haze feel, and Robot's body became navy static figure, and vanished inside the teleporter. Almost instantly, a new, different silhouette took form. This one was even shorter, with a round head, coming up to the top with a crescent-shape.

As the image cleared out, the first detail to emerge on the face were a large pair of scowling eyes, pupils as black as night.

Courage jumped into Chicken's arms, and they both screamed. "AAAAAAAGGGHHHH!"

The figure, in a pink one-flower dress and yellow hair and black headband, stepped off the blue pad on little, stubby legs. "Greetings, gentlemen," she calmly said.

"Oh, gosh, not her, not her..." Johnny shielded his eyes.

With his chair facing the front, Otto cautiously peeked over the back. "Who is that?" he asked curiously.

"You will address me as Captain Mandy, and nothing else."

"Sheesh..."

"I'm here to lead this pathetic ship in a new direction," Mandy declared.

From behind her, another character jumped out. "And I get 'ta press sum buttons!" Billy screamed.

"OH! OH! Over here!" Dee Dee waved him over. "I got plenty of them!"

"Yay!" They both cried as Billy threw his arms in the air and scampered over to Dee Dee's side of the ship. Soon, the sounds of their merriment—the warnings of the ship's minor controls malfunctioning—were apparent.

"Well, they seem happy to have found each other," Double D noted.

"Happy nothin'," muttered Eddy, "It's a match made in heaven."

"Hey, you," Mandy pointed to Weasel. "You call this a ship? This place is mess."

Weasel looked to his left and right. "It appears pretty clean in here to me," he reasoned.

"Get a bucket and a mop and start swabbing the deck."

He cocked his eyebrow, then laughed lightly. "Ha-ha-ha, oh, my dear," he rolled his deep, seductive voice, "You must have me mistaken me for another. I am-"

"No backtalk, rodent. I'm you captain, and what I say goes," she stuck up her thumb and pointed behind her. "Now get moving."

For once, Weasel was stuck silent and dumbfounded. "B-But I'm the ambassador of interstellar affair-"

"Now!"

Weasel gulped. "Yes, ma'am!" he saluted, rushing off to the closet in a Scooby-Doo-like start.

Back in his seat, I.R. Baboon looked pleasantly surprised. "Well-hel-hel, look who Mr. Bigshot Weaasel-pants now?"

"And you!" Mandy pointed to him from behind. "Baboon."

"Wha-?" he swiveled around.

"My nails," she held up her hand. "Here. Now."

The monkey grumbled. "Rrrrr...

"And when you're done," she added, "My feet could use a good massage."

"Rrr... " he took a seat at a stool next to Mandy in the captain's chair, and pulled a giant steel file from behind his back. "I.R. never get brake."

"Now, for the rest of you," Mandy announced, "We've got a new plan. Commander D, turn this ship around. We're headed straight for an even bigger threat."

"But we're only five light years from the Great Orange Threat!" Double D informed, poking at his coordinate screen.

"The G.O. Empire isn't our greatest enemy right now."

Weasel peered up from mopping. "What could possibly be a bigger threat then the Great Orange Empire?"

With her bold eyebrows still locked narrow on her eyes, Mandy blinked slowly, then glanced out of the window ahead.

Channels ahead, further than any of them could yet see, a series of small, black planets, slowly zooming out to reveal two large black planets, side by side, and the giant white face of a mouse with pizza-slice eyes. Gigantic billboards reading "Sitcoms Welcome" and neon projections of preteens litter the face of the enormous planet, obstructing a now hardly visible castle on the nose.

And coming from the large planet, two smaller circular satellites jutting from the back of the head by tiny black poles, holding speakers, emit the current theme the planet...

Du-du-du-du, du, du!

The End.

Meh. Ending could've been better. I was going to use a Hillary Duff song at the end to make my point, but it's against the rules of the site, so I used the Disney Channel theme instead—I don't know if it was that clear what it was. =P

Sorry for picking on Sheep, but Weasel-the dude had it coming to him. I actually feel pretty bad for I.R. Baboon in the show, but on order keep the atmosphere right, I had to make him suffer a little, too.

I tried really hard to keep everyone in character, but you can be the judge of how good I did.

I felt I kind of used Chicken more often than I needed to, but some of the lines only sounded right coming from him.

I guess you could call this an exaggerate interpretation of the events following the Cartoon Network Big Pick, 2000. I tried to at least mention every Cartoon Cartoon that existed around this time. And to keep a smaller cast, I chose a maximum of two characters per show for the crew. Naturally, I made Dexter the Captain, since he's the boy genius, and in a way, sort of the father to all the other shows that came after him.

I came up with the idea for this a few months back, watching a rerun of All That with Amanda Bynes taking over as captain on a Star Trek parody skit. (Needless to say, I adored that show when she was on it.)

Fun fact: I have never seen an episode of Star Trek in my life. I've only seen part of the 2009 movie. So... inaccuracies are bound to have littered this.

I'm not a huge fan of cross-overs, but I'm more fold of Cartoon Cartoon cross-overs because of the whole united-universe theme the network has used since Cartoon Cartoon Fridays began being hosted by the cartoons. On the whole, Cartoon Network achieved a more believable feeling to me that the cartoons were all living together in the same universe, all cozy and warm, than other networks, such as Nick and Disney, who CN beat to the punch, and then they failed to copy it with as much ease or success. (That could just be because the original Cartoon Cartoons were all animated by Hanna Barbara, and all the shows shared their writers and animators with one another, but the point is, it worked out for CN nicely.) Writing a short cross-over between the original Cartoon Cartoons seemed fun. It was. =)

I did this also, out of curiosity, to see how many people actually remember these shows in this kind of format. Namely Robot Jones. Now I've got some more explaining to do:

I made Robot the substitute captain for a number of reasons. In the first place, his show wasn't around earlier enough, or long enough, for him to have had a chance at being animated as one of the Cartoon Cartoon Friday's host (neither were the Maxwell Adams cartoons or Codename: Kids Next Door, unfortunately,) so I gotta wonder today what it would have looked like for him to have control over the other cartoons, HAD they kept the awesome Cartoon Cartoons hosting Fridays theme for Friday nights.

Second, in preparation for an upcoming fanfiction series that I've been tossing around in my head for the past few years, I did this as sort of a test to see how popular Robot would be in my style of fanfiction. Now I read Demonic lil Angel's terrific Cartoon Cartoon crossover with Robot staring in it, (if you haven't read it, but you sort of liked this kind of CC cross-over, then you should go check it out, it), and seeing how successful that was gave me the courage to start churning out my own Robot Jones story and actually... you know... get some fanfiction done.

Thanks for reading. Comments and critique always helpful. =D

All characters © Cartoon Network.