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| Don't Touch That 'dile
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ワカバタウン！はじまりをつげるかぜのふくまち！
Wakaba Town! The Town Where Winds Telling of a Beginning Blow!
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First broadcast
| Japan
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October 14, 1999
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| United States
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October 14, 2000
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English themes
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Japanese themes
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Credits
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Don't Touch That 'dile (Japanese: ワカバタウン！はじまりをつげるかぜのふくまち！ Wakaba Town! The Town Where Winds Telling of a Beginning Blow!) is the 117th episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on October 14, 1999 and in the United States on October 14, 2000.
Synopsis
Walking through a foggy forest, Ash, Misty and Brock are heading to New Bark Town to register for the Johto League. After being lost, Misty scolds Ash and the two of them get into a small tiff before Brock steps in and breaks up the two. Misty's Togepi then hops out of Misty's arms and Pikachu follows after it to a lake. Seeing a mysterious Pokémon, later revealed to be Suicune, on a formation at the middle of the lake, the three of them become somewhat transfixed upon seeing it. When Suicune noticed them, it runs away. Ash tries to follow it but falls off the edge of the hill that he and the others were standing upon; Pikachu and Togepi soon following after. Becoming alarmed by his disappearance, Misty and Brock follow after Ash soon also trip and fall. Making a small appearance after this event, Jigglypuff walks by and seems to find it fun and slides down the hill as well.
Jessie, James and Meowth are walking out of the same forest, making many references to food to note that they are hungry. They find a Pokémon Lab, where Professor Elm mistakes Jessie as Nurse Joy and tells her to check up on his Totodile. They encounter Professor Elm's Totodile shortly after talking with the professor as the Totodile bites Meowth's tail and sprays water at James' face. Confirming bringing it to the Pokémon Center as she imposes as Nurse Joy, Jessie picks it up and they run out of the lab.
Finally reaching New Bark Town, it's made clear that the trio is tired. Brock reads the sign that the three of them have reached and Ash becomes pumped to soon be entering the Johto League. With all his psyching up at that point, he starts to run off to be going to take on new challengers before Brock grabs him and tells him that he needs to be registering before he does anything of the sort. On the way of walking into New Bark Town, Misty makes a comment about Nurse Joy probably running the Pokémon Center in that area as well. Excited to see Nurse Joy, Brock tells Ash and Misty to be going to the Pokémon Center, but when they reach there, they are met by Nurse Joy's Chansey. Chansey then presses a button after Brock speculates on Chansey not being Nurse Joy and a screen appears. A recording of Nurse Joy plays on the screen and says that she is with Professor Elm and will be back by 2:00. Noting the time on the clock, Misty directs Ash's attention to it where he states that it is 3:30. Brock gets concerned about Nurse Joy and makes a big deal of it to both Ash and Misty before forcing them to find her. However, when the three of them reach the laboratory, they see that there's police surrounding the premises where they see another familiar face, Officer Jenny.
When Brock sees Officer Jenny, he offers to be giving her a bouquet of flowers. However, as usual, Misty pulls him back by his collar and tows him away. Afterward, Ash asks about what's been going on around the area, and that's when he, Brock and Misty rush inside; they see Nurse Joy scolding Professor Elm for being careless. Brock rushes up to her and holds her hands in his flirtatious state but is shoved away by Misty again. Ash and his friends learn about the stolen Totodile and talk about the starters that are offered in both New Bark Town and Pallet Town. Being soon questioned about having met Professor Oak, Professor Elm falls in a long winded rant to Brock about how he was one of Oak's top students and other things that he could be mentioning worth any merit while Misty and Ash focused more on the Cyndaquil that Nurse Joy took from Elm.
After this, one of the police officers brings a plaster mold of Team Rocket's footprints. Using this sample of their footprints, Officer Jenny's Growlithe tracks down Team Rocket and the Totodile. The next scene shows Team Rocket with the Totodile having chomped down on Jessie's hair. While the three of them are making comments about the Totodile, they soon come to a phone booth and plan to be making a call to the boss. Meowth was going to be making the call first, though Jessie smacks him away with the door of the booth and tells him that she 'knows how he operates' and claims that he would be taking all the credit. While the two of them have an argument, James just walks past them and goes to be making the phone call while the two of them are busy fighting with one another.
Officer Jenny and the trio come across Team Rocket after Growlithe had found them. After commenting on who's who at the sight of one another, Team Rocket recites their motto and then makes a comment on how they can't give Totodile back because it won't let go of Jessie's hair. Scolding the three of them, Ash tries to ask them if their conscience bothers them at all. Afterward, Team Rocket attempts to run away, where Ash then sends out his Bulbasaur and tells it to use Vine Whip to trip Team Rocket. Soon after this, a battle ensues between Ash and Team Rocket with Ash retrieving Totodile from Jessie. After getting Totodile, Officer Jenny tells her Growlithe to go in and apprehend the three of them before James sends out his Weezing and tells it to use Sludge on Growlithe. Finishing up the battle and defeating Team Rocket once again, Totodile is returned to Professor Elm by Ash and friends.
Later that day, Nurse Joy registers Ash for the Johto League. Ash and his friends then leave New Bark Town, unaware of Jigglypuff, which follows after them.
Major events
- For a list of all major events in the animated series, please see the history page.
Debuts
Humans
Pokémon debuts
Characters
Humans
Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?: Chikorita (U.S. and international), Fearow (Japan)
Trivia
- OK! replaced The Rivals as the opening.
- Meowth's Party replaced Riding on Lapras as the ending.
- The Japanese title of the episode is a reference to the slogan of New Bark Town.
- The English dub of this episode first aired exactly one year after the original did in Japanese.
- Misty reveals that Ash slept in until four PM in the first episode.
- This episode's dub title is a reference to the old advertising slogan, "don't touch that dial!"
- This is the only time that the first episode of a region aired before the game the region corresponds to was released in Japan: Pokémon Gold and Silver were not released in Japan until more than a month after this episode's first airing. Comparatively, Kanto's first episode was aired more than a year after the release of Pokémon Red and Green, Hoenn and Sinnoh's first episodes were first aired on the day of their corresponding games' release and Unova's first episodes were first aired two weeks after the release of Pokémon Black and White. In the United States, all episodes featuring the debut of a generation have aired shortly before the release of the corresponding games besides Pokémon - I Choose You!, which aired three weeks before the release of Pokémon Red and Blue.
- This is the first episode of the third season, Pokémon: The Johto Journeys.
- This episode is featured on the Volume 16: Totodile copy of Pokémon All-Stars.
- The book Go West, Young Ash is based on this episode.
- When Professor Elm talks to Professor Oak, he mentions an article in a magazine called "National Pokégraphic", which is a reference to the real-life magazine National Geographic.
Errors
- In one scene, when James was going to make a phone call, he did not have any gloves for a second. In the next scene, he had gloves as usual.
- Towards the end, when Ash's Pokémon all attack at once, Bulbasaur uses Razor Leaf, but the sound for Vine Whip can be heard.
- When the plaster cast is made of Team Rocket's footprints, the prints are indents in the plaster, when really they should be protruding from the cast.
- In the scene where all of Ash's Pokémon defeat Team Rocket, Charizard's wings are completely orange. In the next scene, they are back to normal.
- In the European Portuguese dub, when Ash is naming the Kanto starters, he says Charizard instead of Charmander.
Dub edits
- Misty's claim that they may find another Pokémon like the one they saw in the woods was originally her wondering what the Pokémon was.
- Ash asking for a fee was in the dub only.
- Professor Oak's "They always call in the middle of my soap operas" line was originally just him saying "Hello, this is the Oak Laboratory."
- The dub omitted Professor Elm's mention that the starter trio Ash had with him are given out in Pallet Town.
- Ash mentioning Gary Oak was dub added.
- The dub implies that the Trainer that Totodile will receive is female, whereas the Japanese version doesn't state the gender of the Trainer picking up Totodile. Interestingly, later in the anime a female Trainer named Marina is seen with a Totodile she received from Professor Elm.
- Originally, Professor Elm doesn't specify when Totodile's Trainer would show up.
In other languages
Czech
Dutch
Finnish
European French
German
Hebrew
Italian
Polish
Brazil
Portugal
Romanian
Latin America
Spain
Swedish
