EP207

←	EP206 : The Joy of Water Pokémon

Got Miltank?

EP207

せいぼミルタンク！さばくのひみつ！
Mother Miltank! The Desert's Secret!

First broadcast

Japan	July 19, 2001
United States	August 31, 2002

English themes

Opening	Born to Be a Winner
Ending

Japanese themes

Opening	めざせポケモンマスター (Whiteberry)
Ending	前向きロケット団！

Credits

Additional credits
Animation	Team Ota
Screenplay	冨岡淳広 Atsuhiro Tomioka
Storyboard	福本潔 Kiyoshi Fukumoto
Assistant director	秦義人 Yoshito Hata
Animation director	谷口淳一郎 Jun'ichirō Taniguchi

Screenshots on Filb.de

Got Miltank? (Japanese: せいぼミルタンク！さばくのひみつ！ Mother Miltank! The Desert's Secret!), is the 207th episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on July 19, 2001 and in the United States on August 31, 2002.

Spoiler warning: this article may contain major plot or ending details.

Blurb

The way to Olivine City and Ash's next Gym challenge lies across a desert of sand and rock. Just as Ash and his friends start to cross it, Team Rocket ambushes them and scoops up Pikachu. Cyndaquil is injured in the battle with Team Rocket, which ends when it uses Flamethrower on Weezing's Smokescreen and triggers an explosion that frees Pikachu but knocks Cyndaquil into the depths of the desert. However, local tales say that sick or injured Pokémon that enter the desert will return to their Trainers in great shape, almost as if the desert contains a hidden oasis.

Cyndaquil tries to find its way back, but when it collapses with weariness, other Pokémon come carry it away. After Team Rocket crash lands in the desert, Meowth is spirited away by other Pokémon too! Both injured Pokémon are whisked off to an oasis inside a hollowed-out mountain, where a Miltank heals them both. Team Rocket follows Meowth to the mountain, but they're turned away by a group of Exeggutor guards. Ash and his friends also find their way to the mountain, but use Brock's Onix to burrow past the guards.

Once they get inside, the Pokémon in the oasis spring to its defense. As Meowth explains, this is no place for people—these Pokémon want to be left alone! Team Rocket drops in with their balloon and order Meowth to help steal the Pokémon, but Meowth refuses to battle. Team Rocket's other Pokémon refuse to attack, too! Undeterred, Team Rocket grabs Miltank and overpowers Meowth, but they're soundly beaten by Cyndaquil. Now that Miltank and the other oasis Pokémon realize Ash means no harm, he can reunite with Cyndaquil and peacefully continue on his way.

Plot

Seems the road to Olivine City is a bit longer than expected, as Ash and his friends stare upon a large desert badlands. They start to go and Ash suddenly gets caught in a hole, Pikachu getting caught by a net. Brock and Misty look up, and who shows up? Team Rocket. They say their motto but Brock and Misty just help Ash out. Well... looks like the usual, Ash calls out his Cyndaquil to make short work of this. James sends Weezing and Cyndaquil clings on it, about to use Flamethrower just up close. Weezing shakes Cyndaquil off and Cyndaquil lands on the ground, head first. When it gets up, a swelling grows on its nose, making it a bit weak. Team Rocket poke fun at Cyndaquil for a while and then James tells Weezing to use Sludge, Ash blocking the attack. Ash tells Cyndaquil to use Flamethrower again and after feeling somewhat self-conscious, Cyndaquil does so; however, Weezing uses SmokeScreen at the same time, causing a massive explosion that sends Team Rocket and Cyndaquil blasting off. Afterward, Ash tries to look for Cyndaquil but it seems not to work well. Brock suggests they go to the local Pokémon Center for any clues.

Meanwhile, Cyndaquil wakes up and finds that it's lost and just tries to find a way around. A Sentret spies on it and calls out, a Butterfree and Sandshrew start to spy on Cyndaquil as well. Soon Cyndaquil collapses and then the Butterfree hovers above it. A Dugtrio soon picks Cyndaquil up and starts to carry him off somewhere.

At the Pokémon Center, Joy tells the gang that there's a legend about a sanctuary place for Pokémon in this desert. More likely Cyndaquil is there. Ash heads out, Brock and Misty following; however, Joy didn't tell them where the sanctuary was.

Team Rocket start to complain about the mess they're in until they see Cyndaquil being carried off. The want to get it but Jessie and James don't want to go, so they just throw Meowth down. Meowth lands on his face and gets his nose hurt too, causing another Dugtrio to carry him off with Cyndaquil. Jessie and James try to get out of the balloon and end up falling down. They follow the two Dugtrio.

Ash seems to find nothing much out in the desert, but Pikachu spots a couple of Quagsire up upon a hill. The Pokémon start to walk away from them calmly and the gang takes a hunch and follows them.

Jessie and James see that Cyndaquil and Meowth are taken into a mesa, with a wall of Exeggutor in front of the entrance. The two Pokémon are passed onto an Exeggutor and then they are carried into an oasis inside the mesa. (looks like the one in Mewtwo Lives) The two Pokémon stare around for a while, seeing that other Pokémon are running around enjoying this place. The Exeggutor calls out and a Miltank comes out of a hole in a tree. The Miltank walks up to them, greets them and proceeds to her work. She places a hoof on Cyndaquil's swollen nose and her tail starts to glow along with her hoof and then Cyndaquil, the swell gone in an instant. She then does the same to Meowth and his nose injury goes away as well. Seeing that they aren't coming out, Jessie and James make a run for it to the entrance, but the Exeggutor use Hypnosis and lead them out far away.

The gang finds a mesa, which might be the one. They see Jessie and James walk by, but they just walk by. Brock takes a notice of the Exeggutor in the distance, a direct approach won't work. Brock uses Onix and they dig underground to the mesa.

Jessie and James suddenly slam into a stone monolithic object and snap out of it. Seeing that they are back to their balloon. They soon get angry now that they are in the middle of nowhere, but James suggest they go for a little ride over there.

The gang make it to a tunnel with a river, Brock pointing out they should follow the light. They reach the sanctuary and Ash finds Cyndaquil and calls out to him. Which proves to be a mistake, soon all the Pokémon within the Mesa get angry and groups of Beedrill, Pidgeotto and Krabby surround them. Ash decides the only way is to jump and he does so followed by Pikachu. They get to the surface but the Pokémon in the sanctuary won't let Cyndaquil go to Ash and vice versa. Soon enough Team Rocket interrupts their little dilemma and decide to take the Pokémon in the sanctuary. They send out everything they got and order them to attack but Meowth stops them, saying that he doesn't want any harm to Miltank. This makes all of Team Rocket's Pokémon actually stop and not obey Jessie and James. Finding this useless, Jessie and James call them back and decide to take Miltank by other force. James shoots out a net and captures Miltank. Meowth grabs onto the net as the net climbs and gets up there but Jessie and James restrain Meowth before he could do anything. Ash tells Cyndaquil to use Flamethrower to the max and it does so, only cutting the rope that held the net. Ash quickly sends out Bayleef to use Razor Leaf to cut the net so Miltank can get out, Miltank landing safely in the water. Ash finishes the Team by a jolt of Thunderbolt by Pikachu which sends them flying sky-high.

Ash is glad to see Cyndaquil again and that it's feeling much better. And soon the Pokémon in the sanctuary respect Ash and the gang as they promise they won't tell anyone about the sanctuary. They head out towards Olivine City saying their goodbyes.

Major events

For a list of all major events in the animated series, please see the history page.

Debuts

Characters

Humans

Pocket Monster TV

Pokémon

Who's That Pokémon?

Who's That Pokémon?: Cyndaquil (US and international), Miltank (Japan)

Trivia

Arbok's black outlines are missing

Meowth and Cyndaquil sucking on Miltank's udder

This episode's dub title is a reference to the famous advertising slogan, "Got Milk?"
When battling Team Rocket, Ash's Cyndaquil hits the ground hard and ends up with a big red bump on its nose and Meowth teases it by saying "Look, it's Cyndaquil the red-nosed Pokémon!" Jessie is then shown with a red nose over her actual nose, making a reference to the classic Christmas movie "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer".

Errors

The scenes where Meowth acknowledges that he did hurt his nose, is a direct contradiction to Pokémon Scent-sation! where he points out while breaking the fourth wall, that he never had a nose. This will also occur again later.
When Victreebel comes out of its Poké Ball, its "lips" are colored brown instead of red.
In one scene, the black outlines around the red/yellow "eyes" in Arbok's pattern are missing.
When Jessie steals Pikachu in the opening scene and jump into their ballon, the net they used to capture Pikachu is behind the pole but when the scene changes it appears in front of them.

Dub edits

There are about 45 seconds of this episode which were removed from the English dub. The scene where Meowth talks to Miltank about how Pokémon come to the oasis for healing was heavily cut. In the original Japanese version, Meowth speaks to Miltank about the aforementioned details. Then, Meowth and Ash's Cyndaquil start to suck on Miltank’s udder for nourishment. All references and shots of Meowth and Cyndaquil sucking on Miltank's udder were cut from the English dub, although when Ash enters the cave, Brock refers to the use of Milk Drink, and a teat can be seen in Cyndaquil's mouth for about a second.

In other languages

Language		Title
Mandarin Chinese		聖母大奶罐，沙漠的秘密
Czech		Miltankova oáza
Dutch		Heb je Miltank?
European French		L'oasis
German		Die Pokémon Oase
Hebrew		נווה הפוקימוניםnevé haPokémonim
Hindi		Miltank का सीक्रेट हॉस्पिटल Miltank ka Secret Hospital *
Italian		L'oasi segreta
Polish		Oaza Miltanka
Portuguese	Brazil	A Miltank
Portuguese	Portugal	Têm Miltank?
Spanish	Latin America	¡El oasis secreto!
Spanish	Spain	El Miltank sanador