Soul/Revolver-worthy golden age. Having just wrapped production on the show’s fourth season, McCracken says Powerpuff Girls (which expanded last year from cartoon shorts to series-size 22-minute episodes) is aspiring to even greater dramatic heights. "We’ve gotten a lot more in depth with the characters’ emotions," he says. "The superhero element is part of who they are, but their character is really what drives the heroics. "Certainly the episodes have become increasingly high-concept: Planned installments include a Powerpuff-based rock opera and a Roger & Me-style mockumentary. And "art-direction-wise, it’s gotten a lot more subtle. The filmmaking aspect is more prominent," observes director John McIntyre. Good thing, too, since production is under way on a $25 million Powerpuff feature, slated for summer 2002 (and yes, despite recent reports of disharmony at the negotiating table, all of Powerpuffs voice actors will be on board for the big-screen project). If that isn’t enough to certify the Girls’ Beatles-esque domination of their genre, April will see the unveiling of their very own Kellogg’s-manufactured breakfast cereal. All of which makes PPG’s Feb. 9 "Meet the Beat Ails" episode so, well, fab. Mc Cracken, who prominently displays two sets of Beatles action figures in his Burbank office, says, "It’s our non-Powerpuff show, essentially an homage to something that we really, really love. "The cheeky valentine which premieres on the anniversary of the Fab Four’s 1964 Ed Sullivan Show debut follows a year that also marked the 30th anniversary of the band’s dissolution and the 20th anniversary

of John Lennon’s murder. In it, a quartet of the tots’ most reviled archenemies led by evil chimp genius Mojo Jojo form an invincible "supervillain conglomerate" (a.k.a. the Bad Four and the Brutish Invasion) with plans to destroy the 5-year-old heroines and terrorize their beloved city of Townsville. "It just seemed like an obvious transition if [villains] get famous, they should become as famous as the Beatles," says McCracken. It’s a natural fit in more ways than one. Powerpuff Girls typically oozes trippy ‘60s whimsy in its space-age animation and zippy soundtrack, and "Beat Ails" makes for a potent cross-generational sweeps event. "McCracken and his

a fight scene here how would George Martin score that?" Among the scads of allusions in the episode are no brainers like a take on the band's 1969 Abbey Road street-crossing, as well as more cryptic shout-outs as when, during the episode's climactic showdown, a character coos, "Someday monkey will play piano song," which was McCracken's lifelong mishearing of a French line in "Michelle." But it's when Mojo falls under the thrall of a "performance criminal" named Mojo Jojo that "Beat Ails" really takes off. Once smitten (in a scene hilariously lampooning John Lennon and Yoko Ono's legendary art-gallery meeting), the all-white-clad Moko proceeds

writers have done what both audiences need," says music director Jim Venable (who realized the Girls had become a phenom when he saw them pop up as the subject of a question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire). "For kids, they’ve made it full of action, but then they’ve given it this subtle humor that’s really funny for those more sophisticated than a 7-year-old." Ironically, it was the episode’s score that proved the most challenging. "Powerpuff has its own sound," says Venable, "this show was definitely a departure because I had to put all that aside and go, Well, we have

ALL THEY ARE SAYING (1) Girls' take on the landmark Meet the Beatles! cover; (2) director McIntyre, Venable, art director Don Shank, creator McCracken (l-r); (3) Lennon and Ono lounge in their 1969 "bed-in" (4) as spoofed by Jono (center) and the Beat Alls in an early sketch