Wake Up, Snorlax! – Pokémon Season 1, Episode 41

Filler / stand-alone episodeFillerSnorlax debut

Wake Up, Snorlax! is the 41st episode of Pokémon: Indigo League, the first season of the Pokémon anime, and the 41st episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 43, Bulbapedia code EP041). It first aired in Japan on 23 April 1998 and in the United States on 28 October 1998. It falls within the season’s The comeback, Charizard & the Egg stretch (EP39–EP51).

Synopsis · Major Events · Trivia · Dub Changes · All episodes

Synopsis

Ash, Misty and Brock continue along on their journey, bumping into a strange hippy type guy playing a PokéFlute, he plays them a tune and then says “now that you’ve heard my music, you have to give me some food” but they don’t have anything to give him. They continue on to the town, Team Rocket then encounter the same guy, he plays them a tune, but they disrespect him and walk off.

Our starving heroes meanwhile arrive in town to find that there is no food in the whole town, no ones around and all the restaurants are closed due to lack of ingredients. An old man happens upon them and takes them back to his house, and gives them some food, explaining that the river has completely dried up and now they can’t make any produce. He and his family however have reasonable food stores. The old man, who is the towns Mayor takes them to where the river used to flow. Ash and gang vow to try and find out the source of the problem to thank the Mayor for his kindness. They find a load of thorns at the end of the river and start crawling through them, they use their Pokemon to cut through all the thorn bushes. On the other side they find a spring, which is also starting to dry up… and a huge Snorlax, they notice water trickling from behind the Snorlax, it’s blocking the spring and is the source of the problem!

Our heroes begin trying to wake Snorlax up, but to no avail, they then try to move it, but as the heaviest species of Pokemon sometimes weighing over 1000lbs, this is a tall order. Even a PokéBall doesn’t work. While the group racks its brains as to what to do, Team Rocket emerge from the bushes, and Meowth arrives seperately in a hot air Balloon. It seems Team Rocket want to take the Snorlax, in order to help the Town, Ash and Co actually agree to help them. The plan fails when the cables snap on the balloon and Meowth endures a crash landing. Both groups continue to try and wake Snorlax. When traditional methods fail, they decide that maybe Snorlax is like Sleeping Beauty and that the kiss of a Noble Pokemon might just awaken it, this also fails. Meowth dresses up and kisses Snorlax to try and awaken it, Snorlax looks a little bit sick but doesn’t wake up, he turns a little and they find a note underneath it, stating that in the case of an emergency a PokéFlute can be used to awaken Snorlax. Both groups set off to find the old hippy with the flute from the beginning of the episode. Both groups arrive at a similar time and start arguing about who the old guy should accompany, Ash battles Jessie and sends TR packing. The old man reaches Snorlax, reveals he’s actually it’s owner and plays the Flute to wake it up!

Snorlax awakens as planned and after a series of stretches it moves out of the way, walking off into the forest to feed, but the water still doesn’t flow because piles of thorns had grown behind Snorlax and they now block the water flow too. It looks briefly like our heroes have their work cut out, but then Snorlax begins eating ALL of the thorns, clearing the waterway and the river begins to flow once more!

Ash and friends return to town and tell the Mayor who throws a special banquet to celebrate. The old hippy guy’s Snorlax alarm goes off, it seems that he has another Snorlax he needs to wake up and he heads off to do his thing.

Major Events

• Debut: Snorlax. Last episode to supply Pokérap footage
• First main character seen bleeding.

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Snorlax#0143 · EP041

Trivia

• The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Kanto story.

Changes in the English Dub

• Village signs, がーん background redrawn, Snorlax placard → “DO NOT DISTURB”/”IN CASE OF EMERGENCY” (a kanji fragment left)
• Whirlwind misnamed Gust
• Dub ending: the Kanto Pokérap (Monday segment)

Part of our Pokémon: Indigo League guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.