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| Season | Pokémon: Indigo League (Season 1) · Christmas, Mewtwo & the road to Indigo arc (EP64–EP73) |
| Episode | Season 1, episode 68 · English episode 68 · Japanese episode 70 · Bulbapedia code EP068 |
| English title | Make Room for Gloom |
| Japanese title | しょくぶつえんのクサイハナ Shokubutsuen no Kusaihana — “Kusaihana of Botanical Garden” |
| First aired (Japan) | 29 October 1998 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 4 October 1999 · Kids’ WB |
| Screenplay | Junki Takegami |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Mezase Pokémon Master (Aim to Be a Pokémon Master) – Rica Matsumoto · Nyarth no Uta (Meowth’s Song) – Meowth |
| English opening | Pokémon Theme – Jason Paige |
| Who’s That Pokémon? | Clefable (US) · Gloom (Japan) |
| Previous episode | The Pi-Kahuna (EP067) |
| Next episode | Lights, Camera, Quack-tion! (EP069) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeFiller
Make Room for Gloom is the 68th episode of Pokémon: Indigo League, the first season of the Pokémon anime, and the 68th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 70, Bulbapedia code EP068). It first aired in Japan on 29 October 1998 and in the United States on 4 October 1999. It falls within the season’s Christmas, Mewtwo & the road to Indigo stretch (EP64–EP73).
Synopsis
It’s a new day in Pallet Town and Ash is sticking strictly to a punishing daily training regimen, oh wait, no he’s still in bed. After another rude awakening from Mimey, Ash finally gets up, his mom asks him to help in the garden but he says he has lots of tough training to do and that he’s heading into the mountains today. Ash gets outside and explains to Brock and Misty that climbing mountains is much easier than doing chores for his mom, she then casually asks them to pick up 300lbs of fertilizer on the way back. They run off into the forest and spot a strange building that looks like a giant greenhouse; turns out its the Xanadu nursery. The group are messing about outside the Nursery when they get approached by someone wielding what appears to be a flamethrower, however it turns out just to be an employee of the nursery called Potter, and he was just watering the plants. The group go inside with Potter and he explains that a lot of Pokemon visit the nursery as their grass type Pokemon love it there, Ash calls out Bulbasaur and it runs off to look at all the flowers. Brock asks Potter about the girl he saw, apparently her name is Florinda.
Ash catches up to Bulbasaur who is busy sniffing all the flowers, unfortunately one of them’ “PokéNip” sends him a bit funny, he continues sniffing stuff until one makes him collapse entirely, Ash is about to smell the plant that made Bulbasaur collapse (why Ash, why?) but Florinda appears and tells him to stop because its Stunstem and it can completely paralyse any human or Pokémon who sniffs it. She instructs her Gloom to bring Bulbasaur into the house, Ash helps Gloom carry Bulbasaur, there Gloom administers an antidote to Bulbasaur and it comes around. Turns out that because Gloom has been tending the stunstem for so long it has built up a resistance and developed an antidote to it, it also turns out that Bulbasaur has developed quite a liking to Gloom. Meanwhile Brock is outside talking to Florinda, whose family have had the Xanadu nursery for generations and now they need her to run it, but she sees herself as a failiure at raising Pokemon as she can’t even get her Gloom to evolve into a Vileplume.
Professor Oak turns up at the nursery and discovers that the Leaf Stone Florinda attempted to use to evolve Gloom is a fake, and that there have been lots of reports of fake evolution stones being sold by someone nearby, the description Florinda gave matched Team Rocket who it turns out are actually in the nursery right now stealing plants. Ash, Misty and Brock run out to confront them. Team Rocket take a moment to ridicule Florinda for not being able to tell it was a fake stone. Ash sends Bulbasaur to tie up Team Rocket with it’s vine whips while Meowth is creating a bomb out of Stunstem, he throws it and stuns the entire group, including Bulbasaur whose Vine whip releases and lets Jessie and James go.
They grab Pikachu and are about to escape, Florinda reluctantly sends Gloom to battle Team Rocket who send out Arbok and Weezing to fight it 2v1. Brock encourages Florinda to keep trying, Florinda remembers some of Glooms attacks and uses double Team, Pikachu bites Jessie and escapes, then Gloom finishes the job with a powerful Solar Beam, sending Team Rocket blasting off into the sunset.
Gloom cures everyone with its antidote, Florinda then thanks Brock for helping her believe in herself, Florinda then unfortunately tells Potter she loves him, Brocks dreams are once more destroyed.
Ash is yet another day closer to the Pokemon League and has still failed to do much training. It’s now two months away.
Major Events
- Arbok’s Toxic. Lecture: Machop.
Trivia
- The English title plays on the sitcom *Make Room for Daddy*; the dub’s "Xanadu" nursery comes from Coleridge.
- The screenplay is by Junki Takegami.
- This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Kanto story.
- The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Gloom in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Clefable in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.
Changes in the English Dub
- Murasame garden sign → “Xanadu Nursery”
- Text added to blank warning signs
- Murasame Gardens become Xanadu Nursery
- Dub ending: Pikachu’s Jukebox — What Kind of Pokémon Are You?
Part of our Pokémon: Indigo League guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.