Forest Grumps – Pokémon Season 3, Episode 39

Filler / stand-alone episodeUrsaring debutLast episode before Movie 3

Forest Grumps is the 39th episode of Pokémon: The Johto Journeys, the third season of the Pokémon anime, and the 155th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 157, Bulbapedia code EP155). It first aired in Japan on 6 July 2000 and in the United States on 2 June 2001. It falls within the season’s On the road to Goldenrod stretch (EP148–EP155).

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

Synopsis

After a blistering battle that netted him a Noctowl, Ash and his friends decide to take a break, sending their Pokemon out to play while they get ready for lunch. All of a sudden a net comes out of nowhere and lands over most of their Pokemon. You guessed it, it’s Team Rocket, and as they are trying to escape in their balloon they get shot down by what appears to be a hyperbeam.

Ash, Misty and Brock’s Pokemon are now free, but theres a new problem… a big group of extremely angry Ursaring charge everyone… Ash and co return their Pokemon and start running, Team Rocket are right behind, and the very angry Ursaring right behind them. A while later Ash and friends appear to have lost the Ursaring group… but then Ash and Brock realise that they aren’t accompanied by Misty, but Jessie instead! A similar situation is unfolding on the other side of the forest with Misty finding herself in the company of James and Meowth. A defiant Jessie still proceeds to try and attack Ash with Arbok, he sends Pikachu to battle but before it can begin the Ursaring find them and chase them away. Meanwhile Misty, James and Meowth have been chased by the Ursaring again too. Both groups agree to temporarily work together until they can reach safety.

Jessie is sort of jealous at Brock and Ash’s relentless efforts to find Misty, wondering if James and Meowth care about her that much (they don’t, and aren’t actually that worried). Ash, Brock and Jessie set up camp and Brock cooks for them, Jessie is amazed by how well they eat.

Meanwhile Misty, Meowth and James have stopped for something to eat, Meowth and James share half an old biscuit each and look on in awe as Misty pulls out a giant sandwich; she breaks a bit off for each of them. The three then continue through the forest together and find a cave, Meowth suggests it might be a good idea to spend the night there and they enter the cave only to be quickly chased back out by a group of Ursaring.

Ash, Brock and Jessie have found a safer cave and are settling down for the night, Ash and Pikachu go to sleep in his sleeping bag, Brock hands Jessie a blanket before going to sleep himself and Jessie contemplates what she’s doing with her life; wondering what happened to her dreams. Back in the forest Meowth, Misty and James are still looking for somewhere to stay, when they find a rock platform suspended in the air, they climb down onto it on a rope and when they realise they’re stuck they decide to climb back up, but Meowth accidentally pulls the rope down. It’s too dark to escape in any other way so they decide to spend the night there. James and Meowth plot to steal Misty’s Pokemon but nothing comes of it.

Jessie tries to steal Pikachu in the night but bumps right into an Ursaring and the plan fails, she returns to the cave with Ash and Brock none the wiser. When the sun rises the next day James, Misty and Meowth are chased by some Ursaring, as are Brock, Ash and Jessie…. Brock and Ash use Onix and Cyndaquil to try and battle an isolated Ursaring but a big group of them show up and they too run. Both groups are being chased by two different lots of Ursaring and by pure chance they run right into each other, with the two groups of Ursaring closing in on them they spot a rope bridge, as they start to cross it the Ursaring destroy the bridge, leaving the group clinging onto one side of it over a ravine. The group send all of their Pokemon out to pull the rope bridge up and save the group and after a combined effort from Arbok, Onix, Chikorita, Bulbasaur and Victreebel they find themselves safely back on land.

After a brief period of the two groups celebrating still being alive, Jessie realises that Team Rocket is reunited and the Ursaring are gone, so she remorselessly orders that Team Rocket attack , despite that they just helped each other out. Team Rocket are as usual on the back foot in the battle when an unlikely candidate ends the battle; Togepi uses an attack and sends them blasting off; Misty suspects but can’t prove that Togepi did it, as it could also have been Psyduck.

The friends are glad to be reunited, and they spot a sign stating that the area on the other side of the bridge was infact a place being used for the Ursaring during their mating season, specifically warning people not to go there, as it may quite literally be the last thing they do. Ash and friends are indeed very lucky to have come out of it unscathed.

Major Events

• Ursaring debut
• First use of Earthquake (Togepi’s Metronome)
• Victreebel’s first Vine Whip
• Last episode before M03
• Rock-paper-scissors → “odd finger” in dub

Pokémon making their anime debut

• Ursaring#0217 · EP155

Trivia

• The English title plays on the film Forrest Gump, for the grumpy forced partnership with Team Rocket.
• The screenplay is by Yukiyoshi Ōhashi.
• This is a stand-alone episode: it can be skipped without losing the thread of the Johto story.
• The Who’s That Pokémon? segment features Ursaring in Japan, where it almost always matched the episode, but Noctowl in the US, where 4Kids picked the Pokémon at random.

Changes in the English Dub

• Rock-paper-scissors (with Meowth cheating) becomes “odd finger”.
• Score cues from Pikachu’s Vacation and Mewtwo Strikes Back.
• Pokémon Karaokémon: “All We Wanna Do” (Élan Rivera & Jamily Gray).

Part of our Pokémon: The Johto Journeys guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.