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| Season | Pokémon: Battle Frontier (Season 9) · Fennel Valley & the Brave Symbol arc (AG183–AG190) |
| Episode | Season 9, episode 39 · English episode 456 · Japanese episode 460 · Bulbapedia code AG184 |
| English title | Strategy Tomorrow – Comedy Tonight! |
| Japanese title | ペラップとポケモン漫才！ Perappu to Pokemon Manzai! — “Perap and the Pokémon Comedian!” |
| First aired (Japan) | 20 July 2006 · TV Tokyo |
| First aired (US) | 6 January 2007 · Cartoon Network |
| Screenplay | Yukiyoshi Ōhashi |
| Opening / ending (Japan) | Supāto! (Spurt!) – Satoshi (Rica Matsumoto) · Watashi, Makenai! ~Haruka no Tēma~ (I Won’t Lose! ~Haruka’s Theme~) – Haruka (KAORI.) |
| English opening | Battle Frontier – Jason Appleton |
| Previous episode | Aipom and Circumstance! (AG183) |
| Next episode | Duels of the Jungle! (AG185) |
Filler / stand-alone episodeChatot debutsChildren’s hospital
Strategy Tomorrow – Comedy Tonight! is the 39th episode of Pokémon: Battle Frontier, the ninth season of the Pokémon anime, and the 456th episode of the English dub overall (Japanese episode 460, Bulbapedia code AG184). It first aired in Japan on 20 July 2006 and in the United States on 6 January 2007. It falls within the season’s Fennel Valley & the Brave Symbol stretch (EP183–EP190).
The first episode of 2007, shown on Saturday 6 January after the holiday break; the season then ran weekly on Saturdays until 3 March.
Synopsis
Walking toward Fennel Valley, the group hear a voice repeating Pikachu’s name and find a Chatot in a tree, a Pokémon that, as Brock explains, mimics whatever it hears. A girl named Ada runs up asking for help catching it, and once they have, she introduces herself and her partner: they are a comedy duo, the Seesaw Chat-a-Lots, on their way to a Comedy Grand Prix in Johto. Ada performs a routine for the group that ends with a rap about Pikachu, but she has a problem: Chatot keeps escaping from its Poké Ball every afternoon, returning only at night and talking strangely. Team Rocket, imagining Giovanni’s reward for a talking bird, show up disguised as businessmen handing out gift bags fitted with laughing speakers, which explode in Ash’s and May’s faces. They grab Chatot with a mechanical claw, but Swellow’s Aerial Ace breaks its cage and Aipom’s Swift blasts the trio away.
At lunch, Chatot starts repeating phrases about taking temperatures and hating injections, then flies off again. Brock deduces that the phrases come from a hospital, and the group follow Chatot to a children’s hospital, where the young patients welcome it like an old friend. When a nurse arrives to announce that there will be no injections that day, only temperature checks, the group finally understand where Chatot’s strange phrases come from. She explains that Chatot visits every day to cheer the children up, and a girl named Corina says she first met it eating apples in a tree and has been leaving biscuits for it ever since. When Ada says they must leave for the competition, Corina runs off in tears, so the nurse suggests that Ada and Chatot rehearse their act for the children, and everyone agrees to help put on a show.
Brock opens with a Mexican-style song and dance with Corphish that leaves the children bemused, but Pikachu wins laughs by riding Donphan’s Rollout and tumbling off, Max coaxes Corina into tossing treats for Munchlax, and May’s Eevee and Squirtle create sparkles with Shadow Ball and Ice Beam. Ada and Chatot close with their routine and the Pikachu rap. Then laughing bags rain down again and Team Rocket take the stage in colourful suits for an act of their own, which only gets a laugh when James’s spinning Cacnea crashes dizzily to the floor. When the trio seize Chatot once more, Sceptile dodges Dustox’s Tackle and Poison Sting, frees Chatot with Bullet Seed and sends Dustox into the balloon with Leaf Blade, blasting Team Rocket off to the delight of children who have never seen a battle before. Corina gives Ada the biscuits, Chatot echoes her goodbye to make her laugh, and the friends part, Ada for the Comedy Grand Prix and Ash for the Battle Frontier.
Major Events
- A comedy duo’s Chatot slips away every afternoon to visit a children’s hospital
- The group put on a show for the children
- Chatot’s TV-series debut
- The first episode in Japan after the ninth movie
Pokémon making their anime debut
Chatot#0441 · AG184
Trivia
- The English title plays on the Sondheim song "Comedy Tonight": "tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight".
- 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
- Giovanni’s knock-knock joke replaces a game of shiritori
- Chatot’s Eevee impression omitted
- Brock sings “Takeshi’s Paradise”; the dub uses a new piano, bass and maracas version
- An alternate mix of Polka O Dolka
Part of our Pokémon: Battle Frontier guide. Browse every season of the Pokémon anime.