EP046

Attack of the Prehistoric Pokémon (Japanese: ふっかつ！？かせきポケモン！ Resurrection!? Fossil Pokémon!) is the 46th episode of the Pokémon anime. It first aired in Japan on May 28, 1998 and in the United States on February 27, 1999.

Blurb
''Our heroes approach Grampa Canyon, famous for the beautiful scenery of its valley. As they approach, however, they find wave upon wave of people also heading for Grampa Canyon. Carrying backpacks, pickaxes, etc. they are all dressed like explorers. Ash has no idea what is so special about the canyon, but he notices a familiar face among the crowd—that of his rival, Gary. According to Gary, fossils from an extinct Pokémon have been discovered, triggering an ancient Pokémon excavation boom.''

Plot
and are walking in an area called Grampa Canyon when they see a large group of people walking with picks and shovels. appears and explains that he and the group are here for the Fossil Rush, because of a great 'Pokémon Discovery'. Ash resolves to join in, so as to embarrass Gary by finding a Fossil before he does. also appears, ready to, but the group leaves without noticing it.

Ash,, and soon find a large area of the canyon where many people, including Gary, are digging. However, they also stumble across Team Rocket, who reveal (accidentally) their plan to blow up the canyon and steal all the Fossils. As lights the fuse, Ash runs up to Team Rocket, and sends out  in an attempt to put the flame out. Squirtle, and Ash chase the fuse, trying to put it out; Jessie, James, and Meowth (along with  and ) try to stop him. Team Rocket then fall and start rolling, resulting in a ball of people and rolling into Ash, landing right beside the dynamite. As the fuse draws near to the dynamite, Pikachu panics and uses, causing the dynamite to detonate. Ash, Pikachu, Jessie, James, Meowth, Arbok, and Weezing are now trapped in an underground cave, and only Squirtle escapes from the rubble. Hearing the explosion, Misty and Brock run to the pile of rubble and start digging out rock and soil with Squirtle.

In the cave, Ash, Pikachu, Team Rocket, and their Pokémon begin arguing over whose fault it is that they're down there. The group is soon confronted by Fossil Pokémon that they do not recognize. Ash checks his Pokédex, and the Pokémon are revealed to be, , , and. Jessie and James begin to speculate that the explosion must have awakened them from thousands of years of sleep. Regardless, Team Rocket begin to contemplate stealing the Pokémon for, and attempt to catch them by throwing s at the Fossil Pokémon. A Kabutops blocks the balls, and they are rebounded at Meowth. All of the Fossil Pokémon start approaching the group to attack, so Ash sends out his, but it refuses to help. A chase scene ensues, where the Fossil Pokémon are winning the chase. Then, all of a sudden, the Pokémon run away deeper into the cave. Originally confused, the group soon realize why the Pokémon ran off: an swoops in, knocking over Charmeleon. Angry, Charmeleon tries to attack the Aerodactyl, but is knocked out before it gets a chance. Aerodactyl then grabs onto Ash with its claws, and begins to fly towards the surface. Before the flying Pokémon can get too far, Pikachu and Charmeleon jump on board.

Back above ground, Brock's Geodude had finally dug a hole through the rubble. The Aerodactyl flies out of the hole in the ground, dropping Pikachu and Charmeleon on its way out, and perches on a cliff with Ash still in hand. Charmeleon wants to the Aerodactyl as Aerodactyl had earlier annoyed him, but the Aerodactyl just taunts it. The anger this causes Charmeleon seems to make it evolve into. Ash is happy as he thinks that Charmeleon has evolved to rescue him, but then realizes he merely wants to battle Aerodactyl for his own pride and has no thought of rescuing Ash.

Meanwhile, Misty sees and tells it to sing its slumber song to make Aerodactyl fall asleep. Jigglypuff agrees and quite happily sings, of course sending everyone in the canyon to sleep. Aerodactyl, now asleep, falls into the rubble, dropping Ash before falling. However, Charizard manages to stay awake by covering its ears and catches the sleeping Ash before he hits the ground, but falls asleep anyway once landing on the ground. Ash rolls off Charizard, landing next to a Pokémon Egg. Jigglypuff, seeing everyone has fallen asleep, draws markings all over everyone's faces with its marker out of anger. After awakening, Officer Jenny announces that the whole thing was a dream caused by Jigglypuff's song, although Ash knows it wasn't.

As Ash and the gang leave, Ash takes the Egg out of his backpack, revealing that he had found it at the site. This causes the trio to fight playfully about who should get to raise and keep the Egg. Brock takes the Egg and runs away, promising to "take good care of it", with Ash and Misty in tow. Meanwhile, Team Rocket and their Pokémon are still trapped in the cave, with the sleeping Fossil Pokémon only feet away.

Major events

 * 's evolves into, but remains disobedient.
 * Ash finds a Pokémon Egg, and decides to be in charge of taking care of it.

Humans

 * Jessie
 * James
 * Nurse Joy
 * Officer Jenny
 * Gary's cheerleaders
 * Fossil hunters
 * Officer Jenny
 * Gary's cheerleaders
 * Fossil hunters
 * Fossil hunters

Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?:
 * (evolves)
 * (newly evolved; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (debut)
 * (×2; debut)
 * (debut)

Trivia

 * There are two possible references in this episode; Gary Oak's digging clothes are very similar to Indiana Jones's clothes and when Ash is attempting to put out the fuse lit by Team Rocket, they roll into a boulder, similar to .
 * The events of this episode will be recounted in Pokémon Paparazzi, as it turns out that Todd Snap happened to be in the area so he took a picture of the as it was flying off with Ash.
 * This marks the second time that Ash had two Flying types in his party simultaneously. That hadn't happened since Bye Bye Butterfree and won't happen again until Riding the Winds of Change!.
 * Two books are at least partially based on this episode. ' is a standard book in the novelization series; however, there is also ' in the Adventure series.
 * This episode is featured on Volume 3: Charizard from Viz Media's series.
 * A shot of Aerodactyl performing an , which involves pulling its eyelid down and sticking out its tongue at the same time, is still present in the dub, despite similar shots being removed from Clefairy And The Moon Stone and A Ruin with a View.
 * Parts of this episode were reanimated and used for flashback material for The Fires of a Red-Hot Reunion!.

Errors

 * When Gary comments on Ash being a "loser", his eyelid is colored white.
 * When the camera is panning over all of the Pokémon to show their red eyes, Kabuto is depicted with the colors of its claws and shell inverted.
 * Pikachu uses an Electric attack on Kabutops; however, the Kabutops is unaffected as if it were a, despite Kabutops being a Rock/ and weak to electric attacks. This is most likely because during the first season, it is often incorrectly stated that Rock Pokémon are immune to Electric attacks.
 * When Charizard fires its Flamethrower at Aerodactyl, the part of its wings that were previously colored blue are depicted in a yellow color.
 * When Ash rolls onto the Pokémon Egg, all of the patterns on it are colored red, instead of half-red and half-blue.
 * When everyone is piled up upon each other before the dynamite hits, Squirtle's eyes turn red.
 * When Ash commands Squirtle to put out the fuse, the buckle on Ash's belt is missing.
 * Also in the same shot, Ash's gloves are covering his fingers, the red dots on his shoes are gone, and Pikachu appears 1/3 of Ash's size instead of 1/4.

Dub edits

 * PokéRap: Day 1 (Version 2)
 * The sign at the beginning of the episode states the name of the canyon in the Japanese version. In the dub, the sign is a picture of a pick-axe and shovel.
 * Similarly, the stage in Jigglypuff's fantasy originally had Kanji writing on it.
 * Gary originally asked what kind of Pokémon the fossil was rather than whether it was a fossilized brain.
 * Meowth threatening to turn Jessie and James into fossils after emerging from rubble was originally him demanding to know whether they intended to turn him into a fossil.
 * The point where Meowth actually lights the fuse is cut in Kids' WB! version of the dub. Instead, the camera zooms in to Meowth's face so the lighter isn't seen. This scene is uncut on the home video and streaming versions.
 * When digging through the rocks, Misty in the Japanese version says Ash had better not die on her. In the dub, she reminds him that he still owes her a bike.
 * Jessie singing a variation of "Rock-a-bye baby" to the sleeping Aerodactyl was originally them muttering their catchphrase.