EP041

Wake Up Snorlax! (Japanese: おきろ！カビゴン！ Wake Up! !) is the 41st episode of the Pokémon anime. It was first broadcast in Japan on April 23, 1998 and in the United States on October 28, 1998.

Synopsis
,, and are heading for another town, with  fast asleep. They run into a hippie, who plays a song on his Poké Flute (which wakes up Pikachu). He then asks them for food, but they don't have any, so they continue on their way. Then the hippie says, "Oh, well. Another free concert." Shortly after, arrives, and are rude toward the hippie when he plays them a song and asks them for food. After they walk away, he mentions that they should learn to respect their elders.

Ash and company reach the town, only to find that there is no food, as there are no ingredients for cooking any food. The of the town gives them food and tells them that the village is unable to get any food because the river has dried up, killing all the produce. So, Ash and his friends head upstream to check it out. They run into thorns, and Misty gets cut by one of them. With the help of Ash's and its, they get through the thorns to find that the flow of the river is being blocked by a , which is very big and weighs close to 1000 pounds.

Ash, Misty, and Brock try to wake Snorlax up. Ash even attempts to capture the Pokémon, but the just bounces right off of Snorlax's belly. Soon after, Team Rocket arrives. Team Rocket tries to steal Snorlax, which Ash and his friends try to help them with, as it will unblock the flow of the river. However, their attempt to steal Snorlax by attaching cables to their hot-air balloon doesn't work, so they decide to try to wake up Snorlax once again. After an alarm clock and a bucket of water prove unsuccessful, they decide to try the approach, and get a Pokémon to kiss Snorlax. Misty tries to have kiss Snorlax (because it is the "most noble" of all their Pokémon), but  releases itself from its Poké Ball and kisses it instead. Team Rocket forces to kiss Snorlax, but even this doesn't wake it up, even though Snorlax seemed to flinch when this happened.

Snorlax then rolls over, revealing a card that tells them that only the beautiful music from a Poké Flute will awaken a Snorlax. They remember the hippie had a Pokémon flute, and run over to him to ask him to wake up Snorlax. However, Ash, Misty, and Brock get into an argument with Team Rocket, and eventually Jessie tries to attack with, but a attack from  sends them "blasting off again".

Ash and his friends take the hippie to the Snorlax. As it turns out, the hippie owns the Snorlax. He wakes Snorlax up with his Poké Flute, but the river is still blocked. The real source of the blockage is more thorns, but the thorns turn out to be Snorlax's favorite snack item. The hungry Pokémon eats all of the thorns, successfully unplugging the river and ultimately saving the town.

After eating enough food, Snorlax goes back to sleep again. Team Rocket soon realizes that they won't be able to steal Snorlax, and then Snorlax rolls over on top of them.

Major events

 * fails to catch a Snorlax.

Humans

 * Jessie
 * James
 * Hippie
 * Jessie
 * James
 * Hippie

Pokémon
Who's That Pokémon?:


 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)
 * (Hippie's, debut)

Trivia

 * This episode has the first occurrence that a main character, in this case, was seen bleeding. The next time this happened was in Ignorance is Blissey, and after in Tears For Fears! where was shown bleeding.  is also shown bleeding in Pokémon Ranger and the Kidnapped Riolu! Part One.
 * This is the first episode where two Pokémon are shown to be kissing each other: both and  kissed  directly on its mouth, but was done to reference Sleeping Beauty and Snow White being awakened by their prince's kiss.

Errors

 * appears not to have a mouth when the Snorlax first wakes up and walks away.
 * The Pokédex says that Snorlax is a Sleepy Pokémon, not a Sleeping Pokémon.

Dub edits

 * When Misty was shocked that there wasn't any bread left in the town, there was originally Japanese text behind her. This background was replaced in the dub.
 * The town was actually a village in the Japanese version.
 * The messages on Snorlax's card originally said "Do not wake up." and "If you need me, please wake me up with a Poké Flute."
 * The amount of food that Snorlax eats in one day was originally 400 kg, which rounds up to about 882 lbs, instead of 900 lbs like in the dub.