Turbo Teen (1984)
First episode title: Turbo Thieves
How familiar with the show am I?: I knew it existed from that one gif of the transformation, but I didn't know anything else about it.
This show is insane right from the first seconds of the opening sequence, so let's dive straight in. Brett Matthews tells us "I'm Brett Matthews" and explains his backstory - he was driving his flashy sports car during a storm when a bolt of lightning hit a tree, and when he swerved to avoid it, his car flew off the road into a laboratory that was in the middle of an experiment. Specifically, a "molecular transfer ray" was involved. Whatever kind of effect it was supposed to achieve, what it did was merge Brett with his car, making him capable of transforming between human and car. That's what makes him "Turbo Teen"!
(Going entirely unmentioned in the show's own intro are the other main characters - Brett's girlfriend Pattie, his friend Alex, and his dog Rusty.)
Watching this show, I had a revelation. I finally understand what people mean when they say "so bad it's good". To me it used to mean things you could just easily mock while you were watching them, MST3K-style. But this episode was absolutely insane and objectively poorly-made, and yet I loved every second of it. This is exactly the sort of discovery I was hoping to make with this project, to be honest.
The first scene opens with a shot of a ferocious lizard man stepping off of a spaceship. But in case you were worried you had tuned into the wrong show, don't fret! From off-screen, Alex remarks on how weird the creature is, and it becomes clear that our heroes are simply watching a movie - a drive-in movie, that is, with Brett as the car. In all, Brett's best friend, girlfriend, and pet dog are sitting inside of him. I'll let you mull that over.
Turbo Teen: Talk about weird creatures, Alex. How do you think I feel? It's not easy being a super-turbo-powered car.
Alex: No, but I can't think of a better way to get into a drive-in!
I can think of one - use a normal car, so Brett can sit next to you instead of underneath you? We will discover later in the episode that Pattie has her own car, so it's definitely an option!
The next thing you know, Rusty eats the sausage right out of Alex's hot dog. He jumps out of the car, and Alex jumps over the windscreen to follow him, but slips on the bonnet and spills his drink over the car.
Alex: Uh-oh - ice cubes! Turbo Teen's gonna get cold and change back into Brett!
So apparently, cold temperatures switch him to human and hot temperatures turn him into the car. If you're wondering, this show predates Ranma by almost three years. We see Turbo Teen turn back into Brett (the show is very consistent that "Turbo Teen" is the car and "Brett Matthews" is the boy, although everyone calling him Turbo Teen knows who he is), which results in Patty sitting on Brett's back - I have to wonder what position everything would have ended up in if he'd changed back with all three of them still inside.
Then there's some more "As You Know"-type dialogue, to establish to us that Dr Chase's incredibly advanced secret laboratory is where they're looking for a cure for Brett's condition, and that there's a beach party coming up that Brett and Pattie are planning to go to, all in under 15 seconds. They're quite casually talking about the secret laboratory in public, but then, no-one remarked on a car turning into a boy in public just now either.
They do perfectly time the cut to the aforementioned laboratory, though, where a couple of shady characters have just broken in! They're looking around, thinking that any technology they can steal is likely to be worth a fortune. But then they see a "TOP SECRET" file about Brett that someone has carelessly left lying around, and they conclude that they could make a lot more money if they can capture a human that turns into a car! (Could they? Wouldn't you also want to steal some of the equipment anyway?)
The file also contains Brett's full name and the school he goes to, Hillmont High School. If I was Brett, I'd complain to the lab after this, for doing so badly at protecting personal information!
The next day, while leaving school, Brett and his friends have heard the news about the lab being broken into. Brett wants to investigate because it might have something to do with Turbo Teen - makes sense. Pattie wants to be part of the investigation because she is the editor of the school paper - not sure what kind of qualification that is, and Turbo Teen is all top-secret so I can't think what she would be writing either. And we don't even hear why Alex is qualified, but he's going to come along anyway.
Next, a car approaches alongside them, and its driver is a real prick.
Eddie: Hey-hey, Brett old buddy! Where's your fancy car?
That's an interesting point - Brett owned the car before he merged with it, so people who already knew him might be wondering why they only ever see Brett or his car around but not both, these days.
Anyway, this Eddie fellow, who is accompanied by a nameless friend, proceeds to try and convince Pattie to go with him to the beach party instead of with Brett - sorry, he's "stopping to enquire if you'd like to dump that jerk", which is an astounding turn of phrase - and she brushes him off with a cool "N. O." It turns out cheesy 80s cartoon dialogue is how we should all be speaking from now on.
But the robbers, whose names I haven't cared to pay attention to, are lurking around a nearby corner, and, as the three kids are passing by, they grab Brett! They stuff him into the back of their "ACME MEAT CO." van, because if you're writing a cartoon then why not imitate the classics? This is when Pattie suggests to Alex that they should chase them in her own car, so I suppose she drove to school without using her boyfriend. I wonder if they ever get stuck in a situation where she drives somewhere in Turbo Teen and then doesn't have her car to get back once he's human again?
Kirsch (OK I checked one of their names): We got Turbo Teen! We'll be rich!
Phase 2: ???
Anyway, Pattie and Alex are driving after the baddies, and Alex is annoyed that Pattie won't exceed the speed limit. Luckily, it seems the villains are also making sure they obey the laws of the road, and they stop at the next red light.
Alex, armed with a toolbox, gets out of Pattie's car and climbs onto the roof of the van. Once again, it seems no-one else is seeing these events. He tries to work out what he can do to the van's air conditioner, as Pattie urges him to hurry up, but for once there's a reason to be thankful that the lights are taking so long to change.
Eventually he finds what he needs from his toolbox - a hairdryer! He sets it to hot and hooks it up, and I have no idea if this manoeuvre makes any sense with real life technology. Alex makes it back into Pattie's car just in time.
The heat from the hairdryer gets blown into the van through the air conditioner, and Brett starts to turn into Turbo Teen. As he transforms, I can only describe the noises he makes as "struggling to take a shit". Also, I don't know whether this is just the broadcast I have a copy of, or the episode itself, but at some of these times when he transforms, an indicator appears in the top left to indicate "car" or "not car", which tells you nothing the animation doesn't tell you, so thanks to whoever did that.
The villains realise they can hear a car engine, which shouldn't be so much of a surprise on the road, but I suppose it would be odd that it's right behind them. Turbo Teen bursts out of the back of the van, and somehow they're surprised that "that looks just like Turbo Teen"! What else would it be?!
Turbo Teen makes it to where Pattie and Alex are, as the villains drive back around to try and reach him. The animation makes it slightly confusing to tell where everyone is in relation to each other, though.
Denville (yeah that's what the other bad guy seems to be called): We've gotta stop that boy - uh, I mean car!
Turbo Teen tells his friends to meet him at the mall, and then he does an odd manoeuvre (above) in order to end up in front of the van and blow exhaust fumes at the robbers. Presumably more time then passes than it looks, because Pattie and Alex are now standing outside the mall waiting for Turbo Teen, as he skids into the building to avoid someone and ends up flying through it out of control!
A boy standing outside a toy shop sees the chaos and tells his mother, in an astonishingly babyish voice, that he's no longer interested in his toy car because he wants a real car. Then a woman who's carrying her shopping drops a rake(!) in shock, and Turbo Teen runs over it, getting a puncture - ouch. I wonder if that affects him in Brett form at all? Then he finally crashes to a stop in an ice cream shop. As Brett helpfully tells us all, "Ice cream is cold", and he's covered in it, so he transforms.
Then Alex and Pattie catch up with him:
Alex: Anyone know a doctor who drives a tow truck?
The villains, who have somehow shown up at the mall, decide to retreat for now, as the carnage has put too many eyes on the situation. The onlookers, including an employee of the ice cream shop, are confused by the disappearance of the car - I guess they didn't see the transformation - and the employee wants to know who's paying for all this.
Alex tells everyone to "Be cool, be cool!" which he says again later on, so I'm wondering if it's a catchphrase of his. It unfortunately gives off way too many Black Best Friend vibes. Then he gives the employee Brett's full name and address to send the bill to, which isn't very best friend of him at all!
Now it's later on at the lab, where the kids are talking to... okay, so there's a man in a suit, and an older man in a lab coat. I'm assuming the latter is the aforementioned Dr Chase? It's the guy in the suit who gets all the lines in this scene, though. He explains that the burglars must have the file on Turbo Teen (maybe the scientist isn't talking because he's embarrassed about leaving it lying around!), and that therefore the kidnappers are probably the burglars. He comes up with a plan where Brett should become Turbo Teen and park outside his house tonight, to lure the burglars into a trap. But there's a shady-looking janitor with glasses and a moustache overhearing the plan...
...Who is presumably one of the villains in disguise, yes, but judging by the rest of this episode, it's surprising that this never gets spelled out, to be honest.
So later, at night, Turbo Teen is parked outside, and Pattie and Alex are hiding in the garage, waiting for the signal (Turbo Teen honking his horn):
Pattie: Right, and no matter how late it gets, we gotta stay with it. We need to be just as alert as Turbo Teen if we're gonna catch those thugs!
Turbo Teen: [snores]
Absolutely 100% love that the car has fallen asleep. Some other parts of the episode make it clear that certain flaws of being human, like the need to breathe, are suppressed in car form, but I suppose a human mind needs its rest.
The two guys from the lab are hiding in a bush (pfff) waiting for the robbers, when they see a car approaching. It's... oh no! It's not the bad guys, it's Eddie and his friend! Who are bad guys, but not the bad guys.
They recognise "Brett's car", and decide to make sure Brett can't get to the beach party by vandalising it. Eddie opens it up and quite clearly tears pieces out - ouch again, and hopefully those don't correspond to any major organs. Dr Chase and not-Dr Chase jump out and shout at the vandals, and Eddie and his friend drive off, the lab guys in pursuit in their own car, leaving their posts because they think they're going after the robbers.
In all this time, Turbo Teen hasn't woken up to honk his horn, so Alex and Pattie are unaware that anything has happened. Apparently all the engine noises and shouting they must have heard don't matter if they're expecting a car horn. So no-one is around to see the actual thieves hook up a tow truck to Turbo Teen and drag him off! He wakes up, finally, and honks his horn repeatedly, but is then alarmed to discover he can't start his engine - Alex and Pattie hear the signal and rush out, but it's Rusty the dog who first manages to get in front of the truck and delay the villains.
Alex manages to unhook his friend from the tow truck, but Pattie, for some reason, decides to march right up to the villains and tell them she's going to call the police, instead of actually doing so. As a result, one of them is able to reach out of the truck and grab her, and they drive off with her as a hostage. Great, now we have Damsel in Distress to add to the stereotypes going on here.
Anyway, Alex is telling Turbo Teen to go after the villains, but he can't start his engine, of course. Alex decides it's time to "operate"!
Weirdly, Alex finds that the problem is "jammed wires", and pulls something out of the engine to fix it. It sure looked like Eddie only removed things, though.
The next thing we see is an old house by the sea. Inside, the baddies have Pattie, and they're threatening her into telling them the phone number for Turbo Teen's car phone. Cut to Turbo Teen receiving a call (with Alex and Rusty riding him), and - this is amazing - we've already seen that the radio is where Turbo Teen's voice comes out of, so when he answers the phone, the receiver hovers over to the radio! I suppose we should think of the phone as somewhat like a limb, since it's still connected to the car, but it's one of the stand-out bizarre images of the episode.
The bad guys tell him over the phone that he has to come to "the abandoned mansion at the beach", that place everyone evidently knows, or they'll do something to Pattie - the fact that they can't say anything explicitly violent in a cartoon like this kind of forces them into more horrifying vagueness. Pattie is able to shout to him that it's a trap, but nevertheless Turbo Teen speeds off to save her, as Rusty comically gulps and covers his eyes with his ears.
Some time later, they're approaching the mansion, and, because they know it's a trap, Turbo Teen decides they need to surprise the bad guys somehow. He tells Alex to put on his helmet - stay safe, kids! - before activating his "turbo thrusters" and zooming up a conveniently-placed sloped bit of ground, taking him all the way to the roof of the mansion! They barely have time to react before the roof gives way, and they crash into the room where the robbers and Pattie are, Alex's helmet somehow ending up backwards in the process. Ah, so that's why the show was so deliberate about showing him put it on.
...I wonder if his car had "turbo thrusters" before he merged with it? Maybe those scientist guys did something to upgrade him.
The two villains try to escape up some stairs, declaring that he will never catch them up there, but to their surprise, he drives up the stairs. Wow, this car can do anything! But then one bad guy escapes by sliding down the banister, and the other one swings down on the chandelier. In a stereotypical old falling-apart mansion, it's a surprise it doesn't come crashing down!
Pattie once again tries and fails to stop the burglars:
Pattie: Oh no you don't! [gets grabbed] Let me go!
The villains open a trapdoor with a hidden lever (was that always there, or have they adapted the mansion to work as their base?) and they take her down below ground, while Turbo Teen laments how useless his girlfriend is. But it's not her fault she's a female cartoon character from the 80s! She suffers from "easily captured" syndrome!
Alex points out Turbo Teen can't fit through the trap door, as if the guy who spends half his time as a car can't figure that out, so Turbo Teen speeds through the house's front door almost on his side instead. Much less awkward.
The next we see of the bad guy pair, they're on a speedboat, taking Pattie to a larger boat out at sea. The only way across the water that's available to the heroes is a small rowboat. While we're left to briefly wonder how that's going to work, Pattie is telling the robbers what will happen "when my carfriend gets here". I'm spelling it as one word because, as Brett, he's her boyfriend, so this isn't "friend who is a car", this is "carfriend" like "boyfriend" as in "partner who is a car". It has "everypony" vibes and it's brilliant.
Anyway, sorry for leaving you wondering how Alex and Turbo Teen would use the rowboat. Here's how:
Yes, the car is on the boat, taking up most of it, while Alex does all the work of rowing it, and Rusty is just perched on top of Turbo Teen. As this boat of car is trying to get somewhere, Alex jokes that Turbo Teen needs to go on a diet, just as the boat collapses under the weight. Alex and Rusty can stay at the surface, but Alex reminds us all that "cars can't swim" as Turbo Teen sinks to the bottom... of the freezing cold water, turning him back to Brett!
Brett: It's a lot easier to hold your breath as a car!
Alex makes the odd statement that "I see their boat", even though that's exactly where they were heading and they look to be almost next to it by now. So Alex, Brett, and Rusty make it onto the boat without the bad guys seeing - in fact, one of them is using binoculars to look out of the boat's cabin, saying he can't see the car anywhere, not knowing what has happened. Brett says they need a distraction, and Rusty volunteers himself to help. Good boy!
Rusty gets in position and starts barking, and both robbers abandon the cabin to go and see what's happening, which is of course unnecessary but the plot wouldn't work otherwise. Brett and Alex are able to get in and untie Pattie (oh yeah she got tied up at some point) as Alex tells us to "Be cool" once again. They get out in time to see Rusty knock over a bucket of water, causing the villains to slip and fall. While they're getting up, the kids and the dog all jump off the boat to swim to shore, but the bad guys get on their speedboat from earlier.
Once on the shore, Pattie wants Brett to become Turbo Teen so they can escape, but he's too cold from the water. So they need to warm him up, and for some reason, Alex's first thought is to take off his shirt and trousers and drape them over Brett. It's not enough, so Pattie kisses Brett, who's embarrassed and blushes (even Alex, a character in this show, thinks this reaction is a little ridiculous) - it does the job, and, with a little more straining, Brett transforms again.
Rusty has an odd reaction this time, growling at the transformed Turbo Teen, even though he clearly understands that Brett is Turbo Teen from everything else. Maybe I'm missing something.
By now, as Turbo Teen speeds away with Alex, Pattie, and Rusty, the villains have also reached the shore - but the kids spot them, and in a reversal, start chasing them down! The baddies spot a handy dune buggy and speed off, with Turbo Teen in pursuit.
And guess what's happening further down the beach? Yes, it's that beach party the episode has made sure to repeatedly establish! When Eddie mentioned the party as they left school, it was explicitly a "Saturday night beach party", so unless they went to school on a Saturday, we moved forward a day without me even noticing. Going back and checking the transition from the mall to the lab scene, the one place such a timeskip could have happened, there is a sound effect of birds chirping in the establishing shot, which might have been intended to indicate that it's the morning. Maybe I should be thankful that this is one aspect of the plot that the show hasn't tried to hit me over the head with.
Speaking of Eddie, he's at the party with his nameless friend that he's never seen without. Eddie's bragging about how he messed up Brett's car, but his friend, finally speaking for the first time, points out that it's heading right for them! The dune buggy and Turbo Teen race through the party, splattering everyone with sand.
Turbo Teen then pulls off a confusing manoeuvre here, using his turbo thrusters to jump over the dune buggy (apparently he doesn't actually need a ramp) and herding it onto a pier:
Then he zooms back around and knocks out the part of the pier leading up to the end, trapping the robbers up there! Turbo Teen calls the police, and they come to collect the villains while Brett and his friends join the party (presumably Brett took a dip in the water offscreen). Dr Chase and... oh! The man in the suit has a name! He's "Agent Cauldwell"! Anyway, they're both there now, and Cauldwell tells the police that these two are definitely the men who broke into the lab.
One of the bad guys insists from inside the police car that there was a car that could turn into a boy, and the policemen don't believe him. I'm not even sure what he was hoping to gain from telling them that story, since they don't come off well either way - what, do they want the breaking and entering and theft charges to be escalated to kidnapping?
Now the kids are talking between themselves, and Pattie is excited that she has a great story for the newspaper. Er, what exactly can she write that won't be giving away classified information about Turbo Teen? You can't just claim the robbers decided to kidnap Brett and then Pattie, because they'd have no clear motive at all!
Alex: Hey, Brett, what do you like on your hot dog? Mustard, or unleaded?
Brett: Come on, Alex! Your jokes are bad enough! But it isn't easy being a boy and a car. Hey, Pattie, could you pass me the oil? Er... I mean, the milk?
If you're wondering what kind of party serves milk, that's too bad, the episode has run out of time to give you any answers - everyone laughs as the shot fades out, and we can all happily sit back and think "What the hell did I just watch?"
Update - 31/08/2024
I had another look at this show recently and there was a surprising development. My write-up for the first episode says at one point:
But there's a shady-looking janitor with glasses and a moustache overhearing the plan...
...Who is presumably one of the villains in disguise, yes, but judging by the rest of this episode, it's surprising that this never gets spelled out, to be honest.
The reason it never got spelled out is because that character wasn't one of the villains who's otherwise in this episode! As the series continues, it introduces a main villain called Dark Rider, and it's only in the final episode that the kids find out that Dark Rider had been working as the lab's janitor all along! Well played, terrible 80s cartoon, well played.