Some Thoughts Regarding Turbo Teen

I come today not to praise Turbo Teen but rather to question him. Do you remember Turbo Teen? It’s one of those cartoons I loved as a kid and then locked away and nearly forgot. Oh, sure, I would remember bits and dribbles of it from time to time, but I would blank on the name and go back to fondly recalling Mr. T and the T-Force (They had a bulldog! With a mohawk!) instead.

So yeah, Turbo Teen spent a while lost in the swirl of memories that happens to people when they cram their heads too full of pop-culture nerdism. Some people blank on name of the woman who worked with Thundarr the Barbarian (it’s Ariel) and some drop Turbo Teen.

But in thinking back about Turbo Teen, I grow oddly disturbed by it. And I want to explore why. Come with me, won’t you?

Turbo Teen was a kid named Brett Matthews. He was driving along one night in the rain and swerved off the road, right into a secret government lab! Don’t you hate it when that shit happens? I swear, every time I take a wrong turn in the night I’m in a government lab or alien base or your mom’s place. It’s crazy!

Anyway, this kid was then exposed to some ray that merged him with his car. Not in the traditional half-man/half-car sense (Is there a traditional car/man merge? Really?) but instead in the oddest way possible.

When Brett got hot [in terms of temperature, not so much A Very Special Episode where Brett tries to get it on with a chick and then crushes her under his car-self and learns a valuable lesson about STDs (to wit: you can’t get them if you kill the girl early enough)] he turned into his damned car. When exposed to cold he reverted back to human. While a car, mind you, Brett could think, speak, and move by himself. The car couldn’t do these things before. While human, I wonder, could the car control Brett?

Was Brett a lie, at that point? Only truly in control while a car? The car’s spirit, come to life, animating his human body and fooling his friends and loved ones? Oh man, I would’ve watched that version of Turbo Teen. In fact, I think I will assume that’s how it happened from now on. That both halves assume they are always in control, and yet! Kind of a Doctor Jekyll and Mister Goodyear type of thing. Except wacky!

Uhm, but anyway, ignoring the hypothetically accidental Ranma 1/2 rip-off there (the whole hot/cold transformation thing…) and the very purposeful Knight Rider rip-off (theme music, type of car, etc…), how fucked up was this show? Look, when a Transformer transforms from a robot into a truck they are at least both kinda the same thing!

Brett doesn’t turn into another type of mammal! He isn’t Manimal! No, he goes from human to mechanical. And that shit just ain’t right. Look, his hands become tires, right? So if he’s driving along the road and gets a flat that means that someone had slashed open his hand and deflated it!

What does that even mean? I don’t know! I do know, though, that it doesn’t sound good at all.

When he turns into a car to go fight crime… wait what? Let me read that again. He turned into a car to fight crime? So, uhm, why didn’t he fight crime before when he had a car? If all you need to fight crime is a car, then what was the problem? Why isn’t everyone in L.A. a crime fighter if this is the case? I don’t see what turning into a car does for you that simply owning a car doesn’t. Uhm, but I was saying….

When he turns into a car to go fight crime, his friends get in and go with him. They get in him and go with him. They crawl inside what was once his organ cavity and go crusin’ like the Beach Boys.

“All right guys, get in my spleen and we’re off!”

That doesn’t sound right, not at all. I’m sorry.

And then we must consider his head. It became the grill of the car. God forbid he hit anyone. Or they slow down suddenly and WHAM!, his face is caved in. I mean, come the fuck on! How is that right?

Transformers? I had those. Even Optimus Prime, high mucka-muck badass Optimus Prime, made sure his head flipped down and hid in the truck’s cab when he became a vehicle. Never lead with your chin, Turbo Teen! Except you always do.

And hey, we often saw smoke from his exhaust pipe! The first visible cartoon farts on American network TV? I think so.

So yeah, nothing about Turbo Teen was really right, and yet.

And yet.