Turbo Teen

Turbo-Teen
Genre Cartoon series
Created by Ruby-Spears Productions
Voices of T. K. Carter
Pat Fraley
Pamela Hayden
Michael Mish
Frank Welker
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 13 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Joe Ruby
Ken Spears
Running time 20 mins (excluding commercials)
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run September 9, 1984 – August 31, 1985

Turbo-Teen is an animated series about a teenager with the ability to transform into a sports car. It aired on Saturday morning on the ABC Network for thirteen episodes during the 1984–85 season. The series was once a rerun on the USA Network's now-defunct USA Cartoon Express block.

Plot

Turbo Teen is about a teenager named Brett Matthews who swerves off a road during a thunderstorm and crashes into a secret government laboratory. There, he and his red sports car are accidentally exposed to a molecular beam invented by a scientist named Dr. Chase for a government agent named Cardwell. Man and machine become fused together and as a result, Brett gains the ability to morph into the car when exposed to extreme heat and revert into his human form when exposed to extreme cold. With this new super hero power, Brett and his friends; Patti, (a freelance reporter), mechanic Alex (who calls Brett, "TT"), and Brett's dog Rusty, go on crime-fighting adventures together and solve other mysteries.

A recurring subplot involves Brett, Cardwell, and Dr. Chase's search for a way to return Brett to normal. Also, a recurring villain is the mysterious, unseen "Dark Rider" who drives a monster truck and seeks to capture Brett Matthews in order to find the secret behind his abilities. Dark Rider is voiced by Frank Welker and is similar to how he performs the voice of Dr. Claw in the Inspector Gadget series.

Production

The show was produced by Ruby-Spears Productions. It was broadcast during the growing popularity of the Knight Rider television series and mirrors much of it, even down to very similar sounding theme music. The car that Brett turns into looks like an amalgam of a Third Generation Chevrolet Camaro and its sister car the Pontiac Trans Am; the later model Knight Rider's KITT is based on.

Episodes

Nº Title Original air date
1"Turbo Thieves"
2"Dark Rider"September 8, 1984
3"Mystery of Fantasy Park"September 15, 1984
4"No Show UFO"September 22, 1984
5"Micro-Teen"October 6, 1984
6"The Sinister Souped-Up Seven"October 13, 1984
7"Video Venger"October 20, 1984
Various war machines from an arcade game come to life when Brett and his friends discover the game is a training program for a real planned invasion of Washington D.C.
8"Dark Rider and the Wolves of Doom"October 27, 1984
Dark Rider captures Monique's father Dr. Fabro and his formula that can cause dogs to regress to their primitive state in his latest plan to capture Brett Matthews.
9"The Curse of the Twisted Claw"November 3, 1984
10"Daredevil Run"November 10, 1984
Brett, Alex, and Pattie enter a cross-country race as cover while escorting a girl named Paula to court so that she can testify against a jewel thief called "The Dragon."
11"The Amazon Adventure"November 17, 1984
12"Fright Friday"November 24, 1984
13"The Mystery of Dark Rider"December 1, 1984

Cast

Parodies

External links