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"THE MASKED MOTORCYCLIST"
Written By: Eve Forward
Produced By: Tom Tataranowicz
Directed By: Tom Tataranowicz
Executive Producer: Rick Ungar
INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY NOTE
"The Masked Motorcyclist" has some similarities to "Test of Friendship," in that they both very clearly teach a lesson, but are still very entertaining. I'd give the edge to the latter. There's so much testosterone in this one that it's not funny, and features some decidedly chauvinistic behavior by the Biker Mice, who aren't usually as bad as they are in this episode. Then again, Charley isn't usually quite so bitchy as she is in this one. Maybe it's that time of the month…
EPISODE SYNOPSIS
Our story opens in a severely run down section of the city of Chicago. Most of the buildings stand boarded up or crumbling into rubble. One would consider it an unsavory neighborhood at best, the sort in which you drive with your doors locked, or avoid altogether for safety's sake. Not many people would deliberately set out to live there. Some have to. Yet those whose homes are in this part of the Windy City get by, searching their own piece of the American dream in these dilapidated buildings.
And it would seem that fate is smiling upon the people there. It's a beautiful, sunny day, for one, making the place seem a little less frightening, and almost cheerful. As the camera pans over the scene, we see a woman hanging clothes on a line between a lamppost and a creaky wooden fence. She whistles and watches a trio of children playing baseball in the street. All is well.
But before the next pitch can be thrown out, a familiar purple limousine pulls up.
No, not yet.
The children watch as Limburger rolls down his window. A small dog barks angrily as he does.
"What a charming example of the urban underclass," the Plutarkian says as he glances at the scene. "Greasepit!"
The goon drives up beside the limo. We can now see that a small squadron of goons sits just behind Limburger's limo. Something nasty is about to happen, that much is for sure, although exactly what is uncertain.
"Yeah, boss?" Greasepit asks. A large bazooka-like object is strapped to his back.
"Set about making it worthy of condemnation, would you please?" Limburger beseeches him.
"Eh?" Greasepit is clearly puzzled.
"DESTROY IT!" the Plutarkian shouts.
"Oh, yeah, yeah! You got it, boss!"
"And by the way, dear boy," Limburger continues slyly, "places like this are often rodent infested--a perfect place to set up 'Operation Mousetrap,' wouldn't you say?"
Greasepit grins and pulls the bazooka off his back.
"Right, boss."
Limburger smiles as his window rolls up.
Immediately, Greasepit and his goons begin wreaking havoc on the area. They blast holes in walls, fire on innocent civilians, and set the place ablaze. The children run down the street, screaming (personally, I think Limburger pulled a pretty dopey move actually showing up at the place. Doesn't he think anyone will link him to the crime when they saw him give the order to demolish the area? Well, nobody seems to, so I guess it's a moot point).
"That's a sure-fire mouse attractor," Greasepit decides as he looks at his flaming handiwork. "Now, for the real bait."
He holds up a small black box.
Meanwhile, at the Last Chance Garage, the Biker Mice are doing something we don't usually associate with them: housecleaning. Vinnie and Modo scrub the floors while Throttle mops. None of them seem to be particularly thrilled about doing it. Charley sits at her workbench, trying to fix a radio/scanner.
"Aw, Charley, do we really gotta do this?" Modo moans.
"Yeah!" Throttle agrees. "They didn't cover floor-scrubbing back in cool school!"
Frustrated, Charley snaps, "You're the ones who spilled the transmission fluid! Besides, I'm busy!"
Suddenly, a voice comes over the scanner.
"Emergency! Emergency!" the dispatcher announces. "Fires and explosions at 15th and J Street!"
Naturally, the Biker Mice have been waiting--probably praying--for a moment like this. After all, it'd be hard for anyone, even Charley, to argue that the three of them should continue cleaning the floors when the city is burning down.
Although not impossible…
"They're playin' our song!" Throttle cries as the three of them run to their waiting bikes. "Let's ride!"
"Oh, no you don't!" Charley shouts. Surprisingly, though, her irritation isn't with them trying to shirk their work--she wants to come along.
"This time, I'm gettin' in on the action! I've got a--"
"Ah ah ah!" Throttle interrupts, pushing his broom into her hands. "Sorry Charley-girl. This is a job for men. Studly men."
"Such as ourselves," Modo agrees.
"Especially me," Vinnie adds (come on, did you expect him to miss an opportunity like that?).
Charley audibly growls as the mice make their way to their bikes. She grips the broom tighter and tighter (given enough time, she probably would've snapped it in two). The woman is very obviously pissed off. So it probably didn't help matters any when Vinnie put a finger under her chin and said, "Hold the fort, babe. We'll be back!"
The mice quickly mount their bikes.
"Let's rock-" Throttle shouts.
"--N' RIDE!" the trio cries, zipping out the door.
Charley watches angrily, then shouts, "Oooh, those mice!"
Soon, the Biker Mice are almost to the scene of the devastation. They find fire trucks within a few hundreds yards of the growing blazes, but a large pit blocks their path, so the fires continue to rage unchecked. Of course, the pit poses no problem for the Biker Mice, who leap over it with no problem. Since there's nothing they can do to get the trucks where they need to be at the moment, our heroes make their way to the heart of the mess alone.
Upon arriving, they pause for a moment and just take in the spectacle (I wouldn't be surprised if it reminded them of the destruction of some of their own cities during the Plutarkian War).
"Whoa!" Modo cries. "Someone sure did a number on this place!"
"Yeah," Throttle agrees, "and I bet that number adds up to one big fat cheese! Limburger!"
Suddenly, the mice hear someone screaming for help.
"Someone's trapped!" Throttle shouts.
Vinnie quickly identifies a nearby building as the source of the cry, and the mice quickly ride inside, trying to find the imperiled person.
What they find instead, however, is a tape player lying on the floor--the black box Greasepit was holding earlier. A looped recording cries, "HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!", the message the mice heard that lured them inside, every few seconds. Modo ends the pretended pleas by stomping on the recorder and crushing it into bits.
"Someone's pullin' our tails!" he growls. "Ain't nobody trapped here!"
Greasepit suddenly appears inside the door to the building, brandishing his bazooka.
"I can fix that, mousies," he says with a smirk.
Before the Biker Mice can react, the goon fires a gooey purple liquid at them. It condenses into a thick, spongy solid that effectively traps the mice on all sides--above, below, and on all sides.
"Can't move!" Vinnie shouts, struggling.
"We're trapped!" Throttle yells.
"Talk about your male bonding!" Modo gripes.
As the mice fight desperately to find a way to free themselves, the flames continue to grow closer and closer…
Greasepit laughs as he watches the mice struggle. They push, pull, and even try to ride their way out of the mess, but not even their bikes' powerful engines and jets can free them.
Greasepit abruptly stops laughing, however, when a bright gold laser nails him in the back. He flies across the room and slams into the opposite wall--then goes right through it.
So who is it that has come to the mice's rescue at the last possible second? Who has saved them from Greasepit's deadly trap? I know! It's "Sailor Moon"'s Tuxedo Mask, in a rare American animation appearance!
Not quite.
The figure rolls in on a sleek black motorcycle. The mice's rescuer is a woman in a skin-tight full body suit, colored dark pink and trimmed in black. Her mirrored faceshield hides her visage from view. Who she is--a mystery. Where she came from--an enigma. One thing for sure, though--she's pretty hot.
"Whoa," Vinnie chuckles appreciatively from the other side of the room. "Light my fire."
The woman picks up Greasepit's bazooka as if it were light as a feather, then rides toward the mice. As she does, a pair of small lasers on the front axle pop out. They make short work of the purple glop ensnaring the mice (curiously, although there is a large amount of it just above the mice, none of it seems to drip down on them). The three of them watch in amazement.
"Thanks, ma'am," Throttle says in a slightly surprised voice. "Great work!"
"Great bike!" Modo compliments.
"Great…outfit," Vinnie stammers. He's clearly very attracted to her. Since this is the case, Vinnie quickly sets about trying to win her heart in his typical style--by trying to impress the Hell out of her.
"So, whaddaya say, doll--wanna watch me stomp some goons?" he asks confidently.
She motions silently toward the door as if to say, "After you."
Vinnie grins.
The Biker Mice--and their sexy new pal--race outside the burning building and regroup.
"Modo! See if you can get those fire trucks in here!" Throttle orders.
This would seem like an insurmountable task, given the size of the pit separating the trucks from the road into the burning block. But the problem is quickly solved when the Masked Motorcyclist--the name the Biker Mice later give to their new pal--tosses Modo Greasepit's bazooka--the one that fires that tough purple gunk.
"No problem!" the gray-furred mouse says, racing off.
He heads for the pit and fires the gunk into it. It quickly hardens enough for the fire trucks to cross the gap, which they promptly do. Modo waves them on.
While Modo brings in help to put an end to the fires, Throttle is being fired on. Greasepit is right on his tail, sending a relentless hail of lasers at the leader of the mice. Throttle dodges every laser with no troubles at all, of course.
Throttle then makes a move to try and evade the goon. He ducks quickly into an alley and uses a fallen fence as a ramp to launch himself into the side street.
"Oh yeah? I can do that, too!" Greasepit shouts, turning into the alley after Throttle. He hits the fence and soars through the air--where he abruptly sees Throttle pushing a dumpster into the very spot where he's about to land. The goon screams, but there's no time to correct his error. He falls right into the receptacle and is immediately buried in garbage.
Throttle peers in and smiles.
"Probably feels right at home."
The mouse closes the lid and kicks the dumpster down the street.
"MOMMA!" Greasepit howls helplessly.
Vinnie and the Masked Motorcyclist are doing their part against the remaining goons. Each one herds a pair of the dune buggy drivers toward an intersection, with none of the bad guys aware of the other group. When all four of them (the bad guys) reach the crossroads, they're unable to stop in time, causing them to slam into each other, utterly destroying their vehicles and putting an end to their threat. The two bikers catch sight of one another before they make the same mistake and leap over the wreckage, high-fiving each other as they do.
"Sweetheart, you are awesome," Vinnie compliments (fans know that Vinnie acknowledging the greatness of anyone other than himself is an event of roughly the same frequency as Presidential elections, only on a less regular basis). "Whoever you are."
Suddenly, the dumpster containing Greasepit rolls between them.
"Waaaaahhhh!" the goon bawls. "I wanna go home!"
He crashes into his goons, sending garbage flying. Vinnie raises his arms to block the airborne trash and laughs, "Whoah! Showed 'em, huh?"
The sound of her engine catches Vinnie's ear. He looks up, and finds that the Masked Motorcyclist is nowhere to be found.
"Doll?" he asks, looking around.
No answer.
"Where'd she go?"
Back at the garage, Charley is mopping up the floor, finishing up the work she had demanded the mice do. She probably figured that it was preferable to do it herself than wait for the three of them to come back. The floor is practically shining. So it probably doesn’t help Charley's foul mood any that the mice track dirt all across her nice clean garage as they roll in.
"Hey, Charley, we're back!" Modo calls out, pulling to a stop.
"Place looks great, babe!" Throttle adds.
"Anymore of that root beer left?" Vinnie inquires.
The mechanic scowls at the tire tracks left on the freshly-mopped floor.
"So, did you save the city again?" she asks sarcastically, leaning against the mop handle.
"Did you doubt?" Throttle replies with a grin.
"Hey, and not only did we save the city--" Modo adds.
"--but we met the single most awesome biker babe in the entire universe!" Vinnie proclaims.
"Whoo-ee," the mechanic retorts unenthusiastically as she returns to her mopping.
"Hey, she looked cool!" Modo says defensively.
"She looked rad!" Vinnie agrees.
They begin singing, "She looked cool and she looked rad" to the tune of "Do Wa Diddy Diddy Dum Diddy Do" (or whatever the song is actually called) until they begin laughing so hard that they collapse on the floor, holding their stomachs.
"Oh, boy," Charley sighs.
She slams her mop down in its bucket so hard that water surges out and splashes the mice. They look at one another and shrug, not sure what to make of their friend's odd behavior.
Of course, their insensitivity couldn't have anything to do with it…
"Greasepit….YOU SCREWED IT UP AGAIN!"
As is usually the case after his goons get whomped by the Biker Mice, Lawrence Limburger is not particularly cheerful (boy, him and Charley, eh?). And, also as usual, Greasepit is on the receiving end of his wrath.
"S-sorry, boss…" the goon says, shaking, as he stands at the foot of Limburger's desk. Pieces of trash still cling to his body.
"Well, I haven't got time to deal with you now," Limburger sighs. "Plutark is in desperate need of raw petroleum products. Now get out!"
Greasepit tries to run away, but can't get his footing thanks to the puddle of grease he's standing in. But no problem! Limburger casually strolls over and boots his goon square in the--where else?--booty. Greasepit flies a few feet, hits the floor, and slides the rest of the way out of Limburger's office on his own drippings until he disappears from view. A crashing sound is heard in the next room.
Limburger sits down at his desk once again and hits a red button. The desk (with Limburger still seated behind it) suddenly drops down into the floor, and lands with a shudder in Karbunkle's lab.
"Karbunkle!" Limburger shouts.
"Yes, your moldiness?" the scientist asks, turning away from a complicated-looking control panel.
"I need oil. Lots of oil." Almost as an afterthought, Limburger adds, "By Thursday."
"Hmmm. The local refinery should have more than enough, your kingly curdledness."
Karbunkle reaches under the control panel and pulls out a small Rolodex. He flips through it for a moment, searching for a particular card. With an "ah ha!", the scientist pulls out the one he was hunting.
"I know just the fellow to help us get it!"
He pushes the card into a remote control box. It activates the Transporter, which immediately begins to glow bright gold (see how simple a Rolodex can make life? He didn't even have to enter the coordinates).
After a moment, the doors part to reveal a figure in old Western cowboy attire. He has hunched shoulders and is missing his right eye.
"Corroder Cody, at your service, pardner," the villain announces in a subdued drawl.
"Corroder Cody has the unique ability to dissolve metal at a touch," Karbunkle explains as the supervillain du jour and Limburger shake hands. "That refinery will be slag!"
While this is good news, Cody's touch has the same effect on the rings Limburger happened to be wearing on the hand he shook with as it does on other metals. The Plutarkian draws it back just in time to watch the gold bands melting off his fingers. Limburger is at first infuriated, and nearly chews Cody out. Just before he does, however, he gets an idea that makes his eyes light up.
"Does this talent of yours work on other metals?" he asks his new employee. "Like….motorcycles?"
"Sure as shootin', pardner," Cody answers. His mouth, we see, is full of rows of shark-like teeth.
"Excellent."
Limburger smiles from ear to ear.
Late that night, Cody pays a visit to the refinery. Behind him is a small army of goons. Greasepit is there, too, driving a gigantic truck-like vehicle with tank treads, a storage tank on the back, and a vacuum attachment on the front (henceforth referred to as "the Oil-Sucker." I just came up with the name so I'd have something a little more interesting to write than "the truck-like vehicle"). All that separates Limburger's men from all the oil their boss needs is one barbed wire fence.
Cody promptly lays his hands on it.
"All right, pardners…."
A bright green glow spreads from the supervillain's hands up and across the fence. Within seconds, a huge hole, big enough to accommodate the monster vehicle Greasepit is driving, appears.
"…let's start spillin' oil!"
Immediately, Cody and Limburger's men race into the refinery. The goons take clubs to the pipes and pound the Hell out of them until they begin spewing oil. Cody helps bring the oil out as well, touching the huge tanks and forming gigantic holes in them, sending forth rivers of petroleum. Once a sizeable puddle has collected, Greasepit drives the Oil Sucker up and drops the vacuum into the mess. It immediately begins slurping up the oil.
After this has gone on a few minutes, a lone security guard chances upon the scene. He grabs his walkie talkie and tries to summon help.
"Mayday! Mayday! Big trouble at refinery station seven!" he shouts.
This doesn't go unnoticed, however. Cody spots him, and takes steps to stop the whistle-blower. He presses a hand to a nearby pipe, which immediately spews forth a large stream of oil. It knocks the guard down, but not before he can scream one final word to anyone who is listening:
"HEEEEEELP!"
Our heroes, meanwhile, are working on their bikes at the garage, apparently readying themselves for their next conflict with Limburger's goons (although Vinnie is fixing up a little something extra on his own). Charley is once again sitting at her worktable, still making adjustments to the radio. The mice's favorite DJ is on the air, running through a set.
"Hey, buddies, this is Sweet Georgie Brown! Now here's Mettalicrash with--"
"HEEEEEELP!"
Modo looks up and remarks curiously, "Ah didn't know they did a Beatles tune!"
"That's no song! That's a distress call!" Charley corrects. "The indicators say it's coming from the refinery! Let's go--"
Before Charley can take more than a single step, however, Modo steps in front of her, blocking her path.
"No dice, Charley-girl," Vinnie tells her. Modo shakes his head no in agreement (that could get confusing).
"This is macho muscle he-man work, remember?" the white-furred mouse continues.
"I notice you left out the part about brains," the mechanic chides.
"Hey, it's for your own good, Charley," Throttle explains from his bike. "You might get hurt."
Modo hops on his hog.
"Hey, maybe that Masked Motorcyclist lady will be there," he says hopefully.
"Oh, yeah," Vinnie coos.
This strikes Charley as a tad hypocritical.
"Hey! If she can do it, why can't I?" she snaps.
The mice laugh.
"Look, Charley, we think you're the best motorcycle mechanic this side of Mars!" Vinnie says, trying to let her down easy. "But the Masked Motorcyclist is really somethin' special! Look, let's face it sweetheart: it takes some mondo motorcycle madness to pull off the stunts she does!"
"I hope your listening to yourself," Charley grumbles. "I'd love to record this."
"Hey, speakin' of recording," Modo interrupts, "you got your camera, Vinnie?"
(Note: the camera is the little extra I mentioned earlier.)
"You bet, bro!" Vinnie answers proudly. "Gotta start chronicling my exploits for posterity!"
He presses a small button on his bike's dash. A small camera, looking very much like a typical 35-mm job, rises up out of the front of the bike and rotates in several directions.
Throttle brings them all back to the matter at hand.
"Enough talk, guys! Let's ride!" he shouts, turning on his helmet's screen. And with a plume of smoke and squealing tires, the Biker Mice do just that, leaving an angry and frustrated Charley behind. She bangs her fist against the table the radio is sitting on.
"What a bunch of wrench-heads!" the mechanic shouts in the closest this series comes to cursing.
The Biker Mice arrive at the refinery shortly, leaping a barbed-wire fence and blasting their way into a building. Inside, they find Greasepit, the goons, and Cody.
"I heard you boys don't have much use for doors," he drawls (and he's absolutely right).
"My, my, my," Modo says. "It looks like the old gang again plus one."
"Ha! I didn't know you could add, bro!" Vinnie laughs.
"Ah might not know everything about math," the gray-furred mouse concedes, "but ah know how to total things!"
He fires a round of lasers at the assembled bad guys, who quickly split up and hide among the refinery's twisted pipelines.
"I think it's time to knock these mangy prairie dogs down to size!" Cody snarls, pressing his hand against a pipe. His corrosive touch eats away through it to the center, causing the pipe to fall. It crashes down on top of Vinnie, knocking him off his bike. The mouse remains concious but finds himself trapped and under serious pressure.
"Feels like Limburger's….sitting on me!" he gripes, trying to push himself up.
A pair of large brown boots appears in front of Vinnie. It's Greasepit, with a bazooka (where does he keep getting these things?) aimed firmly at our hyperactive hero's head.
"Say bye-bye to the rat race, mousie!" he laughs.
Vinnie tries to worm his way free, but with no success. Suddenly, though, the mouse hears the sound of squealing tires nearby. A gasp catches in his throat. He looks up and off to his right, grinning.
"Pretendin' you sees somethin' behind me?" Greasepit chuckles. "You won't catch me fallin' for that old trick!"
The viewer, however, can tell this is no trick, for on top of a large tank is none other than the Masked Motorcyclist (Two mysterious last second saves! I'm starting to think she might be Tuxedo Mask after all!)! She leaps off the top of the tank and slams down on top of Greasepit. He falls to the ground, a tire tread running down his face.
"I gotta get me some health insurance," he moans before passing out.
Vinnie smiles as the Masked Motorcyclist helps push the fallen pipe off his back. She says not a single word as she rides off.
"Hey! Hey, wait!" Vinnie shouts as she rides out of sight. "I wanna thank you!" After she's out of earshot, he turns and declares proudly, "She's crazy for me. I can tell."
Can you say "denial," boys and girls?
The Masked Motorcyclist's work doesn't end with saving Vinnie's tail, however. She spots Modo trying to pull up a fallen pipe (still shooting jets of oil) with his bike and having a difficult time of it. The lady presses a button on the left handlebar. Her headlight flips up, and a large telescoping pole pushes its way out. When it presses against the pipe, just enough oomph is added to right it, sliding it right back into place.
"Whoah, ma'am," Modo remarks as he pulls up nearby, "that's one righteous Hoss you got. I'd sure like to check out your bike sometime!"
But, as she always does, the Masked Motorcyclist rides off without a word.
"What a piece of work," the gray-furred mouse says thoughtfully. With a devilish grin, he adds, "And the driver's not bad, either!"
Throttle, meanwhile, is trying to shake Limburger's goons off his tail (didn't this happen once already in this episode?). He avoids their lasers without too much difficulty, then, in an effort to lose his pursuers, races up a taut line--only to see the Masked Motorcyclist racing down the line straight at him!
Given the lady's apparent skill, though, a crash seems like the least likely thing to happen. And it doesn’t. She leaps her bike right over Throttle and continues down the line, toward the goons. A long, thin pole extends from both sides of the front of her bike, and as she rides into Limburger's thugs, they're knocked down by it. Not bad, eh?
Vinnie and Modo make their way to the Oil Sucker, where Greasepit immediately opens fire on them. His blast misses, flying right over their heads, but the resulting explosion is still powerful enough that the mice can feel it from several yards away.
"That things nastier than a shark with a machine gun!" Vinnie remarks.
Throttle and the Masked Motorcyclist pull up.
"Then we'd better go fishin'," the mice's leader replies.
In one of her rare moments of communication, the Masked Motorcyclist gives the mice a thumbs up, then leads the charge into battle. The Biker Mice ride after her, and soon, the four of them have the Oil Sucker surrounded.
"You're messin' with the baddest mamajammers from Mars, you metal meat-head!" Vinnie shouts.
"Yeah!" Modo agrees, firing a blast from his arm cannon. "What he said!"
The sucker vehicle is thrown around wildly by the mice's (and the Masked Motorcyclist's) attack. Greasepit and Corroder Cody are tossed all through the cab, making steering extremely difficult (as it usually is when you've got someone sitting on top of you).
"Quit horsin' around, grease-pad!" Cody shouts, smacking the goon. "Ventilate those dang varmints!"
Cody begins frantically pushing buttons on the dash, trying to fire on the mice. Unfortunately, his acidic touch melts these implements before he can activate the guns!
"Keep your hands offa the controls!" Greasepit shouts (keeping a tight hold on the steering wheel, lest Cody's hands should melt it, too). The two of them quickly begin arguing, allowing Throttle a perfect opportunity to get to a nearby crane. He leaps off his bike and into the cab, then takes off his helmet and assumes the controls.
"Trollin' for the big one!" he shouts.
The Masked Motorcyclist figures out what Throttle means to do and grabs the crane's hook, which she pulls behind her as she, Vinnie, and Modo race toward the Oil Sucker.
"Let's make this look good, bro!" Vinnie hisses to Modo. "Come on, I got a babe to impress!"
Modo shakes his head as the two of them head straight for Greasepit's vehicle, never slowing down.
"They're gonna ram us!" the goon screams.
He slams his hand down on a lever, and suddenly, a set of jets propels the huge vehicle upwards and out of harm's (read: the mice's) way. Vinnie and Modo circle around below in its shadow.
"Chicken!" Modo shouts, clucking for effect.
The Masked Motorcyclist catches up to them, swinging the hook on its rope.
"Cast away, doll!" Vinnie cries.
And she does just that. The hook flies through the air and catches on the oil Sucker's front bumper, where it looks around and catches itself in a sort of slipknot. The Sucker tries to go higher, but can't.
Throttle, in the crane's cab, is jerked around when the rope connecting it to the other vehicle pulls taught, but stays in control.
"Whoo! We hooked a live one! Let's get reel!" he shouts.
The crane begins swinging around, jerking the Oil Sucker in loops and circles as it does. Cody and Greasepit once again find themselves out of control, flopping around the cab.
"Get us out of here, you idjut!" Cody shouts.
"We're too heavy!" Greasepit replies, pulling on a switch. "I gotta dump the load!"
Instantly, oil begins shooting out of the sucker as if it was coming up out of the ground through a derrick. The mice watch from below, Vinnie waving his helmet as if they really had just struck black gold.
"Thar she blows!" he cries.
Inside the cab, Greasepit is still trying to find a way to make a quick escape.
"Where's that rocket lever?" the goon shouts.
"This it, pard?" Cody asks, pushing a button. Of course, the second he does, it turns to slag.
"Stop touchin' things!" Greasepit chides, pulling a lever on his left. "We gotta get out of here!"
As soon as he pulls the lever, the Sucker's jets flare up even more. It begins to pull up, and eventually the strain is so great that it tears the arm off the crane. The Biker Mice watch it take off from below, with Throttle having just joined them.
"Man!" Modo shouts as he watches the vehicle fly away. "Charley'll never believe us about the one that got away!"
"Speakin' of which," Throttle adds, "where's that Masked Motorcyclist?"
Vinnie looks around from left to right.
"Aw, man! She split again!" he shouts, disappointed. After a moment, the mouse adds with a sigh, "Maybe I'm just too cool and too handsome and…stuff….Makes her nervous." But one gets the impression from his tone that perhaps the situation is exactly the reverse.
Throttle laughs.
"Yeah. Or maybe it's just your incredible humility."
"Could be, you know. Could be."
"Boy's got an ego bigger than Limburger's rear end," Modo mumbles.
Vinnie puts on his helmet and pats the camera on his bike.
"But at least I had this thing runnin'. Let's go strike some prints of my new princess."
When the Biker Mice return to the Last Chance, they find Charley waiting on them, sitting at the table with hot dogs and root beer spread out all around for the victorious heroes.
"About time!" the mechanic snaps. "I have other things to do, you know! And besides--"
Not that the mice notice any of this.
"Oh yeah," Vinnie says as he removes his helmet. "What a night."
"What a fight!" Modo agrees.
"What a doll!" Vinnie sighs.
"What a bike!" Modo cries.
"What a bunch of--" Charley sneers. She assumes a cheerful yet acidic voice and asks, "So, I suppose Miss Wonderful was there again tonight?"
Vinnie sits down next to the mechanic and coos dreamily, "Was she ever."
"Yep!" Modo agrees as he joins them at the table. "That lady can cook, all right!"
Throttle sits and picks up a hot dog.
"But you know, one thing makes me curious. How does the Masked Motorcyclist always know--"
He takes a bite, then spits it out immediately.
"Hey!" he shouts. "These dogs are cold!"
"Well excuuuuuuuuse me!" Charley shouts. She gets directly in Throttle's face, her own reflected in his mirrorshades. "Maybe you should get your hot bimbette buddy to warm 'em up!"
Charley storms off, leaving the stunned Biker Mice speechless, save for Modo's "holy moley." It's safe to say that they've never seen their human pal this enraged over anything, let alone cold hot dogs.
"Somethin' we said?" Vinnie asks, puzzled.
"Failure again," Limburger sighs sadly, looking out one of his tower's windows. "If I don't obtain a vast quantity of oil soon, the High Chairmen will render it from my hide!"
But no matter how worried Limburger is worried about his future, he's nothing next to Greasepit, who is shaking with fear behind him. He's not just dripping grease--he's shooting it from every pore. A large puddle of it has collected around his feet.
"I must find another source of oil," the Plutarkian mumbles, turning around.
"Duh, you mean like an oil field, boss?" Greasepit suggests nervously.
For a moment, Limburger looks as if he's about to chew Greasepit out for even suggesting such an inane idea. Then, slowly, he begins to think.
"Oil….hmmm….crude oil…."
He snaps his fingers.
"I've got it!" Limburger declares proudly. "An oil field! I'll go straight to the source! Yes! Truly, I am a genius."
The fish continues complimenting himself on his genius for a few more moments, then turns on the Vid-Com display on his desk. Karbunkle's face appears in it immediately.
"You bellowed, your malodoresness?" the scientist hisses.
"I'd like an oil-field, Karbunkle. All of it."
"No problem, oh rinded one!"
Karbunkle steps back from the screen. Behind him, we can see Corroder Cody polishing an antique-looking car covered from tip to tail in rust. Mounted on the front, in the best over-the-top old west style, is a cow skull.
"As a matter of fact, I have just this moment imported Corroder Cody's Rustmobile!"
Cody reaches in behind the windshield to polish the dash, and as he does, accidentally hits the horn. A pair of bright green lasers, surrounded by smoke, shoot out of the cow skull and slam right into the control panel Karbunkle is standing beside. It immediately turns into a silver-colored puddle.
"Oops! Sorry about that!" Cody apologizes.
Karbunkle shoots him a dirty look, then continues.
"It should enable us to destroy every derrick in an oil-field, creating a huge spill for you to suck up and ship to Plutark!"
"Excellent!" Limburger cries. "And when those blasted Biker Mice and their cycle sidekick barge in again--"
Cody whips a pistol from his hip and fires it at a file cabinet (although frankly, it seemed to be a pretty non-threatening file cabinet, definitely not justifying the use of deadly force). The second the gun's laser hits it, it, like the control panel before it, melts.
"--them hombres will see how much fun those pretty bikes are when they're nothin' but piles of slag!" Cody screams.
Geez, if that happens, they'd have to rename the series. No bikes, so I guess it would just be "Mice from Mars." I dunno. Seems to lose some of its "zing" somehow.
Everyone laughs in an evil fashion as a green cloud fills the screen, replaced by the sight of the melted cabinet dripping down across it.
That evening, Corroder Cody, driving the Rustmobile, and Greasepit and Karbunkle, driving the Oil Sucker, arrive at the aforementioned oil field. The skull on Cody's vehicle casts an sinister shadow on a nearby oil tank.
"Yeehaw! he cries happily. "Just look at all that black gold! Texas Tea! Oil, that is!"
"Yes, oil for Plutark," Karbunkle agrees, "and cash for our wallets. Let's get to work."
Cody takes off across the field, shooting greenish blasts from the cow skull mounted on his car at just about anything and everything that enters his line of sight. Soon, gigantic towers are reduced to little more than small piles of slag. He enjoys the Hell out of himself, whooping and shouting gleefully every time another piece of machinery goes down.
"Ride 'em, Cody!" he shouts as the Oil Sucker begins--what else?--sucking up the pool beneath the Rustmobile. "Rust in pieces!"
As he continues chortling, an alarm goes off at the oil field's office.
By this point, Vinnie is so thoroughly enraptured by the Masked Motorcyclist it's not funny. Whether it's her skill level as a biker, her wild, unafraid personality, or the skin-tight catsuit, Vinnie has become completely and totally smitten with her. The fact that she won't talk to him probably makes her even more enchanting. In fact, Vinnie has already hit the most annoying stage of a crush: being so engrossed in the person you're interested in that they're all you can think about (and all your friends hear about). In fact, as Limburger's goons are tearing up the oil field, Vinnie happens to be staring at one of the pictures he snapped of the Masked Motorcyclist and mooning over her.
"That Masked Motorcyclist is one mean motorcycle mamajammer," he coos, laughing. "Heck, she's almost as cool as me."
He pauses.
"Almost."
Coming from Vinnie, that's high praise.
Throttle and Modo, meanwhile, just sit boredly around the Chinese checkerboard, waiting for Vinnie to realize that it's his turn.
"Your move, Vincent," Throttle sighs.
Vinnie laughs, his eyes never leaving the picture, and picks up one of his marbles.
"No way," he continues happily, "the way she could just jump that bike of hers…jump jump jump jump!"
And with each successive "jump", Vinnie leaps another one of his bros' marbles. Maybe he's not so out of it as he seems.
"Hey!" Throttle shouts, pointing an accusing finger. "That was my last man!"
Modo, who never misses a chance to one-up Vinnie, grins and asks, "You think that's jumpin'? Watch this! Jump jump jump!" The gray-furred mouse moves one of his pieces across the board. Each time he lands the marble, the board is shaken. Pieces begin bouncing across the board.
Modo sits back proudly, daring Vinnie to top him. Vinnie studies the board a moment, then raises a finger and proceeds to do three more jumps, a slight note of aggression in his voice.
If there's a note of aggression in Vinnie's voice, however, there's a symphony orchestra in Modo's eye, which is glowing red. He begins jumping pieces so hard that the entire table bounces up and down, then slams his fist into the board, breaking the table in two and starting a fist fight between himself and his white-furred bro. When the dust clears, the two of them are sitting on the floor, dazed. The checkerboard sits atop Modo's head, spinning.
"Who says Chinese checkers is a quiet game?" Vinnie asks, laughing.
"Ah've noticed that none of the games we play are quiet," Modo retorts, plucking the board from his head. He glances toward the drop-down staircase that leads to the upstairs of the garage and says, "Ah hope we didn't wake up Charley."
"Nope," Throttle replies from the staircase (if this were anime, the camera would be strategically placed so that we get the best possible view of Throttle's butt). He peers up into Charley's room and sees the mechanic catching forty winks. If anyone is curious as to what the Charley's room looks like, it's got bluish walls, a motorcycle poster on one wall near the bed, a bookcase next to the bed, some pictures and a pennant hanging over the bed, a quilted comforter on the bed, and at the moment, Charley in the bed. Got it?
"Still asleep," Throttle concludes, coming down the ladder.
Abruptly, Modo's radio begins beeping crazily. Not honking, like it normally would to alert the mice of trouble--beeping.
"Hey, what's that?" Vinnie asks.
"That's Morse code!" Modo replies.
"What's it sayin', Modo?" Throttle asks, surprised to find that his bro would be able to recognize the language.
"It says….beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep." (Give or take a 'beep.')
Throttle sighs and smacks his forehead.
Suddenly, the mice detect a presence nearby. They turn and see, in the garage's door, the Masked Motorcyclist, waving in such a way as to suggest, "Come with me."
"She wants us to follow her!" Modo shouts.
"Oooh, I'll follow her anywhere!" Vinnie cries. "Sweetheart--"
Vinnie pauses a second, realizing he's being too loud, and hisses, "Should we tell Charley we're going?"
Throttle shakes his head no and begins pushing his bike out the door.
"Naw, she's out like a light. Let's keep it that way."
The mice mount their bikes, but to make sure they don't wake Charley up, they don’t turn on their engines, electing instead to coast outside.
"Let's rock," Throttle whispers, "and Ride!"
By now, the oil field resembles nothing so much as a children's water park with horribly dirty water. A huge pool of oil covers the ground, and fountains of it shoot up around the Oil Sucker and Cody's Rustmobile. Things are going just swimmingly for the goons, with nothing stopping them from completing their mission. Yes, everything seems to be going just perfectly for Limburger at this point.
So naturally, four pale blue headlights appear on horizon as the sound of squealing tires fills the night.
"Hey, it's them Biker Mice!" Greasepit shouts.
"And that girly(?) friend of theirs!" Corroder Cody shouts.
He begins firing on the mice with both barrels of his Rustmobile, but they and the Masked Motorcyclist twist and turn to avoid the blasts. They strike towers and derricks, though, destroying them. Throttle narrowly avoids being crushed by one.
"Stay clear of that guy, bros!" he shouts. "All the oil in the world won't stop his rust!"
But this corrosive cad wasn't hired to take out the mice, and Karbunkle reminds him of it as Greasepit fires on their foes.
"Get to work, Cody! Greasepit and I will handle these wretched rodents!"
"You got it!" the supervillain agrees, racing off. "Y'all keep them busy, and me and Rusty here will take out the main derrick! Once that tank blows, y'all are gonna have more oil than you ever imagined!"
The Biker Mice and the Masked Motorcyclist continue to take on the Oil Sucker. They exchange fire, but neither side manages to make a dent on the other. The biker foursome are able to avoid the lasers Greasepit and Karbunkle send at them, but their lasers can't pierce the Oil Sucker's armor.
As if in insult, the Masked Motorcyclist charges ahead of the mice, jumping her bike right onto the Oil Sucker's windshield. It doesn't effect it, but as she races over the top, she leads a wide tire-tread on the glass.
"I just waxed this thing!" Greasepit shouts angrily.
Karbunkle remains calm, however, pulling a small vial from his labcoat.
"Ah, so you like to play, do you?" he asks. "Well, here's a slick trick I cooked up just for you!"
The scientist dumps the contents of the vial into the oil pool. Slowly, out of the muck rise three large, gooey monsters. Their mouths hang open as they stare stupidly at the advancing mice out of their three brainless eyes.
"Uh oh," Throttle warns. "Company!"
The mice swerve to avoid them, but Throttle isn't able to escape. One of the monsters reaches out and plucks him right off his bike (which obediently comes to a stop nearby). Throttle struggles in vain against the fiend's grip, but can't wrench himself free. When he tries to use a hand to push away from the creature, it sticks. Throttle draws his palm back, trailing a long streamer of goo behind it.
"Hey, tar monster! I'm a mouse, not Br'er Rabbit!" he snaps.
Throttle whistles for his bike. It spins around and charges straight into the monster's stomach, tearing out a huge hole as it breaks through the other side. Throttle smiles as creature realizes its imminent demise. It drops him to the ground as it reverts to the muck from whence it came (you can almost here it moaning, "I'm melting, meeeellllting….").
Throttle's landing, unfortunately, is less dignified than the goo monster's death. He falls flat on his ass.
"Those monsters ain't so slick!" Modo declares from a few feet away. "Come on, guys--"
He turns to the Masked Motorcyclist and adds in a humble tone, "--and you, too, ma'am."
Vinnie and the Masked Motorcyclist charge into one of the creatures from both sides, ripping it into muck in seconds. The white-furred mouse and Modo make quick work of the remaining creature as well. The three bikers stop briefly to allow Throttle to catch up.
"Yeah, you can shred with the best of 'em, babe," Vinnie tells the object of his affections.
"Heads up, bros!" Throttle shouts as he pulls up. "Cody's almost reached the main derrick!"
As it turns out, Karbunkle and Greasepit are also planning some fast action of their own; departing.
"We had best take our leave!" the mad scientist hisses happily. "When that derrick blows, the resulting wave of oil will wash away these vermin for good!"
"Let's give ole Greasepit a barrel of laughs!" Throttle shouts.
Vinnie grins and pulls out a flare, which he lights quickly (this doesn't seem like a particularly good idea in an oil field, but let's give the mice the benefit of the doubt on this one), chuckling, "We'll have him rolling!"
He uses the flare to cut the chain on a huge stack of barrels. They fall and begin--if you'll pardon the pun--barreling toward the Oil Sucker.
"Oh yeah?" Greasepit shouts, pressing a button on his dash. "Take this, mousies!"
A pair of bright red lasers shoot out of the Oil Sucker's canons, straight toward the bikers. They leap out of the way, and nearly collide with a large tank marked with various warnings, not the least of which is "flammable." Upon landing, the four of them swerve to avoid it, with the Biker Mice veering hard to the right and the Masked Motorcyclist shooting to the left. None of them seem to be in total control of their bikes, making crashes seem imminent.
Greasepit and Karbunkle, however, can do nothing to avoid the tank. They're moving too quickly to stop or swerve, and so, crash right into it, which very promptly explodes (they weren't kidding with that flammable label!). The blast knocks down a few more towers, and sends the Oil Sucker flying high into the air.
Corroder Cody is happily unaware of all this. He stands before the main derrick in his Rustmobile.
"Ready to blow your stack, big fella?" he laughs.
He stops, however, when he sees the Oil Sucker heading straight for him. The laughter turns to screams as the huge vehicle slams right down on top of him. No further explosions, but Hell, you can have too much of a good thing. The Oil Sucker slowly begins melting into a pile of reddish slag. The cow skull from the front of Cody's Rustmobile rises up out of it slowly.
"I don't think this would be a good time to ask Mr. Limburger for a raise," Greasepit mumbles.
On the other side of the field, in a pile of scrap metal, Throttle, Modo, and Vinnie slowly begin to push their way out of the rubble. They don't look any worse for wear, and are all a-okay (unlike their foes).
"Well, that should hold them for awhile," Throttle comments.
But don't break out the party hats yet...
"Bros! Look!" Vinnie shouts, pointing offscreen.
Lying on the ground, unmoving, is the Masked Motorcyclist.
"Oh no…." Modo moans.
Later, at the Last Chance, we see Vinnie in Charley's room, trying to rouse her.
"Charley! Charley, wake up! It's the Masked Motorcyclist! She's hurt! Her helmet's melted!"
But the mechanic makes no move to get up. She doesn't seem to hear Vinnie at all. Slightly irritated, he increases the volume a little.
"We're trying to get it off! We need your help!"
He tries to shake the mechanic awake--and suddenly her head pops off! Vinnie leaps back, shocked, and drops it. When it lands on the floor, it's clear that it's not a real, flesh and blood human head. It's that of a mannequin.
Puzzled, Vinnie peers down into the bottom of the garage (or presumably the bottom, since we don't know for sure whether or not there is a basement), where Throttle and Modo are with the Masked Motorcyclist. Throttle kneels next to her, and finally manages to pull the helmet off. And the face under the helmet is that of--Mamoru Chiba, aka Tuxedo Mask! Ha ha! Told you guys!
No, kidding again. In case you somehow didn't figure it out earlier, the Masked Motorcyclist is none other than Charley herself, who returns to consciousness immediately after her helmet is taken off.
"Hi, guys," she says sheepishly. "Surprise?"
The mice all gasp, but I think we all know who is most surprised.
"Charley?!??" Vinnie stammers, unable to believe his eyes. "But-but-she was-you are--?"
"I'm just ordinary, huh?" Charley asks sardonically, getting right up in Vinnie's face (which is blushing heavily at this point). "Would just get in the way-wasn't that how you put it?" She always seems to get a kick out of deflating Vinnie's ego, and the mechanic seems to get a particular charge out of throwing his own words back at him this time.
(P.S.-Remember that "we almost had Throttle fan service" comment I made earlier? Well, we get some here, with a camera positioned in such a way to give a sweet view of Charley's body. Nothing titillating, but good for an American cartoon.)
Modo and Throttle grin sheepishly as Charley chews Vinnie out.
"You could've told us," Throttle tells her.
"I did tell you, you adorable fur-brains!" Charley replies. "But you never listen! It was my new prototype bike for Washington. I figured I could try it out--and prove something to you lummoxes at the same time!"
"You did that, all right," Vinnie mutters. "Me and my big mouth."
"Yup," Charley agrees. "Your foot fits inside it very well if I do say so."
The woman is loving this.
"Hey, we owe you an apology, babe," Throttle admits.
"At least."
"But Charley," Modo protests, "the reason we didn't want you with us is 'cause you might get hurt! And you did!" A little more gently, he adds, "Ah don't want you gettin' hurt."
Charley, subdued from the last few days (more evidence in support of the "time of the month" theory), strokes the side of Modo's face gently and says, "Modo, you and the guys all run risks. The point is, I didn't get hurt because I'm a woman--I got hurt because I did something dangerous."
She winces and rubs her sore backside.
"And I think I'll retire for awhile," Charley adds with a wink.
"Well, you proved your point," Throttle agrees. "I guess none of us should judge a book by its cover."
"Even if it is leather-bound," Vinnie adds, glancing appreciatively at Charley outfit. He "rowrs" at the mechanic, who just shakes her head. Some mice never learn, do they?
"Say, what about Limburger?," she asks angrily. "It's a shame to think that Limburger will get away with all that destruction!"
"Naw," Modo corrects. "On the way back, ah sent him a package--special delivery."
We zip over to Limburger Tower, where the Big Cheese is opening a cardboard box in his office (if Modo did really mail it, then I'm going to live in Chicago. That's the fastest service I've ever heard of!).
"Oooh, what's this?" Limburger wonders, pushing through layers of packing material.
Finally, he digs out Modo's little "gift"--the cow skull from the Rustmobile. As soon as Limburger has it in his hands, it fires off a pair of beams at the Plutarkian. He howls as a corrosive green cloud fills the air. Within seconds, Limburger Tower is little more than a big pile of slop.
"Ooohh," the Plutarkian sighs from somewhere in the puddle. "Perhaps I should get into a new line of work."
(duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh!)
MY FEELINGS ON THE EPISODE
"The Masked Motorcyclist" has its high points and its low points. On one hand, the music for this episode and the animation are very good. And the story is interesting--Charley turns the tables on the mice by proving her own skill as a biker from behind the mask. It's nice to see Charley being aggressive, and showing that she's not a wallflower (although I don't think anybody would take the opposite position for fear of her kicking their ass). Some excellent character development here. Vinnie's shyness with the Masked Motorcyclist (you know what I mean) and his admitting it (kinda), show that he's not just a headstrong buffoon when it comes to women. From a romantic standpoint, one can see this strengthening Vinnie's crush on Charley, because now he knows that she does have a wild, reckless, adventurous side, and the skills to back them up. The Chinese checker fight is priceless (believe it or not, my parents had a similar tiff themselves, although my mom only threw the board at my dad, not going so far as a fistfight). The design of the Masked Motorcyclist's costume is perfect-titillating while covering her up enough that the FCC didn't douse their drawers. While Charley does come out and state the episode's lesson--that you should never underestimate a woman, especially one in leather--the story is carried out in such a way that it doesn't feel like we're being beaten over the head by it.
But at the same time, there are some flaws with the episode. The behavior of the mice and Charley is all more extreme than it usually is, almost to the point of parody. As I said in the introduction, the mice are almost terribly chauvinistic, moreso than is logical at this point in the series, especially since they've let Charley come along on other missions. And Charley is so goddamn pissy! In a way, they have to be to get the message across, but it's still a bit over the top. I have to admit, though, if I were Charley, and I had to deal with the mice on a day-in day-out basis, maybe I'd be that way sometimes, too.
Overall, "Masked Motorcyclist" is a decent episode with a few small trouble spots. You'll like it. It's on the same tape as "A Scent, A Memory, A Far Distant Cheese," under the title of "The Masked Motorcyclist." E-bay is a great place to pick up the first-season tapes, usually at a bargain price. Simply enter "biker mice" in the search field, and a listing of available Biker Mice products will be given. Amazon.com is another good place to go looking. Searching through Yahoo and AltaVista might also turn up video sources online. You won't regret your search. Good luck!
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