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"Steal of the Century"
Written by: Eve Forward
Produced and Directed by: Tom Tataranowicz
Executive Producers: Rick Ungar and Tom Tataranowicz
INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY NOTE
Mmm…not much you need to know about this one going in. "Steal of the Century" finds Limburger turning to the U.S. military for some dangerous new hardware to use against our heroes. We meet a cool new villain, the Pulverizer, who'll be back to torment the mice again later, and our heroes get some new toys to play with, including bike battle-shells and Throttle's Knuke Knucks. Although they've been on the back of his glove since episode one, they're first used here against the Pulverizer (who has the same sort of weapon). A fun story with some amusing gibes directed at the military.
EPISODE SYNOPSIS
The second season of "Biker Mice" starts out with some strangeness-one of Limburger's schemes actually seems to be going off without a hitch! With nary of sign of Biker Mice intervention, the Plutarkian's demolition crews are able to lay huge piles of dynamite at the bases of several large buildings and blast them into rubble. Tower after tower crashes to the ground while Limburger watches from the safety of his skyscraper.
"Ahh, urban renewal," he purrs, strolling over to a nearby flowchart. "Soon this whole area will become my magnificent new Limburger Industries MegaPlaza. From this central plaza, my heinous holdings shall expand worldwide. Strip-mining in San Francisco! Clear-cutting in Cincinnati! Demolition in Detroit!"
Suddenly, a laser zips in through the window and torches Limburger's map.
"Hey, sewage-breath!" Vinnie shouts.
Limburger looks out the window and sees the Biker Mice standing on a rooftop across the street.
"We felt you were being a bit hasty with your new project," Throttle calls out.
"Yeah, yeah, so we thought we'd help out by moving some of your explosives around," Modo adds, pointing to the base of Limburger Tower.
Limburger looks down just in time to see dozens of barrels of TNT explode.
"Oh, my."
The force of the blast knocks him out the window, still clutching his paper plans. He falls for a few feet before he manages to catch himself on a window ledge.
"Get a grip, stink-face!" Modo taunts.
"Yeah!" Vinnie shouts. "Is this what you call a--clutch play?"
The mice laugh boisterously, and Limburger actually cries a little (guess they hurt his feelings this time).
"Crack wise all you wish, you--you cretinous creatures! But I shall indeed have the last laugh! For I observe you have overlooked one of my explosive charges!"
Limburger points to the base of the building the mice are standing on. They look down and see Fred the Mutant piling hundreds of crates of TNT below.
"Oh boy!" the mutant laughs. "It's like my birthday everyday!"
Limburger laughs sinisterly, and gets so carried away that he momentarily lets go of the building! He manages to catch himself again, though.
"Uh oh," Modo says.
"Guess this blows our plans, eh, bros?" Vinnie asks.
The mice sprint away from the edge of the roof toward their bikes. They no sooner reach them than Fred pushes the plunger on the detonator (crying, "Make a wish!" as he does). The building starts to shake, and the ground directly below the mice caves in.
"So glad I could hang around to witness your downfall, Biker Mice!" Limburger shouts gleefully.
"Punch it, bros!" Modo shouts.
The mice leap their bikes onto the next building. Unfortunately, either it's been rigged to blow, too, or it's suffered major structural damage, because it begins collapsing as soon as they land on it!
"Turnabout is, after all," Limburger teases, "fair play!"
The mice fall through the building on a large chunk of the shattered rooftop.
"Shake, rattle, and roll, bros!" Throttle shouts. "It's time to do the rock hop!"
"I can dance to that!" Vinnie cries.
The mice leap their bikes onto another piece of cement briefly, then off when it hits a (momentarily) solid floor. The three of them split up and take different routes to escape the fallout. Throttle takes a staircase. Rocks rain on him from above as he bounces down toward the ground floor.
"Man! And they tell you the stairs are safer in an emergency!" he laughs.
Modo, meanwhile, heads for the elevators.
"Ground floor, please!" he quips, blasting the doors open. He shoots inside, grabs the elevator cable with his bionic hand, and begins sliding down.
Vinnie is still looking for his way out when he suddenly finds himself about to drive into a gigantic hole! He comes to a screeching halt on top of a broken door, but his speed causes the door to slide underfoot (or should that be under-wheel?), carrying them both straight into the pit! Vinnie takes it in stride, however, riding it like a surfboard through the crumbling building.
"Woooah!" he laughs. "Hangin' eleven on the stone pipeline! Yoooooow!" Incidentally, the "eleven" figure includes his tail.
The mice easily escape and regroup outside Limburger Tower.
"Yeah! Some pretty studly moves there!" Vinnie comments, pulling off his helmet.
Modo, genuinely touched, replies, "Well, that's pretty nice of you to say, Vinnie!"
"Not you, bro," the white-furred mouse corrects. "I was talkin' about me!"
"What a surprise," Throttle groans.
"Yeah, yeah, you're always talkin' about you!" Modo snaps. "Y'know, we do some pretty good work, too, y'know!"
"Well, yeah, but-"
"That's right, Big Fella!" Throttle agrees. "We're not just hangin' around!"
"YOU WRETCHED RODENTS!"
Throttle lifts up his sunglasses and looks up at Limburger Tower.
"Speakin' of 'hangin' around'…"
"How dare you escape certain destruction! Again! " Limburger shouts, trying to pull himself back up into his office. He gets his feet up to the bottom of the window, and then-RIIIIIIIIIIP! The Plutarkian peeks over his shoulder and finds that his pants have split right down the middle, revealing his cheese-studded boxers to the world.
"Oh, my."
"Sorry to let you down, cheese-fins!" Modo shouts.
"But speakin' of let-downs…" Throttle adds, twirling a finger.
"…it's time you felt the gravity of the situation!" Vinnie concludes.
The laser cannons pop out of the mice's bikes.
"Please, no!" Limburger begs. He tries to cover the hole in his pants with his blueprint and whimpers, "Not like this…"
Our heroes ignore his pleas and fire into the eviscerated building. Their missiles strike a central column, and Limburger Tower goes crumbling down as they ride off into the city.
"Like ah said, we do some pretty good work," Modo concludes as the mice high-five.
In the ruins of Limburger Tower, an extremely frustrated but fairly unharmed Limburger ties his plans around his waist, trying to cover up the giant hole in his pants (it doesn't do a damn thing, because there's a hole in the plans that's just as big).
"Rot those rough-riding rodents!" he sneers. "If only I could rid myself of their pernicious presence!"
Karbunkle picks his way out of the wreckage, and immediately sees Limburger's boxers peeking through his pants (you don't miss something that big). Like a good lackey, he tries to tell his boss about it without embarrassing him.
"Uh pardon me, your prime pasturizedness…"
"What?!" Limburger snarls.
"Your…southern hemisphere, your cheekiness--Big Cheesiness…"
"What are you implying, you encephalitic eccentric?" the Plutarkian shouts.
Behind him, Greasepit sits up. He spots the same sight as Karbunkle, and shows the very same tactfulness that his cohort employs.
"Hey boss!" he laughs. "I can see your butt!"
Oh, come on. You believed me?
Mortified, Limburger slaps Karbunkle away and snaps, "Dolt! Why didn't you tell me?!"
"I was attempting to, your tepid turgidness!"
"Bah! You're worthless! Perhaps I should…"
Limburger looks up and notices a group of plans flying overhead. Banners trail behind them, advertising a military hardware expo to be held in the city.
"That's it! Perhaps I should seek out--a few good men!"
Limburger chuckles darkly and salutes the planes. The plans knotted around his waist slip and fall to the ground, further exposing his boxers. Greasepit chortles into his cupped hand.
That same day, Limburger goes to visit a local military base, where he gets a private audience with a spokesman regarding one of the Army's greatest new weapons, the ominously named "Annihilator." The spokesman, a crazy little guy with a funny Southern accent, regales him with stories about the plane, complete with a slide show depicting a vehicle that looks like a cross between the Space Shuttle, a tank, and a stealth bomber. Very heavily armed as well, but with a name like "the Annihilator," that probably goes without saying.
"Well, as you can see, Mr. Limburger, this here 'Annihilator' combines state of the art technology with the finest in weaponry and other peacekeeping equipment. Whoo-hoo! You should see one of these babies in action, sir, you really should! She comes barrellin' in, guns a-blazin', missiles a-flyin', whoo-whee! Leaves a swath of perfect peace a mile wide. Aw, it's a little piece of heaven, I'm tellin' you!"
"Well, it does sound delightful," Limburger replies, smiling. "But how much does all this 'peacekeeping' cost?"
The spokesman grins and writes a figure on a piece of paper, which he slides across the table. Limburger takes one look and freaks out.
"WHAT?! How do you justify this outrageous expense?!" he bellows. The force of his shouting shatters the glass tabletop.
The spokesman switches into used car salesman mode, slipping a genial arm around the Plutarkian.
"Well, now sir, you got your parts overruns, your pork barrels, and parts of course…There's the X-14 combat toilet seat, shoot, that's twelve million right there, buddy!"
"This is INSANE! I won't have it!"
The soldier takes a hit of Limburger's powerful stench right on the nose.
"Gas!" he coughs, barely able to catch his breath. "Gas! Get your masks, boys, call in the dogs, and put water on the fire--this hunt is over!"
With that, he faints. Limburger shrugs.
"If they won't sell it to me at a price I can afford, then I shall simply purloin their prototype from the military hardware exposition!"
He leaves, slamming the door behind him.
"Thanks for giving me a lift to the store, guys."
While Limburger is trying to figure out a way to get his grubby mitts on the Annihilator, the Biker Mice are taking Charley back to the garage after a run to the grocery store. They've lashed the bags to the backs of their bikes with their tails.
"No problem!" Vinnie belches, finishing off a bag of chips.
"Yeah, it was the least we could do after our ball game benched your fridge," Throttle chuckles.
"Vinnie's fault!" Modo laughs.
"No way! Body checks with bazookas are legal!" Vinnie retorts.
Modo glares at him.
"On Mars," the white-furred mouse replies.
They stop at a red light, and Modo points out a billboard for the military hardware exposition.
"New weapons?" Vinnie asked excitedly. "COOL!"
"Center, Vincent," Throttle cautions. "It's not so cool if the wrong hands, or should I say fins, gets a hold of these goodies."
"Yeah, an' we all know a certain stink-fish who'll be all over this stuff like slime on a bucket!" Modo reminds him.
Vinnie, anxious and looking for all the world like the hyperactive five-year old we all know him to be, says quickly, "Okay, okay, so whaddaya say we jump the gun and guard the goods before the goons get there?!??" Wow, I thought Limburger was the only one who could chain together so many consonants in the same sentence.
"LET'S ROCK--AND RIDE!" the mice shout in unison, riding off to the Expo (hope Charley didn't pick up any frozen stuff at the store).
On the site of the old Limburger Tower, a new one is presently being erected. It's little more than steel beams right now, though, so Limburger has had to set up operations in the bowling alley next door. As Karbunkle hooks up the Transporter, the exasperated fish is trying to make his diabolical plan clear to Greasepit.
God help him.
"My dear half-brained henchman, permit me to explain it again. One--you enter the military hardware exhibit. Two--you sneak aboard the Annihilator. Three--you steal the Annihilator. Four--you find and destroy those miserable Biker Mice!"
"Right, boss!" Greasepit says. "One--I steals the Biker Mice. Two--I destroy the thing! Three--I …"
Limburger sighs and turns to his mad scientist.
"Karbunkle? Perhaps you could someone who'd be of more advantageous use to me than this pathetic petroleum-poured postule!"
"At once, your odiferous excellence! May I introduce a particular despicable desperado, recently returned for a six-year…shall we say, 'shore leave,' in Galactic Prison--the Pulverizer!"
He throws the switch on the Transporter. It glows brightly, and out steps a stocky, broad-shouldered robot decorated with stars and military emblems. His most striking feature is a dispproptionately large right hand. In his left he carries a riding whip a la George Patton.
"Let's all give him a big hand!" Karbunkle concludes.
"Duh, it looks like he's already got one," Greasepit chuckles.
"Negatori on the humor, civilian," the Pulverizer responds smartly. His first glows bright red, and he punches Greasepit in the face. It proves surprisingly powerful, knocking Greasepit right through the bowling alley's windows and into the new Limburger Tower, which crumbles when Greasepit hits it!
"Hah! Skragged a building, too!" the Pulverizer laughs. "It's a good feeling!"
"That building," Limburger seethes, "was my new Limburger Tower!"
"Inferior construction, boy! You should thank me. But now! Enough o this chin-wagging! I want a full briefing on this mission!"
"Your 'mission,' my dear Pulverizer, is to capture the Annihilator!" Almost as an afterthought, he adds, "Oh, and while you're at it, you shall eliminate the scourge of my existence: the Biker Mice from Mars!"
Limburger produces a photo of the mice (incidentally, it's based on that popular piece of promo art featuring the mice on a triangle background). The Pulverizer gives it a cursory glance.
"'Biker Mice,' eh? Look like sloppy soldiers to me! It'll be my pleasure to pulverize 'em!"
"Perfect!"
Limburger laughs evilly.
Later, the Biker Mice arrive at the deserted Expo (I gotta mention the giant missile-shaped happy balloons outside, reading "KA-BOOM!" and "H-BOMB"). They find that the Annihilator exhibit, inside a large hemispherical dome, is closed to the public.
"Aw, man!" Vinnie moans. "Looks like the star attraction's still under wraps!"
"Well, we're not here to sightsee, Vincent," Throttle reminds him.
On the opposite side of the dome, the Pulverizer, Greasepit, and Limburger's goons have just arrived. All save the Pulverizer are wearing World War I style helmets. The robot addresses his troops.
"Remember: you can lose your fear of the enemy, but you'll never lose your fear of me! Now MARCH!"
He points to the exhibit, smacking Greasepit in the face as he does.
"Hey, we's gotta keeps quiet!" the goon hisses from the ground. "We don't want no one to catch us!"
The goon rises and tries to open the doors. When he finds them locked, he starts pounding on them, apparently having forgotten what he just said. The Pulverizer grabs him by the back and throws him to the side.
"Sometimes," he growls, "you gotta grab it by the knob, and pulverize it in the face!"
His fist glows bright red once more, and he punches the door. The entire structure crumbles to dust, revealing the Annihilator.
"Well, we may not be here to sightsee, but there's a sight to see!" Vinnie laughs.
Charley spots the goons coming toward them.
"It's those offensive creeps!"
"Then let's mount us our us our own offensive!" Vinnie says eagerly.
Modo primes his cannon.
"Yeah, we'll give 'em a real arms display!"
"That's right!" Throttle agrees. "With some of our own heavy artillery!"
He extends his arm, and taps his Knuke Knucks. They suddenly glow bright green.
Greasepit and his goons see the mice approaching.
"Youse guys handle them hamsters!" he says quickly.
But before they can move, the Pulverizer shoves him away.
"Take the rear, soldier!" he shouts. "I'm gonna tear out their whiskers and use 'em to floss my teeth!"
He fires a round of energy from his fist. The mice dive for cover.
"So, the jarhead's got a power-fist, huh?" Modo asks.
"As it happens, so do I," Throttle says with a grin as he activates the Knuke Knucks again. He approaches the Pulverizer, taunting, "Come to Uncle Throttle, you ham-fisted headcase!"
Throttle punches at the villain and misses, striking a tank instead. To give you some indication of his Knuke Knucks' power, consider this: that one little punch totally destroys the tank.
"Missed," Throttle chuckles. It's a little scary.
Greasepit, meanwhile, is trying to get into the Annihilator. He's found the locking mechanism, but there's another problem: he can't remember the combination. The goon punches in a few random numbers, but apparently, they're not the right set, as a huge gun barrel clocks him. He stumbles face-first into the keypad, and apparently, the gods of good fortune are smiling on our resident dimbulb, because he accidentally puts in the right sequence. A conveyor walkway drops down out of the plane, Greasepit trips onto it, and is pulled into the Annihilator.
The other goons lay down heavy fire on the mice. Modo and Vinnie dart behind a large display of air-to-air missiles held in place by a pair of flimsy metal bars.
"You thinkin' what ah'm thinkin'?" Modo asks with a devilish grin.
"I'm thinkin' what you're thinkin'," Vinnie replies.
They race around to the front of the display, shout, "LET'S ROLL!", and tear the bars off. The missiles immediately roll out across the floor, toward the terrified goons. Vinnie and Modo throw the bars on the rolling missiles and jump on, surfing across them. When he spots the goons headed for a row of jeeps, Vinnie tosses one of his exploding flares at them.
"Weinie roast, a weinie roast!" he laughs as the vehicles burst into flame.
Where's Charley in all this? Why, getting in on the fun, of course! She's made her way up into a jet fighter suspended from the ceiling, and is using its sophisticated (not to mention high-powered) weaponry to do her part in the battle. Unfortunately, her cockpit naďveté is made apparent when she accidentally hits the eject button. She goes flying, and without the benefit of a parachute, falls.
To complicate things, at the same time, Throttle, making good use of his Knuke Knucks, slings a huge truck at the Pulverizer, who knocks it up and out of the way towards the ceiling. It narrowly misses Charley going up, but threatens to squash her as it comes down. Not to mention Vinnie, who caught her.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" the mechanic screams.
Just before it turns them into a finely ground paste of fur and flesh, the tank stops in mid-air. Modo, teeth gritted and strained beyond belief, has caught it by the corner.
Vinnie grins.
"Got a real way with words, doesn't she?"
A stray laser blows the tank up. Charley screams again.
"Brief and to the point!" Modo agrees.
Suddenly, the Pulverizer looms over the three of them.
"I almost pity you rat buzzards!" he rumbles, waving his glowing fist at them.
"Pity yourself, pal."
The Pulverizer turns, and finds himself face to face with Throttle's own brightly-glowing fist.
"You tried to bruise my bros…"
WHAM!
Throttle's punch sends the Pulverizer flying. He crashes into something nearby.
"You bros okay?" Throttle asks.
"Man! This is one rockin' party!" Vinnie laughs.
"Yeah!" Modo agrees. "But if we're gonna dance, we're gonna need our partners!"
The mice whistle, and outside, their bikes spring to life and shoot into the building.
The one bad thing about Throttle punching out the Pulverizer is where the supervillian landed: right inside the Annihilator. As he comes around, Greasepit is busily trying to reconcile Limburger's directions (which he still can't remember) with the control panel in front of him.
"…And I'll do number three, and sneak into-no, that was in number four…duh, okay, this makes that thing shoot--" He pulls a lever, the ship jumps, and he's thrown violently into the pilot's chair. The bewildered goon tries a cord hanging from the ceiling.
"--and this makes it go up--"
It does make something go up: the chair. It slams Greasepit into the ceiling. Finally, he pulls the lever next to his chair.
"--so this must--"
The chair spins around crazily, along with the entire top section of the Annihilator! It only stops spinning when the Biker Mice shoot grappling lines into it. A thoroughly dizzy Greasepit falls back into the pilot's chair. He's only there for a second, though, when he sees the Pulverizer looming over him.
"Move over, you overweight slob!" he shouts, slapping Greasepit out of his seat.
The mice release their grappling lines.
"Well, time to finish it!" Modo says.
"You got it, bros!" Throttle agrees. "Let's rock and--uh oh."
The Annihilator rises into the air in front of the stunned mice.
"Looks like the flying flatiron decided to put on a little show after all!" Vinnie laughs.
As the plane rises, it trains its guns on the mice. The colossal difference in size is apparent.
"Just don't do anything stupid, okay?" Charley chides the mice. "No guns…"
The weapons pop out on the bikes.
"…no wheelies…"
The mice pop wheelies.
"…and most of all no rockets!"
And out come the rockets, shooting the mice into the air. They narrowly avoid being blasted by the Annihilator, which passes under them as they reach the apex of their jump.
"Anything you say, sweetheart!" Vinnie laughs. "Anything you say!"
The mice fire on the Annihilator, but their lasers bounce off it.
"Oh man!" Modo says. "This thing's got skin tougher than a week-old hot dog!"
No sooner do they land than the Pulverizer is firing on them. With its huge bevy of missiles and lasers, the Annihilator's offensive superiority is painfully apparent. The mice are forced to beat a quick retreat out of the expo center.
"Man! We gotta take this trash can out before it hurts some innocent folks!" Throttle shouts.
"Yeah! Like us!" Vinnie agrees.
The Annihilator bursts out of the building. It quickly catches up with the mice, and continues shooting. One blast hits the road directly behind them, sending all four riders flying. Charley is thrown off Vinnie's bike and falls into a pile of bushes, while the mice and their bikes land in an old cement warehouse a few yards away. The Pulverizer wastes no time in seeing if the targets are still alive, and instead hits the building with a huge volley of lasers and missiles. The warehouse is totaled.
"That's it for the Biker Mice," Greasepit says, smiling.
"That's a big roger ten-four," the Pulverizer agrees. "Now we convoy this bird back to headquarters."
Charley watches from the bushes as the Annihilator disappears into the night sky.
"That was some rockin' ride, huh, guys?" she asks.
Silence greets her.
"Guys?"
The mechanic turns, expecting to see the mice beside her. Instead, she sees the ruins of the warehouse, a lone spinning tire, and three limp, lifeless tails lying on the ground.
"GUYS!"
At the newly rebuilt Limburger Tower, Limburger and Karbunkle watch with glee as the Annihilator comes to a landing.
"Excellent!" the Plutarkian laughs. "With this wonderful weapon under my command, I can impose a new order on Chicago. A sensible order. My own order!"
The conveyor belt walkway extends from the belly of the Annihilator. The Pulverizer and Greasepit emerge, the former snapping to attention.
"Sir! Mission objective competed, sir! Reporting total annihilation of primary rodent targets!"
"Yeah, and we blasted the Biker Mice, too!" Greasepit adds.
"You mean they're--gone?" Limburger asks, a tremulous note in his voice. "You must permit me…a private moment."
He enters a small storeroom and closes the door behind him. Suddenly, we hear Limburger squealing with glee, shouting "YES YES YES YES YES!" and blowing noisemakers and making all kinds of festive noises. He emerges a moment later, a bit more sober and ready to conduct business.
"Now, my pugilistic Pulverizer, I believe we may now proceed post haste to step two: the destruction of Chicago! Once the property values plummet, I can buy the entire city for a mere pittance!"
Limburger turns to Karbunkle and orders him to disguise the Annihilator. Karbunkle presses a button on a remote control, and a gigantic, house-sized box of Tom Cola (presumably named after the series producer/director) drops out of the ceiling on top of it.
"Ahh, covert operations," the Pulverizer remarks. "I love modern warfare."
"But this is not warfare, my dear Pulverizer," Limburger corrects. "This is business."
"Same thing."
"You'll do well, my boy. Very well, indeed…"
Charley, meanwhile, is frantically trying to dig the mice out of the rubble. Trouble is, there's a lot of it and only one of her. And it's heavy shit. Still, she works at it doggedly, calling out to the guys while she clears away the debris.
Suddenly, a white-furred hand reaches up and grabs her by the shoulder. Charley jumps, then smiles and lifts a hunk of rock off a fully alive and pretty much a-okay Vinnie. His bros emerge nearby.
"That thing packs a serious punch!" Vinnie remarks, rubbing his head.
"You sure had me scared that time!" Charley snaps.
Vinnie grins.
"So, you were worried about me, eh, sweetheart?"
"What I was worried about is what's going to happen to Chicago now that Limburger's got the Annihilator in his slimy mitts!"
Throttle crawls out of the debris and gets on his bike.
"Well, if past performance is any indication, I'd say the Big Cheese is about to put a severe hurt on the Windy City."
"Right! So I say we put the hurt on him!" Vinnie declares.
"Hold it, hold it! We can't just charge in this time!"
"Aw! Buzz kill!"
"The heavy artillery count is in his favor."
"So what'd you have in mind, Throttle?" Modo asks.
Throttle grins.
"A little battle armor of our own. Let's ride!"
"Yeah!" Modo agrees. "This time, it's war!"
The mice return to the Scoreboard, where, with Charley's help, they cannibalize their crashed spaceship to create battle shells for their bikes. Despite a limited amount of time, they're able to make surprisingly attractive armor.
"Ah'd like to see that flyin' Swiss Army knife cut through these babies," Modo comments, sliding a piece over his bike's fork.
Vinnie finishes his and looks over the results proudly.
"There ya go, babe! The biggest guns and the most armor!"
His bike tries to pop a wheelie, but it's far too heavy and falls on its side.
"Oops. Maybe I overdid it."
"Hmmm. Maybe it's not a good idea to ride quite so heavy," Throttle comments as Modo's bike bucks wildly, clearly unhappy with its metal sheathing.
"Don't worry! It's temporary!" Charley shouts, trying to placate the bike.
"Yeah, yeah, just until we trash old stink-face's new toy!" Modo adds gently.
Limburger, meanwhile, is issuing new orders to the Pulverizer and Greasepit. Decked out in full military regalia, he bellows, "Gentlemen, your mission today is to cause chaos and destruction in the city! So go forth for the greater glory of Limburger Enterprises!"
"Go fourth?" Greasepit asks. "Is four where we blow up the machine, or, no, maybe that was two…could be three--"
"JUST DO IT!"
The two henchmen salute and take off in the Annihilator.
"Aww, I wanted to drive!" Greasepit grouses.
"Put a lid on it, son!" the Pulverizer snaps as he opens fire on innocent citizens below. "I can smell a battlefield a mile away!"
"Oh, that's just me. Sorry."
After reducing the area around Limburger Tower to a pile of flaming wreckage, the Pulverizer declares city hall their next target, explaining, "Take out their leaders, and the troops will fall like--like mice."
As the plane makes a beeline for the center of the city, it blows up an overpass--which the Biker Mice just happen to be on. They fire their rockets and drop down to street level, where they open fire on the Annihilator. Caught off guard, its pilots are knocked out of their seats.
"Uh oh. I guess we didn't do such a good job of mortalizing those rotten rodents after all," Greasepit comments.
"Escalation of hostilities, eh?" the Pulverizer asks. "Well, two can play at this game!'
He returns to the control panel and fires on the mice. One shot hits Vinnie directly, and sends him flying backward a few feet. But that's all. Other than being a few feet further away, the white-furred mouse and his bike are absolutely fine.
"Takes a knockin' and keeps on rockin'!" Vinnie laughs. He charges the plane and fires a pair of large missiles at it. They hit the Annihilator squarely, and knock it for a loop.
"Those sewer rats are beginning to annoy me!" the Pulverizer growls. He flies directly at the mice and sends everything he's got against them, but their new armor proves a perfect match, deflecting every laser that the mice can't avoid.
"These battle shells do the job!" Modo cheers.
"Yeah, we gotta do ours!" Throttle shouts. "Let's rock--"
"--AND RIDE!"
The mice split up and attack the plane, but it's apparent that the improvements to their bikes haven't just evened the odds; they've put them in the mice's favor. When Vinnie dares the ship's pilot to "give him his best shot," the answering fire just bounces off his bike (and destroys a building in the process). When Vinnie shoots, his missiles actually knock the fearsome plane into a skyscraper!
"Cool! The reflective armor's holing up!" Throttle says quickly as the mice regroup.
The Annihilator approaches once again, and despite the damage the ship's taken, both the Pulverizer and Greasepit seem stupidly optimistic about their chances.
"Look at 'em," Greasepit chuckles darkly as he spots the mice on the ground. "Lined up like bowlin' pins."
"Time for a preemptive strike!" the Pulverizer sneers.
The plane charges our heroes, but their fire quickly knocks it back once more. What's more, it blows a huge hole in the cockpit.
"Why, those insubordinate squirrels! I'll Pulverize them!" guess-who sneers.
Throttle notices the hole and says quickly, "We got our opening. Let's make the most of it!"
"Looks like Mr. Big Shot's gonna give us a hand!" Modo notes.
"Aoow! What a rush!" Vinnie laughs.
The Pulverizer fires a blast from his hand at the mice. Throttle angles his bike so that it hits his first, then bounces toward Modo.
"Yours, Modo!" he shouts.
Modo lets the beam bounce off his bike (even though it spins him in a circle).
"Vinnie! Set up for the smash!"
Vinnie races up a ramp, cartwheels through the air, and lands just in time for the beam to hit the front of his bike.
"SPIKE!" he howls. The force of the strike knocks him backward up a hill and through a billboard. More importantly, it hits the Annihilator square in the cabin, and sends it, flaming, toward Limburger Tower. The Big Cheese is in his office, hanging a print of himself, when the plane strikes the base. Instantly, the building crumbles.
"I get so tired," he moans.
The Biker Mice pull up outside.
"Another job well done, bros," Throttle concludes.
"Yup," Modo agrees. "What say we head back to Quigley and get these hardbacks off our hogs?"
"Aw, let 'em wait!" Vinnie laughs. "I saw dogs and root beer first, bikes later!"
Vinnie's bike suddenly bucks and knocks him right out of his seat.
"I don't think your bike sees it quite the same way, Vinnie," Throttle laughs.
"Okay, okay, the dogs can wait! Now let's get outta here before this bike has anything else to say!"
"Okay, you motorcycle madmen, let's rock--"
"--AND RIDE!"
(duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh duh!)
MY THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE
"Steal of the Century" is one of my favorite season two episodes. It holds a special place in my heart simply because up until I saw it on FOX at 6 AM while I was getting ready for school, I had no idea that there would even be a second season of "Biker Mice." So my feelings about this one will always be mingled with that sudden joy of realizing that there was more to come (the same thing might've happened during my initial viewing of "Biker Knights of the Round Table," but I knew about the third season from a press release in Wizard).
Nostalgia aside, though, "Steal" is an all-around great episode that stands strong on its merits. In terms of story (another excellent offering from Eve Forward), it serves primarily as a showcase for the Pulverizer. He's one of my favorite villains of the entire series, largely because he's more than his weapon (Jet Blaster, I'm looking at you). His military mindset results in a character with a weird, eccentric personality. You can see it in his dialogue and his actions-he's more than just the villain of the day. That said, I prefer his second appearance in "Cheese Cadets," in which the military man-machine is truly in his element as a troop leader (and promotion-minded schemer).
This may sound nuts, but something else I really like about this episode is that moment of uncertainty in which it appears that the mice have been killed. Lemme explain. First, I have a weird fetish for seeing the main characters of any series I watch get hurt. I'm no sadist-I just like the potential such situations offer for variation on the usual state of affairs. Whether they have to fight injured or without a valuable teammate, the heroes will have to employ different tactics, personal relationships are illumed in the light of potential or actual loss, and secondary characters get the opportunity to come to the forefront. Of course, none of that really happens in this episode (although Charley's clawing at the rubble suggests her feelings for Vinnie a bit)…Secondly, it illustrates just how good this show is at setting up cliffhangers. Some writers (I'm thinking of the guys behind "Mighty Ducks" here) either can't come up with genuinely good places for cliffhangers, or the timing or framing is so terribly off that it kills any suspense (the same way that badly-done shadows sometimes keep the identity of a character from being a real surprise).
Like many season two and three episodes, "Steal" is peppered with barbs at real-life institutions (remember, "We're Going to Cheesyland" is one long parody of Di$ney). This time, the American military is the target. The ridiculous price of the Annihilator's toilet seats is great, but there's another, more subtle idea that peeks through, either intentionally or otherwise: that the U.S. military's most dangerous technology is up for sale to the highest bidder. Spooky stuff.
One last thing--I loved the scene with the mice hauling groceries home for Charley. That was just such a great little touch (those tails are criminally underused). I have to admit, though-for the longest time, I had no idea what Throttle's line was. I thought he was saying that their football game messed Charley's FRINGE. I was like ,"What, was she wearing some little western outfit or something?"
"Steal" also gets high marks for its animation, which is sharp throughout. The scene at the beginning with the mice standing on the rooftop and Limburger's reaction to finding out Greasepit can see his boxers are the two real standout moments, with extremely smooth movement and attractive renderings of the characters (similar to those seen in "Once Upon a Time On Mars" and the confrontation part of "Hard Rock," if you know what I mean). I also liked the scene with the mice's tails sticking out of the rubble pile. Just looked really good. Music is the usual stuff, nothing outstanding. Overall, "Steal" is just all-around fun. I wouldn't characterize it as an "essential" episode, maybe, but all the same, it's one that you really ought to see.
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