Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Turbo: F.A.S.T."

I remember first hearing the premise of DreamWorks' 2013 movie Turbo. A snail wants to race in the Indy 500. I thought to myself, "Well, it sounds like a weird premise, but let's wait until the first trailer comes out. Maybe it'll look good." And then the trailers came out, and I thought it looked good, so I decided to go see it in theaters. And you know what? I liked it!

Alas, the film didn't do very well at the box office, but that didn't stop DreamWorks from making a show about it - the very first cartoon that they developed for Netflix. The show takes place after the movie, is animated in Flash as opposed to CGI (which in my opinion was probably for the best, considering how bad the CGI in their previous shows like The Penguins of Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness was), and only two members of the original film's cast - Michael Patrick Bell and Ken Jeong - so, for example, instead of Ryan Reynolds we've got Reid Scott as Turbo. I remember watching one or two episodes of the show when it first came out and liking them, but does it still hold up? Let's find out! The episode that we'll be looking at today is the premiere episode, "Crazy Fast".

After returning home from... some sort of racing world tour, I guess... Tito (Amir Talai) and Turbo are greeted by that annoying old lady from the movie (Ken Jeong), though thankfully she's not in the episode that much. Tito tells Turbo that he's got a big surprise for him... specifically, this.

I know this is admittedly a nitpick, when did Tito find the time to build this?

"I call it Starlight City," Tito says. It's a tiny city for Turbo and his snail friends to hang out in. It's got everything from a city hall to a movie theater to a skate park, and even one of those plastic owls to keep the birds away (which doesn't do any good). Tito eventually spots Turbo's brother Chet and places Turbo next to him. Chet (voiced by Eric "Man of a Thousand Voices" Bauza) is still miffed that Tito thinks he's Turbo's girlfriend.

Chet tells Turbo (Reid Scott) that there's something he wants to show him. "Everybody wanted to thank you for making the city possible," he explains, "So we all got together and made you..." Turbo manages to guess it before Chet can finish - his very own racetrack!

Even in their TV shows, DreamWorks characters can't resist making
the DreamWorks Face.

Not only that, but the snails are all throwing Turbo a surprise homecoming race! Turbo meets back up with his crew - for those of you who haven't seen the movie, there's...

- Whiplash; the awesome Samuel L. Jackson snail (now voiced by John Eric Bentley)

- Burn; the girl of the team who has the hots for Chet (Grey Griffin)

- White Shadow; the fat one who thinks he's Mr. Super-Stealthy and provided one of the best jokes in the movie (Michael Patrick Bell)

- Smoove Move; the Snoop Dog snail who's movin' so fast the whole world's goin' in slow-motion, baby (now voiced by Phil LaMarr)

- and Skidmark; the enthusiastic blue Ben Schwartz-voiced snail, making him the very first blue cartoon animal that Ben Schwartz has ever voiced, years before he provided the voice of Sonic the Hedgehog (now also voiced by Amir Talai).

And there's also an announcer snail named Mel Shellman (voiced by Daran Norris). Here's a screencap of him:

How does a snail grow a mustache?

And while I'm asking questions, is it really necessary for the other snail in the booth
to be wearing headphones? What good are they for an animal that doesn't have ears?

"Long time to the S-Double-E, y'all!" Smoove Move says. "Let's light this place up!" Turbo announces, and the race begins. Quickly, Turbo discovers that this track isn't exactly like the one in the Indy 500. For example, there are hills made of sand called "Moguls", loop-de-loops, S-Turns in a field of tomato plants, and presumably also large pits full of hungry alligators. Suddenly, the color palette turns entirely to shades of red and orange, which as we all know means that something intense is going to happen. Sure enough, the race is interrupted by this guy.

"I auditioned to star in Antz and DreamWorks didn't give me a single callback!
Since you've also a DreamWorks character, I decided to take my anger out on YOU!"

This is Hardcase (Diedrich Bader), a tiger beetle who considers himself the fastest insect on the planet. "Are you faster than a grasshopper riding on a cheetah?" Skidmark asks him. Chet, upon looking up the tiger beetle to see if Hardcase is telling the truth, finds it funny that Hardcase is related to the stinkbug. Ah yes, and it's revealed that Skidmark is kind of a conspiracy theorist. After Chet discovers that, indeed, tiger beetles are the fastest of all bugs, Skidmark says, "If the internet says it, it MUST be true... unless, that's just what the internet WANTS US to think!"

Hello, new potential meme...

"This is all very fascinating, but why are you here?!" Whiplash demands to know. Hardcase explains that he's ticked-off that Turbo has the AUDACITY to be faster and more famous than him. Instead of Turbo simply telling Hardcase that it's not his fault Hardcase hasn't done anything with his life like Turbo did, they trash-talk each other for a few minutes and eventually decide to have a race - a race, according to Hardcase, for Turbo's title, a trophy, and the whole town. Why Hardcase wants to be the king of a city for snails, I don't know.

"Why would I ever agree to that?!" Turbo demands. "Because if you don't," Hardcase snarls, "My boys will tear this city apart!" This is the cue for Hardcase's tiger beetle henchmen to show up and act all scary and threatening and whatever. Turbo believes that he shouldn't have accepted the challenge, but to be fair it was either that or let the tiger beetles destroy the city. And he had difficulty with the track before, how will he ever be able to beat Hardcase?! Whiplash gives him a pep talk - "We built this track," he says, "We can teach you how to run it!"

First, White Shadow teaches him how to handle the "Moguls", but Turbo ends up flying into a dumpster. Next, Burn teaches him how to handle the loop-de-loops, but Turbo fails at that too. Then Smoove Move tries to teach him how to do the S-Turns, but Turbo doesn't listen and winds up getting hurt again. All this bums Turbo out... he becomes convinced that he's never going to beat Hardcase. Chet tries to give him a pep talk, but when he does, Turbo finishes all of his sentences and realizes that in order to win this race, he'll have to, as the Beatles would put it, get by with a little help from his friends. "Leave it to Turbo to give a pep talk to himself," says Chet.

And then Tito and the old lady show up again.

She's TWO annoying stereotypes at the same time!

We get a training montage set to "Eye of the Tiger", and then Turbo asks Whiplash if he thinks he's ready. This causes Whiplash to go into a rant where he tells Turbo to go crazy. Turbo is very confused. As am I, by the way.

"I AM THE SAMUEL L. JACKSON SNAIL! AND THUS, EVEN THOUGH HE
DIDN'T REPRISE HIS ROLE FOR THE SHOW PRESUMABLY BECAUSE OF HOW BUSY
HE IS, I AM REQUIRED TO GO ON A RANT!"

Soon it's time for the big race. Hardcase is all, "I'm gonna win!" and Turbo's all "I don't think so, pal!" and White Shadow is all, "I'm a massive idiot!" The race begins, and Turbo does well on the "Moguls", but Hardcase blatantly cheats and yet for whatever reason is not disqualified. Turbo handles the loop-de-loops just fine, and while in the Tomato Plant S-Turns, he makes THIS face.

Hooray, another new potential meme...

Hardcase does some more cheating by shooting tomatoes Turbo's way, but Turbo still does fine. Soon Turbo is in the lead. Hooray! But, OH NO! Hardcase has another trick up his sleeve - he has his beetle henchmen block Turbo's path by knocking down the jumbotron! Hardcase is all, "Bwa-ha-ha, I can jump over this and you can't, so I guess I'm gonna win!" but then Turbo realizes that he can use what he learned from his friends to get over this obstacle. So that's just what he does.

Turbo wins! And then his shell explodes (Skidmark TOLD HIM not to get it wet). But Hardcase decides to sic his beetles on the town anyway just for the heck of it. Turbo and his friends fight them off, but they're outnumbered. Nothing can stop Hardcase... except for the tiger beetle's natural enemy, a spotted yellow-backed tree frog, which they can suddenly hear approaching. This scares Hardcase and the beetles off. Of course, there isn't actually a frog - the sound was coming from out of Smoove Move's speakers. He got the idea from A Bug's Life.

The episode ends with Turbo and his pals deciding to call themselves the "Fast Action Racing Team". Then they realize that their acronym is "F.A.R.T.", so they decide to call themselves the "Fast Action STUNT Team" - or "F.A.S.T.", hence the title of the show - instead.

While Turbo FAST isn't my favorite TV show based off a DreamWorks movie (that honor goes to The Penguins of Madagascar), it's got a lot going for it. Good animation, good voice-acting, funny jokes, and it manages to keep you invested in what's going on. It managed to get three seasons, all of which I think can still be found on Netflix (I could be wrong, though). If you're a fan of the movie, I say give it a watch. If you haven't seen the movie, I'd recommend watching the movie first, and if you like it, THEN giving this show a watch.

P.S. - I think Amir Talai's voice for Skidmark sounds like Dee Bradley Baker. Just an interesting observation.

Well, that's two positive reviews in a row... I'm not sure if you guys prefer my positive reviews or my negative reviews, but I suppose I should probably review something really crappy next time to balance things out.

How about we make a game out of this? I'm not going to straight-up TELL you what my next review is gonna be like I normally do. Instead, I'm going to give you three hints.

HINT NUMBER ONE:
The show is from the 2000s.

HINT NUMBER TWO:
The show aired on Nickelodeon in at least one part of the world.

HINT NUMBER THREE:
The show is named after a pre-existing song.

Can you guess what my next review is gonna be?

Let's Watch This - An Episode of "Fillmore!"

During the 2000s, Disney's Television Division was in a strange place. It was slowly shifting away from cartoons and focusing more on the infamous "tweencoms" that plagued Disney Channel's airwaves for years. You know, stuff like this...

And this, too...

And everybody's favorite anime...

Oh, sure, they were still making cartoons during this time, but alas, these cartoons are for the most part pretty obscure. The only exceptions to this seem to be Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, and MAYBE The Proud Family. We also got shows like Dave the Barbarian, The Replacements, The Buzz on Maggie... I'm not saying these are bad shows, but you don't see people talk about them as much as Disney's cartoons from the 1990s like Darkwing Duck and Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers. Today, we'll be looking at one of those "Cult Classic" cartoons Disney gave us in the 2000s. Specifically, this one.

Fillmore! was created by Scott M. Gimple. It premiered on ABC in 2002, then reruns aired on Toon Disney. It focused on reformed delinquent named Cornelius Fillmore (voiced by Orlando Brown) who works as a member of his middle school's safety patrol. His partner is Ingrid Third, a goth girl voiced by Tara Strong. They fight crime. And every episode has announcements by Don LaFontaine. Only two seasons of the show were produced, making for a total of twenty-six episodes. Why didn't the show catch on? Well, let's watch an episode and see if we can figure that out. Today's episode... "To Mar a Stall".

ACT ONE: FLUSHED INNOCENCE

A bunch of students are gathered at the grand opening of... one of the school's newly-remodeled bathrooms. They really hype it up, too - now their bathrooms have heated toilet seats and automatic toilet paper dispensers and crap (no pun intended) like that. Why such a fuss over a bathroom? I mean, the bathrooms at ninety-five percent of the schools I've been to are usually pretty dirty and gross. The reason, I guess, being that the school doesn't think it's worth the effort to make them less dirty and gross because, come on, it's a BATHROOM.

But when the girl who's apparently in charge of the bathroom-remodeling committee (Mae Whitman) opens the door to one stall, everyone is shocked... it's been graffiti-ed! And so have all the OTHER stalls! "Someone call the safety patrol... NOW!" Principal Wendie Malick exclaims.

Pictured: the work of a graffiti artist with way too much free time on their hands.

Fillmore and Ingrid arrive with the other safety patrol officers to do a little investigating. Vallejo (Horatio Sanz), who speaks with a really bad accent that I'm guessing is supposed to be Brooklyn, complains that he's going fishing this weekend and he doesn't want this work of a "Mr. Stainless" messing up his concentration while he's trying to reel in a trout. One safety patrol member says that Mr. Stainless' weapons of choice are permanent markers. Really? What kind of pathetic graffiti artist can't even get their hands on some quality spray paint? And it's the same brand of marker supplied to the school, so they can't trace the orders or anything like that. Ingrid suggests that they show the photos to someone who can trace the penmanship or something. Going off that, Fillmore suggests they show it to somebody named Randall Julian. Presumably, he means this guy:

My apologies for my really lousy PhotoShopping skills...

Well, no, actually Fillmore's referring to somebody who, according to other safety patrol members, is known as "Randall the Vandal" and is currently serving "infinite detention". Everyone's skeptical that he would help them, but Fillmore says, "You guys got a better lead?"

Ingrid, who's a new student at their school, asks for some exposition as to who this "Randall the Vandal" is. Fillmore explains that he was once one of the best art students at their school, but then he randomly decided to start graffiti-ing everything with permanent marker. He became the tagger - not just A tagger, THE tagger.

"Man, the WiFi in this school STINKS!"

He apparently decorated every bathroom in the school except one - the bathroom in the teacher's lounge - with his permanent markers. "You were the one that caught him, weren't you?" Ingrid guesses. "Well, he should be thrilled to see YOU again..."

After checking in with this guy...

Who reminds me of a celebrity, but I can't pinpoint which one...

We finally get to meet this Randall the Vandal (according to the credits, he's voiced by a young Josh Peck). "Cornelius Fillmore. You have a new partner," he says, back turned to Fillmore and Ingrid. Ingrid shows him the photos, and he dubs the new vandal's work bland and uninspired. Then he asks just why, exactly, he should help them find out who the new vandal is. "We could talk to the higher-ups. Knock some time off your detention," Ingrid suggests.

"Get the camera out of my face, Fillmore. I'm feeling claustrophobic."

Randall points out that this "Mr. Stainless" writes from right to left as opposed to from left to right like everyone else does. He's figured out why, but he's not going to tell Fillmore and Ingrid that - according to him, that would be too easy.

Ingrid and Fillmore leave and meet back up with Vallejo, who's still excited about his fishing trip. "Do some digging. Maybe this whole thing isn't about tagging. Maybe someone has a grudge against this whole bathroom renovation project," he says in that awful Brooklyn accent of his. Then Robin, that girl from before who's the head of the bathroom-renovating committee, pops in and says that she BEGGED the committee to use brushed steel for the stalls, as apparently brushed steel is almost impossible to deface. But they didn't listen!

Ingrid finds a file that includes information about the bathroom-renovating project - when it was approved, the steering committee was moved to the very same office that she and Fillmore are in right now, and as a result, a small club was thrown out of said office... specifically, an alternative art club called "the Starving Renoirs". So clearly Mr. Stainless must actually be...

For those of you that don't get the joke, please watch The Great Muppet
Caper.

"Disco!" Fillmore exclaims, which is apparently what he says whenever they find a clue (and let me tell you, it's no "Jinkies"). "The club only has three members," Ingrid tells him. And one of them is Frankie Polk (Lukas Behnken), the founder and president. So they talk to him first.

As it turns out, Frankie didn't really mind when they got kicked out of that office - he finds them to be "creatively confining". "The only thing that truly upsets me is the lack of beauty around us," he admits... right before, uh, drenching himself with pink paint.

Apparently, the "a unicorn just threw up on me" look is IN this season.

So then they visit the club's treasurer, Tommy Howard (Josh Uhler). He's miffed that everyone's talking about this Stainless guy and not HIS work. Also, his shtick is that he says "Know what I'm sayin'?!" a lot.

Next they have Jean Grace (Shanie Calahan), the club's recording secretary. She tells them that she's never set foot in a school bathroom because she doesn't believe in indoor plumbing. Apparently, she prefers to either use a port-a-potty (the one thing even MORE disgusting than a public bathroom) or just take a dump in the bushes.

Then they're summoned by one of the other safety patrol members. She points out to them that the ink flow on one section of the tag drops off seventy-two percent. Only one thing could've caused that - his red marker must've sprung a leak. Probably from the rear of the pen. So in order to find Mr. Stainless, Fillmore and Ingrid need to find somebody with a red ink stain on them somewhere. Fillmore then says that maybe this Mr. Stainless is gonna need a refill, so they wait in the school supply room.

And lo and behold, somebody DOES sneak into the supply room and swipe some markers, meaning that it's CHASE SCENE TIME!

I hope his grip is good, because methinks that if he fell he could break something...

Ingrid catches the marker thief using some bulk rubber cement. "Let's see who we got here!" Fillmore announces as he channels Fred Jones, walks over to the thief and yanks off their hood to reveal... like, ZOINKS! It's Tommy Howard!

ACT TWO: A SMEARING OF JUSTICE

So Stainless - or rather, Tommy - has been caught. Except that no he hasn't, because the episode isn't over yet, so clearly he's just claiming to be Stainless in order to get some of that guy's fame. Robin wants to order new stalls from the bathroom, but Principal Wendie Malick says that there's no need for 'em.

Meanwhile, Vallejo has a package, which upon opening he discovers to be one of those singing mounted fish.

Vallejo really hated that McDonald's commercial where the mounted fish sings
"Give me back the fillet-o-fish! Give me that fish!"

But then Fillmore notices something about the markers Tommy was stealing... they're BLACK, not RED. If Tommy were Stainless, he would've been trying to steal RED markers. Plus, there weren't any red stains on Tommy's hands or wrists. Then Ingrid says exactly what I said before - Tommy claimed to be Stainless because he wanted attention. Vallejo says that it's hard to believe somebody would smear their own name just to get attention. Hearing the word "smear" plants an idea in Ingrid's head. "Crackers! That's it!" she tells Fillmore.

With a whiteboard, Ingrid explains that a marker leaves a wet residue. "Right-handed people don't have to worry about smearing it. But a left-handed person has a tendency to drag their hand over the area they just wrote," she says... unless, of course, that person writes backwards! Stainless must be left-handed!

So they pay Randall a visit again and point out to him that this does not make solving the case any easier - a large percentage of the students at their school is left-handed. Ingrid asks Randall which of the newly-renovated bathrooms this Stainless guy is going to graffiti next, only for him to reply that he can't read Stainless' mind. So then Fillmore is all, "Well, which one would YOU graffiti next?" and bribes him with access to art supplies (all under strict supervision, of course). "You can be a real artist again, Julian..." he says.

Randall explains that the reason he started doing graffiti was because he didn't think winning art contests with macaroni representations of countries or whatever would make him "immortal". But now hardly anyone remembers him for his graffiti work either, so he picks which stall he thinks Stainless will do.

So Fillmore and Ingrid wait by a staircase for Stainless to show up. Ingrid asks if Fillmore would rather eat a "two-month old mac and cheese" or a "spider-meringue pie". Thanks for making me nauseous, Ingrid. Then Fillmore asks if Ingrid would rather eat a "squirrel burger" or a pack of potting soil (he chose the mac and cheese, by the way). After choosing the potting soil, Ingrid and Fillmore spot Frankie Polk heading into the girl's bathroom... only to find out that the reason he went in was so he could sketch a toilet.

To Ingrid's shock, Frankie has been drawing... well, I want to keep this blog
PG, so make up your own punchline here.

But it turns out that Stainless has indeed struck again - in the BOYS' bathroom! Then the mystery graffiti artist drenches them with toilet water so they can make their getaway.

ACT THREE: CAUGHT RED-HANDED

Principal Wendie Malick tells Vallejo to get this Stainless guy in custody or she shall turn the safety patrol headquarters into a falculty yoga studio. After she leaves, Vallejo suggests that Fillmore and Ingrid go back and talk to Randall Julian. Upon arriving, they find out that Randall has escaped - and his cell now looks like this:

I guess all work and no play makes Randall Julian a dull boy.

I probably should have mentioned this before - while Fillmore and Ingrid were leaving Randall's cell earlier, a pencil fell out of Ingrid's backpack and caused the door to get stuck or something like that. That's how Randall escaped.

Randall then addresses Fillmore and Ingrid on the TVs. Ingrid points out that they had a deal, but Randall's all "So what? I'm gonna make sure everyone at this school remembers me!" Fortunately, he left them a parting gift - an old copy of the school newspaper. And on the cover is a photo of Robin, cutting a ribbon with her LEFT HAND. And she's also wearing A GLOVE. Looks like this mystery's just about wrapped up.

After some more investigating, Ingrid finds a book that tells her Robin put in a motion to install her brushed steel stalls FORTY-THREE TIMES. What better way to convince the committee that brushed steel was the way to go than by vandalizing the bathrooms herself? And those brushed steel stalls she wanted are arriving at the school loading dock RIGHT NOW!

And indeed, that's where they find her. Ingrid yanks off her glove to reveal that, indeed, she's got a red ink stain on her wrist. So Robin makes a run for it. Fillmore runs after her, and Ingrid calls for backup. As she evades Fillmore, Robin yammers about how being the student that put an end to graffiti will somehow cause her to become the student council president, then the valedictorian, then "Best Dressed" in the yearbook.

Long story short, Fillmore manages to catch Robin with Vallejo's fishing rod and some bubble wrap.

Those are some eyebrows that Fillmore has...

The day is saved, Vallejo needs to repair his fishing rod, and Robin would've gotten away with it if it hadn't been for those meddling kids. But wait, Randall Julian is still loose, and no one knows where he'll strike next... well, except for Fillmore, who catches him in the act of trying to graffiti the bathroom in the teacher's lounge.

"I don't understand how someone with your talent can just flush it away!" he tells Randall (geddit? "Flush it away"? 'Cuz this episode is all about... yeah, okay). He tries to convince Randall that making art that moves people is much more important than drawing all over bathroom stalls with a red marker. When that fails, he suggests that Randall write his REAL name all over the stall as opposed to "Flava Sava" or whatever. Randall can't bring himself to do it. "Welcome back, Randall," Fillmore says before the two of them leave the bathroom. The end.

So, that was Fillmore!. And, honestly, I liked it. The mystery geniunely surprised me a couple times, the voice acting is good... my one complaint is that it wasn't very funny, but I guess it was more focused on telling a compelling mystery than making the audience laugh. That said, is it weird that I actually like Ingrid much more than Fillmore? I think it's mainly because she's voiced by Tara Strong...

Do I have any idea as to why the show didn't catch on? Honestly, no, I don't. Maybe kids were too busy watching Power Rangers and The Proud Family to give the show any mind. Ah well, maybe it'll eventually get rebooted...