A lot of people think it would be cool to be able to change into a sports car whenever they get hot, and back into a human whenever they get cold, but I’m here to tell you, it’s no picnic. My life changed a lot the day I crashed my bright red sports car into Dr. Chase’s lab on the very day he was testing a transference ray, causing an accident that fused my body with my car forever. Heck, I thought it was tough enough trying to fight crime and be a normal teenager, but things have only gotten tougher as I’ve gotten older.
Do you realize even a kiss from my friend Pattie was enough to turn me into a car? Sure, that was great when we were on an adventure and needed a quick way out of a jam, but did you ever consider that I might want to be kissed and stay human once in awhile? Whenever I’m with a girl and things get hot and heavy, I always run the risk of getting hot and too heavy, if you know what I mean. I mean I turn into a car, which is heavy. Even if I manage not to crush her, you know things will get awkward when she opens her eyes and realizes she’s tonguing the grille of a Firebird. Basically the only way to get around that is if we suck on ice cubes together, or if we break every fifteen minutes to chew a stick of ice gum. And for some reason, girls always want to know why I have such specific needs. Why, they ask, can we only have sex in a cold shower, a swimming pool, or a bathtub full of ice? Pity me, Bret Matthews, for the least terrifying answer possible is: “I am a sick man with perverse temperature fetishes.” One time, I forgot myself when a group of unknowing college friends invited me to join them in a hot tub. Needless to say, I was not invited back.
Prurient topics aside, things have only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. I gained a reputation for laziness in college, as the slightest workout would have treated the entire gym to the sight of a sports car on a treadmill. I couldn’t even blame drugs for my sloth–the warm smoke of burning marijuana filling my lungs would only have resulted in me exhaling via an exhaust pipe.
Don’t even get me started on the mockery my disability has made of my law practice. Sweating in my tailored suit, under pressure to cross-examine a witness during a particularly stressful case, in a stifling courtroom full of people, the urge to transform overwhelms me suddenly, and often. Usually I can make it to my pitcher of ice water before becoming a sports car and losing the trust of the jury, but even if I do make it in time, everyone always looks strangely at the guy who cuts off midsentence to run across the courtroom and soak himself in water.
I would like to settle down and raise a family, but I cannot, for fear that my car-transforming ability has become part of my genetic makeup, to be passed on to my children. I cannot risk my child’s fetus transforming into a car in the warmth of the womb, harming the hypothetical mother of my child and potentially causing a miscarriage. The fetus might change into a Micro Machine or Hot Wheels sized car at first, but I have no doubt it would grow well into Power Wheels size by the third trimester, and anyone would agree that this is unacceptable.
On the plus side, I have a spoiler, which is totally dope.
Turbo-Teen ran for 12 episodes during the 1984-5 season, Saturday mornings on ABC.
