Teen Titans S05E09 Review: Velocitron

Teen Titans, Season 5, Episode 9: Revved Up

It's one of the few wacky episodes in the fifth season, this time featuring the obligatory race episode. It's not quite as insanely hilarious as the one in Batman: Brave and the Bold (one of the few episodes I've seen) but it's still good fun. The main villain, Ding Dong Daddy, stole a briefcase containing something important -- but classified -- to Robin, and the only way to get it back is through a race... that eventually involves like the entirety of the zanier part of the Teen Titans cast. It's a refreshing bit of madcap fun that returns to the Titans' older roots.

The contents of the case is never really revealed, and I thought it's a bit weird (a Pulp Fiction reference?) but it doesn't matter. The main point of the episode is, after all, the race! And boy, what insanity we got in the race. Between the insane look of the villains' race cars, and the cool surprise team-up between Robin and Red X -- always cool to have Red X back in the show -- it's a very fun episode that doesn't take itself seriously. Maybe the whole point of the briefcase's contents being a secret to the audience is an allusion to how Red X's identity is never revealed to us either? I dunno.

There are a lot of stupidly fun moments in the episode, with Gizmo making a very welcome minor role as the most vocal of the villain racers with his very weird single-wheel car, and Starfire and Raven's attempt to blend in with a bunch of cosplayers.

But easily the best part is the weird cars that the villains drive. They don't really talk, but Mumbo drives a huge top-hat with wheels, Puppet King drives a huge jack-in-the-box, Control Freak drives a remote-themed car, Dr Light drives a fucking lightbulb, Mad Mod drives a the god damned BIG BEN... and Red X destroying all of them is a hoot. Does it make sense in the whole bigger picture of the Brotherhood of Evil plot, that a huge chunk of them would just participate in the race? And for Red X to randomly betray the Brotherhood? No, but hey, it's fun so I don't care. Beast Boy and Cyborg's rather long scene with the car-destroying gremlins is probably the only one that didn't work for me, and Ding Dong Daddy alternates between being ridiculous fun and being annoying, but it's a pretty decent fun episode.


DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• Ding Dong Daddy is an actual villain from the comics! He was in one of the earliest Teen Titans issues that functioned more of a PSA than an actual superhero story, where "Ding Dong Daddy" Dowd is this criminal that hired high school dropouts using his hot rod store as a front. Of course, needless to say, this version of the character is twenty times more entertaining than his comic-book counterpart.
• Other villains that participated in the race include: Gizmo, Mumbo, Puppet King, Control Freak, Johnny Rancid, Fang, Kitten, Mad Mod, Dr Light and... whoever is in that yellow car. Adonis, I think?
• There's a small cameo of Slade as a doll in one of the Robin baby pictures.