Mach Five vs. Mach Five

Part 1

At one of the most secret secret places in the world, the Secret National Science Institute, Professor Tower is leaving work late (in his car with license # R241), but in very good spirits. He has just completed work in the new powerful ray, the Mizmo. No sooner does he pass by the guards and leave, than we see the Mach Five -- aah! -- spring over the guardhouse gate and pass by the two surpised guards. As one of the buildings is reached, from the Mach Five, two guards are shot. When the driver runs inside, he shoots another. The driver steals something, and as he flees the scene, the two guards at the gate recognize the car as the Mach Five.

The next day at the Racer family home, Spritle and Chim-Chim are building a working model of the Mach Five. Chim-Chim sits in the driver's seat and accidentally breaks off the steering wheel. Inside the house, Speed wakes up late, telling Pops he was out late the night before. On tv, Speed sees a news report about the burglary at the Secret National Science Institute the night before. In the garage, Spritle and Chim-Chim start off on a test drive. On the road, we see the steering wheel has A and B buttons on it. Spritle tests out the A (auto jacks) button. The jacks only boost one side of the car! When he tries B (belted tires), the car falls apart. A cop comes over to holler at the young driver, who says, ``Spritle's my name. Mischief's my game!'' It turns out the police were heading to the Racer household to talk to Speed. They arrive, and just seconds later, so does Trixie in her yellow convertible, license number 21 6557 [I think the 21 is a country or regional code or something... Most plates in the series begin with 21.] On this perfect sunny, summer day, Trixie has made a picnic basket and wants to have lunch with Speed and go for a swim at the beach. But the police say Inspector Detector wants to talk to Speed at headquarters. Speed is escorted by four or more police motorcycles.

At headquarters, Inspector Detector is waiting there with the guards from the science institute as Speed drives up. The guards confirm that that's the car thet broke into the institute. Inspector Detector asks Speed where he was at midnight the night before. Speed says he was visiting a girl named Lorena. Bad timing. Trixie had just pulled up and not happy about the revelation. Speed explained Lorena had engine trouble, so he brought her home. She invited Speed in, and she and her father, Dr. Nightcall, entertained Speed and offered him something to eat. It was drugged, though, because Speed fell asleep and didn't get home till midnight, unaware that he had even been drugged. To verify the story, the inspector brings Speed to the Nightcall's house. Lorena Nightcall answers but says she's never seen Speed before and doesn't know what he's talking about. The one-eyed Dr. Nightcall says the same. Insp. Detector is forced to arrest Speed for the burglary of the science institute, even though we later her the inspector say he never thought Speed was guilty.

After everyone leaves the Nightcall residence, Lorena cries on her father's shoulder that it's not right for Speed to go to jail for something he didn't do. But Dr. Nightcall says it's for the greater good. He then uses a button in a wooden sailing ship model to open a secret door in the tiled over fireplace. He goes down some steps and radios his boss, Mr. Cumulus. Cumulus is a strange character wearing a green mask covering his eyes and head with black outlines around the eye holes. Cumulus is happy to hear how well the Mach Five performed the night before and gives Nightcall, an expert copier, one hour (and he's surprised it would take him that long!) to build a duplicate Mach Five. It will be used in some grand scheme of Cumulus'.

In jail, our friend Speed is confused. While he's pondering the sequence of events that led got him into a prison cell, the guard brings him a cellmate. After the guard leaves, the new cellmate tells Speed he's there at Nightcall's request. He has some plastic explosive to break Speed out because Nightcall wants to speak with him. Our normally clear-headed Speed thinks this is a great idea for some reason. But not surpsingly, it was just a setup to make Speed look even worse and even more guilty. Speed doesn't get far, running down one corridor to another, before he's caught and caged again. Speed realizes he's been tricked.

At the Racers' home, the family and Trixie are also wondering about the state of affairs, knowing in their hearts that Speed is innocent. After Pops orders Spritle and Chim-Chim off to bed when Spritle is trying to interrupt with some bit of information. Trixie goes to his bedroom to ask what he was trying to say. Spritle and Chim-Chim, as usual, had stowed away in the Mach Five's trunk the night Speed was at the Nightcalls'. Looking in the window, they saw Speed eating and while drinking coffee, he passed out and slumped over the table. Then, Dr. Nightcall came in and went into his secret room behind the fireplace. After that, Spritle saw a man get into the Mach Five and drive away. Trixie rushes Spritle to Inspector Detector to have the story relayed to him. The inspector is glad to hear what really happened, and says they've had trouble before with Nightcall infringing on patents and stealing ideas of others. He says, ``He's disreputable, dishonest and not much good.''

Insp. Detector brings Speed to Nightcall's -- with a search warrant this time. But when Spritle surprises Dr. Nightcall by showing how to open the secret door in the fireplace, Nightcall and his daughter escape running down into the secret basement. By the time, Speed and the inspector get down there, the Nightcalls are in a little red convertible with license number 9811. Dr. Nightcall shoots at the Insp. Detector and Speed as Lorena drives them out of the garage. Lorena is upset and wants to give up and go to jail for their crimes. But, of course, her father disagrees. Then, as Speed and Trixie pursue them in the Mach Five, Mr. Cumulus comes from the side of the road in his copy Mach Five effectively blocking them and letting the Nightcalls escape.

Speed then begins chasing Cumulus in his copy Mach Five. Speed accelerates to 320 kph (with the odometer reading 1162 km and the tripometer reading 1162 km, and we finally see the Mach Five's license plate: 21 2787.) The copy Mach Five, of course, has no plates on it. During the exciting chase, Cumulus leads Speed through thick forest while cutting trees with the car's saws, into a river for an underwater pursuit, then out again and up a steep cliff, but Speed still can follow. Cumulus stops and tells Speed that not only is his Mach Five a copy of Speeds, but it does more, too. It has four jet engines underneath and wings allowing it fly. It circles the real Mach Five a few times and then lands again. Then Cumulus shows Speed and Trixie the crowning Dr. Nightcall's crowning achievement in the copy Mach Five: a copy Mizmo raygun. It's beam, Cumulus explains, is 20,000 degrees...and is aimed right at Speed and Trixie!

Though Cumulus is only twenty feet away and both he and the real Mach Five are stationary, he repeatedly misses! Speed takes the opportunity to use the auto-jacks to bound up a small cliff and drive off. The copy Mach Five follows, but Speed has had enough of a head start that he pulls off behind some rocks until Cumulus passes by. Then, Speed has the homing robot crash into the Mizmo raygun, smashing it to pieces. At that point, Speed feels safe enough to being his pursuit of Cumulus. But Cumulus has his copy Mach Five sprout wings and jets off, just as Inspector Detector approaches in a police helicopter -- which Spritle and Chim-Chim have stowed away in.

Mr. Cumulus then dives into the sea, with Speed and Trixie hot on his trail. The chase continues on the ocean floor with Speed using the F button to start their oxygen supply and the E button to use the powerful special headlights. Because it's so dark in the water, Trixie suggests that Speed use his ``night shades,'' which are built into his crash helmet visor. They seem to be some sort of infrared detector. Now he can catch up and trail Cumulus closely.

Cumulus realizes Speed's professional driving skills are more than a macth for his own. He drives into a cave with a plan in mind. As Speed and Trixie follow, suddenly a large metal door crashes down after Cumulus. Before Speed knows what's happened, the Mach Five crashes into the door, knocking our friends unconscious and with their oxygen supply nearly used up.

On the surface, Inspector Detector is in a patrol boat. One of his policemen reports that the fifteen patrol boats in Squadron 42 have found no sign of the Mach Five. The inspector is worried because he it's already been awhile and, he says, the Mach Five's oxygen supply only lasts a half hour. Once again, the inspector is surpsied to fins Spritle and Chim-Chim have managed to get on board the boat. He orders them to be locked in a room until the reach port again. But they run away. In a lockerroom, they disguise themselves by getting into a scuba diving outfit with Spritle on the bottom and Chim-Chim on his shoulders. Discovered, they fall overboard and then swim to Cumulus's secret cave.

In Cumulus's underwater building, Speed wakes in nicely decorated, booklined room. Trixie is nearby, also waking up. Lorena then comes in and is sorry about the mess they're in.

Outside the building, Spritle and Chim-Chim take turns peering through the goggles and through a porthole into the seafloor hideaway. The see Speed and Trixie walk by but can't get their attention. As they are brought into a control room of some sort, Lorena is shocked to hear Cumulus threaten the lives of Speed and Trixie for knowing too much. He shows them on monitors many ICBMs copied by Dr. Nightcall. In thrity minutes, he tells them, the missiles will be launched to destroy every military base on earth so that Mr. Cumulus will become the world emperor. Lorena, meanwhile, is angry with her father for telling her that the ocean hideaway was the home of a project to develop the ocean's resources. But greedy Dr. Nightcall says this way they have whatever they want.

Lorena is convinced someone must stop Cumulus, so she grabs her dad's gun and points it at Cumulus. She hesitates momentarily, and Cumulus is able to fire a gun built into his jacket. The triggers are two of his vest buttons. Lorena is killed. Cumulus has no regrets and tells Nightcall he had to do it in self-defense. He then tells the guards to take Speed and Trixie away. In the corridor, a fight ensues but the prisoners aren't successful. Spritle and Chim-Chim see the altercation through the porthole. So when a submarine comes out of the secret cave, Spritle and Chim-Chim swim through while the metal door is open. Then they swim up into an entrance pool where both Mach Fives are parked a short distance away. They knock out a guard and take his uniform.

In the control room, the countdown has begun for the missile launch. There are only three minutes remaining.

Spritle and Chim-Chim are now walking down a corridor, this time with Spritle on Chim-Chim's shoulders, and carrying a machine gun. Just as the countdown reaches zero, the ``guard'' walks into the launch room. Spritle knocks out the guy at the controls and shoots up the controls stopping the launch.

In the control room, Speed wriggles free fro the ropes around his wrists and Chim-Chim comes in and bites the ropes off Trixie. Trixie uses her martial arts skills and knocks out a guard. Cumulus, all hope lost, hops in the copy Mach Five and zoom off onto the sea floor. He radios back to them that he has a nuclear bomb in his car and will drive to the center of the city and detonate it. Speed worries that he can't catch the copy Mach Five since it's equally fast. By now, Dr. Nightcall has learned a lesson the hardest way you can, and helps Speed. He tells him that the bomb will make the car much heavier -- maybe that's why Cumulus couldn't just fly?? -- and that Speed will be able to catch him after all. Speed and Trixie immediately hop in their car and dash off. Trixie radios to the police that the copy Mach Five is headed for Sandslee Beach (?? Not sure if I heard the name right). Insp. Detector has his patrol boat head back to land.

In the city, people panic when the air raid sirens go off. Cumulus is in the city but not yet at the center. Speed has caught up, and when Trixie takes the wheel, Speed jumps into the copy Mach Five. He struggles with Cumulus, who ends up falling from the car and being killed. Insp. Detector congratulates Speed and says Cumulus only got what he deserved.

In the end, Dr. Nightcall says he will convert the sea lab to one which develops the resources of the sea; something Lorena would have wanted. Insp. Detector was so impressed with Spritle during the adventure that he asks if he would help the police with future cases. He agrees but demands payment in icecream.