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They rock. They ride. They wear pants. Throttle, Modo, and Vinnie are a trio of humanoid mice who were freedom fighters kidnapped from Mars during the Plutarkian invasion, when their archenemies destroyed half the planet. They thought they’d escaped until a Plutarkian rocket crashed into their spaceship and sent them hurtling down to Chicago. Since their bikes crashed with them, the first place they had to get their tails to was the Last Chance Garage. Underappreciated mechanic Charlene “Charley” Davidson is often pulled into their undertakings, all of which center on trashing evil Plutarkian chairman Lawrence Limburger.
Biker Mice From Mars was undoubtedly one of the most awesomely weirdest shows to come out of the ‘90s, with the original series running from 1993-1996. You might think you saw something as bizarre as bionic mice in your sleep, but it was definitely on TV. There was a 2006 reboot that gave certain villains the fate they deserved. Now, with another reboot possibly on the horizon, we look back at the most unbelievable things about the adventures of a trio of mice who are everything mice technically aren’t supposed to be. Let’s rock and ride!
Biker Mice From Mars Are Barely Mice
Earth mice? Don’t know them. These rodents are with buff bods and antennae who never heard of stereotypes like “quiet as a mouse” until they landed on our turf. Not that they were ever quiet. They rock out to heavy metal while zooming down the streets of Chicago on their bikes and cranking up the boombox while playing hockey with a hubcap in Charley’s garage. Unfortunately, being too attached to your radio (because things like Spotify didn’t exist in 1993) can have its drawbacks. When their bike radios break down, Limburger tries to exploit that by starting up his own bogus radio station to lure them over.
Being a Martian mouse has its advantages. Their tails are also strong enough to lasso things hands-free—there’s a reason it’s always “tail-whippin’ time!” A tail like that can wrangle one of Limburger’s goons or save innocent citizens from danger. It’s also a convenient way to grab something and hurl it at one of Karbunkle’s many robotic contraptions that come after them.
Don’t expect mice from another planet to eat like actual mice, either. After Vinnie discovers the wonders of hot dogs at the ballpark, all three of them inhale huge amounts of “dawgs” and root beer for every meal of the day. They often upgrade to chili dogs, but don’t ever offer them cheese. Martian mice hate cheese.
Bionic Limbs and Transforming Bikes Give Them an Advantage
Maybe there was one positive to the Biker Mice finding themselves in Karbunkle’s laboratory. They were badly injured in an explosion while facing off against the Plutarkians on Mars, and once they crashed in Chicago, the mad scientist took advantage of their injuries to give them some experimental attachments, thinking he could turn them into slaves that were half-mouse, half-machine. He would come to sorely regret this.
Throttle’s vision was restored with robotic eyes, but because the calibration is off, he needs the visor on his helmet or his sunglasses to see, so being in shades all the time isn’t only about the cool factor for him. At least the superpowered glove he calls Nuke Knucks are Martian weapons. Modo had it worse. He lost his right arm and left eye, but the bionic arm backfired on Karbunkle when Modo used it to free himself and the others. Wait, what about Vinnie’s metal mask? That was made for him on Mars by a certain mouse he had a situationship with.
If the mice themselves are already hi-tech, get a load of their bikes. Motorcycles from another planet are going to enjoy alien advantages. They have blasters, drill attachments, rocket engines, wings, skis that replace the wheels in snow and ice, the ability to turn into a speedboat in the water, and a supersonic booster. These bikes can also drive and fire missiles on their own.
Their Arch-Nemesis is an Oversized Fish in a Human Suit
Don’t be deceived by Lawrence Limburger’s astonishingly hideous looks, because it gets worse. The whole human thing is just cosplay. Limburger is really a Plutarkian, an anthropomorphic alien fish from the planet Plutark who wants nothing more than to eradicate the Biker Mice. Because he lives in Chicago, he literally has to wear a mask, along with an entire suit that can pass for human, but there are some giveaways that he’s not exactly our species.
Limburger stinks more than his namesake. He has crates of Plutarkian slime worms shipped to Earth and eats them by the fistful. No matter what he wears, he emits a dreadful stench, even in his sleep. The miasma is so strong that most of Chicago can smell it. It lingers behind him in a greenish-yellow haze that tells the Biker Mice something suspicious is going on, and this evidence is probably why you never see a single can of air freshener at the Last Chance Garage.
Plutarkians have their own formal greeting, which consists of rubbing their posteriors together and chanting “cheek to cheek and stink to stink, as Plutark grows the galaxy shrinks!” There are a few armpit farts added in for musical effect. Limburger despises this but is still forced to go through with it almost every time another Plutarkian fiend hits him up over video chat.
Karbunkle’s Contraptions Are Out There … Way Out There
Behind those beady eyes and green goggles, Dr. Karbunkle at least thinks his huge brain makes him extremely intelligent. He is the force behind every possible contraption created to take down the Biker Mice. Among his inventions are mecha-like robots, enormous drills, a time machine, lasers strong enough to cut the entire city of Chicago out of Earth so it can be shipped to Plutark, something that melts anything or anyone into shapeshifting gloop, and a gizmo to give inanimate objects a mind of their own so they can take orders.
The problem is that Limburger’s appointed mad scientist often goes too far and screws up more than anything else. His contraptions usually have some sort of glitch, leaving Limburger and his henchmen either watching their tower crumble (again) or stuck anywhere from the mouth of a metal monster to the late Cretaceous. Perhaps one of the strangest gadgets he came up with was the Digitizer. This thing can zap any character from any TV show and bring them to life. After embarrassingly failing with characters vaguely resembling Yosemite Sam and Skeletor, though you have to admit Death Master is pretty metal, Karbunkle brings sketches of his enemies’ evil doppelgängers to life. When they eat asphalt trying to take down the real Biker Mice, he and Limburger are zapped the other way into a kids’ TV show full of disgusting sunshine and rainbows.
Maybe the bionic eyes and limbs of the Biker Mice were Karbunkle’s only successful experiment—an experiment that turned against him and the master he serves. Karma.
The Villains Just Keep Getting Weirder and Weirder
While Karbunkle gets caught up in his scientific snafus, Limburger keeps deploying new villains to trap the Biker Mice after every time they destroy his tower, which somehow ends up reappearing out of thin air in the next episode. Some of them aren’t even supposed to exist, like the cartoon characters brought to life by the Digitizer. Most are aliens, Plutarkian or otherwise, beamed down into the show’s own version of a holodeck.
So who does Limburger trust most with his ever-changing plots to turn the Biker Mice to dust? There’s his right-hand goon Greasepit, one of the few actual humans on the show who isn’t exactly the brightest lightbulb but can still leverage brute force and petroleum, not to mention wrangling goons for his boss. Then you have Catscan, a feline who should be the natural enemy of mice everywhere, except things get reversed when the claws come out. Evil Eye Weevil thinks he’s the second coming of Elvis. With his sidekicks, the Pukes of Hazard, he shreds on his motorcycle but can’t beat those mice. Gorgonzola and Munsterella could pass for cousins of Godzilla, but they ultimately can’t stomp Chicago or any mice hiding in it.
Then you have the Plutarkian villains, some of which stink worse than Limburger, both literally and otherwise. Napoleon Brie was Limburger’s high school nemesis. Though he doesn’t have much of a presence and talks like Elmer Fudd, this rotten fish wants both Detroit and Chicago along with the Biker Mice. The Loogie Brothers are so pungent that they make it almost impossible to breathe for miles. Then again, they consider raw sewage a delicacy.
So if this rumored reboot really does happen, there is just one thing we ‘90s kids have to plead. Please, please don’t let Biker Mice go the way of the Ninja Turtles, who don’t exactly look right in 3D CGI. Please, please keep the new series 2D. It will hit us right in the nostalgia.
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