Although I rarely bother with them, I normally like to provide some vague explanation for One-Offs, just so someone completely oblivious to the show can at least get the basic gist of it. But, seriously, if the title isn't enough to get the point across, then maybe the intro will.

Crash dummies crashing the hell into things for twenty minutes (excluding commercial breaks). We were robbed by not getting a full series of this!

And obviously the show itself agrees with how obvious the premise is, as it doesn't dawdle giving us the detailed back-story of the Incredible Crash Dummies or how they became sentient. It just kicks off with our heroes Slick (black suit!) and Spin (red suit!) commenting that they'd better finish this test before breakfast, prompting Spin to crack "so we'd better break fast!" No explanation is made for why a Crash Dummy would need to eat, mind you, it's just a lead-up to a pun.

As they gear up in a motorcycle and sidecar (and equip their helmets!) Spin quickly realises that he's going to be doing jumps on this expedition! He did not sign up for this, girlfriend.

Slick reminds him that if he wants to try the totally awesome and indestructible Torso-9000, then he'll have to give this course a shot; not to mention they're being recorded, so they could become famous stars^[1]! Smash hits, if you may, haw haw haw.

They roll out, splitting the two components of the bike and clearing the course in seconds flat, and, of course, crash into a brick wall. "That was beautiful, Spin, I just went to pieces!"

Unfortunately, they forgot to take the lens cap off the camera.
 

Dr. Zub appears on the scene to tell them the results of this test, but despite their enthusiasm, they won't be testing the Torso-9000; they're not even finished testing their Pro-Tek suits ("they're stylish!"), so Ted will be testing the Torso-9000. As they make their way to Zub's top secret laboratory, Zub mentions that the Torso-9000 needs kept locked away due to its immense power, even going out of his way to mention that if it fell into the wrong hands, it'd be unstoppable. Nice foreshadowing, doc.

As soon as Slick enters the lab he starts toying around with a prototype head, but Dr. Zub berates him for treating it so lightly, as it's a very dangerous peripheral! When the development team made the Torso-9000, they also tried improving upon the default dummy head, but for unknown reasons it was completely evil, and dumped Dr. Zub head-first into a bin! Spin is very concerned.
 

The three of them get ready to watch Ted's test run in the Torso-9000, and it's mentioned that his head was modified to fit only the Torso-9000, though why goes completely unexplained. Ted's rocket car blasts off, and what follows is an onslaught of puns.

"Ted's really cookin' now!"

Groan.

"He makes it look like an art!"

Ugh.

"I trust he's paying attention!"

Oh, that's doubly painful.

We're spared from the torture by a family of primary-coloured insects who are merely trying to cross the road. They encourage good road safety by looking left, looking right, and then taking their time while crossing. Unfortunately, such laws don't apply when you're on a road built for friggin' rocket cars, and Ted soon comes to the realisation he's going to be a murderer!

Thankfully, the insect rolls into a ball and is apparently sturdy enough to send the rocket flying off the track and out the roof before exploding for no reason. Thankfully, despite that mess, the Torso-9000 is completely unscathed, as are the insects. Huzzah! Slick and Spin then attempt to catch the plummeting Ted, but merely crash into each other and fall to pieces.

Slick is then given the task of hauling the parts of Ted back into Dr. Zub's lab. Other than running over Spin's foot, this can't end in failure, can it?

Well, I suppose it's only appropriate.

Late into the night Dr. Zub is still placing the limbs back onto the Torso-9000, though hasn't bothered reattaching Ted to it for some reason. The short-sighted janitor Horst stumbles into the lab and reminds the doctor just how late it is, and leaves Horst the job of finishing the repair job. As soon as the door is closed, he trips over the construction table...

Which sends Ted hurling through the air, knocks off the glass cover of the dangerous Dread Head, and subsequently falls into a trash can. This can't end in disaster, can it? Wrong, Horst pops that head onto the Torso-9000 and promptly ignores it as he cleans up the mess he made of the lab. The head, however, is preparing for action. Evil action!

On an aside, why on earth would you not only hold onto a head that is inherently evil, but have only a glass cover preventing it from being mixed up with any other equipment?

The monstrosity threatens Horst with a vacuum cleaner and... sucks him up with it. No, seriously. Horst barely knows he's gone anywhere, though. The evil head and his indestructible body bust out of the lab and into the storage room, gathering up parts to replace his missing limbs. Now with a functioning body, what next does a villain need?

A cat! Hubcat, to be precise. Following that, he pinches a jet and takes to the skies, menacingly remarking "time for my evil career to take off!" Because you can never have enough puns in ten seconds.

The following morning Slick and Spin arrive at the test centre to discover that the Torso-9000 has been stolen! The discovery that the Dread Head is missing and finding Ted in a bin raises the mystery further, and now it boils down to priorities; Ted desperately wants his body back ("it's got my arms and legs on it!") and the two other dummies don't believe that to be a hassle, doubting the Torso-9000 got up and just walked away.

The hole in the door says otherwise.

No, nobody cares about where Horst went. Poor Horst.

Our villain, Junkman, has set up his evil lair in Junk Mountain (where else?), and although he agrees with Hubcat that it could make a fine hotel, he's more interested in bringing live to his Junkbot army to destroy the do-gooder Crash Dummies and retrieve the plans for the Torso-9000 from Dr. Zub. And once he does that, he will be unstoppable!

What he'll actually achieve with possession of the plans, however, is completely unexplained. I mean, he's already got the Torso-9000, and it's friggin' indestructible. I don't think you can ask more from it than that.

Back at the Crash Dummies test centre, Dr. Zub fills in the rest of the Crash Dummies (and Horst, who apparently escaped the vacuum cleaner) on the situation - the Dread Head is on the Torso-9000 and rebuilt itself from scrap parts, Ted's left without a body, yadda yadda yadda. Zub predicts Junkman's next move will be to retrieve the plans for the Torso-9000, and although he doesn't bother explaining how this would benefit him either, he does say that if it fell into his hands, "the world would be a very unsafe place!"

Junkman is watching this through his magic TV, and one of his Junkbots, Piston Head, is on the scene watching it as well through the convenient glass roof of the conference room. His first instruction is to get off the roof, but he merely walks off it and falls into a dumpster. The two other Junkbots, Jack Hammer and Sideswipe are dispatched to the centre to tamper with the jets Slick and Spin aim to use to find Junkman's lair from the skies, and sneak away before our heroes board them.

Through more magic TV nonsense, this tampering allows Junkman and Hubcat to control the two planes with nothing but a video game simulator and some joysticks! Dr. Zub sees this as them goofing off and demands them to come down, prompting the villains to crash the planes.

With that diversion, Jack Hammer is able to retrieve the plans for the Torso-9000! Will we actually find out its specific purpose this time?

"The information in this disc will mean the end of the Crash Dummies, and safety as we know it!"

Okay, then. That was informative.

Unfortunately, the disc has been tampered with - instead of delivering juicy information to the villain, it's actually a tracking device, and the Crash Dummies now know the location of his lair!

SEETHE!!

Dr. Zub explains the transmitter nonsense to Slick and Spin, but also mentions that the real information on the disc was transferred into his own memory banks. Crafty! The two are supplied a truck, some communicators and a mysterious briefcase for their voyager to Junkman's lair.

Junkman vents his rage by throwing cars around his lair, and after slapping Piston Head across the face, a cassette falls out of his head and into a toaster, which, for some reason, has a recording of the very scene we just saw, informing Junkman that Dr. Zub has the information inside his head. So if he can get access to his brain, then he can stop faffing around and get straight to conquering the world!

I'm confused by this series of events too.

Junkman is informed of Slick and Spin's approach, and mentions that if the two of them survive his booby trap then his three Junkbots had better destroy them personally.

The two Dummies crash through a gate in the truck, believing that to be a rather lacking security measure, believing there'd be a booby trap of some kind. Speak of the devil, they're lifted into the air by a magnet and dropped into a car crusher. "I think I'm starting to see the pressure of this job," Slick duly notes.

Being crushed into a cube is no worries for a Crash Dummy though; the truck is a lost cause but they venture onward on foot. The three Junkbots watch them from several vantage points and open fire with stealthy missiles, but thanks to shoddy aiming, the missiles bounce off the walls and right back at them, without the Dummies even knowing anything had happened.

Dr. Zub has lost contact with the Dummies and is anxious to regain communications, but while using Ted's help to reconnect a cable to the antennae, Junkman appears and captures the good doctor!

Slick and Spin reach the bottom of Junkman's lair with no idea how they'll get in. Of course, that's where the mysterious briefcase comes into use...

It's a portable cannon! Spin is the first to be fired from it, but thanks to uneven ground, the cannon spins out of control and fires him into a wall. He's used to that sort of thing, though.

Dr. Zub is hooked up to a brain draining device that will suck out the information Junkman requires, and the doctor is totally powerless to stop it! Could Junkman actually have succeeded in his plans?

Slick and Spin are on the scene, and Junkman's jig is totally up! Of course, upon seeing the predicament of Dr. Zub, and also the numerous guns being aimed at them by the Junkbots, they quickly change their belief.

Dummies to the rescue! The rest of the Crash Dummies crew arrive in their vehicles, and, well, crash into walls. Daryl crashes his plane into the Junkbots, who are subsequently ordered to fire, but aren't told who to fire at, and end up clobbering their boss with missiles.

Although the tide has turned, Junkman's gotten the information he requires and is making an exit! Slick lobs Ted at the fiend, tripping him up and sending him falling out of the lair, conveniently flinging the disc through the air into Spare Tire's mouth. The disc is inserted back into the brain draining machine, reversing the process and restoring Dr. Zub's memory. Huzzah!

Although defeated, Junkman appears in his helicopter to threaten the Dummies with his inevitable return, as he promptly crashes his helicopter. And then is grabbed by the giant magnet and thrown away.

Well, the day is saved. They may not have gotten the Torso-9000 back, but Junkman's defeated, Dr. Zub is rescued and his memory function is completely unharmed. "And I owe it all to you, Scooter and Eleanor."

Uh oh!

"And now, a safety message from the Incredible Crash Dummies!"

You're not a Crash Dummy. Seriously. No matter what you think, you're not a Crash Dummy, and if you decide to imitate any of the wacky antics they get up to, then you're not a Crash Dummy; you're just a dummy.

Chew on that one, dicknose.

More or less, y'know. The Crash Dummies aren't as assholish as I am in getting the message across.

¹Michael Carvana, who voices Spin and says the line "I could become a star!" appears to have nothing on his résumé besides this show. Ironic!

Yes, the video game simulation is called Incredible Dummy World. Yes, the font mimics Super Mario World, and the title screen is similar to Super Mario Kart. Hilarity!

Also, the communicator looks strangely like a Game Boy.

Just in case all the superfluous characters and vehicles didn't suggest it enough, the Incredible Crash Dummies was a toyline. Although this pilot was broadcast on TV in America, here in the UK it was only available through a video that was packaged with selected figures of the toyline. Crafty marketing!

Usages of the word "Torso-9000" in this page: 18. I'm sure I could have broken 20 if I ditched my good taste.