Turbo Fast is an American animated television series based on the 2013 animated film Turbo. Produced by DreamWorks Animation Television and animated by Titmouse, it was released exclusively on Netflix in the United States and in the 40 countries where Netflix offers its services at the time, but it became available worldwide via Netflix over time. It is the first Netflix original series for children, and the first DreamWorks Animation series produced for Netflix. Each episode consists of two 11-minute segments, except for a few double-length episodes.
Set five months after the events of the film, the series follows Turbo and his crew to Starlight City, where they master new stunts and compete with villains.
In April 2023, the series was removed from the streaming service along with another DreamWorks series, The Mr. Peabody & Sherman Show, although it can still be watched on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango at Home.
Contents
Premise
Five months after the events of Turbo (2013), Tito builds a city for all the snails along with Turbo, additionally building a race track for the snails to race. Turbo continues his racing adventures with the help of his older brother Chet, and his friends Whiplash, Burn, Skidmark, White Shadow, and Smoove Move. Together they decide to call themselves the Fast Action Stunt Team, or Team F.A.S.T.
Characters
Main
Theodore "Theo"/Turbo (voiced by Reid Scott) – The main protagonist of Turbo, a snail who has gained super speed powers, skills and abilities similar to a car after being swallowed by a car engine which infused his DNA with Nitrous oxide, and who has archived his dream of winning the Indy 500 with said powers.
Whitney "Whiplash" Chubbington (voiced by John Eric Bentley) – The tough-as-nails leader of the F.A.S.T. crew, whose shell is equipped with a jet engine. Despite his gruff attitude, he has a fondness for lavender lotion.
Skip "Skidmark" Markovich (voiced by Amir Talai) – The F.A.S.T. crew's main mechanic, whose shell is equipped with a propeller. He is fond of conspiracy theories, which seems to annoy the other team members, despite most of them proving to be true. He is best friends with White Shadow.
Chester "Chet" (voiced by Eric Bauza) – Turbo's older brother, who is a safety patrolman and the manager of the F.A.S.T. crew. He is also Burn's boyfriend. His shell is equipped with an ambulance that has helicopter rotors, nicknamed the ‘Shellcopter’.
Smoove Move (voiced by Phil LaMarr) – The "grooviest" snail of the F.A.S.T. crew, whose shell is equipped with bass speakers. He has a taste for funk and rap music, which help him to "groove" through the track. He is also a DJ and has a knack for painting.
Bernice "Burn" Guzman (voiced by Grey DeLisle) – The only female member of the F.A.S.T. crew. She is a hot-head with a sassy attitude. She is also known for her co-leadership and passion for racing, gum, and Chet who is her boyfriend. Her shell is equipped with a flamethrower.
Whitman "White Shadow" Shafford (voiced by Michael Patrick Bell) – The largest snail in the F.A.S.T. crew, who has a habit of acting stealthy, though his large size is a disadvantage. He is best friends with Skidmark, and often proves to be just as quirky as him. He is somewhat dim-witted and a big eater. His shell is equipped with tires.
Recurring
Tito (voiced by Amir Talai) – A snail race trainer and the employee of Dos Bros Tacos.
Kim-Ly (voiced by Ken Jeong) – An elderly manicurist at Starlight Plaza.
Guy Gagné (voiced by Eric Bauza) – A Indy 500 disgraced former racer and Turbo's former racing idol and arch-nemesis.
Hardcase (voiced by Diedrich Bader) – A tiger beetle who envies Turbo's fame and wishes to outrace him, even resorting to cheating. He does not tolerate losing, and even threatens to ravage Turbotown until he wins a race.
Darryl (voiced by Ron Perlman) – Turbo and Chet's trucker father.
Howie (voiced by Billy West) – A lunatic moth.
Jack. A. Lopez (voiced by Billy West) – A jackalope.
Queen Banananica (voiced by Dawnn Lewis) – An African snail queen.
Kip the Chickipede (voiced by Phil LaMarr) – A chicken-centipede mutant hybrid created by Dean Cuisine.
Brahdhi and Warlarva (voiced by Jeff Bennett and Mark Hamill) – Surfing cockroaches along with Jimmy Delaware.
Breakneck (voiced by Mark Hamill) – Whiplash's rival and former mentor.
Deuce (voiced by Grey DeLisle) – A troublemaking young snail who idolizes Turbo.
Mel Shellman (voiced by Daran Norris) – A snail announcer.
Buster Move (voiced by Dana Snyder) – Smoove Move's younger brother.
Episodes
Season 1 (2013–14)
The series premiered on December 24, 2013, when the first five episodes of the first 26-episode season were released. Following batches of five to six episodes were released (following around holidays) throughout 2014; episodes were released on April 4, June 27, September 12, and December 1.
Five-episode release is a departure from previous Netflix release strategy, where an entire season of a series was released at once. Netflix explained the change of the strategy: "Production on animation is on a different timetable, so we chose to make the episodes that are ready now available for viewers as they were ready." However, they went back to the original formula of a full-season release for the remaining two seasons.
Season 2 (2015)
Season 2 was released on Netflix on July 31, 2015.
Season 3 (2016)
The third and final season was released on Netflix on February 5, 2016.
Production
Turbo Fast is the first project coming out of the five-year deal between DreamWorks Animation and Netflix, which includes 300 hours of original programming or over a thousand episodes a year. For this task, DreamWorks Animation opened a new television production unit, called DreamWorks Animation Television. Initially, the project started as a standalone special based on the Turbo film. Being impressed with racing visuals which Titmouse, Inc. created for the Disney XD series Motorcity, DreamWorks Animation contracted the studio to make the special flash-animated. Soon after the Titmouse's founder Chris Prynoski signed on as the director, DreamWorks decided to turn the special into a series. Prynoski directed the first few episodes, and then took over as the series executive producer.
Production on the project began in the summer of 2012, a year before the film's release, when it was still undecided if the project would be a special or a series. With the film still having numerous storyboard panels instead of finished animation, Titmouse had to develop their own style: "We were inspired by the movie, but we weren't held to match the movie," said Prynoski. Titmouse's director Antoni Canobbio developed a look that felt new and cool, to suit the project's racing theme. Beside Flash, which is the main program for animating the series, many additional tools have been used, including Maya, Photoshop and After Effects. To overcome the difficulty of animating intricately detailed snail racing shells, the studio generated 3D models of the shells in Maya, so they could rotate them to any position they wanted. Each time it was put in a new position, it had to be cleaned up by hand to make it look like a 2D drawing. Prepared shell was then put into a library, waiting for next animator to use it when needed. In addition to Titmouse's studios in Los Angeles and Vancouver, a "sizable piece" of the production is taking place at a couple of studios in South Korea, in order to stay on schedule. This marks the first time for DreamWorks Animation to outsource to the country. On average, it takes a crew of about 80 people about six to eight months to take each episode from premise to delivery. It has animation directed by Mike Roush and art directed by Antonio Canobbio, and it is produced by Ben Kalina, Shannon Barrett Prynoski and Jennifer Ray, and executive produced by Chris Prynoski and Jack Thomas (season 1).
Unlike previous DreamWorks Animation series, the Netflix deal allowed DreamWorks to maintain creative control. Prynoski said: "Typically, if you are working on a show like this, you might get two sets of notes: one from DreamWorks and one from the network. But we don't get notes from Netflix, which is cool. It allows us to move faster, and we can make the shows, hopefully, the way we want them." Beside Ken Jeong and Michael Patrick Bell, who reprise their roles of Kim Ly and White Shadow, the cast features all new members. One of the reasons for this was the desire to have the actors working together. "The thing is that these actors are really busy, and we want to get talent in the same room at the same time to get that chemistry. And that's a lot easier to do with professional voice actors," said DreamWorks Animation head of television Margie Cohn. The cast was selected by the Titmouse's casting and voice director Andrea Romano, who chose people Titmouse already knew and had worked with.
Home media
A DVD collection of all the season 1 episodes, titled Turbo Fast: Season 1 was released on DVD on June 2, 2015, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
