M.A.S.K. S1E20

Cold Fever

Miles Mayhem grabs T-Bob in the ice dome.

Bruce Sato finds a half-dressed man wandering the Alaskan ice, and the hospital quarantines them both with a fever that has no known cure. The patient keeps muttering about masked men and a helicopter that turns into a jet plane, so Matt Trakker calls in Hondo MacLean, Alex Sector and Dusty Hayes to track down the serum the man was working on. Scott and T-Bob slip away to follow. Stranded on the ice, both parties use infrared to find a V.E.N.O.M. dome where Miles Mayhem is melting ice to breed ancient microbes, with a plan to sell the cure to the people he makes sick. T-Bob ends up inside the dome and wrecks the operation.

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Bruce Sato is the reason this episode exists, and he spends nearly all of it in a hospital bed. He finds a half-dressed man wandering the Alaskan ice, the hospital quarantines them both, and from there Cold Fever belongs to everyone else: Matt has to trace the outbreak, a hastily picked strike team has to find a serum somewhere in a great deal of snow, and Scott and T-Bob have to be reminded that they are not allowed to come along.

That last pair is what the episode is really about. Cold Fever is a stowaway story, and its logic is that the characters who were told to stay out of it are the ones who arrive at the answer. Scott sets out after his father on a sled with T-Bob protesting that they are not allowed, they get lost almost at once, and when night falls on the ice the boy reasons his way to the same idea Matt has had in the cockpit of Thunderhawk: a V.E.N.O.M. base has to be giving off heat. Father and son each reach for their own equipment, the jet's infrared sensors in one case and T-Bob's in the other, and the script lets the boy's discovery arrive with as much confidence as the adult's.

The animation sells the cold with small, specific things. T-Bob's long striped scarf trails behind him in nearly every shot he appears in, and it gives the eye something to follow. Frost patterns spread across the front of Thunderhawk, snow chains bite into the edge of an ice shelf and throw up spray, and the flames inside the dome stand out against all that white.

The performances lean on the team's banter. Dusty announces that he wishes he had remembered to bring an army, and Hondo answers that his is in his other suit; Alex, drafted in as Firecracker's temporary co-pilot, asks for a steady truck so he can aim and gets a pun about keeping it in Alaska for his trouble. T-Bob's panic runs at full volume the whole way through, which makes the quiet hospital scenes at the start land harder.

The dome sequence is the best of it. T-Bob rolls between stacks of barrels with Cliff Dagger after him, Mayhem grabs him, and the instruction from outside is to grab the red button. What follows wrecks the dome and sends Mayhem's microbes into the fire, and the show wisely lets the small robot do it rather than a vehicle weapon. The verdict from the team afterwards, that T-Bob did it all, is accurate, and nobody argues.

The weak stretch is the middle. Thunderhawk is iced up, Firecracker's wheels have to be pinned in the ice, a radio is jammed solid, and the team finds its own tracks and realizes it is lost; each of these gets a different gadget and a tidy solution, a sonic boom to shake the frost off the jet among them. Problems that all dissolve on cue stop building tension, and for a stretch the episode forgets that Bruce is waiting on the outcome.

The villain's plan is more businesslike than most. Mayhem is melting ice to trap ancient microbes that survive only in the tropics, with a breeding colony in mind and a serum to sell, and the dialogue sums the plan up as making people sick and making them pay for the cure. It is a small, mean scheme, and it makes the dome worth wrecking.

The ending hands the last word to a proverb about true friends facing death to prevent it, which the wiki lists as one of Bruce Sato's Satoisms. T-Bob asks whether that was a compliment, and someone decides that it was. In a first season that tends to give Scott and T-Bob the comic relief, Cold Fever gives them the climax and lets the grown-ups catch up.

The M.A.S.K. wiki lists the closing safety tip as Scott reminding T-Bob that it is dangerous to play with matches.
The M.A.S.K. wiki's page for Firecracker names Alex Sector as the co-pilot for this episode, in the seat that Buddie Hawks usually fills beside Hondo MacLean.
The M.A.S.K. wiki records Bruce Sato's Satoism in this episode as "True friends are those who would face death to prevent it."
The wiki's continuity notes observe that Bruce says it is 65 degrees below zero when he finds the sick man, yet he wears no hat and what look like thin gloves, and neither man shows frostbite.
The wiki lists several animation slips: the dark and blue highlights on Miles Mayhem's chin guard swap places while he laughs at the stranded team, Cliff Dagger's bald head briefly shows hair during the chase after T-Bob, and Mayhem seems to shrink and grow for a few frames after Matt throws the microbes into the fire.
According to the wiki, Gator's Electric Ouch gun is shot off by Jackhammer, but it is back on the rear of the vehicle in a later shot.
The wiki's voice cast list credits Doug Stone as Matt Trakker, Hondo MacLean, Dusty Hayes and Bruce Sato, Mark Halloran as Sly Rax, Cliff Dagger and Professor Ortook, and Graeme McKenna as T-Bob.
The M.A.S.K. wiki's page for Firecracker says the toy's box never named the real truck it was based on and suggests the closest match is a Chevrolet K30 Scottsdale, with some design differences.
The wiki's page for Thunderhawk lists a 2025 re-release for the line's 40th anniversary with upgraded sculpting and an improved transformation.

Matt Trakker

Bruce Sato

Hondo MacLean

Alex Sector

Dusty Hayes

Miles Mayhem

Cliff Dagger

Sly Rax

Scott Trakker

T-Bob

Bruce Sato clings to the sled beside a shirtless man who throws up his arms in the blizzard.

A shirtless man sits slumped on the sled beside Bruce Sato in the swirling snow.

Snow-covered chalet rooftops stand beside a frozen stream in a mountain village.

Scott Trakker walks through the snow beside T-Bob, who wears a long striped scarf.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob trudge along a snowy path past a wooden building.

T-Bob shuffles across the snow, his scarf trailing behind him.

A white multi-storey hospital building sits among snowy pines.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob stand together in a hospital corridor.

Bruce Sato leans over a hospital patient as Matt Trakker, Scott and T-Bob watch through a window.

Bruce Sato sits up in one of two hospital beds in the quarantine room.

Matt Trakker, Scott, T-Bob and a doctor watch a patient in bed through the quarantine window.

Bruce Sato leans toward a patient lying in a hospital bed.

The patient lies in bed with a tense, wary expression.

A woman doctor and Matt Trakker stand side by side in the hospital, both looking worried.

The doctor faces Matt Trakker, who has his back to the camera.

Matt Trakker drives with Scott and T-Bob beside him in the cab.

Matt Trakker looks ahead from the driver's seat.

A green wireframe profile shows a full-body figure, two face views and a mask.

A red wireframe jeep splits down the middle along a bright vertical beam.

Bruce Sato's bedside image appears on the screen in the M.A.S.K. command room.

Matt Trakker appears on the command room screen above the round table.

Alex Sector sits in a purple chair in the control room.

The command room monitor goes dark above the empty conference table.

The command room table sits in a tall circular chamber.

Blue beams converge on a glowing dome from several emitters.

A tyre with snow chains grips the icy ground.

T-Bob rolls through a snowy street between two buildings.

T-Bob points to the side while Scott Trakker sits beside him.

A chained wheel ploughs through icy water, throwing up spray.

T-Bob peers out from his scarf with a weary look.

A blue V.E.N.O.M. aircraft flies over the snow as M.A.S.K. vehicles and figures wait near a cabin.

An explosion throws masked figures and a crate through the air.

A black SUV leaps over a wave of ice.

Miles Mayhem grips the controls in his cockpit with an angry scowl.

A masked driver in a blue and white helmet grips the wheel of a red vehicle.

A red vehicle's wheel digs into the edge of an ice shelf, spraying snow.

A dark motorcycle stands on the ice beside a red jeep.

A rider steps away from the motorcycle beside the red jeep on the ice.

An orange pickup truck races across the snow with its headlights blazing.

A masked driver sits in a red jeep as its door swings open on the ice.

An orange pickup with a mounted cannon in its bed crashes through ice.

A red jeep with a mounted cannon speeds across the snow in a cloud of powder.

Thunderhawk streaks through the air with its wings raised as a small plane flies past.

Frost patterns cover the front of a car, with flames glowing behind the windscreen.

Thunderhawk sits frosted over with its gull-wing doors raised.

A red jeep tumbles through the air over a slope of snow and ice.

Miles Mayhem sits strapped in his seat, helmeted, with his visor glowing.

A red truck ploughs through an ice wall in an explosion of snow.

A red truck perches on a floating block of ice at the edge of an ice cliff.

Two small vehicles drift on separate ice floes in dark water.

A dark V.E.N.O.M. aircraft hovers with its rotor spinning.

An orange pickup truck sits on a block of ice with a glacier behind it.

A masked agent in a dark parka looks up with a red visor and scarf.

A small blue and orange helicopter flies through the clouds.

A masked agent in a parka pushes against the side of a red truck on the ice.

A masked agent in a parka stands before a frost-streaked red car with its door raised.

A red pickup sits on the ice with a driver inside and a figure crouching beside it.

A pickup's bed tilts up as a masked agent stands beside a cannon mount.

Two figures haul on a rope on an ice block while a third crouches by the red truck.

The underside of a red vehicle shows a white grille and mounted guns.

A bearded man in a mask and a goggled driver sit side by side in a red cab.

T-Bob hauls on a rope across the snow, his scarf streaming behind.

Scott Trakker points ahead while T-Bob pulls a rope beside him.

A masked agent sits in a frost-covered red car, door raised.

A frozen red van sits trapped in a cracked block of ice behind a figure in blue.

A red car with icicles on its hood sits on a snow bank with its wings raised.

A masked driver in red goggles grips the steering wheel of a red car.

T-Bob raises his arms beside a worried Scott Trakker.

Scott Trakker pushes at a mound of snow while T-Bob waves his arms.

Scott Trakker leans over a mound of ice as T-Bob's scarf tail lies in the snow.

T-Bob lies upside down on the ice with his scarf trailing.

Scott Trakker bends over T-Bob, who sits dazed in the snow.

T-Bob stands up in front of Scott Trakker, who sits on a sled.

Scott Trakker peers through binoculars on a sled while T-Bob raises an arm.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob tumble in a heap on the ice.

T-Bob and Scott Trakker peek over a ridge of ice.

Scott Trakker gasps beside T-Bob as they look over the ice.

A masked driver in a red and grey helmet with a purple visor sits strapped in.

A glass dome curves in front of a tall ice wall.

A figure in green trousers steps out of a red truck with snow chains beside a jeep.

A glass dome sits in an icy ravine with a helicopter and a dark vehicle parked outside.

Miles Mayhem peers through a viewing scope while a goggled henchman stands behind him.

Two tanks with hoses sit in a bank of control equipment.

A goggled henchman stands beside Miles Mayhem, who sits in a green chair at a console.

Matt Trakker and Alex Sector crouch side by side, watching intently.

T-Bob and Scott Trakker lie hidden in the snow, Scott holding binoculars.

Scott Trakker kneels as T-Bob rolls through the snow, trailing his scarf.

T-Bob scrambles away from a roaring polar bear on the ice.

Scott Trakker crouches in the snow, looking off with alarm.

Several people run across the floor of a laboratory with a large pipe.

T-Bob stands drenched in goo, his scarf dripping.

T-Bob tumbles through the air as Miles Mayhem reaches out toward him.

T-Bob hides behind stacked barrels in the snow.

A man tumbles backward in a vehicle cab as a barrel rolls in near T-Bob.

An orange pickup truck and a red jeep drive side by side down a snowy slope.

A masked driver steers a red jeep with a cannon mounted on the back.

A red jeep with a gun in the back slides along an icy slope.

A red pickup flips through the air above an ice slope.

A polar bear tears at a dark snowmobile on the ice.

Thunderhawk sits in an ice tunnel entrance with its gull-wing doors raised.

A masked agent in a red helmet holds Scott Trakker by the head as Thunderhawk waits behind them.

T-Bob rolls past stacked barrels toward a crane in front of the mountains.

A red jeep slams into a smashed dark vehicle on the snow.

A bearded driver in a blue visor sits behind a grille with two cannon barrels.

An armoured vehicle ploughs through snow, hidden behind blocks of ice.

T-Bob races past a figure in a blue uniform inside the ice dome.

Miles Mayhem leans over a raised red car door at a window.

Flames fill a pit in a laboratory as people gather on the walkway above.

T-Bob looks up warily from beneath his scarf.

A white hospital building sits among snowy trees on a clear day.

Matt Trakker stands with Scott and T-Bob, smiling.

Scott Trakker grins with his arm around T-Bob.

Scott Trakker points down the drive as T-Bob stands beside him in front of a house.

Scott Trakker rides T-Bob like a motorcycle in the driveway.

Flames lick T-Bob's arm in a blazing close view.

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