M.A.S.K. S1E34

Peril in Paris

Matt Trakker holds a map while Scott reads a small booklet and T-Bob looks on.

V.E.N.O.M. slips into the Louvre before opening and turns the paintings around to photograph their backs, where a Resistance fighter hid pieces of a map during the war. Assembled, it marks the bombs the Nazis planted in the Paris sewers and the bunker holding their shortwave trigger. Buddie Hawks disguises himself as Cliff Dagger to infiltrate the gang's hideout, while Scott and T-Bob wander the city looking for the Eiffel Tower with a map of the wrong place. V.E.N.O.M. broadcasts a one-hour, billion-dollar ultimatum, an attack damages the Tower, and Matt's team finds the bombs and the trigger.

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The Louvre heist that opens this episode takes nothing. V.E.N.O.M. gets in before the doors open, turns the paintings around, and leaves, so that the first anyone knows of it is Scott and the others walking into a gallery of paintings that have all been turned around. It is a strange, good opening, but Matt's explanation later is better. During the war, he says, the French Resistance hid a set of paintings from the occupiers, and one member noted on their backs where bombs had been planted in the sewers, because they were the only surface he had to hand. A wartime secret kept on the reverse of art that nobody would think to flip over is a real idea, and the script has the sense to give it to us before the chase starts.

The chase has a subject, and it is not the bombs. The episode is about keeping Scott somewhere safe, and the world refuses to cooperate. In the opening, one of the grown-ups remarks that the only way to guarantee the boy stays out of trouble is a cage, and from there everybody tries something else: a tour of the Eiffel Tower, the sightseeing Scott actually wants, and later a call from the storm drain ordering the pair to the Tower, where it is safe. The Tower is what V.E.N.O.M. hits. Torn girders arch over a pale sky and a yellow blast goes off against the ironwork while Scott and T-Bob lean on the observation railing, so the safest place in Paris turns out to be its most visible target.

The writing keeps two maps going at once, and sets them against each other with some care. In the hideout the crew fit stolen photographs together like a jigsaw, someone is told a piece is upside down, and a framed plan of the city goes up on the wall with crosses marked on it. On the street, T-Bob steers the party by a map that Buddie takes one look at before deciding they are nowhere near the Tower, and the long run of "it's right around here someplace" ends only in the last minute, when someone looks at the map T-Bob has been reading and finds it shows Algiers, not Paris! It works because the earlier scenes had already walked the pair into a bakery and down a sewer, everywhere except the Tower.

The animation saves its effort for the underground. In the flooded tunnel Hurricane's wheels throw up sheets of water and a purple car races through with a rotor unfolding from its back, while the cockpit close-ups give each driver a distinct helmet, which keeps a chase in a tube from going muddy. V.E.N.O.M.'s broadcast to the city is a plain announcement, with the bombs, the sewers, the hour and the sum given in order, but it is all the more menacing for the lack of flourish.

The standout is Buddie as Dagger. He puts on the eyepatch and beret and sits down among a crew who spend the scene accusing one another of cheating at cards and forgetting things, a neat way to show that these are people who steal for a living and cannot be trusted with a deck. He stays long enough to learn the plan. The gang piles out after him once his cover goes.

The weakness is that the bombs never become a danger. They are announced and then stay under the street, and the episode folds them into a summary: the bombs found and defused, the Tower repaired, the trigger a curiosity in a war museum. Matt lets V.E.N.O.M. go, a voice says he should have given chase, and the next thing we hear is that it all worked out. For an episode so careful about its opening, the ending is told rather than shown.

Peril in Paris sits comfortably in the middle of the run, a sturdy Venom treasure hunt with one idea better than the rest. The paintings are the best of it, the map of Algiers the best joke, and the Tower the best argument that nowhere is safe for a boy and a robot who go looking for the trouble they were told to avoid.

The M.A.S.K. wiki records that this is the first episode in which Hurricane is called by its toy name; its first four appearances used the prototype name Night Stalker.
According to the M.A.S.K. wiki, Matt Trakker does not ask the M.A.S.K. Computer to assemble a team this time, because Buddie Hawks is already with him in Paris.
The M.A.S.K. wiki notes that Matt saves Buddie's life without knowing that Buddie is wearing a Cliff Dagger disguise.
The M.A.S.K. wiki lists Miles Mayhem as Vanessa Warfield's co-driver in Manta on the trip from V.E.N.O.M.'s headquarters to the sewers where Switchblade is waiting.
Buddie calls the car Hondo's Hurricane in the dialogue, and Wikipedia's list of M.A.S.K. toys and characters says Hondo MacLean was assigned Hurricane after Firecracker was destroyed in episode 29, with Buddie Hawks also listed against it.
The M.A.S.K. wiki says a Knight Books novelisation of this story, titled Peril under Paris, was published in 1986.
The M.A.S.K. wiki's goof list for the episode includes Vanessa's lab coat vanishing in one shot and returning in a wide shot, and a building wobbling as Buddie, disguised as Dagger, slides toward it on a grappling line.
The M.A.S.K. wiki says that in The Lippizaner Mystery T-Bob recalls taking skydiving lessons off the Eiffel Tower without a parachute, and ties the line back to this episode.

Matt Trakker

Buddie Hawks

Miles Mayhem

Cliff Dagger

Sly Rax

Vanessa Warfield

Scott Trakker

T-Bob

Scott, T-Bob and three men walk through a museum hall past statues and Egyptian columns.

Scott speaks behind a hieroglyph-carved column with a red-capped man at left.

Large framed paintings hang on an orange wall of a museum gallery.

A group of visitors with T-Bob stands in a gallery as a dark statue looms at the right.

A man in a red jacket and cap gestures to a painting as Scott and T-Bob look.

Scott leans forward beside T-Bob as the man in red stands behind them.

A man in a red cap speaks to Matt Trakker in a dark suit.

Matt Trakker and the man in the red cap smile toward each other.

Matt Trakker stands in a dark suit studying a large framed painting.

Two stacked wooden crates strapped shut sit on a blue tile floor.

Crates and small bronze statues sit in a dark storage room.

A large brick museum building with a courtyard seen from above.

A white-gloved hand with a blue and gold cuff holds a map beneath two cameras.

White-gloved hands hold a map in a frame on a wall.

The stout man in blue points a glove at Cliff Dagger in a beret.

The stout man in blue studies a large street map on the wall.

The stout man in blue points to a wall map as two other men look on.

The stout man in blue looks over his shoulder with a scowl as he holds a map.

A mustached man with a goatee stands in a doorway beside Vanessa Warfield.

A gray street map of a city with several marked X points.

Vanessa Warfield, the stout man in blue, Cliff Dagger and a mustached man look aside.

A framed map of Paris streets with marked crosses hangs in a wooden frame.

A high view of Paris city blocks with rooftops and tree-lined streets.

A man in a red cap drives with Scott and T-Bob beside him in a car.

A blue car with yellow and orange flames drives past a boulangerie.

A baker stands behind a counter as Scott walks into a bakery.

Scott, T-Bob and the red-capped man browse a bakery shelf of breads.

A black SUV pulls out of a stone archway as a man runs on the street.

Matt Trakker speaks on a desk phone with a frown while people stand behind him.

Matt Trakker listens on the phone with a concerned face.

The red-capped man steps out of a phone booth as Scott and T-Bob wait on the sidewalk.

The red-capped man stands beside the phone booth as Scott and T-Bob look on.

Scott runs out as T-Bob steps off the curb past the phone booth.

A man in a red cap runs through an alley carrying a briefcase.

An open case holds sunglasses, a gun-shaped device, rope and makeup tins.

A man with an eyepatch and maroon beret peers out of a window frame over a ruffled curtain.

A man in a blue shirt and harness climbs on a trash can to reach a window.

High view of a red-roofed building with a courtyard as a figure runs along the roof edge.

A rope is knotted around a stone block corner.

A rope swings over a red roof with a hook above a row of windows.

A tiny figure hangs from a wire strung between buildings against the sky.

A map of the city with marked crosses lies flat on a gray background.

Three V.E.N.O.M. members sit at a table in an elegant room with paintings and a potted plant.

Vanessa Warfield sits with a mustached man and the stout man in blue at a card table.

A man in green seen from behind sits with the stout man in blue.

A mustached man with a goatee holds playing cards near a doorway.

A man in an eyepatch and beret crouches in front of the wall map.

A man in a beret and eyepatch stands in front of the framed street map.

High view of V.E.N.O.M. members around a card table with masks on a shelf.

Vanessa Warfield reads a booklet with a worried look.

The stout man in blue frowns as a dark-haired man stands behind him.

Four V.E.N.O.M. members look out of an open shuttered window above a balcony.

A man in an eyepatch and beret leans forward pointing a thick finger.

Miles Mayhem grips two joysticks in a cockpit with a pink sky behind him.

A blue car with flames sits parked in front of a shop beside an orange sports car.

Vanessa Warfield, a man in a beret, a mustached man and the stout man look out a window.

Vanessa Warfield and a man in a beret turn away from the window.

V.E.N.O.M. agents hurry down stairs toward a purple car in a dark garage.

A man in a maroon jacket holds a red cap beside Matt Trakker in gray armor.

A man in a red cap and jacket clenches his fist in front of a stone wall.

A hand holds a street map with marked X points.

A monitor shows three framed paintings on an orange wall.

A monitor shows two framed landscape paintings on an orange wall.

A monitor shows a wireframe of a box with machinery and a dome.

A white map on black shows a grid with marked X points.

A vehicle console shows the red-capped man on a small screen with a map and gauges.

Matt Trakker in gray armor drives with a stern look.

A stone bridge wall with a tunnel opening stands over water.

A blue flame-painted car and a red car drive along the bridge wall near the tunnel.

A red car's wheel throws up a splash in a dark tunnel.

A black SUV and a dark motorcycle splash through water in a tunnel.

A driver in a red helmet and white armor grips a steering wheel.

A man in a red jacket wearing a green helmet looks to the side in a vehicle.

A rider in a dark helmet on a motorcycle skims through water in a tunnel.

A man in a red jacket and green helmet holds a fist at the wheel.

A man in a green helmet and red jacket looks forward in the vehicle.

The green-helmeted man in a red jacket sits at the wheel with his hand down.

Scott stands at the top of a stone staircase beside a tunnel mouth in a wall.

Scott holds his hand to his collar beside T-Bob who is smudged with mud.

T-Bob lifts a brown cloth with both hands.

Scott walks toward a brown tarp draped over a machine as T-Bob lies nearby.

A V.E.N.O.M. rider in a helmet and goggles drives a purple motorcycle with two cannons through the tunnel.

A red car drives out of a tunnel splashing through water.

A finger presses a button on a keypad.

Scott gently pats T-Bob's head as he stands in a tunnel.

White-gloved hands hold a control box with a blue dial and red buttons.

A purple car races through a flooded tunnel with its headlights on.

A purple car races through a tunnel as rotor blades unfold from its back.

A driver in an orange helmet and mask grips a steering wheel.

A hand-sized keypad with a speaker grille sits on a gray panel.

Scott and T-Bob stand at the edge of a tunnel looking worried.

A small helicopter with a pilot flies in front of a brick wall near a tunnel arch.

High view of Paris city blocks with a river at the corner.

Scott, T-Bob and a crowd of tourists stand on the Eiffel Tower observation deck.

Tourists crowd the observation deck, looking out over the railing at the city.

Scott looks up from behind a lattice railing on the tower.

Torn girders of the tower arch over a pale sky as ribbon-like shapes fly by.

A yellow explosion bursts against the girders of the tower.

The nose of a black and orange jet passes over a street grid of the city.

A green-helmeted man fires pink beams from the roof of a flame-painted blue car.

Miles Mayhem sits strapped in his cockpit seat in his cap and visor.

Scott and T-Bob look down from a lattice railing on the tower.

A red car with raised gull-wing doors speeds forward in clouds of dust.

A man in a green helmet and red jacket drives beside an agent in a red helmet.

A dark aircraft flies over a tree-lined avenue toward a domed building.

Scott and T-Bob run along the tower's girder walkway.

Scott and T-Bob run on the girder walkway beneath the tower's arch.

A figure in gray soars past the Eiffel Tower in an aerial view of Paris.

Scott stands next to an agent in a red scarf and white helmet in a park.

Scott, an armored agent, T-Bob and a green-helmeted man in red stand in a park.

T-Bob holds a sheet of paper up to his face in a pink-lit scene.

Matt Trakker, Scott, T-Bob and a man in red sit at a cafe table.

A hand uses a red screwdriver on a round mechanism inside a clear dome.

Fire trucks and a crowd gather before a large mansion at night.

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