Get your gray matter ready!
With the 100 Day Drawing Challenge all wrapped, and that hardcover Radical Rick collection still in the works, we figured it was time to take our favorite cast of BMX misfits and shuck them beneath the MRI.
To help us out, Damian made some old west silhouettes of the Rad Squad and Mean, Inc. We filled in the rest with some highly rad, and highly neuroscientific brain analysis… perfect for seeing what each character is probably thinking when the heat’s on or off.
Radical Rick’s Brain
46% Overactive Rad Gland
From rad reflexes to rad instincts, everything’s here. Without it, Radical Rick couldn’t function… and with his small, spindly frame, he’d probably get picked last for Crushed Crank Middle School’s dodgeball team.
Good thing his frontal cortex is overactive.
23% Head on a Swivel for Mean, Inc
When you’re facing a hulking schoolyard bully, a skeletal-shaped mastermind and a sweaty warthog, beating the competition is a full job… especially when the competition wants to kill you.
15% Rad Recall
Storage for every non-BMX sport or activity Radical Rick has ever done. Whether that’s skateboarding, skiing, defensive driving or even shark surfing (see Episode 103)… our hero never forgets a rad parallel to his bike!
9% Winning in Style
With an entire section devoted to staying classy, heroic, and humble when he’s up on the podium, it’s no wonder the Radster hasn’t gone diva on us.
Sorry, Mug.
Turns out, fame’s not for everyone.
6% Heroic Impulse
We detected a hidden adrenaline pack… a backup rad gland that gives our hero the boost he needs to save the day. Every day.
1% Feelings for Bonnie Brainstorm?
Not sure on this one… but in the words of some lovey-dovey poet Bonnie studied in college, hope springs eternal.
MX Mug’s Brain
When we finally bent Mug’s carrot nose to fit him beneath the scanner, the results were worth it. Some usual culprits… with a few tidbits that some Rad fans might recall.
31 % Raw Ambition
If nothing else, Mug’s ambitious.
Girls, trophies, fame, sponsorship…less we forget, our beloved carrot nose wants it all. Naturally, this includes a rivalry with Radical Rick that’s less-friendly than it looks… but unlike Skuzzer, who breaks bad in hope of wiping out the Radster, Mug rides Radical Rick’s coattails to adventure, recognition and his own moments of standalone bravery.
Ya done good, Mug.
20% Taking Credit
“You can thank me for that!”
“We couldn’t have done it without me!!”
And our favorite: “I taught Radical Rick everything he knows!”
19 % Getting Himself Caught
Mug’s sure got the knack for it.
Whether that’s getting seduced by Purin Flashin’s promises or getting hoisted in an oil drum to the Republic of Urang, this sidekick is almost as much trouble as he is assistance.
Good thing Radical Rick never tires of rescuing him.
12 % Detective Work
Mug’s powers of deduction are a bit surprising.
More often than not, he’s the first to discover if someone’s carjacked the Radillac, slipped into Radical Rick’s outfit, or left a bread crumb trail of odd clues. In another life, could he have been Sherlock Mug?
MX Holmes?
10 % Shortcuts
Thinking he’ll win without putting in the effort, Mug’s been known to cut a corner or two. If you’re curious how that usually goes, see the section on Getting Himself Caught.
8 % Girls
Bonnie Brainstorm not included.
Skuzzer’s Brain
Again… you’d be surprised.
It’s more cranial power than we expected from a three-hundred pound hog who calls himself ‘The King of Wheeled Evil.’
51% Destroying Radical Rick
Well, of course.
From day one, when this baddie first appears—he’s in a jungle, sitting on a throne while a dozen pigmies bow down in worship—his sights are set on one thing only.
Being the undisputed King of BMX.
Unfortunately, and in a game where there can be only one, Radical Rick’s very existence poses a huge threat. Makes sense that nearly more than half of Skuzzer’s brain power goes to finishing him off.
24 % Ye Olde Vocabulary
Perfect for belittling peasants and peons… while reminding them that you, of all pompous porcine, come from a royal line.
Thus spoke Skuzzer.
12 % Royal Lineage
In Skuzzer’s case, the royalty stuff checks out. While he’s no Prince of Wales, this detailed catalog of family lineage reminds us that a true monarch doesn’t need an official title.
Rather, it’s in the attitude.
9% Loin Cloth Itch…
No comment.
6% Demi-God Complex
Or Demi-Pig? Same thing either way.
Butch’s Brain Scan
This one’s a plumb line… the low end of a bell curve that tells us a lot about the other (ahem more sophisticated) cases.
46% Bad Childhood
Excuses nothing, but plenty of fuel for stealing lunch money from smaller beings. Also nothing that a good hundred hours of psychiatric counseling, (and a good thousand hours of community service) won’t fix…
Cue the music.
“Everybody hurts….”
25 % Getting Revenge On Radical Rick for Broken Hand
This one goes all the way back to his first encounter with Radical Rick in Episode 20, one that ends with a compound fracture after Butch clonks the Radster’s helmet. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?
13 % Puberty-Enhancing Steroid Gland
We wondered why this bully was so darn big. Some ingest steroids, but turns out some people are just born with them. In a few more years, we’ll find Butch climbing the Empire State Building, and beating his chest while the biplanes buzz around.
9 % Investing Stolen Lunch Money
All crypto… apparently.
7 % Laying Traps
Unlike Skuzzer, Butch is surprisingly good at it.
Just watch him crash a surfing contest by throwing sharks in the mix (Episode 103)… or lure the whole rad squad into an industrial meat grinder at the Whammo-burger warehouse (Episodes 128 and 129).
Purin Flashin’s Brain
This one scares us. It’s kind of like checking to see that a spider you squished is really dead. But for the sake of science… and to prevent Mean Inc.’s next attempt at world domination… we had a look.
44% Ruling Over the Youth of America
Down at the nub, many of Purin’ Flashin’s schemes come back to this.
He comes closest by strapping Radical Rick and Skuzzer into a Dr. Frankenstein-like machine that performs a ‘Radectomy,’ transferring Rick’s rad reflexes and instincts to the warthog King, (Episodes 81 - 86).
Flashin’s bet is that with Skuzzer taking Radical Rick’s place in the spotlight, the youth of America will be putty in his hands.
21% Backup Plans for World Domination
Like a playlist of Pinky and the Brain episodes…. everything’s here. The World Piece Bomb, the assembly plant that turns old Volkswagons into crappy bikes… and more than a few attempts to flip MX Mug with promises of grandeur.
15% Collagen Injections Not Working
Don’t tell him we told you… but the scrawny, stretchy, epidermis has actually had its share of plastic surgeries.
Unfortunately, the results speak for themselves.
12% Dastardly To-Do List
Destroy the environment, ruin the economy (that one’s in his name, by the way…), hijack the Moon for his own lunar staging ground… whatever he is, the guy’s ambitious.
18% Celebrity Villain Bowling League
Every Wednesday. Just to blow off some mean, malicious steam.
Bonnie’s Brain
This one brought our MRI gizmo to it’s limit… hence the percentages that spill waaaaaay over an even 100 percent.
Only Bonnie.
64% STEM Knowledge
For someone who graduated from MIT at age 12, right before being tricked into working at Purin’ Flashin’s lab on world domination projects* ... this is probably an understatement. When it comes to science, technology, engineering, and math, she’s a glowing, gorgeous prodigy.
*See Episodes 81 - 86
35% Staying Calm Under Pressure
Time after time, Bonnie puts her calculating power to work when the Rad’s Squad’s up the creek.
If you can find someone else who’s this cool when wearing a disguise, breaking the gang out of a dungeon, being bound and gagged in the back of a Whammo Burger delivery truck, or staring down a nuclear bomb… let us know.
28% Annual Joan Jett Hairdo Convention
Already on the calendar.
55% Future Plans With Radical Rick
Or as she calls him, with her glasses off and her blue eyes as big as golf balls… ‘Oh Richard…’
Good luck with that one, Bonnie!
10% Multitasking
Call us sexist, but it seems like Bonnie’s the only one who can juggle several things at once… Mug, Spike, and even Radical Rick tend to go tunnel vision.
That’s It Rad Fans!
We’re all scanned out for now.
If you like Damian’s drawings, or think we get the brain percentages wrong, don’t be shy! Tell us what you think on Instagram.
Till next time… don’t be brain dead.
Stay rad!