I know that most of you
Have some sort of ill feelin'
Towards the Nicktoon "Rocket Power"
And their "Race Across New Zealand".

So let me write a summary
But it's different from the norm
That instead of just plain words,
It'll be in poem form.

This little adventure started
With the athletic pee-wees
Collecting up enough fees
To go to the land of the kiwi.

Running a food delivery service,
They used their sporting skills
To ensure that all deliveries
Would be completely filled,

Especially with Lars and the gang
Trying to do some food-stealin'.
With the tips counted, Sammy said:
"Looks like we're going to New Zealand!"

The Stimpletons came in and wondered
What their fuss was all about.
They were competing in a race,
As they (and the viewer) found out.

It was called the "Waikikamukau",
More on that from the team brain:
The word was native Maori for
"Out of this world", Sam explained.

Six teams in four races,
The winners being the fastest team,
With the title of Prince (or Princess)
Going to the one who reigned supreme.

Ray went on to a flashback,
Back to the very first race,
In which he and Tito ran...
Ray only got second place.

Ray raced a local, Chester McGill,
(And of course, so did his mate)
At biking and canoeing,
And even discoing on skates.

It came down to downhill skiing,
In which Ray was most deft.
Coming into the Flat Stick Fork,
Ray went right, Chester went left.

When he arrived at the finish line,
Ray saw that he'd been defeated:
"I don't know how he did it,
But I know he cheated!" 

That flashback was obviously
Foreshadowing, no doubt,
All that info will come in handy,
As we'll later on find out.

Anyhow, Ray said that
This time they weren't leaving
New Zealand empty handed.
Otto added: "Not even."

And Violet said she and Merv
Would help run the Shore Shack
While they tore it up in New Zealand...
With that, we'll be right back.




On the plane to New Zealand,
Twister was quite alone
In his inability to grasp
The concept of time zones.

The race had changed a lot,
As one could plainly see,
And Otto said, "Man, this race 
Is custom-made for me!"

"You mean custom-made for all of us,"
said Reggie, Otto's big sister,
Seeing that Ray apparently left out
Her, Sammy, and Twister.

Anyhow, Ray said to everyone
Especially Otto, with care,
"You can never be sure that 
Everybody's going to play fair."

Meanwhile, in another seat,
Tito didn't feel quite right,
There wasn't any vegemite spread,
At least not on this flight.

Upon landing in New Zealand,
Look who they ran into.
The race location coordinator,
A local guy named Tatupu.

As well as that Chester McGill
Who beat Ray all those years ago.
Coincidences do run high
In these types of things, you know. ;)

Chester was now race chairman,
That's what he was here for.
He introduced his own son.
His name was Theodore.

He was sure that Ted could beat Otto
And come out number one:
"You know what they say, 
'like father, like son'."

While the team watched Theodore play,
Otto might as well have snorted.
He said "Dudes like that are so bogus."
"Remind you of anyone?" Reg retorted.

Next it was time for briefing.
Everyone ran to the tent
Where Chester went into detail
On the various events.

Included among the others
Was a snowboard race
Around the Flat Stick Fork.
The team knew well about this place.

Twister was a bit confused.
He asked the rest of the crew,
"How are we going to snowboard?"
It was summer, for all he knew...

Sam tried explaining to Twister:
"We're in the southern hemisphere. 
It's summertime at home, 
But it's wintertime here."

Twister being so clueless,
To the point it's near insane,
Just said, "You mean we wasted 
Our whole summer on the plane?"

Judging from the events,
Otto was sure he'd do fine.
He went as far to say:
"That crown is as good as mine."

A quick look at the Shore Shack
Showed Violet in the mood
To give customers like Tice
A change from their usual fast food.

OK, back to New Zealand,
And guess who Team Rocket met.
Theodore McGill again,
And the race hadn't started yet.

During all that pre-race taunting
Twister was feeling quite smug
When Theodore said to Otto:
"I see you got yourself a good mug."

Apparently, our clueless Twister
Was pretty much a newbie
To slang in New Zealand,
Where "mug" means the same as "shoobie".

Now let's go over the bike course:
Not much cause for concern.
This one was very simple,
Except for a tight hairpin turn.

But now Tatupu was leading them
To a bunch of plastic orbs.
"Race doesn't start here. 
It starts up there with the zorbs."




The surprising inclusion of the zorbs
Bewildered the team as a whole.
Tatupu explained how to move:
"Moving is simple. Lean forward and roll."

After the quick introduction,
Sam felt a little ill:
"Are there medical professionals 
At the bottom of the hill?"

In light of Sammy's nickname
(He's also known as the "Squid"),
Tatupu gave a small necklace
With a lucky charm to the kid.

Tatupu's explanation
Was really quite brief.
The lucky charm was a club
Used by a certain Maori chief:

Chief Kupe, the only Maori bold enough
To battle Tawiki, the giant squid.
"It will give you power and confidence,"
Tatupu said to the little kid.

Ray and Otto had a pep talk,
A little boost of self-esteem,
Practically ignoring
Reg and the rest of the team.

From this point on here,
There's really not much attraction
In poem-ing this sequence
Because it's mostly sports action.

Which in my opinion,
Would be quite a hard test
For most rhymers out there...
That said, I'll do my best.

After all that zorbing
That Sam really didn't like,
Otto, Reg and Theodore
Were the first onto their bikes.

While Ray was looking at the race,
Tito was having a slight fit.
Chester was eating vegemite:
"Did I mention I got the last bit?"

During the conversation
Between the rivals' dads,
Otto was really pushing it,
Biking around like mad.

Well, remember that hairpin turn
Mentioned a segment ago?
Hairpin turns are tight,
And should be approached slow.

But Otto was going a bit fast
Entering a turn this tight...
If you were expecting an adbreak,
You'd be absolutely right.




Otto's huge risks paid off,
As he rounded the hairpin,
And came across the line
In first place for the win.

Besides Otto's hot start
To this extreme race,
Sam said "Our combined times 
Put us in first place!"

But Ray's attention to Otto
Put Reggie in quite a fuss.
She summarized it best
When she said: "What about us?"

Meanwhile, Chester asked Theodore
On his loss, feeling a bit galled.
His reply was quite simple:
"He got lucky. That's all.

Next race, I'm going to do better,"
Said Theodore McGill.
And his dad Chester's reply
Was simply "Yes, you will."

Indeed Chester McGill
Wasn't giving up without a fight.
He sabotaged Team Rocket's stuff
In the middle of that night.

Next morning, on the bus,
On the way to the next race,
Reg, Sam and Twister discussed
The turn that gave Otto first place.

But the next thing you knew,
Twister was in panic mode.
He screamed, "We're driving on 
The wrong side of the road!"

Sam said that's how they drive there
Not much cause for fright.
But Twister said: "People here think 
Right is left and left is right?"

Tito, Otto and Ray conversed
About that race-winning turn, too,
When Chester came along.
More taunting would ensue.

Ray won his first race too,
When he competed way back when.
Chester added: "Well, we all know 
How that came out in the end."

In response to that little taunt
Ray said, "No way a McGill 
Is going to win again",
As Otto had a destiny to fulfill.

Tito gave somewhat cryptic advice,
Obviously meant for Ray.
Ray dispensed it to Otto instead,
Making it useless anyway.



The second race of four
Had a slightly odd design,
Combining rafting through caves,
and dirtboarding to the finish line.

Entering the underground caves
Twister writhed and squirmed.
He had quite a deal of fear
Of its indigenous glowworms.

It was enough that those glowworms
Really made him feel unwell,
But Otto also said, "They suck your brain 
And leave your head an empty shell!"

Exiting the underground tunnel,
The team was on a roll,
As they approached the next part,
Involving totem poles.

It required them to place
The four rafts on the poles' tops.
There wasn't, obviously,
Any time for them to stop.

This task was duly completed
Helped by a certain clueless pre-teen:
Twister jumped on the tops of the tubes
Like they were trampolines.

While Tito chased a kiwi bird
That took his vegemite,
As the team took to their dirtboards,
All seemed to be going right.

"This has got to be a record time,"
Ray thought Otto had this race sealed.
Not long into the dirtboarding though,
Guess who lost a wheel?

This is just about where
The race stopped being fun.
As you'll see later on,
The race was open for number one.




During the dirtboarding race
Were the first signs of discord
When Otto asked his sister:
"Reggie, let me use your board."

She wouldn't lend it to him
Despite his situation,
And carried along her merry way,
Much to Otto's frustration.

Since Reg wouldn't lend him her board,
Otto had to use Twist's instead,
And Sam's attempt to fix the one that broke
Required him to use his head.

Why was Otto's board
So difficult to repair?
An axle bolt was missing,
And so were all his spares.

With a little quick thinking, though,
And the necklace from the other day,
He used it to repair the board,
And was soon back on his way.

Coming to the finish line
Of this leg of the race,
Reggie and Theodore
Finished tied for first place.

Sam was jubilant about her win
And so was their teammate Twister.
Otto, however, had quite a few
Choice words about his sister.

Otto told his father,
With a feeling of discord,
About how his lame-o sister
Wouldn't lend him her board.

Sam, however, backed Reggie up,
Just to make the argument fair,
With the thing about the axle bolt,
And all those missing spares.

After Ray listened to
This quite odd circumstance,
He told his little son:
"You can't leave anything to chance."

Clearly, all Ray cared for
Was Otto's broken wheel.
Reggie was quite frustrated,
And said: "What is the deal?!"

Back at the Shack, Violet required
Collared shirts for the men.
Seeing that Tice wasn't wearing one,
She gave him one right there and then.

That night, the competitors
Were afforded a chance
To check out the Maori "haka",
A local tribal dance.

Chester was still not pleased
With Ted's tie for first place.
He certainly couldn't call that
"A cracker of a race".

While Otto was with Twister,
Letting off a lot of steam.
Twist attempted to tell him that
They were doing well as a team.

Despite the team's performance, though,
Otto was still quite a sad sack:
"My sister steals a win from me 
And I got Raymundo on my back."

Speaking of those two,
Reggie and her father Ray,
Were discussing what was causing
Her feelings of dismay.

The discussion got nowhere fast,
Because Raymundo assumed
That Otto's loss in dirtboarding
Was causing Reggie's gloom.

Without taking in to in account
How Reg was competitive.
Considering that discussion,
Clearly, something had to give.

While all this was going on,
Their map for the windsurfing race
Was replaced by one that had
A sandbar in the wrong place.

This little sabotage was
Courtesy of Chester McGill.
You'll see how important it would be,
Just trust me, you will.




The following morning,
The third leg of the race
Consisted of windsurfing
In a rather interesting place.

Tatupu gave Sam and Twist
An interesting brief
On these waters being "tapu",
According to the Maoris' beliefs.

As this was where Chief Kupe
Battled the giant squid,
Adding that the "tapu" was something
About which one shouldn't kid.

The siblings were discussing
About the previous race,
Where if you'll recall,
Reggie tied for first place.

Otto thought that Reggie
Was willing to apologize
About not giving him her dirtboard...
But he was in for a surprise:

She was only sorry about the wheel
That caused Otto to fall.
"As far as my board goes," she said,
"I'm not sorry at all!"

When the teammates met, Sam wanted
To pay homage to the chief.
Otto wouldn't allow this,
As he felt that time was brief.

So Sam told the teammates that,
From what his map implied,
A sandbar was near one of the buoys,
Requiring them to sail wide.

Raymundo was checking out
Every piece of Otto's gear
He really didn't want
Any more mishaps here.

Ray was keen on supporting
Just his son Otto alone.
Reg said she was pulling for him...
In a slightly scornful tone.

As expected Otto had
A quick start to this race,
And not surprisingly,
He got an early first place.

He seemed to be simply taking
This windsurfing race in stride,
But a sandbar awaited him
When it was time to go wide.

Well, remember the map
That Chester McGill replaced?
Its misplacement of said sandbar
Affected Otto's run in the race.

The others managed to avoid it tho,
Sending Otto to the back,
Meaning he'd have to work hard
To make up for the slack.

Now it was a race between
Reggie and Theodore.
They were fighting for the lead
As they were duking it out some more.

Reggie eventually took the lead,
And boy, she really knew it.
But she also heard Ray yell at Otto:
"Come on, Otto! You can still do it!"

So maybe she wasn't quite
Raymundo's favorite kin.
But you'd think, just to get noticed,
She'd try and get herself the win.

Instead, you probably want to ask:
"What the heck did she think?"
She stopped in the middle of the race
And jumped into the drink.

Leaving her board to obstruct
Her little brother's path.
Otto ran straight into it.
Well, you do the math.

After the windsurfing race
(By the way, Reg finished last),
Otto gave his teammates
A very angered blast.

This race was starting
To not be of much fun.
Ted now had 1 1/2 wins,
And Otto still had just one.

Even Twister seemed to be
More like an outcast.
Otto called him a "mug",
Leaving him standing there aghast.

Ray tried to talk with Reg about
How she caused her team to lose.
Ray may have finally noticed her
But she was not amused.

Reggie uttered to her dad
With quite a bit of furore,
"Since when do you care about the team?"
Before slamming her door.

Reg was sitting an a log
Much later that night.
Ray decided to come by
To try and set things right.

Raymundo apologized
For going overboard
With his support for Otto,
And leaving his teammates ignored.

Especially Reggie, who had
A tear running down her face.
Not to mention Sam and Twister
Who were also in the race.

All Raymundo ever wanted
Was for his son Otto to beat
Chester's own son Theodore
To make up for his defeat.

Ray now realized how his support
Was not in the best of taste.
With all that out of the way,
Father and daughter embraced.

After all that hugging,
Ray added, about their chat,
That Reg wasn't the only one
Who needed to hear that.





The following morning,
It was becoming pretty clear
That Team Rocket was in tatters,
As they were packing their gear.

Seeing Otto step on his book,
Sammy felt quite bugged.
And Twist was still not over
Otto calling him a "mug".

Reg decided to apologize
For costing Otto the race,
And she probably could not have 
Picked a better time or place.

Reg added that right now they needed
To end their feelings of disgust.
Otherwise, to quote Reggie:
"This whole thing is going to be a bust."

Seeing that his sister
Had now apologized
To the other teammates,
Otto also did likewise.

On the way to the venue
Of the final leg of the race,
Sam explained that the team was
Behind in second place.

But the way he figured,
If the whole team came in
With a good combined time,
The team could still get the win.

And both of the siblings
Could still easily contend
For the individual title,
So it wasn't over 'till the end.

Going over the snowboarding course,
Sam explained their situation:
At the Flat Stick Fork, they needed
To go right at the rock formation.

In contrast, Chester McGill
Told his kid to go left there.
It was the longer way around,
As far as Ted was aware.

He was told to take a shortcut,
And to him, it didn't sound
Like it would be playing fair:
"Dad, that's out of bounds."

Chester then elaborated
On his attempts to fix the race:
Otto's broken dirtboard wheel
And the map that was replaced.

Theodore didn't want this.
He said he'd rather be beating
Otto Rocket on his own,
Rather than by cheating.

Despite all that Theodore
Had been trying to say,
His father still insisted
That he go left anyway.

Ray had another pep talk,
Not just with this son,
But with his daughter too,
Just before the race begun.

As the race got under way
The team had a hot start
Now that they all were
Racing with all their heart.

Reg and Twist neared a pair of jumps
One was low, the other high.
Twist let Reg take the low one
And decided to let himself fly.

Launching off their respective jumps,
The two teammates soared like hawks.
No sooner than Twist landed, though,
He ran straight into a rock.

Seeing that there was trouble,
Reggie informed her brother.
Twister had broken his knee...
Speaking of breaks, here's another.




With the race now on the line,
The team could not afford
To have a team member
Who really could not snowboard.

With Twister's broken knee,
This proved to be the case.
Guess who Otto wanted
To go for the first place?

Well, it wasn't going to be him,
As he would have to drag Twister.
And Sam wasn't in contention.
So it had to be his sister.

Theodore passed the team,
And they all certainly knew it.
As Reg took off to chase him,
Otto said, "Go, Reg! You can do it!"

There was quite a lot of course
That the team had to traverse.
Otto was now riding "fakie",
Which is snowboarders' for reverse.

Dragging Twister along, of course,
Lest you forget his plight.
Meanwhile at the Flat Stick Fork,
Ted went left and Reg went right.

Coming up to the same fork,
Twister wasn't quite deft
On the concept of direction.
He still thought right was left!

Amidst all the confusion
Otto and Twister split,
And leaving Twist on his own
Was definitely unfit.

But Otto managed to grab him
And keep him remaining upright.
Meanwhile, near the finish line,
The race was getting tight.

As Reg closed in on the finish line
Ted appeared out of nowhere,
Having taken the shortcut
He himself deemed as unfair.

Surprised to see Theodore
Ahead of her there and then,
She put up some more hustle
And tied Theodore again.

As the others crossed the line
None of the team felt blue,
Even though Theodore's tie
Had been enough to see him through.

OK, now you're wondering:
"Ted won? This really bites..."
But we've got a couple scenes to go
For things to be alright.

Well, time for the awards ceremony.
Guess which team got the first prize.
Yes, it was Team Rocket.
Not much of a surprise.

But among the individuals
Theodore reigned supreme,
With a new record time, to boot.
Well, that was how things seemed.

However, everyone was in
For quite a huge surprise
When Theodore came up
To receive his first prize.

Instead of accepting his medal,
The newly-crowned McGill
Confessed to taking a shortcut.
This was quite against his dad's will.

Amidst all the controversy
Chester accidentally let slip
That he'd used the very same shortcut
Thus explaning how Ray got pipped.

With all that information
That had just surfaced anew
Both of the McGills
Were immediately DQ'd.

Theodore, quite willingly,
Gave Otto and Reg his prize,
Making the Rocket siblings
Quite pleasantly surprised.

The race had its very first tie
As it was Reg and Otto's day,
While Chester's title was stripped
And then awarded to Ray.

In short, all that the McGills had won
Went to the Rocket clan instead,
Including the winner's crown,
Which Otto placed on Reggie's head.

Despite all his confusion
Twister was feeling quite glad.
His feelings in a nutshell:
"This backwards New Zealand place is rad!"

The team went back to Ocean Shores
In quite a mood of cheer.
Reggie said, "Tomorrow 
We start training for next year."

And Tito still had to contend with
Birds stealing his vegemite.
That's it, there is no more,
So to everyone, good night.