Wacky Races
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Wacky Races is an American animated television series from Hanna-Barbera, about a group of 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." The cartoon was unusual in the large number of regular characters, twenty-three in total.
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[edit] Background
The series was inspired by the movie The Great Race. It ran on CBS from September 14, 1968 to September 5, 1970. Seventeen episodes were produced with each episode featuring two different races for a total of 34 races in all.
Attempting to foil the racers' efforts was the show's resident stereotyped villain Dick Dastardly and his sidekick, Muttley the dog. Dastardly would gain a large lead then, like Wile E. Coyote in the Road Runner cartoons, execute all sorts of elaborate schemes to trap, divert, blow up or stop the other racers, only to see them backfire spectacularly. The intended object lesson may have been that Dastardly had what was arguably one of the fastest cars in the series and might have won several races had he only kept his mind on the race and off dirty tricks. Like Wile E Coyote, Dastardly never saw victory. Many of Dastardly's plots look suspiciously similar to those used in Road Runner episodes, which might be explained by the fact that Mike Maltese was a scriptwriter on both series.
One of the original plans for the series was that the races themselves would be part of a live-action quiz show with Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley Productions, the team behind the television series Hollywood Squares. Heatter-Quigley's plan was that contestants would actually bet on which Wacky Racer would cross the finish line first. Although the game show concept was eventually scrubbed, the series still retained a Hanna-Barbera Heatter-Quigley dual production credit.
In 1988, a made-for-TV movie, "Around The World With The Wacky Racers" was planned as part of Hanna-Barbera's Superstars 10 series of TV movies but it never got past the concept stage.
[edit] The Cars and Drivers
The eleven racers and their numbers are:
- 00: Dick Dastardly and Muttley in The Mean Machine. The villains of the series, in a rocket-powered car with an abundance of concealed weapons. Dastardly would concoct a plan or set a trap once he got into the lead of the race to make sure no other car would catch up to him. Every plan of his failed, however. As a result, he could have easily won each race had he just kept on driving and had not attempted to cheat. Ironically, many tricks Dastardly uses are not unlike the ones the other racers use. However, he quite proudly calls them cheating.
- 01: The Slag Brothers (Rock Slag and Gravel Slag) in The Bouldermobile. Cavemen (covered with hair like Cousin Itt from The Addams Family; their design was recycled for Captain Caveman) driving a wheeled boulder. The Slag Brothers sometimes reconstructed their car from scratch just by using their clubs on any large boulder that was available. On one occasion the car was shown to be using an unseen, living creature as its engine.They can speed up by hitting the car with their clubs.
- 02: The Gruesome Twosome (Big Gruesome and Little Gruesome) in the Creepy Coupe. Monsters (Big spoke like Boris Karloff and Little like Peter Lorre), driving a car with a belfry which housed a dragon and various ghosts/ creatures/ witches on broomsticks etc. The Creepy Coupe was able to fly short distances through use of the dragon's wings and has bats constantly circling the bellfry. Also,they can summon bats and storms to help them fend off the other cars.
- 03: Professor Pat Pending in the Convert-a-Car. A scientist in a car that can change into just about anything that moves. This ability often helps him gain first place. He's sometimes seen as a rival of Dick Dastardly and Muttley, since his car is equipped with a lot of gadgets, just like the Mean Machine, although they are more defensive, or merely speed-boosting, in nature.
- 04: Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer. An air ace (loosely based on WWI German aviator, Max Immelmann) in a car/plane hybrid that was capable of limited flight, usually just enough to leapfrog over racers or obstacles in its path. The Haybailer also had a machine gun mounted, which was sporadically used. The Haybailer's transformation from car to car/plane hybrid seems to have significantly weakened its flying ability, and Max often has to bail out when the Haybailer breaks down.
- 05: Penelope Pitstop in the Compact Pussycat. A female racer driving a pink feminine car with personal grooming facilities which would sometimes backfire on the other racers, shampoo foam hitting the faces of the other racers, in one example. She always has time to relax and worry about her looks, because her car is like a beauty salon.
- 06: Sergeant Blast & Private Meekly in the Army Surplus Special (AKA The Surplus Six). Two soldiers racing an army tank/jeep hybrid. The Army Surplus Special made use of its tank facilities while racing, including its cannon.The Army Surplus Special didn't win many races.
- 07: The Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb (AKA the Roaring Plenty), led by Clyde, with Danny, Kurby, Mac, Ring-A-Ding, Rug Bug Benny, and Willy. Gangsters in a 1920s saloon car. They re-appeared with the wingmen wearing blue outfits and had name changes ( Dum Dum, Pockets, Snoozy, Softy, Yak Yak, and Zippy) and also a new living car Chugga-Boom in the spinoff The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. Although he is sometimes rude to the rest of the gang, Clyde actually cares for them. In one episode, when the rest of the gang was stuck in the Creepy Coupe, Clyde was menacing the Gruesomes: "Alright,you Creeps, where are my boys?" The gang drove in car number 7 and were pint-sized characters, a reference to the seven dwarfs. Their usual method of improving the speed of their car involved adding their leg-power to it.
- 08: Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chuggabug. A hillbilly who sleeps during most of the races, with his feet on the steering wheel, and a nervous bear in a wooden buggy driven by a coal-fired range. Blubber often shakes and wakes up Luke, who always says: "Blubber, what in tarnation is goin' on here?" or "What in tarnation is that?".
- 09: Peter Perfect in the Turbo Terrific (AKA The Varoom Roadster). A jock (he had a crush on Penelope, so often stopped to help) driving a drag racer that often falls to bits. He always stops to say hello to Penelope. His car is likely the least resistant in the races, usually breaking down right after he makes a remark on its reliability. On one occasion,the pieces got stuck in Penelope's hair dryer. She said: I'm sorry about that, Peter honey. But I have all of the pieces. Perhaps you can put them together again?" In development, the car was called the Varoom Roadster, a name used in the Gold Keybcomic book series.
- 10: Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth in the Buzz Wagon. A lumberjack and a beaver in a wagon with buzzsaws for wheels, which gave it the ability to cut through almost anything, damaging or destroying the object in the process. Rufus is sometimes seen as a rival to the Slag Brothers, as they not only get their car destroyed in this way frequently, but also reconstruct their car with ease.
[edit] Spinoffs and similar series
The Penelope Pitstop and Ant Hill Mob characters were spun off into another cartoon series in 1969, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. Also in 1969, Dick Dastardly and Muttley were given a spinoff; the two villains appeared in the series Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines (sometimes mistakenly known as Stop the Pigeon, after the show's working title and theme song).
The basic idea behind Wacky Races was used again by Hanna-Barbera in later years. The late 1970s series Yogi's Space Race featured Hanna-Barbera stalwarts such as Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and others racing against each other across outer space (and fending off a villain and his canine sidekick). In the early 1990s, the syndicated series Wake, Rattle and Roll featured a segment called "Fender Bender 500," which once again featured Dick Dastardly and Muttley (and their "Mean Machine"), only this time racing against Yogi Bear, Winsome Witch, Quick Draw McGraw and other Hanna-Barbera stars.
[edit] Video Games
A video game was produced in 1992 for the NES, IBM PC, ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64 in which the player took the role of Muttley, sent on missions from Dick Dastardly to defeat the other racers. A Mega Drive/Sega Genesis game was intended to be released, but it was canned in development. In 2000, more video games based on the cartoon were produced for the PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Color and Sega Dreamcast systems. These were racing games. Voices for the video games' renditions of the characters included Jim Cummings as Dick Dastardly, Clyde, Private Meekly, Big Gruesome, Rock Slag, and Gravel Slag; Billy West as Muttley and Little Gruesome, Janet Waldo as Penelope Pitstop, John Stephenson as Luke, Scott Innes as Professor Pat Pending, Gregg Berger as the narrator, and Gregg Burson as the Red Max, Sergeant Blast, Peter Perfect and Ruffus Ruffcut. A new game called Wacky Races: Mad Motors for the PS2 will be released by Blast in April.
[edit] DVD Releases
[edit] Japan
A 3-Disc DVD release of the complete series was made available in Japan on August 10, 2001. The set had both English and Japanese audio.[1]
[edit] United States
Warner Home Video released the entire series, with commentaries and other extras, in a DVD box set on October 26, 2004.
| Cover Art | DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
Wacky Races- The Complete Series | 34 | October 19, 2004 |
|
[edit] United Kingdom
In Britain Warner released the series on three separate discs with no extra features. This edition was exclusive to Virgin Megastores, from the time it was released to when it was discontinued. The complete box set of 'Wacky Races' which has until now only been available in the U.S. was released on the 31 July 2006 as a HMV exclusive - but is essentially the standard volumes I, II, and III in their respective cases, with no extras.
[edit] Race results
The show gave the results of each race at the end of each episode, but never indicated a particular scoring system or way to determine who won the Wacky Races as a whole. The cumulative totals for first, second and third place finishes for each contestant are presented below:
| Contestant | Results |
| The Boulder Mobile | 3-8-3 |
| The Buzzwagon | 3-6-4 |
| The Creepy Coupe | 3-3-6 |
| The Bulletproof Bomb | 4-5-2 |
| The Compact Pussycat | 4-2-5 |
| The Crimson Haybailer | 3-4-3 |
| The Convert-A-Car | 3-2-5 |
| The Arkansas Chugabug | 4-1-4 |
| The Turbo Terrific | 4-2-2 |
| The Army Surplus Special | 3-1-0 |
| The Mean Machine | 0-0-0 |
[edit] Voice Cast
- Daws Butler - Peter Perfect, Sergeant Blast, Big Gruesome, Rock Slag, Rufus Ruffcut, Red Max
- Don Messick - Muttley, Little Gruesome, Gravel Slag, Professor Pat Pending, Sawtooth, Ring-a-Ding
- John Stephenson - Luke and Blubber Bear
- Janet Waldo - Penelope Pitstop
- Paul Winchell - Dick Dastardly, Clyde, Private Meekly
[edit] Cultural references / precursors
- Certain characters in the cartoon are clearly based on characters in Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965). Penelope Pitstop took on the appearance of Maggie DuBois, played by Natalie Wood, down to the exact shade of pink on one of her outfits and the parasol. Dastardly has much in common with Jack Lemmon's portrayal of Professor Fate - though he has a non-canine sidekick in the form of Max Meen (Peter Falk). The pair indulge in similar acts of sabotage and Max has Muttley's knack for making mistakes. Although Fate's car does not look much like The Mean Machine it does bear the familiar spike on the front and is equipped with smoke screen, cannon and other assorted gadgets. The physical similarities, particularly between DuBois and Pitstop, can be seen from the cover of the DVD (right).
- Underground rapper Daniel Dumile makes a reference to "Dick Dastardly and Muttley with sick laughter" in the song "Accordion" on his collaboration album Madvillainy with producer Madlib.
- Underground rapper Saafir on the song "Swig of the Stew" from his debut album 'Boxcar Sessions', claims that "Dick Dastardly could never've mastered me".
- Wacky Races has also had an influence on Japanese animation. At least three anime shows have produced a Wacky Races-style special, complete with wacky cars usually based on a series prop. During the '80s, animation production house Artmic (now AIC) produced Scramble Wars, starring the super deformed versions of characters from Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force and other shows that Artmic created. Bandai animation house Sunrise produced a similar special, as part of the SD Gundam OVA series of self-parodies of Sunrise's Gundam series. This is perhaps the most direct homage to Wacky Races, as the episode transforms one of the characters, the mad ace Yazan Gable of Zeta Gundam, into a clear Dick Dastardly homage (including oversized chin) and another villain as his Muttley-esque sidekick, complete with a dog-like snout and a raspy, hushed laugh. In 1993, Tatsunoko Productions released a Wacky Races-styled OVA special featuring the characters from the popular and long running Time Bokan franchise and its spinoffs, Yattaman, Zendaman, and Otasukeman.
- The animated series Dexter's Laboratory featured a parody of Wacky Races in the episode "Dexter's Wacky Races," featuring the show's major cast members (Dexter, Mandark, Mandark's mother and father, Dexter's mother and father, Dee Dee and Koosy , Monkey and Agent Honeydew, and the Justice Friends) racing against each other in a road rally to Burbank, California. The opening credits of Wacky Races and the show's narrator are also parodied here.
- A portion of the animated movie Scooby-Doo and the Reluctant Werewolf is loosely based off of Wacky Races.
- German Formula One driver Michael Schumacher has been nicknamed Dick Dastardly by some journalists covering F1 races not only because of his prominent chin but also those controversial maneuvers which have thrown faster cars off the track.
- Brazilian band Irmãos Rocha is named after the Slag Brothers. Irmãos Rocha means literally "Rock Brothers", and Rocha is a common surname in Brazil.
- In ReBoot, season 3, Cyrus reboots as a parody toy of Dick Dastardly and Frisket reboots as a parody toy of Muttley.
- Life size working replicas of the vehicles have been built in England and appear annually at the Goodwood Festival Of Speed, with new additions being added each year. Replicas currently exist of The Mean Machine (00), The Boulder Mobile (1), The Creepy Coupe (2), Convert-A-Car (3), The Crimson Haybailer (4), The Compact Pussycat (5), The Army Surplus Special (6), The Arkansas Chug-a-lug (8)and The Turbo Terrific (9).
- In one episode of Duck Dodgers Captain Duck Dodgers is turned into muttley in the virtual reality game
[edit] Wacky Races in other languages
- Japanese: チキチキマシン猛レース (Chiki-Chiki Machine Mou race)
- Catalan: Els Cotxes Esbojarrats
- Portuguese: Corrida Mais Louca do Mundo
- Brazilian Portuguese: Corrida Maluca
- Galician: Os Tolos do Volante
- Spanish: Los Autos Locos
- French: Les Fous du Volant
- Polish: Odlotowe Wyścigi
- Italian: Le Corse Pazze
- Hungarian: Flúgos futam
- Romanian: Cursele nebune
[edit] External links
- It's the Wacky Races!
- Wacky Races at the Internet Movie Database
- Wacky Races at TV.com
- Festival of Speed cars
Categories: Articles to be merged since March 2007 | Wacky Races | 1960s American television series | 1970s American television series | Animated television series | Appaloosa Interactive games | Automotive television series | CBS network shows | Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network Studios series and characters | Fictional motorsports | Motorsports anime
