Wacky Races (1968 TV series) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Wacky Races
Title card
Created by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Written by	Larz Bourne Dalton Sandifer Tom Dagenais Michael Maltese
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Voices of	Paul Winchell Don Messick Janet Waldo Daws Butler John Stephenson Dave Willock
Narrated by	Dave Willock
Composer(s)	Hoyt Curtin
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	17 (34 segments)
Production
Producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Editor(s)	Richard Allen Milton Krear
Running time	20 minutes (10 minutes per segment)
Production company(s)	Hanna-Barbera Productions Heatter-Quigley Productions
Distributor	Taft Broadcasting
Release
Original network	CBS
Audio format	Mono
Original release	September 14, 1968 (1968-09-14) – January 4, 1969 (1969-01-04)
Chronology
Followed by	The Perils of Penelope Pitstop Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines
Related shows	Wacky Races (2017)

Wacky Races is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with all of the drivers hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer". The show was inspired by the 1965 comedy film The Great Race.

The cartoon had many regular characters, with 23 people and animals spread among the 11 race cars. Wacky Races ran on CBS from September 14, 1968, to January 4, 1969, and in syndication from 1976 to 1982. Seventeen 20-minute episodes were produced, with each of them featuring two 10-minute segments.

The series spawned numerous spin-offs throughout the years featuring Dick Dastardly, the most similar in theme being "Fender Bender 500" in 1990.

In 2017, the series was remade as a reboot, airing on Boomerang.

Plot

The cartoon revolves around several racers with various themes who are each allowed to use strange gimmicks to compete against other racers in many races across the United States.

Racers include:

• Dick Dastardly, an archetypal mustache-twirling villain and his wheezily snickering dog, Muttley, in the Mean Machine (00); their sinister vehicle is a purple, rocket-powered car with an abundance of concealed weapons and the ability to fly. Dastardly's usual race strategy revolves around using the Mean Machine's great speed to get ahead of the other racers and then setting a trap to stop them and maintain the lead, but most of his plans backfire, causing him to fall back into last place. Dastardly is the only racer who not only never wins, but never even finishes in the top three in any race. In the opening title sequence, Dastardly attempts to stall the racers by chaining their cars to a pole, but then he accidentally shifts his car into reverse, bumps into and breaks the pole and frees the others as the race begins.
• The Slag Brothers, Rock and Gravel, in a caveman-themed race car called the Boulder Mobile (1); their car is made out of rock and the brothers (who talk in caveman-like gibberish but with occasional intelligible words) power it up by hitting it on both sides with their clubs and are also able to re-build it from bare rock, always using their clubs.
• The Gruesome Twosome, Tiny "Big Gruesome" and Bela "Little Gruesome", who are monsters, in the Creepy Coupe (2); their horror-themed car includes a small bell tower inhabited by a fire-breathing dragon, bats and other creatures. The Creepy Coupe's special booster is "dragon power," with the dragon acting as a RATO unit.
• Professor Pat Pending, an inventor, in the Convert-a-Car (3); he can transform his car into pretty much anything that moves.
• The Red Max, a Manfred von Richthofen-styled aviator who speaks with a German accent, in a car/airplane hybrid called the Crimson Haybaler (4); his vehicle is able to fly, although only for short distances in ground effect.
• Penelope Pitstop, the lone female driver, in a 1930s racing costume in the Compact Pussycat (5); a Southern belle, Penelope. Seems more concerned with her looks than with racing and often gets herself into trouble. Nevertheless, she is a skilled racer, usually in the top three finishers and winning several times.
• Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly in an armored car/tank hybrid called the Army Surplus Special (6); the Sergeant uses "fire power" (i.e. shooting cannonballs from his turret) to temporarily boost power in the car.
• The Ant Hill Mob, a group of dwarf-like gangsters led by Clyde and is composed of him, Ring-A-Ding, Rug Bug Benny, Mac, Danny, Kirby and Willy, in the Bulletproof Bomb (7); they are sometimes preoccupied with getting caught by the police and are able to use "getaway power", which involves all the gangsters (except for Clyde) extending their legs through the bottom of the car and running.
• Lazy Luke, a hillbilly, and Blubber Bear, a timid, cry-baby bear, in the Arkansas Chuggabug (8); Luke maneuvers the steering wheel with his bare feet and his car is steam-powered from an old rickety boiler. Luke has been known to blow up a balloon and use it as an air jet for briefly increased speed.
• Peter Perfect, a gentlemanly racer, in the Turbo Terrific (9); Peter is extremely strong, but also very vain, and he often boasts about the virtues of his high-tech race car - which regularly falls to pieces seconds after he praises it. He is fond of Penelope and often helps her out.
• Rufus Ruffcut, a lumberjack, and his companion Sawtooth, a beaver, in the Buzz Wagon (10); their car, entirely made of wood, features four circular saw blades as wheels and Sawtooth is able to cut through obstacles (such as trees and other objects) at super-high speed.

Voice cast

• Paul Winchell – Dick Dastardly, Private Meekly, Clyde
• Don Messick – Muttley, Professor Pat Pending, Gravel Slag, Bella Gruesome, Ring-a-Ding, Sawtooth
• Daws Butler – Rock Slag, Tiny Gruesome, Red Max, Sergeant Blast, Peter Perfect, Rufus Ruffcut
• John Stephenson – Luke, Blubber Bear
• Janet Waldo – Penelope Pitstop
• Dave Willock – Commentator/Narrator

List of episodes

Race results

The show gave the results of each race at the end of each episode (the first, second, and third placings are given by the narrator, and the narrative sometimes saw some or all of the other cars cross the finish line) as well as what happened with Dick Dastardly after his last scheme's failure. The show 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:

Standings

		1. The Boulder Mobile	2. The Creepy Coupe	3. The Convert-A-Car	4. The Crimson Haybaler	5. The Compact Pussycat	6. The Army Surplus Special	7. The Bulletproof Bomb	8. The Arkansas Chuggabug	9. The Turbo Terrific	10. The Buzzwagon	00. The Mean Machine
1a	See-Saw to Arkansas		2nd		1st						3rd
1b	Creepy Trip to Lemon Twist		2nd			1st					3rd	DSQ
2a	Why Oh Why Wyoming	2nd	1st	8th	7th	6th	5th	10th	3rd	9th	4th	11th
2b	Beat the Clock to Yellow Rock	5th	3rd	7th	10th	9th	6th	4th	1st	8th	2nd
3a	Mish-Mash Missouri Bash		3rd	1st	4th	2nd
3b	Idaho a Go-Go	1st		3rd							2nd
4a	The Baja-Ha-Ha Race	1st	5th	4th	3rd	7th	6th	2nd	9th	8th	10th	11th
4b	Real Gone Ape	9th	5th	7th	2nd	6th	1st	4th	10th	8th	3rd
5a	Scout Scatter	2nd	4th	3rd						5th	1st
5b	Free Wheeling to Wheeling	5th	4th		6th	3rd	7th	1st		2nd
6a	By Rollercoaster to Upsan Downs	2nd			1st				3rd
6b	The Speedy Arkansas Traveler	1st				4th		2nd		3rd
7a	The Zippy Mississippi Race	7th	6th	5th	8th	3rd	10th	2nd	9th	1st	4th
7b	Traffic Jambalaya		3rd			1st				2nd
8a	Hot Race at Chillicothe	3rd				2nd	1st
8b	The Wrong Lumber Race	9th	3rd	6th	8th	7th	4th	2nd	10th	5th	1st
9a	Rhode Island Road Race	2nd	1st						3rd
9b	The Great Cold Rush Race	4th	5th		1st		7th	3rd	2nd	6th	8th
10a	Wacky Race to Ripsaw	3rd			2nd						1st
10b	Oils Well That Ends Well	10th	6th	1st	4th	5th	2nd	9th	7th	8th	3rd	11th
11a	Whizzin' to Washington	7th	5th	2nd		6th	4th		3rd	1st
11b	The Dipsy Doodle Desert Derby	4th	3rd				5th			1st	2nd
12a	Eeny, Miny Missouri Go!	5th		1st		3rd		2nd			4th
12b	The Super Silly Swamp Sprint	5th			4th	3rd			1st	6th	2nd
13a	The Dopey Dakota Derby	9th	8th	2nd	3rd	4th	6th	1st	5th	7th	10th
13b	Dash to Delaware			3rd					1st		2nd
14a	Speeding for Smogland		2nd		3rd				1st		4th
14b	Race Rally to Raleigh	2nd	4th	5th				1st		3rd
15a	Ballpoint, Penn. or Bust!	4th	9th	10th	2nd	1st	8th	3rd	7th	5th	6th
15b	Fast Track to Hackensack	2nd	3rd					1st
16a	The Ski Resort Road Race	8th	9th	3rd	5th	7th	1st	10th	6th	4th	2nd
16b	Overseas Hi-Way Race	2nd	8th	6th	5th	3rd	9th	4th	10th	1st	7th
17a	Race to Racine	2nd	1st	3rd	10th	4th	6th	9th	7th	5th	8th
17b	The Carlsbad or Bust Bash	3rd		6th	2nd	1st	4th		5th

Spin-offs and similar series

Penelope Pitstop and the Ant Hill Mob were spun off into another cartoon series in 1969 titled The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. In the same year, Dick Dastardly and Muttley were given a spin-off series titled Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. The series is sometimes mistakenly known as Stop the Pigeon, after the show's working title and theme song. Both series ran for a season each.

In 1977, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels was produced. The titular Captain Caveman was modeled after the Slag Brothers.

In 1990, a cartoon segment in Wake, Rattle and Roll named Fender Bender 500 was produced. The show follows the same premise as Wacky Races, taking place on a World Tour instead of in the United States. Only Dick Dastardly was retained from the original cast; all the other racers are from other Hanna-Barbera shows such as "Yogi Bear" and "Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy".

In 2006, the pilot for a spin-off series titled Wacky Races Forever was produced for Cartoon Network. The series depicted a roster of both new and returning racers competing against each other. Penelope Pitstop and Peter Perfect had married and created Perfect Industries, the corporate sponsor of the new Wacky Races, whereas their children Parker and Piper competed in the race. Other characters included the Slag Brothers, Professor Pat Pending (depicted here with a mad scientist personality), a teenage version of the Gruesome Twosome, and Dick Dastardly and Muttley (working for a new villain named Mr. Viceroy, who sought to steal Perfect Industries). The series was not picked up by Cartoon Network.

In 2016, DC Comics launched a comic series called Wacky Raceland. It was a dark and gritty reimagining of the series set after the Apocalypse in a similar vein to the Mad Max franchise. The comic ran for six issues from May to December 2016.

A reboot—also produced by Hanna-Barbera—was released on Boomerang's SVOD service in 2017. It also aired on the Boomerang channels around the world starting later in the year.

Films

Hanna-Barbera cinematic universe

Dick Dastardly and Muttley made an appearance in the Scooby-Doo feature film, Scoob!, released on May 15, 2020. Rock Slag and Gravel Slag made cameo appearances during the prehistoric gladiator scene. Various drawings of the Wacky Racers cameo on Dick Dastardly's prison cell on the wall during the credits. A film based on Wacky Races is currently in development.

Video games

Various video games based on the series have been produced.

• Wacky Races (1991)
• Wacky Races (2000)
• Wacky Races/Wacky Races: Starring Dastardly and Muttley
• Wacky Races: Mad Motors
• Wacky Races: Crash and Dash

In 1993, Sega released a medal game based on the series, exclusively in Japan. It was a racing game, but the outcome of the race depended entirely on luck. Later in 2007, another game called Wacky Races: Mad Motors for the PlayStation 2 was released by Blast Entertainment on June 12. A new video game for the Wii and Nintendo DS consoles titled Wacky Races: Crash and Dash was released on June 27, 2008. This game was developed by Eidos. In 2009, another arcade game was released by Banpresto, which was a more traditional racing game. It ran on the Taito Type X2, and was released internationally by Gamewax.

Home video

A three-disc DVD release of the complete series was made available in Japan on August 10, 2001 and had both English and Japanese audio. In Great Britain, Warner released a three-disc set with no extra features, which was only available in Virgin Megastores. The complete box set of Wacky Races was released on July 31, 2006 as an HMV exclusive but is essentially the standard Volumes 1–3 with no extras. The Australian release of Volume 1 and 2 was made available in 2005 and Volume 3 released in 2007.

Warner Home Video released the entire series, with commentaries and other extras, in a DVD box set on October 19, 2004.

A two-and-a-half-hour VHS video was made available in 1996.

All 34 episodes can be purchased on the iTunes Store.

On February 14, 2017, Warner Archive re-released Wacky Races: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection as a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release.

Translated language titles

• Bosnian: Uvrnute trke (Strange racing)
• Catalan: Els cotxes esbojarrats (The bumpy cars)
• Dutch: Hotse-knotse-kneuzen-rally (Wild bumpy loser rally)
• French: Les Fous du volant (The Fools of the Wheel)
• Frisian: Hotse-knotse-kneuzen-rally (Rally of hot knees)
• Galician: Os tolos do volante (The Fools of the Wheel)
• German: Autorennen Total (Total car race)
• Hungarian: Flúgos futam (Wacky race)
• Italian: Le corse pazze (The crazy races) or La corsa più pazza del mondo (The craziest race of the World)
• Japanese: チキチキマシン猛レース – Chikichikimashin mō rēsu (Chiki Chiki Racing Machines)
• Polish: Odlotowe wyścigi (Cool races)
• Portuguese:
  • Portugal: A Mais Louca Corrida do Mundo (The Craziest Race of the World)
  • Brazil: Corrida Maluca (Crazy Race)
• Romanian: Curse Trăsnite (Wacky Races)
• Spanish: Los autos locos (The crazy cars)
• Serbian: Уврнуте трке (Strange racing)
• Swedish: Fartdårarna (Speed freaks)

The cars and characters in other media

Life-size working replicas of the vehicles have been built in the U.K. (where the show was very popular) and appear annually at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, with new additions each year. 2008 saw the last of the cars (the Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb #7) added to the collection, making a complete set.

• Goodwood Festival of Speed Wacky Races replicas
• 

  Mean Machine #00

• 

  Boulder Mobile #1

• 

  Creepy Coupe #2

• 

  Convert-a-Car #3

• 

  Crimson Haybailer #4

• 

  Compact Pussycat #5

• 

  Army Surplus Special #6

• 

  Turbo Terrific #9

In 2006, the car manufacturer Vauxhall launched a television commercial for the British market, parodying Wacky Races with a similar setup featuring Corsa cars. The commercial made several references to the cartoon as well as utilizing the show's theme music and Muttley's iconic snicker.

The English adult comic Viz had a one-off parody strip called "Wacky Racists" with David Irving as Dick Dastardly, Unity Mitford as Penelope Pitstop, Eugène Terre'Blanche as Lazy Luke, Oswald Mosley as Muttley, and comedian Bernard Manning in the "Fatcuntmobile".

In 2013, the car manufacturer Peugeot launched a TV commercial for the Brazilian market (and later used in Spain and Turkey), featuring the cartoon characters in a real-life universe.

Wacky Races was also seen in the South Park episode "Handicar".

See also

In Spanish: Los autos locos para niños