Wacky Races is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series features 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." Wacky Races ran on CBS from September 14, 1968 to January 4, 1969. Seventeen episodes were produced, with each episode featuring two different races, for a total of 34 races in all.
The cartoon was unusual in the large number of regular characters, twenty-four in total: the twenty-three people and animals spread among the 11 race cars, plus the unseen (and never identified) race announcer. Another unusual feature of the series is that the stars of the show are the villains as opposed to the heroes. Reruns of the series currently air several times a day on Cartoon Network's classic animation network Boomerang.
Background
Mickey Mouse and the Great Ostrich Race appeared as newspaper strips from January 6, 1936, to March 20, 1936. Mickey acquires an ostrich and has to use it to win a race to pay off bills it has run up. In the race is Goofy with a cart which has panels in with an extendable boxing glove to hit people trying to pass and other surprises. Donald Duck is driving a horse drawn bath of water with sprayers. There is an Alaskan sledge with dogs, a vulture with a basket beneath it with a bear pilot, a cart pulled by a seal, a goat in a wheelchair, a goat pulling another cart, a kangaroo, and Mickey on an ostrich. The race is full of "dirty tricks" as contestants try to win the $300 prize.
However, Monte Carlo or Bust (released in the US as Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies ) is a far more likely origin for the series. Not only does it depict a car race filled with humorous incidents and abounding cheating, but the Terry-Thomas character of Sir Percy Ware-Armitage has many similarities with the character of Dick Dastardly and is possibly his direct inspiration. Monte Carlo or Bust was also released in Summer 1969, with Wacky Races starting in the autumn of the same year.
Some also believe that Wacky Races was inspired by the 1965 film The Great Race , and that the main characters in the cartoon were based on those in the film. Penelope Pitstop (who would later have a spin-off series) took on the appearance of Maggie DuBois, played by Natalie Wood, including her pink outfit and her car's parasol. Dastardly has much in common with Jack Lemmon's portrayal of Professor Fate. Fate and his sidekick, Max Meen (Peter Falk), 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.
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.
Drivers, characters and cars
The eleven racers and their numbers are:
Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Mean Machine 00 (The double 'O'/ The Double Zero)
The villains of the series, in a purple, rocket-powered car with an abundance of concealed weapons and ability to fly. 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; however, every plan backfired. Ironically, many tricks Dastardly uses are not unlike the ones the other racers use, though only his are referred to as "cheating". His traps would mostly fail, with Dastardly being the one who gets hurt in the end and Muttley, his canine sidekick, snickering at his misfortune (and usually a last-place finish). This usually earned him a bonk on the head from Dastardly, who could seemingly stretch his arms considerable distances for that sole purpose. Dastardly dresses in purple and wears a red-and-purple striped puffy hat. He also has a long, black moustache and appears as the archetypal turn-of-the-century villain.
The Slag Brothers in the Bouldermobile 1
Rock and Gravel Slag are Cavemen 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. Like the Gruesome Twosome, the Slag Brothers can summon up appropriate creatures - such as Pteranodons - to help them. The Slags also speak by combining stereotypical caveman language with normal English, e.g. "Raga-radda, wheel gone. Get new one!" In one episode, the Bouldermobile had a "flat" tire, when a wheel turned cubical. In another episode, a wheel fell off, and Gravel Slag accidentally made a square wheel from a rock, to which Rock Slag responds, "Rah Dummyhead! You make square wheel!" They can accelerate by hitting the car (or at times, each other) with their clubs. The Slag Brothers' character design was re-used for Captain Caveman.
The Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe 2
Big Gruesome - a Frankenstein's monster / Lurch type - and Little Gruesome - a purple skinned vampire - are monsters driving a hearse-like car with a belfry which housed a dragon and various spooky characters. The Creepy Coupe was able to fly short distances through use of the dragon's wings and has bats constantly circling its belfry. Also, they can summon bats, storms, ghosts, serpents, and even a witch to help them fend off the other cars. Big Gruesome spoke like Boris Karloff and Little Gruesome like Peter Lorre. "Dragon" - who appeared in every episode, and would sometimes get out of the car and walk with the Gruesome Twosome, was such an integral part of the No. 2 team that he was essentially the 25th character of the show - although he was only ever known as "Dragon," or "Dragon Power," by Big Gruesome.
Professor Pat Pending in the Convert-a-Car 3
A scientist in a boat-shaped car equipped with a multitude of gadgets and which can change into just about anything that moves. Among the things his car has transformed into include a motorcycle, a jetpack, a flying carpet on wheels, a forklift, an arrow, a bicycle built for two, a bowling ball, a blimp, a rocket and even an exact duplicate of the Slag Brothers driving the Bouldermobile. 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. He often uses his car's gadgets to help out the other drivers if they all get caught in the same trap, such as when he used his car's de-glue gizmo to unstick everyone from a glue trap left by Dastardly. His alliterative name is a pun on the phrase "patent pending."
Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer 4
An air ace whose name is an combination of the Red Baron and the Blue Max, in a car/plane hybrid that was capable of limited flight, usually just enough to leapfrog over racers or obstacles in its path. Red Max could use his propeller as a weapon to slice other cars into pieces, which was demonstrated effectively in one race against the Ant Hill Mob's Bulletproof Bomb. The Haybailer also had a mounted machine gun, which was used sporadically. The Haybailer's transformation from plane to car/plane hybrid seems to have significantly weakened its flying ability, and Max often has to bail out when the Haybailer breaks down.
Penelope Pitstop in the Compact Pussycat 5
The only female racer, driving a pink feminine car with personal grooming facilities that would sometimes backfire on other racers, such as shampoo foam hitting their faces. She always has time to relax and worry about her looks, because her car is like a beauty parlor. Penelope also has a habit of holding her arm out in the breeze to dry newly applied nail polish, which the others mistake for a turn signal (this habit once sent the Roaring Plenty into a cactus). Peter Perfect had a crush on her, a feeling that was returned, and always tried to help her; in one episode, they almost end up married. Unlike other cars, the Compact Pussycat rarely was targeted by the other racers, as it seems they also liked and tried to help her as Peter did. Penelope also had her own cartoon, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop , which also featured the Ant Hill Mob.
Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly in the Army Surplus Special 6 (the Surplus Six)
Two soldiers, one a sergeant and the other a private, racing in an army tank/jeep hybrid with a small steamroller‘s wheel attached to the front. The Army Surplus Special, otherwise known as the Surplus Six, made use of its tank facilities while racing, including its cannon, which could spin around to face forward or back, and the hatch, where Sergeant Blast rides. In one episode, the tank fired a bubblegum ball out of its cannon to stop Prof. Pending (the first attempt failed, but a second gum wad did prove successful). The Surplus Special was also equipped with a supply of land mines, which when
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