| Director: | |
| Voices: | |
| Narrated: | Dave Willock |
| Composer: | Hoyt Curtin |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 1 |
| Num Episodes: | 17 (34 segments) |
| Producer: | |
| Editor: |
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| Runtime: | 21 minutes |
| Company: | |
| Network: | CBS |
| Related: |
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Wacky Races is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with Heatter-Quigley Productions. It aired on CBS as part of its Saturday morning schedule from September 14, 1968, to January 4, 1969.[1] The series features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America,[2] with all of the drivers hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer".[3] The show was inspired by the 1965 comedy film The Great Race.[4] This was the only non-game show produced by Heatter-Quigley; the show was intended as a game show in which children would guess the winner of each race, and those who answered correctly would win prizes, but CBS dropped these elements during development.[5]
The cartoon had many regular characters, with 23 people and animals on the 11 race cars. After its network run on CBS, Wacky Races ran 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 featuring Dick Dastardly through the years, the most similar in theme being "Fender Bender 500" in 1990.
In 2017, the series was remade as both reboot and sequel to the series airing on Boomerang. It aired on Cartoon Network on August 13, 2018.
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 North America as the race announcer (voiced by Dave Willock) talks about the race while interacting with the racers.
The racers consist of:
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:[6]
| Contestants | Car name | Car no. | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | Top 3 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Slag Brothers | The Boulder Mobile | 1 | 3 | 8 | 3 | 14 | |
| Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth | The Buzzwagon | 10 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 13 | |
| The Gruesome Twosome | The Creepy Coupe | 2 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 12 | |
| The Ant Hill Mob | The Bulletproof Bomb | 7 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 11 | |
| Penelope Pitstop | The Compact Pussycat | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 11 | |
| The Red Max | The Crimson Haybaler | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 10 | |
| Professor Pat Pending | The Convert-A-Car | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 10 | |
| Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear | The Arkansas Chuggabug | 8 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 9 | |
| Peter Perfect | The Turbo Terrific | 9 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 8 | |
| Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly | The Army Surplus Special | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | |
| Dick Dastardly and Muttley | The Mean Machine | 00 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Grand totals | 34 | 34 | 34 | 102 |
| 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 | 4th | ||||||||
| 1b | Creepy Trip to Lemon Twist | 2nd | 1st | 3rd | DQ | ||||||||
| 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 | 11th | |||
| 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 |
In 1969, 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. In the same year, Penelope Pitstop and the Ant Hill Mob were spun off into another cartoon series titled, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. 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 followed the same premise as Wacky Races, but had racers drive monster trucks and races took place on various parts of the world. Only Dick Dastardly and Muttley returned from among the original Wacky Races cast; all other racers were from other Hanna-Barbera shows such as "Yogi Bear" and "Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy". Unlike in Wacky Races, here Dastardly and Muttley were able to actually win at least one race.
In 2006, the pilot for a spin-off series titled Wacky Races Forever was produced for Cartoon Network.[7] 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.[8] The comic ran for six issues from May to December 2016.
A reboot and sequel—also produced by Hanna-Barbera—was released on Boomerang's SVOD service in 2017.[9] It also aired on the Boomerang channels around the world starting later in the year.[10]
On June 15, 2022, it was announced a stop-motion Wacky Races series produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios Europe was in production and would have aired on Cartoon Network.[11] The project was later cancelled with only a short pilot being completed.[12]
See main article: Scoob!. Dick Dastardly (voiced by Jason Isaacs) and Muttley (voiced by Billy West and archived laugh recordings Don Messick) made an appearance as the main villains in the animated Scooby-Doo feature film, Scoob!, released on May 15, 2020. Rock 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. Penelope Pitstop was to appear physically as a main character interacting with Scooby and Shaggy according to concept art, but she instead makes a brief cameo on a video game cabinet themed around her.
In 2018, an animated film based on Wacky Races was reported to be in development by Warner Animation Group.[13]
The main plot of Wacky Races, in which characters racing on unusual fictional vehicles and using various over-the-top "weapons" to hinder their opponents, would later go on to inspire the kart racing video game genre in the 1990s. Wacky Races eventually has its own video game series since 1991, preceding Nintendo's Super Mario Kart, which was considered as the foremost game of this kind. Various video games based on the series have been produced.
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. The PS2 game is notable for allowing players to have Dick Dastardly finally win a race. The narrator is taken aback or disgusted and Dastardly is happy and surprised at winning a race.[14] In 2007, Heiwa released a pachinko game titled Kenken Aloha de Hawaii.[15] Later in 2007, another game called for the PlayStation 2 was released by Blast Entertainment on June 12. A new video game for the Wii and Nintendo DS consoles titled was released on June 27, 2008. This game was developed by Eidos.[16] 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.
Konami releases a 11 candy toy figures based on the animated series Wacky Races.
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 Classic Collection as a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release.[17]
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. The 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.[18]
The Digimon Frontier episode "Trailmon vs. Trailmon" paid tribute to the show.
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.[19]
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".[20]
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.[21] [22]
Wacky Races was also seen in the South Park episode "Handicar".
Dick Dastardly and Muttley made a cameo in the Uncle Grandpa episode "Uncle Grandpa Retires".
The Buzz Wagon appeared in the OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes episode "Crossover Nexus".
Dick Dastardly, Muttley, and Penelope Pitstop appear in as part of the spectators of the big game, and Penelope is the Compact Pussycat the whole time. Dastardly and Muttley also appear in their Scoob! forms.
The Army Surplus Special appeared in the Jellystone! episode "My Doggie Dave".
