Product Description

Start your DVD engines! Diabolical do-badder Dick Dastardly, his snickering canine cohort Muttley and their Mean Machine take on you and all comers for all the fast and furious fun of the complete animated series Wacky Races. Gear up to keep pace with this dimwitted duo as well as their rivals: Peter Perfect in his Turbo Terrific, Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chucgabug, the Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb and glamorous Penelope Pitstop in her pink Compact Pussycat. Fasten your seat belts for all 34 original episodes plus Hilarious, High-Speed Extras that will keep you awake at the wheel straight through to the Finish Line!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13108 in DVD
• Brand: Unknown
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Animated, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .55 pounds
• Running time: 30 minutes

Amazon.com
Mix The Great Race with the slapstick humor of Road Runner cartoons and the wildly inventive minds of Hanna-Barbera, and you've got the 1968 animated series Wacky Races. You remember the lineup: the Slag brothers in the Boulder-Mobile; the Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe, with a dragon in its belfry; Prof. Pat Pending (ha ha) in the Convert-a-Car; Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer biplane; Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly in the tank-like Army Surplus Special; the Ant Hill Mob in the Bullitt-Proof Bomb; Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chugga-Bug; Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth the beaver in the Buzz Wagon; the Belle of the Brickyard, Penelope Pitstop, in the Compact Pussycat; Peter Perfect in the Turbo Terrific; and our hissable villains, Dick Dastardly and his snickering muttering dog, Muttley ("Sassa frassin'...") in the Mean Machine. In each 11-minute episode, the physics-defying cars compete in different areas of the country ("See-Saw to Arkansas," "Rhode Island Road Race," "The Carlsbad or Bust Bash"), so evenly matched that any car has a chance to win despite the evil schemes of Dastardly and Muttley, who always seem to come to a Wile E. Coyote-type end (writer Mike Maltese worked on both series). There's never really a plot, but just a string of situations and gags before someone finally crosses the finish line to earn the checkered flag.

The DVD set contains all 34 episodes of the series, looking reasonably good. Four members of the original creative team appear on a commentary track on four different episodes, and their discussion is less interesting for what they have to say about Wacky Races ("What was that car again?") than for their memories of working for Hanna-Barbera ("we did things off the top of the head"). There's also pop-up factoids on two episodes, a 20-minute recap of the series' history, and a look at the two spinoff series, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. That a relatively short-lived series could inspire two spinoffs, toys, comic books, a CD-ROM game, and other souvenirs is a testament to its ability to capture the Saturday-morning imagination and create a lot of fond memories. --David Horiuchi

Customer Reviews

Classic Hanna-Barbera Animation
October 19 brings a promising release of Wacky Races, the series where many different characters compete in races in their custom cars. Sadly I dont think Cartoon Network plays these shows anymore so many kids may not know what this is. Adults will remember it though and it certainly is a show the entire family can enjoy. The characters:

Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chugabug

The Slag Brothers, Rock and Gravel, in the Boulder Mobile

The Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe

Professor Pat Pending in the Ring-A-Ding Covert-A-Car

The Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer

The Sarge and Private Meekly in the Army Surplus Special

The Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb

Peter Perfect in the Turbo Terrific

Penelope Pitstop in the Compact Pussycat

Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth in the Buzzwagon

Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Mean Machine



The show follows a similar pattern: Dick Dastardly and Mutley cheat every way they can to win but never do, and Muttley always laughs about it. Different riders would win on each episode, often with dilemmas within the race (mostly caused by Dick Dastardly/Muttley). It is a simple but fun show that I loved watching and I am glad we are getting the complete series of 34 episodes on dvd. There look to be good extras included on here, and each episode has been remastered to look better than ever before. Amazon's price of $[...] is a steal for what you get so I encourage fans of 60s/70s animation as well as first-time fans to pick this bargain up. It is fun for the whole family, old or young. Episodes listing of the show:



1 See Saw To Arkansas

2 Creepy Trip to Lemon Twist

3 Why Oh Why Wyoming

4 Beat the Clock To Yellow Rock

5 Mish Mash Missouri Dash

6 Idaho A Go-Go

7 Scout Scatter

8 Free Wheeling to Wheeling

9 The Baja-Ha-Ha Race

10 Real Gone Ape

11 By Rollercoaster To Upsans Downs

12 The Speedy Arkansas Traveller

13 Rhode Island Road Race

14 The Great Cold Rush Race

15 Eeny Miny Missouri Go

16 The Super Silly Swamp Sprint

17 The Zippy Mississippi Race

18 Traffic Jambalaya

19 Hot Race At Chillicothe

20 The Wrong Lumber Race

21 Wacky Race To Ripsaw

22 Oils Well That Ends Well

23 Whizzin' To Washington

24 The Dipsy Doodle Desert Derby

25 Speeding for Smogland

26 Race Rally to Raleigh

27 The Dopey Dakota Derby

28 Dash to Delaware

29 Ballpoint Penn. Or Bust

30 Fast Track to Hackensack

31 Race to Racine

32 The Carlsbad or Bust Bash

33 The Ski Resort Road Race

34 Overseas Hi-Way Race



Hope this convinces you to buy this set, it looks to be a great release of some classic animation from the 60's and 70's.

And Now Here They Are!...
The Wacky Racers ride again on this 3-disc set, the first in a classic Hanna-Barbera triptych consisting of WACKY RACES, DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and THE PERILS OF PENELOPE PITSTOP.

At the time of this show's release upon the airwaves, Hanna-Barbera had come under fire from worried parents for the violence present in their adventure programs such as SPACE GHOST, BIRDMAN AND THE GALAXY TRIO, FRANKENSTEIN JR. AND THE IMPOSSIBLES, and THE HERCULOIDS. (Incidentally, we're still waiting for proper releases of these on DVD, Warner Brothers. Ahem.) HB responded with this series, which not only returned them to wild slapstick comedy as featured in YOGI BEAR and HUCKLEBERRY HOUND, but gave them their first recurring cartoon villains: the ignoble, treacherous, completely inefficient Dick Dastardly and his wheezing, snickering canine sidekick Muttley.

The plot of each episode is simple: eleven cars, each one a distinctly and fantastically customized vehicle (see other reviews for the complete lineup) compete in car races throughout North America for the title of The World's Wackiest Racer. The rules seem to be highly flexible: each car has certain attributes that allow its owner(s) to gain the advantage from time to time, often in ways that would be considered unsporting in a real-life car race. Despite this, Dick Dastardly and Muttley (voiced by Paul Winchell and Don Messick) still spend most of each race trying to win through extremely elaborate and badly-planned booby-traps (sometimes contributing heartily to their own demise: in the very first episode, D.D. has the race in the bag until the narrator (Dave Willock) mentions "photo finish" at which point Dastardly stops at mere INCHES from the finish line to pose for a photo).

Where the plot thickens is in the diverse range of cars and racers: though Dastardly, Muttley and Penelope Pitstop were the obvious breakout stars, this is Hanna-Barbera's largest ensemble cast (23 characters!), scoping a wide range of personalities; nutty inventor Pat Pending; hyperenthusiastic Rufus Ruffcut and his pet beaver Sawtooth; the incoherent cavemen Slag Brothers (Rock and Gravel); laid-back hillbilly Lazy Luke and his fretful pet Blubber Bear, and the ubitiquous Ant-Hill Mob, to name but a few. The cars, all tailor-made to their racers, are excellently designed and the source of numerous gags: the Gruesome Twosome and their Creepy Coupe's "dragon power" with real dragon; the Compact Pussycat, which dispenses full salon conveniences to its owner Penelope Pitstop; and the Red Max's Crimson Haybailer, both car AND aeroplane in one. There's even a bit of irony: bumbling Peter Perfect's Turbo Terrific falls apart constantly, while Dick Dastardly, whose Mean Machine is perhaps the fastest car of the lot, could have won a race if he just didn't stop to cheat.

The three-disc set is colorfully packaged with nice artwork featuring a group shot of all the Wacky Racers in the foldouts. The discs themselves contain commentary on four episodes from noted personnel at HB and two featurettes detailing the history of WACKY RACES and a look at its spinoffs DASTARDLY AND MUTTLEY IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES and THE PERILS OF PENELOPE PITSTOP.

This package is a nicely conceived set, and showcases one of Hanna-Barbera's most fondly remembered series; its release can only mean that more of HB's finest is soon to come. (Warner Brothers: please re-read the above. AHEM.)

Childhood memories at their best!
When I heard that "The Wacky Races" was coming to DVD, I jumped for joy. I hadn't seen these cartoons in decades...and thankfully I was not disappointed. The cartoons have been digitally restored with brilliant color and sound. You'll snicker along with Muttley as he and Dick Dastardly try to cheat their way to the finish line. Each race is goofier than the last! Lots of silly puns and play on words! Lots of goofy fun and plenty of nostalgia!