Wacky Races

Thought I'd write up on this classic cartoon, given I've been ripping my DVD collection (and thus rewatched the episodes)...

"Wacky Races," if you don't recall, was a 1968 Hanna-Barbera cartoon that was modelled after a film from a few years earlier, "The Great Race" (set in the early days of road rally racing). In this case, "Wacky Races" featured 11 different wackily-designed racecars racing against each other in road rallies in different settings, all competing to become the "world's wackiest racer." Seventeen episodes were made, featuring two races each (the DVD collection features them as 34 seperate segments, however).

The racers included:
- Peter Perfect in the Turbo Terrific: A posh-sounding racer whose car (despite his name) constantly fell apart.
- Rufus Ruffcut and his beaver sidekick, Sawtooth, in the Buzzwagon: A lumberjack driving a wooden car with circular sawblades for wheels.
- Sgt. Blast and Pvt. Meekly, in the Army Surplus Special: A pair of US Army soldiers in a modified tank.
- The Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb: Seven short gangsters (in the 30s gangster film fashion), whose leader was named Clyde (presumably a reference to the then-recent hit film "Bonnie and Clyde") who drove a 1920s/1930s-era car (whose engine sounded like it was on its last legs).
- Professor Pat Pending in the Convert-a-Car: A scientist who drove a car that could transform into anything he wished (a pogo stick, a jet pack, etc.).
- Penelope Pitstop in the Compact Pussycat: The sole female character in the series, a southern-accented young woman who drove a stereotypically feminine pink-colored car (with makeup and hair-themed gadgets built in).
- The Slag Brothers in the Bouldermobile: Two cavemen (no explanation why they were in the present, though one episode featured a caveman living in Carlsbad Caverns) who spoke mostly in grunts, driving a car shaped like a boulder. The two looked like "The Addams Family"'s Cousin It, and whose looks were the model for later creation Captain Caveman.
- The Gruesome Twosome in the Creepy Coupe: two monsters (Big Gruesome and Little Gruesome) driving a haunted house-themed car (equipped with a fire-breathing dragon, summoned as "dragon power").
- The Red Max in the Crimson Haybailer: A German-accented World War I-styled flying ace "driving" a modified biplane.
- Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chuggabug: A hillbilly and his cowardly pet bear driving a car with an old water boiler for an engine.
- Dick Dastardly and his dog Muttley, in the Mean Machine: The show's resident villains.... Dick would spend every episode trying to cheat his way into winning the race, via the use of various traps reminiscent of the Coyote's in the "Road Runner" cartoons (probably since one of that series' writers wrote this show), but to no avail---Dick never won a single race. His dog, Muttley, usually would snicker at his owner every chance he got.

As seen above, the show lived up to its name, given such a lineup. While the show had just one season produced, it had some lasting life in syndicated reruns, plus had two spinoffs produced, "Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines" (Dick and Muttley in a World War I-ish setting, trying to stop a messenger pigeon via the use of various wacky airplanes) and "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop" (Penelope in silent-film-melodrama-esque adventures, trying to avoid being killed for her inheritance by the villainous Hooded Claw. The Ant Hill Mob were here as well, as Penelope's bumbling rescuers). Indeed, Dick and Muttley became Hanna-Barbera's main "master villains" in many of their 80s productions involving Yogi Bear and the other early H-B gang, appearing as the main villain in "Yogi's Treasure Hunt" and in "Wacky Races"-redux series "Fender Bender 500" (the less said about "Yo, Yogi", the better....).

"Wacky Races" debuted on CBS in 1968; its competition that season:
ABC: "The Adventures of Gulliver": A Hanna-Barbera animated series based on the classic Jonathan Swift novel. Lasted two seasons (one as reruns).

NBC: "Top Cat": Reruns of the early 60s Hanna-Barbera primetime takeoff of "Sgt. Bilko."

In 1969-70, "Races" got another round of reruns aired, in a later timeslot; its competition:
ABC: "American Bandstand": the long-running Dick Clark-hosted teen dance show.

NBC: "Underdog." Total Television's biggest hit show about the bumbling canine superhero.

Between 1968's hit shows such as "Wacky Races" and its biggest hit, "Archie", and 1969's way-bigger hit, "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?", programming exec Fred Silverman found success careerwise, and was promoted into programming CBS' primetime schedule, where he greenlit such classics as "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show."

1968 itself also was a turning point for Saturday mornings---the previous few seasons had mostly featured superhero and action series, presumably spurred by the hit live-action "Batman" series and the James Bond spy craze. However, parents' groups had become vocal about violence in children's TV programming by this time (with the violence of real-life events in 1968 possibly an influence), with the networks responding by ditching most of the previous action and superhero shows. The fact that "Wacky Races" and "Archie" (and "Scooby") were big hits also no doubt helped, and by 1970 the previous superhero/action shows were pretty much gone.

Finally, in real life, the show seems like it must've been popular over in the UK, given every other link in Google about it points to a UK website (or a few Japanese ones---the show was a big hit in Japan a few years ago), with even news articlese about members of Parliament using the phrase "wacky races". Plus, there's the links below---the "Goodwind Festival of Speed" features real working replicas of the various "Wacky Races" cars:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jane_sanders/sets/72157605107455810/
http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2009/06/wacky-race-cartoon-cars-come-to-life-in.html

And, to top it all off, here's the opening (and part of an episode of) the actual cartoon itself--or one of the better (though still a bit poor looking) YouTube copies I could find, anyway. Enjoy:

Sorry, Leonardo: "Gone With the Wind" is still the top grossing flick of all time

Mark Evanier posted this on his blog, a link to a list showing---adjusted for inflation/grossly inflating ticket prices--- what the *real* top-grossing films of all time are.

"Gone With the Wind" still reigns supreme ("Titanic" clocks in at #6), while "Star Wars" still claims runner-up (not "The Dark Knight", which is #27, two notches below "Grease" and one notch above Disney's "Jungle Book"). Of the top 10 films, only "Titanic" dates from the past 15 years.

This makes for a much more objective list of the "top films of all time", given that ticket prices have shot up so much in recent years that new films' claims of being "the top grossing film of <x, y, z>" ring hollow. It also shows a wider range of films as being top-ranked, not just a bunch of sequels and summer blockbusters. There's one animated entry in the top 10, "Snow White", in tenth place, though just below it at #11 is "101 Dalmations."

Trip to Washington DC followup: the photos

As promised, here's photos of my trip to Washington, DC:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mechanikat/sets/72157620718268280/

Enjoy!

Yet more racist Obama stereotypes

This website features an article listing a whole spate of more examples of racist remarks/caricatures/etc. about Obama, some more brazenly so than the previous examples:

Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » It’s Funny Because They’re Black

Charming... and to think he's only been in office not even six whole months yet.

RIP Michael Jackson

I'm sure you've all seen by now the stories about the sudden death of 80s pop icon Michael Jackson. While I'm sure much will be written about Jackson (both good---his music, impact on the music industry, etc.---and bad---his descent into weirdness and eccentricity in the 90s, etc.), I guess I can try going for a semi-unique take and focus on the more positive side of his life. In this case, writing about some of his various animated incarnations.

The first one would be the early 1970s Rankin-Bass-animated recursively-named "Jackson 5ive" animated series, which included young-Michael and his brothers:



This show debuted on ABC in 1971 and ran until 1973. It featured adventures of the singing group from Gary, Indiana as they got into hijinks similar to those the Monkees or Josie and the Pussycats might've gotten into. Like the 60s Beatles cartoon, this series featured the group's actual songs during the show, but didn't use the original Jacksons as voices. Animation voiceover veteran Paul Frees (Boris Badenov from "Rocky and Bullwinkle", various voices in Rankin-Bass holiday specials) did Berry Gordy's animated self, while a Donald Fullilove (who played Goldie Wilson in "Back to the Future") did young Michael's voice. Oddly enough, Diana Ross herself managed to do her own voice for the show...

In 1971, the Jackson Five cartoon ran against:
NBC: "The New Pink Panther Show". A staple of NBC through the 70s, this show featured the various theatrical Pink Panther shorts, along with other DePatie-Freleng shorts like "The Ant and the Aardvark."

CBS: "Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch!". One-season Hanna-Barbera series about, erm, three bears (the leader of the group having a giant Afro) trying to pull scams in or break out of a zoo and avoiding the crank of a zookeeper, often while riding around on an invisible motorcycle. Yep, you read correctly.

In 1972, the show went up against:
CBS: "Sabrina the Teenage Witch." The Filmation animated stand-alone series starring Sabrina.

NBC: "The Jetsons." Reruns of the original 60s series.

Another major Michael Jackson animated incarnation that comes to mind is his Simpsons voicework in the 90s, including the episode where Homer meets "Michael Jackson" (at a mental institution). Jackson also wrote the songs "Do the Bartman" and "Happy Birthday, Lisa" for the series.

The 1988 Michael Jackson movie "Moonwalker" featured a segment animated by Will Vinton (the Claymation animator).

As I wrote in an earlier post, the Flintstones' 80s spinoff "The Flintstone Kids" made use of Michael Jackson, appearing there as Neolithic singer "Michael Jackstone." Michael later appears in normal Flintstones continuity as a statue in the 1993 TV-movie "Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby", where his sister "Janet Jackstone" is also mentioned.

Guessing there's probably more examples than this (and less-than-flattering ones from the late 90s and 2000s, reflecting Jackson's life since then), but these will do for starters.