Dick Dastardly

Dick Dastardly
Dick Dastardly as seen in Wacky Races
Created by	William Hanna & Joseph Barbera
Voiced by	Paul Winchell (1968–1991) John Stephenson (Laff-A-Lympics) Michael Bell (The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera) Rob Paulsen (in Yo Yogi!) Jim Cummings (2000) Chikao Ohtsuka (Japanese)
Information
Species	Human

Dick Dastardly (full name Richard Milhous Dastardly) is a fictional character and antagonist who appeared in various animated series by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Dastardly's most famous appearances are as a main character in the series Wacky Races (his initial appearance) and its spin-off, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. He is partly based on the English actor Terry-Thomas.

The character was voiced originally by Paul Winchell, then by Rob Paulsen and currently by Jim Cummings. Winchell's facial structures were caricatured in the related character design as well. In various scenes, Dastardly would utter his catchphrases, "Drat, drat and double drat!" or "Triple drat!" and even "Curses, foiled again!" His other main catchphrase was, "Muttley, do something!"

In Wacky Races, Dastardly was one of the drivers who competed in each episode for first place, in a long and hazard-filled cross-country road rally. As his name implies, Dastardly aimed to win solely through cheating and trickery. His race car, "The Mean Machine", featured all sorts of devious traps for him to use against his opponents. As Wacky Races is inspired by the film The Great Race, so was Dastardly derived from the film's chief villain, Professor Fate, played by Jack Lemmon. Dastardly in this series wore old-fashioned racer's gear — a long blue duster overcoat often worn by early motorists, along with long red gloves, and a large striped hat with driving goggles attached, and sporting a handlebar mustache.

Dastardly was aided in his schemes by his sidekick, a scruffy anthropomorphic dog named Muttley who had a distinctive wheezy laugh, heard most often when Dastardly's schemes failed. Despite Dastardly and Muttley's attempts, the "double-dealing do-badders", as the opening narration of Wacky Races describes them, failed to win a single race. Dastardly's plans were always foiled either by his or Muttley's incompetence, the actions of another racer, or sheer bad luck, resulting in Dastardly crossing the finish line last, if at all. On some occasions Dastardly is very close to winning, but he will fail at the final hurdle. Once Dastardly had an opportunity to win legitimately, but he stopped in front of the finish line to pose for his picture as it was a photo finish. Another time, he came close to winning the race, but stopped to sign an autograph for Muttley, ending up in fourth place again. Another time Dasterdly almost crossed the Finish Line first-until Muttley sabotaged his chances of winning! On one occasion, however, Dastardly did cross the finish line in first place, although the judges demanded to see a replay and it showed that Dastardly had extended the nose of his car at the last minute, and so Dastardly was denied the victory in favour of Penelope Pitstop (although in a later episode, another racer used a similar tactic from last place and was declared the winner). In one race Dasterdly and Muttley did cross the Finish line first without cheating-but were disqualified because-due to a series of comic mishaps-they were in the wrong car!