Wacky Races (1968 TV series)
| Wacky Races (1968 TV series) | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre |
Racing Comedy Fantasy |
| Written by |
Larz Bourne Dalton Sandifer Tom Dagenais Michael Maltese |
| Directed by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Voices of |
Paul Winchell Don Messick Janet Waldo Daws Butler John Stephenson Dave Willock |
| Narrated by | Dave Willock |
| Composer(s) | Hoyt Curtin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 17 (34 segments) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Editor(s) |
Richard Allen Milton Krear |
| Running time | 20 minutes |
| Production company(s) |
Hanna-Barbera Productions Heatter-Quigley Productions |
| Distributor |
Taft Broadcasting (1968–1979) Worldvision Enterprises (1979–1992) Turner Program Services (1992–1996) Warner Bros. Television Distribution (1996–present) |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Picture format | 4:3 |
| Audio format | Mono |
| Original release | September 14, 1968 – January 4, 1969 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by |
The Perils of Penelope Pitstop(1969–1970) Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines (1969–1970) |
Wacky Races is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The series, inspired by the 1965 slapstick comedy film The Great Race, features 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies throughout North America, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer."
The cartoon had a large number of regular characters, with 23 people and animals spread among the 11 race cars. Wacky Races ran on CBS from September 14, 1968, to January 4, 1969. 17 episodes were produced, with each episode featuring two different races.
The villain of the series drives a purple, rocket-powered car with an abundance of concealed weapons and the ability to fly. Dick Dastardly is an archetypal mustache-twirling villain; Muttley is his wheezily snickering dog henchman. Dastardly's usual race strategy revolves around using the Mean Machine's great speed to get ahead of the other racers, and then setting a trap to stop them and maintain the lead; but most of his plans backfire, causing him to fall back into last place. Dastardly never sees victory.
The other racers include
One of the unused plans for the series was that the races would be part of a live-action quiz show made by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley Productions in which contestants would bet on which Wacky Racer would cross the finish line first. Although the game show concept was eventually scrapped, 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.
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 we sometimes saw some or all of the other cars cross the finish line). 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:
Penelope Pitstop and the Ant Hill Mob were spun off into another cartoon series in 1969 titled The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. In the same year, 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. Both series ran for two seasons.
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