The Wacky Races was first broadcast on September 14th 1968, having been created by Hanna Barbera. This was a cartoon production company formed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera in 1957 in the US, after they met while working at MGM studios, Joe doing drawings and Bill doing scripts. Hanna Barbera productions produced many famous cartoons, which have retained their popularity since aired in the fifties or sixties. One such cartoon is the Wacky Races.

The idea

The Wacky Races was based on films such as Monte Carlo or Bust, films which involved frantic cross country drives. The teams competed against each other to secure the a win, over various terrains and in all sorts of weather.

They were all competing for the same title- The Worlds Wackiest Racer.

The Drivers

There were eleven teams all together, numbered from 00 to 10. They were;

• 01-The Boulder-mobile, driven by the Slagg brothers Rock and Gravel, who were apparently based on Captain Caveman. The car was a giant rock which was never capable of particularly astonishing speeds, yet they often succeeded with their sheer determination.

• 02-The Creepy Coupe, driven by the Gruesome Twosome Big and L'il. The car was basically a giant haunted house, with a dragon living in the tower which would occasionally flap its wings and fly them into the lead. They bear more than a passing resemblence to the Addams Family.

• 03-The Convert-a-car, driven by Prof. Pat Pending. The ingenious professor had a truly extraordinary car. It was capable of flight, walking and transforming itself into any shape imaginable at the touch of a button.

• 04-The Crimson Haybailer, driven by the Red Max. Based on the red baron, the infamous German flying ace of World War One, the car is actually a WW biplane, painted bright red with a machine-gun on the bonnet.

• 05-The Pink Compact aka The Compact Pussycat driven by Penelope Pitstop. The heiress had a pretty pink car, but don't be fooled- she could drive as well as anyone. The car had countless amazing contraptions which kept an eye on her appearance while she kept both eyes on the road. She also had the advantage of having two teams perfectly willing to rescue her, being Peter Perfect and of course the Ant Hill Mob.

• 06-The Army Surplus Special, driven by Meekley and Sarge. Well, actually Meekley did all the driving, while Sarge would be looking out the top shouting orders. The car was a tank complete with cannon and caterpillar tracks.

• 07-The Bullet Proof Bomb, driven by the Ant Hill Mob, consisting of Danny, Ring-A-Ding, Kurby, Rug-Bug, Benny, Mac, Clyde and Willy. They were Chicago gansters who, as well as having a race to compete in, had the added distractions of rescuing Penelope Pitstop and escaping the police.

• 08-The Arkansas Chug-a-bug, driven by Luke and Blubber Bear. This car amazingly managed to keep pace, which, considering it was powered by a very old steam boiler, is rather impressive. Luke barely batted an eyelid at anything, while Blubber bear was a permanent fit of nerves.

• 09-The Turbo Terrific, driven by Peter Perfect, the one with the ego. He was always on the look out for an opportunity to rescue Penelope Pitstop, and impress her with his good looks and charm. He was a characature of every other square-jawed hunk anywhere.

• 10-The Buzz Wagon, driven by Rufus Ruffcut, assisted by Sawtooth the beaver. This car had circular saws serving as wheels, and was made of wood, to drive the point home that Rufus was a tough lumberjack. It didn't do to mess them around, as they got rather irritable.

• 00-The Mean Machine, driven by Dastardly and Muttley the dog. Dick Dastardly was the baddie of the series, the only one who resorted to cheating. His wicked schemes would always be foiled at the last minute, and he would let out his trademark curse of 'Drat, drat and double-drat', to the sound of his sidekick Muttley's characteristic wheezing laugh. The Mean Machine was impressive to behold. It had rockets at the back, and spikes on the wheels. It also had a nasty point on the front, just to make it look as menacing as possible.

The theme

The Wacky Races had no theme tune, instead it had a commentator guiding the viewer through all the cars. He would then explain that Dastardly was chaining the cars to a post, and there would be a false start when all the cars would try to start but not be able to move because of the chains. Dastardly would try to accelerate away leaving all the other cars tied up, but shift into the wrong gear and hit the post, shaking the chain loose and freeing all the other cars. The Mean Machine would be left motionless while the race, and the episode, would start.

The format

The venue for the race would always be somewhere in North America, which would not prevent the teams from meeting various characters specific to other countries. The yeti springs to mind, but there are other examples. The climate would vary from desert to snow covered, and the terrain would be different form race to race, from flat roads to very steep mountains.

The laws of cartoons physics would not apply as vigorously as in cartoons elsewhere, with things tending to keep their own shape (except the convert-a-car) and no get-out clauses like painting tunnels which become real, no animals which could hold conversations (admittedly Muttley was a personified character, but his only actual words were unintelligeable curses) and no real defying of the laws of real life physics. The Wacky Races world, though bizarre, always functioned like the real world, with the exception of the people, who's behavior was abstract to say the least and was more than an exaggeration of reality, they tended to depart from it altogether.

There would always be a subplot involving one of the teams from 01-10, and there would always be a plot line involving one of Dastardly's schemes. Dastardly would drive far ahead of the other cars and set up an ambush for them. The question had been raised that if Dastardly can get so far ahead of the others, why not just drive a normal race and win it like that, but of course that would defeat the object. He is a cheat, and he always will be.

The scheme is always foiled at the last minute. Generally, the Mean Machine is accelerating towards the finish line when he has to stop a couple of yards short of it. He then watches, cursing away, while the other cars race over the line and he comes last.

Spin-offs

There have been two Wacky Races spin-offs;

• The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, a popular series aired in 1969. It centred around Penelope being heiress to millions, an issue only touched upon during The Wacky Races. Penelope's evil guardian, Sylvester Sneekly was after her fortune, and, under the secret identity of The Hooded Claw, he concocted various plots accompanied by the Bully Brothers, his henchmen. However, to her rescue always came the Ant Hill Mob, now numbering Clyde, Dum Dum, Zippy, Pockets, Snoozy, Softly and Yak Yak, and also featuring the Chug-a-Boom, the new version of the Bullet Proof Bomb complete with personality. The series was a homage to The Perils of Pauline, a series of silent films.

• The other spin off was Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, aired at the same time as The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and based on Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. It features Dastardly, accompanied by Muttley, who had retired from the races and was now in the army, controlling the Vulture Squad, who had one task; to stop the pigeon. The series is best known for its unforgettable theme, the Stop the Pigeon song, and for that reason the series is known to many as Stop the Pigeon. It featured Dastardly as commander, Muttley as a pilot with a medal fixation, and introduced Zilly, a cowardly pilot who tried to escape every episode, and Klunk, an inventor with an inability to talk properly but a wonderful line in bizarre planes. It also included Yankee Doodle Pigeon, who they were trying to catch, and the general, who was never seen but always phoned just when they were all in trouble. There were also short cartoons within each episode, such as Magnificent Muttley, featuring Muttley daydreaming he is rescueing his girlfriend from a villain with more than a passing resemblence to Dick Dastardly.

Yogi

Yogi bear had several of his own unsuccessful spin offs which had more than a slight resemblence to the Wacky Races. Yogi's Space Race was a flop, which featured the same format as the Wacky Races, except it was held in space, even featuring a villian with an uncanny likeness to you-know-who. However, the audience were not fooled. They knew imitations when they same them. The other Yogi spin-off, Yogi's Treasure Trail/hunt actually featured Dastardly in it, and had an equally pitiful reception.

The show's popularity

Granted, The Wacky Races never achieved the phenomenal success of The Flintstones, but nethertheless enjoys an enduring popularity even today. Why? Well, the Wacky Races not only appeals to children but to adults too, in two instances. Firstly, it brings back nostalgia for their youth, and secondly it contains many jokes put there for the benifit of adults¹, such as the name of Pat Pending for a professor, or the caricatures on well known people such as the Red Baron. The Wacky Races also contains the tried and tested formulae for cartoons success -the villains, the heroes, the incompetant ones and the dim sidekicks- and manages to put them into a fresh format. The Wacky Races had its own personality which cannot be imitated.