Wacky Races

Wacky Races is an animated cartoon series from Hanna-Barbera Productions, about a group of 11 different cars racing against each other in various road rallies, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer." The series was apparently inspired by the movies Monte Carlo or Bust (aka Those Daring Young Men in their Jaunty Jalopies) and The Great Race. The series debuted on CBS in 1968 and ran until 1970. Seventeen episodes were produced, with each episode featuring two different races, for a total of 34 races in all.

Cultural references

• Certain characters in the cartoon are clearly based on characters in Blake Edwards' The Great Race (1965). Penelope Pitstop took on the appearance of Maggie DuBois, played by Natalie Wood, down to the exact shade of pink on one of her outfits and the parasol. Dastardly has much in common with Jack Lemmon's portrayal of Professor Fate - though he has a non-canine sidekick in the form of Max Meen (Peter Falk). The pair indulge in similar acts of sabotage and Max has Muttley's knack for making mistakes. Although Fate's car does not look much like The Mean Machine it does bear the familiar spike on the front and is equipped with smoke screen, cannon and other assorted gadgets. The physical similarities, particularly between DuBois and Pitstop, can be seen from the cover of the movie's video cassette.
• Underground rapper Daniel Dumile makes a reference to "Dick Dastardly and Muttley with sick laughter" in the song "Accordion" on his collaboration album Madvillainy with producer Madlib.
• Underground rapper Saafir on the song "Swig of the Stew" from his debut album 'Boxcar Sessions', claims that "Dick Dastardly could never've mastered me".
• Wacky Races has also had an influence on Japanese animation. At least three anime shows have produced a Wacky Races-style special, complete with wacky cars usually based on a series prop. During the '80s, animation production house Artmic (now AIC) produced Scramble Wars, starring the super deformed versions of characters from Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force and other shows that Artmic created. Bandai animation house Sunrise produced a similar special, as part of the SD Gundam OVA series of self-parodies of Sunrise's Gundam series. This is perhaps the most direct homage to Wacky Races, as the episode transforms one of the characters, the mad ace Yazan Gable of Zeta Gundam, into a Muttley-esque character, complete with a dog-like snout and a raspy, hushed laugh. In 1993, Tatsunoko Productions released a Wacky Races-styled OVA special featuring the characters from the popular and long running Time Bokan franchise and its spinoffs, Yattaman, Zendaman, and Otasukeman.
• The animated series Dexter's Laboratory featured a parody of Wacky Races in the episode "Dexter's Wacky Races," featuring the show's major cast members (Dexter, Mandark, Mandark's mother and father, Dexter's mother and father, Dee Dee and her imaginary friend, Monkey and Agent Honeydew, and the Justice Friends) racing against each other in a road rally to Burbank, California. The opening credits of Wacky Races and the show's narrator are also parodied here.