User reviews

"Wacky Races" was an integral part of my Saturday mornings. It was awesome!!! Then, POOF it was gone, and I never got to see a whif of it for years and years. Later, someone told me it was buried due to complaints about racial stereotypes amongst all those goofy characters. Who was offended by what I have no idea. Once, I remember seeing a commercial for Quisp cereal where you could send in a boxtop and a little money and get a NICE Wacky Races car! I believe I ordered Dick Dastardly's car. Mom can back me up on this, we ordered the car...sent in the boxtop with the right amount of money, and IT NEVER CAME! I'm still mad. Imagine the price I could get for it today! (If I didn't manage to break it, like all my other toys!) I'll have to check the cartoon channels and see if it's on again, so I can retreat to my cozy childhood, cuz this adult crap is making me old!

I watched this as a kid. It was amusing. Dick Dastardly usually up to "no good", always with ideas to try to stop the other racers to "win the race". It is a cartoon based of the movie the Great Race of the 60s.

Wacky Races is one of the best cartoons of the 60s. It contains a bunch of fairly silly racers who are all competing for being the world's wackiest racer. Each cartoon contains a lot of funny obstacles, many of which are created by the racer Dick Dastardly in car double zero. Often times Dick cheats and will create road blocks and such to slow down the other racers. In the end, he always ends up coming in dead last. This is a very inspired cartoon that is good for a laugh or two.

This is one of my favourite Hanna-Barbera shows, it is just really entertaining and funny. The concept was great, and while there are a lot of things repeated story wise the visual gags and dialogue were constantly a delight. Whether it was Dick Dastardly's asides or Muttley's priceless mumbles and facial expressions, there was always a lot to chuckle about. Coupled with the writing and visual gags are the crisp animation and delightful music. I also loved the characters, Dastardly and Muttley aren't just characters in the show, in most ways they are the show, they constantly make me laugh, and I have always loved Penelope Pitstop as she is really beautiful and sexy. Overall, a really entertaining childhood favourite. 10/10 Bethany Cox

As a fan of Hanna-Barbera, I would watch a few of their TV series like "Scooby-Doo" and "The Flintstones" and also films like "Charlotte's Web" and "Heidi's Song." I remember watching Wacky Races when it was on the TV channel Teletoon a long, long time ago, and the lovely Penelope Pitstop and her "Compact Pussycat" were my favorite racers. Though I don't know why her car was called the "Compact Pussycat," it didn't look like a cat.

The series had become so successful that they had made two spin-off series called "Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines" and "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop." My favorite spin-off series is "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop." So overall, I love the show, and it has become another Hanna-Barbera favorite. R. I. P., Bill, and Joe.

As a kid in the 80s and early 90s, I would occasionally catch this cartoon show on TV - one of several Hanna Barbera programs that I remembered fondly from my childhood.

"Wacky Races" is a series about 11 racers that compete in locations throughout North America, resulting in wacky, unending adventures and wide ranges of tactics. Lots of excitement and fun, and I loved seeing the large cast of characters and each of their characteristics (kind of reminds me of a cartoon version of the movie The Cannonball Run).

While a more obscure Hanna Barbera cartoon, it is still better than the more recent cartoons dished out for kids nowadays.

Grade B+

This cartoon is a clear example that when a television product is creative, ingenious, innovative and intelligent, it secures a privileged place as a classic even if it only has one season. Wacky Races only consists of 17 episodes, but they were great enough to become one of the favorite cartoons of several generations. The theme is simple but at the same time highly creative, a series of car races with the most extravagant cars and characters imaginable, from a mad scientist in a vehicle that he can turn into whatever he wants, a beautiful racer in a car full of cosmetic equipment, a gang of mobsters who look like the 7 dwarfs from Snow White, two cavemen in a rock car and of course a diabolical villain with his pet capable of setting the most sinister traps for his opponents in the best Coyote style and Roadrunner. One of the best creations of the production company Hanna-Barbera that resists the passage of time to this day and is still fun.

I love this show! It was so hilarious, and brilliant. Dick Dastardly, and Muttley (with his hilarious snickering when Dasterdly had a foul up) were HILARIOUS!! I loved it how Dastardly cheated all the time (and this was when he was winning too!!) when he was in the lead. It was too funny!! The Ant Hill Mob were cool too. This show also had 2 surprisingly good spinoff shows as well ("Dastardly, and Muttley in Their Flying Machines", and "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop). THIS SHOW RULED!!!

Wacky Races is a very fun and amusing Hanna-Barbera Animated Series from 1968. It has 11 racers, In Car number 9 is the Gentlemanly Peter Perfect, In Car number 10 are the Canadian Lumberjack called Rufus Ruffcut and his beaver Sawtooth, In Car number 6 are Drill Sergeant Blast and his Private Meekly, In Car number 7 are the roaring 20's gangsters called The Ant Hill Mob, In Car number 3 is the intelligent inventor called Professor Pat Pending, In Car number 5 is the Beautiful, Sweet-Hearted and Lovely Female called Penelope Pitstop, In Car number 1 are the Prehistoric Twins called The Slag Brothers, In Car number 2 are the Gothic Duo called The Gruesome Twosome, In Car number 4 is the German Aviator Pilot called The Red Max, In Car number 8 are the hillbilly called Lazy Luke and his bear Blubber and In Car number 0 are the Villainous and Sinister duo called Dick Dastardly and his dog Muttley. The episodes are very enjoyable, the animation is very good, I'm giving this animated series a 10/10.

I loved Wacky Races as a child, and funnily enough I still love it as an adult and I don't think it's aged badly. It's one of those things that gets criticized for having stereotypes in it and too much violence, but many of the characters are a lot more nuanced than they look, and all the violence is karmic and mild and generally involves Dick Dastardly's schemes backfiring in a world where being run over is just a minor inconvenience and explosives simply make you dirty and mess up your clothing.

Penelope Pitstop is the character most frequently vilified as being sexist, but any of that is a really minor aspect of her and is overshadowed by her strengths. She's shown to be a competent driver who wins races on her own steam, doesn't get distracted or intimidated by the interests of most of the male characters, and is mechanically adept and mends her car at one point using her hairpin. She seems to have designed and built all those gadgets she uses to put on her make-up while she's driving, which takes serious brains and skill and puts her in the same league as Professor Pat Pending. She's ditzy and she loves pink and silly girly stuff, but there's nothing wrong with being a girly girl. On occasion she is the damsel in distress who calls for help and gets rescued, but it doesn't happen that often, and in fact, Dick Dastardly ends up in a mess and calling for help more often than she does (Muttley, DO something!).

And Dick Dastardly and Muttley, what can I say? Some people would dismiss Dick as being just a generic villain with a moustache, but he goes much deeper than that. He and Muttley have a real camaraderie, despite they way they treat each other. Dastardly is shown at one point begrudgingly tickling Muttley, and Muttley is faultlessly loyal to his master (to the point that in one race where he gets left behind following a successful act of sabotage on another competitor, he desperately runs after the Mean Machine and tries to climb back on board, damaging the car in the process). Dastardly, far from being a born loser, is a competent and reasonably intelligent character who drives the best car in the race, and of course the running joke is that he spends every episode putting his foot down to generate an enormous lead so that he can stop and lay excessively elaborate traps that go wrong for him, and ultimately loses for that reason. He's something akin to a tragic hero in this respect (or at least a tragicomic antivillain) and this is the reason why Wacky Races is rather more complicated than a lot of people give it credit for. It's hard not to feel sympathy for Dastardly and Muttley and hope that they might win just one race, but also easy to laugh at them when they lose again.

Peter Perfect might look like a stereotypical hero, and he never cheats, and is chivalrous and kindhearted and keen to help Penelope Pitstop (and Dick Dastardly as well and probably anyone else in a mess), but he's also a bit of a pansy and not that skilled a driver, and the running joke is that his 'Turbo Terrific' frequently falls to pieces, usually to his utterance of quaint euphemistic expletives such as 'Fiddlesticks!'

Rufus Ruffcut is a musclebound lumberjack with a pet beaver, but manages not to fall into the trap of being portrayed as all muscle and no brain. He's not above underhand tactics, but he is shown to have quite a strong sense of fair play and will intervene if he thinks someone is abusing an advantage.

Pat Pending is an inventor and sometimes helps out other competitors and foils Dastardly's schemes. He cheats almost as much as Dastardly himself, although his methods tend to be less dangerous, not that it seems to matter much considering the physics of explosives and their negligible effect on human anatomy in this particular cartoon.

The Ant Hill Mob are seven dwarf Noo Yoick gangsters in a 1920s car (oddly named presumably after the Lavender Hill Mob, a film about London crooks pulling off a heist). They frequently break away from the race by trying to escape the police, but help out people they find in trouble.

The Slag Brothers, the Gruesome Twosome, and the Army Surplus Special are more stereotyped and less developed, with the Slags being two cavemen overwhelmed with body hair in a car made out of rocks, and the gruesome being a small vampire creature and a Frankenstein's monster in a hearse with a dragon in the roof. The Army Surplus are two soldiers in a tank.

The last two who are also pretty undeveloped and probably haven't aged well are Red Max, a German WW1 pilot in a car that looks like a Fokker, and an elderly impoverished redneck called just 'Luke' driving a car cobbled together out of his kitchen furniture with a live bear on it.

With Disney apparently redoing all their old cartoons there seems to have been an interest in recent years in film companies attempting to resurrect Wacky Races or the characters in it. A 2020 Scooby Doo film cast Dick Dastardly as a super villain, the villain being pretty cool in himself but looking more like Red Max than Dastardly and dissimilar in character, missing the point that the character's pathological addiction to cheating was his downfall. An attempt in 2017 to remake the original disappointingly omitted most of the original characters and ruined the ones it did use by stereotyping them, changing Peter Perfect into a dumb, vain jock, Penelope Pitstop into an obnoxious Mary Sue by removing her likable character flaw of bumbling dizziness in the name of anti-girly-girl bowdlerisation, . Even more ironically and disappointingly it had even worse violence than the original, with not only cartoon explosives but more disturbing, nonsensical, and not at all amusing violence mainly inflicted on Dastardly not as a result of his own actions, such as a character in one episode incessantly punching him in the face and him being tied up and beaten with sticks by a mob in another. I would love to see the original recreated in modern higher-budgeted animation in a way that does justice to what the characters and idea originally were, but after what I've seen I'm not hopeful for it.

This animated show is an honorable mention of mine and it's one of my favorite shows from Hanna Barbara.

The premise is so simple which is what makes it even more effective a prime example on how simplicity is still the best way to go. But also, this show was a partial inspiration for the "Mario Kart" video game franchise. The show is a sports show as it's simply about racing but here it's all with cartoon characters with cartoon cars.

I really love the amount of creativity with this show, they went full speed on creative freedom from the tracks in each episode their always different as each of them take place in different locations. The Races themselves were cool, though they weren't just flat-out races, but they were dog fights as well as the racers aren't restricted to using dirty tricks and tactics on each other, basically their all doing their best to get ahead but at the same time blow the others butt away.

There are two stars of the show, one which are the cars themselves. It's almost hard to decide on a favorite as all of them are so colorfully unique and daft yet at the same time awesome.

I'll just state three favorites of mine.

Three, the Professor's car, this car you can say predates the vehicles from the "MASK" and even "Transformers" franchises as that car constantly changes into anything you want and need it to be. Like one of those transformations are into a Hot Air Balloon as well as others I don't want to give aways you just have to see them for yourself. Though how the heck this guy could create and for his car to contain so many configurations is anyone's guess, just chalk it up to cartoon logic.

Second favorite car is Dick Dastardly's car which I think is cool looking as it's pretty much just one big rocket which perfectly reflects his pursuit. In a way you can say his car is an evil version of the Batmoble as we see some batwings on it. This car doesn't just go fast but can produce anything you need and want, most notably some dirty tricks, like one of those tricks is a giant steel file and plenty of other things.

My favorite car is the one from the Gruesome Bros, it's awesome as it looks like the kind of car you'd see in the TV show "The Munsters" as it looks like a miniature haunted house. One feature about it that's awesome is the gear shift, whenever they shift the gear, a dragon would come out the window of the little haunted house. How the heck they manage to fit a dragon and a few other creatures in that very tiny house is anyone's guess, but anyway this dragon would breathe out fire to give the car a nitro boost.

The other star of course is Dick Dastardly, this guy is one of my favorite animated villains of all time. He pretty much has the looks of the mustache twirling villain archetype, really like that big hat of his which looks like an old train conductors' hat. His character is pretty much the animated version of Doctor Fate from the film "The Great Race" which was the inspiration for the show.

Just like Doctor Fate, Dick Dastardly was always scheming to get ahead and win. It's just funny how he always is coming up with a bunch of Wille Coyote like schemes to blow the competition away. But like Wille Coyote most of those schemes just flat out fail and it's just hilarious how they fail.

What's even funnier about Dick is that this guy could win as in most of the races he really has a lead on the completion, all he must simply do is maintain his lead. But nope he always stop midpoint in the race just to get a scheme or two into action. You can say this is all from villainous instincts is what prevents him from winning, though can't complain too much as then we'd have no episode if Dick didn't exercise them. Also what's funny and a little sad is sometimes he crosses that finish line but never win let alone places because does one stupid thing or another. Seriously could this guy not go a day refraining from villainy or keep his ego in check.

I even like that sidekick he has Muttley, whom has this infectious laugh (which sounds like my own dad's laugh not kidding). It's always funny just to see him laugh mainly whenever his boss Dick plan goes kaput on him, I can't help but think that's something we feel inside every time a blowhole boss or assistant manager receives a misfortune. But also love it whenever he grumbles which reminds me of the grumbling frustrations Harry from "Home Alone" expresses, makes me wonder if Joe Peshi saw this show. He's loyal (or sort of) to his boss as he does carry out his jobs though he also might be a little smarter than he boss as he does stand in the safe zones when misfortune happens.

The animated classic has plenty of millage for fun and won't leave you in the dust.

Rating: 4 stars.

"Wacky Races" was created in response to the rather violent adventure/superhero cartoons of the previous two seasons, and even upon its premiere, it was blackballed by the watchdog group Action For Children's Television. They claimed that since it was bankrolled by game show producers Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley ("Hollywood Squares"), it was enticing children to place monetary wagers on the outcome of each of the show's 34 races. (Hogwash. I had the over/under on how many times Dick Dastardly's contraptions backfired on him.)

For all the atypical Hanna-Barbera use of repeat animation and low-budget movement, "Wacky Races" was still an unusual and entertaining cartoon which would beget such shows as "Bailey's Comets," "Laff-A-Lympics" and "Yogi's Space Race." A lot of the humor derived from Dastardly's machinations, although many of the other racers got to shine as well. In the Gold Key comics, Penelope Pitstop would eliminate Peter Perfect and Red Max by conveniently getting them to fight over her. That wasn't used in the show, although it should have. And it's dotted with great lines. When the narrator calls Dastardly "The Dracula of the drag strip," Dastardly counters "I resent that remark!" Narrator: "But do you deny it?" Dastardly: "No, I just resent it!" It's a comedy cartoon that doesn't forget it's a comedy cartoon, something that many cartoon shows of the 70s and 80s forgot.

And a bit of trivia, Dastardly did cross the finish line twice but was disqualified both times. The first time he extended the nose of the Mean Machine ahead of the others (yet in another episode, Rufus Ruffcut physically extended his neck to reach the finish line and the judges gave him the win--go figure). The second time, a chain reaction collision caused Dastardly and Muttley to get bounced into the Arkansas Chuggabug, which was in the lead. Dastardly also set a precedent the following year--being the first (and to anyone's knowledge, only) villain to get his own show, "Dastardly & Muttley In Their Flying Machines.

A Hanna-Barbera classic, i would probably rate this in the top 5 H-B cartoons of all time. Its a half hour show, with about 8 wild looking cars duelling out to the end. Dick Dastardly was H-B's Wile E. Coyote, using many contraptions to try and stop his opponents. Only difference was that Dick's partner, the snikering Muttley, is there to openly laugh at Dick's foul ups. Cartoon stands the test of time, being funny today as much as it was when it first aired. My personal favorite was the Ant Hill Mob.

One of the more influential of the mid-60s Hanna-Barbara cartoons, this fondly remembered pure piece of action showed a dozen racers using tricked up racers that would make James Bond's Q drool - and if you ever want to start a discussion among middle aged cartoon freaks, ask them to name the racers and their vehicles. Number one was the Bouldermobile, driven by Rock and Gravel. It was a rock on wheels, sort of like what Fred Flintstone drove, only a little less sophisticated. As were Rock and Gravel. Number two was the Creepy Coupe, a haunted house on wheels (haunted mobile home?) The Gruesome Twosome drove, but the various supernatural inhabitants of the car did all the work, from additional speed to the occasional dirty trick. Number three was the Convertacar, driven by Professor Pat Pending. A transformer that makes Optimus Prime look like a wannabe, this rolling Swiss army knife could do just about anything but win consistently. Number four was the Crimson Haybailer, driven by the prerequisite Prussian, WWI ace The Red Max. Couldn't have a show based on The Great Race without a German, after all. His vehicle had one of the better names, but one of the poorer vehicles, lacking most of the comic accessories of the others. Number five was the Compact Pussycat, driven by Penelope Pitstop, southern belle and token female. More an automated beauty salon on wheels than a racer, it did not make the jump to the sequel show, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. Number six was The Army Surplus Special, driven by Sargeant Blast and Private Meekly. It may not have been the fastest, but it carried the most firepower. Number seven is the vehicle which is sure to cause the most geeky argument. The Ant Hill Mob drives a vehicle called "their Bulletproof Bomb" in the opening credits - but which is referred to during one of the episodes as The Roaring Plenty. Whatever the name, it had no special features except for the hole in the floor which allowed the Mob to put their collective feet to good use. This team also would find a second chance at stardom in The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. Number eight, The Arkansas Chugabug, was the pride and joy of hillbilly Luke and his cowardly bear, Blubber. Hard to say what needed the most explanation - how a plank on wheels with a potbellied stove could go 0-60 in 5 seconds, or how Luke managed to steer it. Number nine was the Turbo Terrific, driven by Peter Perfect. Another great name for a car with no real ability except to go to pieces on a regular basis. Number ten was The Buzzwagon, driven by Rufus Ruffcut and his beaver co-pilot, Sawtooth. The car I have always thought of as the Canadian entry, this log cabin with saw-blade wheels must have been hard on the backside, but I imagine the superhumanly strong Rufus could handle it. Certainly he had no problems with traction. Finally, car 00 was The Mean Machine, driven by Dick Dastardly and Muttley. As versatile as the Convertacar and as well armed as the Surplus Special, it also went to pieces far too often, due to its villainous driver's evil plans. Dick and Muttley would get their own show together, but it would be Muttley with his distinctive snicker who would go on to appear again and again in other cartoons.

You had the Flintstones, which was essentially an animated version of the Honeymooners, and you had the Jetsons, which was essentially a futuristic version of the Flintstones. You had Bugs and Daffy, Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker and Popeye and Bluto, but nothing comes close to the Wacky Races for originality.

For the uinitiated, each week there is a "wacky race" to determine the "world's wackiest racer." A dozen cars participate, each with a unique characteristic. There's Dick Dastardly, and his sidekick, Muttley; Penelope Pitstop and her compact-on-wheels; Peter Perfect and his turbo-charged (and "symbolic") long-nosed racing car, and a host of other "Wackos" who became like an extended family of crazy uncles to a generation of youngsters.

When I was five years old I never missed Wacky Races. Even though I'm now a grown man I still occasionally tape it. I think Dick Dastardly must be credited with introducing the phrase "drat and double drat" into the English language. My mother used to use old Dick as a piece of moral instruction telling me that he showed that people who cheat never win. They keep on doing remakes of cartoons with real actors these days so how about one of Wacky Races with say Rowan Atkinson as Dick Dastardly.

The Hanna-Barbera series "The Wacky Races" emerged as a slapstick antidote to the violent superhero shows which had saturated the overall landscape of Saturday Morning cartoons during the 1967-1968 season,and when it premiered as part of the brilliant CBS-TV line-up of Saturday Morning shows at the height of the 1968-1969 season,it set off some sort of precedent when a season after its debut,but spun off not one but two other cartoons while continuing its run on the network. The series ran on CBS-TV from the premiere episode of the series on September 14,1968 through the final installment of the series on September 5,1970 with repeated episodes from the first season produced by Hanna-Barbera productions. This was however one of the original Hanna-Barbera potpourri of shows that basically recycled the same formula which assembled a huge cast of characters and involved them in some kind of repetitious activity. The main antagonists in the never ending worldwide car race were the racers themselves and their situations,and to put it bluntly was repeated three times in various carbon copy format during the entire decade of the 1970's(which in turned several animation studios used the same formula for various shows...Filmation and DePatie-Freleng took the same story lines and characters to put in their own shows).

Basically,if you seen one episode of "Wacky Races",you've seen them all,since they rigidly in just about every episode follows the same plot each time:and this was a bunch of animated "theme" automobiles raced across various parts of the country and the world amid manic antics. As far as the characters were concerned they consisted of the following. There was the log-car driven by a beaver and a lumberjack; a spooky-mansion car driven by monsters;an Appalachian backporch car driven by a bunch of hillbillies and a bear;a car with a big engine driven by a handsome young stud;a dainty pink car driven by a female counterpart(Penelope Pitstop);a roadster driven a Ant Hill Mob,a gang of dwarfes in 1920's style clothing. Each episodes follows the same recipe as with one car ahead,and then the others that would used special tricks to catch up. But the straw that stirred the drink and what made the show interesting to watch was the duo of Dick Dastardly and his assistant snickering dog Muttley in their Mean Machine always trying to find ways to cheat,but at the end of each episode he would always failed miserably. The following year,Hanna-Barbera made a spin-off series of "Wacky Races" titled "Dastardly and Muttley" which featured these two characters as part of a squad of villainous World War I flying aces who flew a single four-seater plane(The other two pilots had weird speech impediments as their character shtick.). The pilots were given the job of stopping a heroic carrier pigeon and just like in about every episode was repeated with Dastardly trying any scheme he can to stop the pigeon only with mixed results. The was definitely the version of The Road Runner and the Coyote but not nearly as clever visually. This was part of the CBS-TV schedule for the 1969-1970 season. The other "Wacky Races" spin-off that came around for the 1970-1971 season,"The Perils of Penelope Pitstop",was totally different from the rest of the pack,with one exception. In fact,it was one of the weirdest shows to ever appear on Saturday Mornings. This show was a combination of Snow White,and the combination of the 1930's serial The Perils of Pauline with just about every clinche every added for grand measure. They took two of the characters of Wacky Races;Penelope Pitstop and made the Ant Hill Mob her guardian protectors. In just about every episode she was also stalked,pursued,and sometimes captured by her evil guardian The Hooded Claw(voiced to perfection by Paul Lynde). The Ant Hill Mob was always riding in just a nick of time to her rescue. There was a strange undercurrent to the show too: since Penelope spent large proportions of each episode either tied up or otherwise in bondage. Not to mention some of the kinkiest S&M ever devised for a children's show. The series remained in repeated episodes until mid-1971,where CBS finally got rid of Wacky Races once and for all.

I love wacky races. It is just about the only type of racing I actually enjoy. Believe it or not, fans, I can't stand Dick Dastardly. He didn't seem to have one ounce of humanity in him, and was willing to kill the other drivers to win. Because of this, it was hilarious to see his fiendish schemes go wrong.

I think this show is funnier and better than NASCAR.Its a great show for kids.Muttlys laughing is funny.I rate this show with Ed,Edd,and Eddy.