After a pretty grounded October edition, this month we’ll get a bit ‘Wacky’ with one of this author’s favourite childhood cartoons, The Wacky Races, a wonderful show full of hi-jinks, drama and nonstop action. Here’s November’s top 5 most iconic and unusual vehicles.
The Gruesome Twosome – 02 The Creepy Coupe
Starting off our list is naturally the most fearsome, horror inspired, Gruesome Twosome and their Creepy Coupe. The two are very similar to some fantastical creatures, with Big Gruesome taking inspiration from Frankenstein, while Small Gruesome was akin to a purple skinned bloodsucker.
Keeping with the horror and mythological concept, the Creepy Coupe is a hearse with a horror themed house attached. Equipped with a wide array of mystical capabilities such as bats, storms, serpents, ghost, and even a witch to help them win, and cause trouble for other racers…
Oh and it also has a dragon, yes a dragon, that appears in every episode to help out too.
Interestingly at the start of the show, the narrator refers to the coupe as ‘lurching along’, a reference to another popular cartoon of the time; the Addams Family.
Race Record:
1st place – 3 times
2nd place – 3 times
3rd place – 6 times
Penelope Pitstop – 05 Compact Pussycat
Coming in 4th place is the beautiful southern belle, Penelope Pitstop, driving The Compact Pussycat. As anyone who’s watched the show knows, Penelope rarely ever gets attacked, damages or crashes her car, this despite sometimes using her engine to make popcorn or roast a chicken.
The Compact Pussycat features a mobile beauty salon, with automatic grooming capabilities some of which end up malfunctioning and derailing other racers, like shampoo striking them in the face.
One of Penelope’s habits while driving the car is holding her arms out to the wind to allow her nail polish to dry, which has often been misunderstood to be her signaling a turn. In fact this once led to The Roaring Plenty crashing headlong into a cactus.
She was such a popular character that she spawned her own spin-off series, The Perils of Peneleope Pitstop, where she plays a globetrotting heiress.
Race Record:
1st place – 4 times
2nd place – 2 times
3rd place – 5 times
Ant Hill Mob – 07 The Bulletproof Bomb
Next up is one of our favourites, the Ant Hill Mob. Inspired by 1920s gangsters as well as the seven dwarfs, the Ant Hill Mob has, as expected, seven members; Ring-A-Ding, Danny, Rug Bug Benny, Mac, Kirby, Willy and their leader Clyde.
Clyde himself seems to have been based upon the infamous Clyde Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde), as shown in one episode where he threatens the rest of the mob with “Yous want I should tell Bonnie on you?” Although interestingly the French version replaced Clyde with Al Carbone, an obvious reference to Al Capone.
The Bulletproof Bomb doesn’t posses the same gadgets as some of the other Wacky Racers’ cars, with their main form of speed boost relying on a Fred Flintsone style, legs through the floor running, known as ‘Getaway Power’.
One fantastic scene where this is used is when the Buzzwagon cuts the Bulletproof Bomb in half, the mob chase their runaway bottom half on foot before jumping and reattaching the two halves. The Ant Hill Mob also joined Penelope in her spin off, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, as one of the heroes.
Race Record:
1st place – 4 times
2nd place – 5 times
3rd place – 2 times
Professor Pat Pending – 03 Convert–a-Car
Is it a boat? A plane? A car? It can quite frankly be anything. The Convert-a-Car driven by the calm Professor Pat Pending is as gadget-full as anything Inspector Gadget could dream of having in the Gadgetmobile.
As you’ve probably guessed his name is short for ‘Patent Pending’, a legal phrase used when an invention’s papers are in the works.
So what else can the Convert-a-Car do? Better prepare yourself; Hot air balloon, spring, giant drill, jet car, bridge, freeze gun, bowling ball, mechanical legs, boat, pogo stick, motorbike, forklift, flying carpet, snow plow, magnet and so so so much more.
He’s often seen as the rival of the shows villain, Dick Dastardly, since both vehicles are so full of gadgetry, however all of the Professor’s are either defensive or focused on speed.
So the real question is, given all this, how does the Professor not win pretty much every time? Well firstly it would make for a very boring show and secondly his character seems to be focused on helping many of the other racers when they get caught in Dick Dastardly’s traps, still he does do quite respectably.
Race Record:
1st place – 3 times
2nd place – 2 times
3rd place – 5 times
Dick Dastardly and Muttley – 00 The Mean Machine
Inevitably taking first place, one of the most comically brilliant villains in cartoon history, Dick Dastardly and his Mean Machine. He embodies the classic TV villain from his over the top plans to his moustache twirling.
Since the entire show is inspired by the film The Great Race, Dastardly was based upon the film’s villain, Professor Fate. Alongside him is his number one henchman, Muttley, who happens to take a great deal of schadenfreude at all of Dastardly’s failed plots with his iconic chuckle.
The Mean Machine is by far the best looking vehicle in the show, resembling a cross between a rocket car and a Batmobile. It is also the fastest vehicle in the show and much like the Convert-a-Car, is one with many gadgets, mostly of the diabolical variety.
So the question is: how is it possible he never won or even placed for a race? Well beyond being the villain of the show, he actually desires to win through skulduggery, as shown during one episode where they could have won legitimately but decided not to because they said they want to win by cheating.
In fact they have gotten very close to winning many times, like the time Dastardly stopped to pose for the photo finish, or when he stopped to sign an autograph.
Given that The Mean Machine is the fastest vehicle and Dick Dastradly is the best driver, had they chosen to not cheat they probably would have dominated the Wacky Races. However, when asked why they need to cheat in Wacky Races Forever, Dastardly answers that as the villains, they had to.
Dick Dastardly was so popular that, like Penelope, he earned himself a spin-off series: Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines.
Race Record:
1st place – 0 times
2nd place – 0 times
3rd place – 0 times
And that concludes our Wacky Races top 5! Let us know which ones captured your childhood imagination in the comments down below.
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