Hanna-Barberas WACKY RACES may have been short-lived from 68-69 cancelled due to protests about excessive violence in childrens programming, of all things yet it still managed to capture the imagination of Saturday morning viewers with its humorous satire of THE GREAT RACE and THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES. Now all 34 episodes can be found on the three-disc DVD set (Warner Home Video, $34.98), which streets Oct. 26, 2004.
Join Dick Dastardly and Muttley in their Mean Machine as they take on Peter Perfect in his Turbo Terrific, Luke and Blubber Bear in the Arkansas Chucgabug, the Ant Hill Mob in the Bulletproof Bomb and glamorous Penelope Pitstop in her pink Compact Pussycat. Larz Bourne and Tom Dagenais were the writers and most of the characters were voiced by Hanna-Barbera regulars Daws Butler and Don Messick.
Bonus features include:* Wacky Facts Trivia Track - pop-up trivia over episodes See-Saw to Arkansas and Creepy Trip to Lemon Twist* Rearview Mirror: A Look Back at WACKY RACES retrospective doc* Audio commentary on four episodes by Iwao Takamoto (production designer), Jerry Eisenberg (character designer), Earl Kress (writer/animation historian) and Scott Shaw! (cartoonist/Hanna-Barbera historian)* Spin-Out Spin-Offs featurette on the spin-off shows
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
