Saturday mornings became much more dangerous when Wacky Races premiered on CBS on September 14, 1968. Eleven bizarre vehicles raced across the country while Dick Dastardly and his snickering dog, Muttley, stopped every few miles to set another trap.
Every car matched the personality of its driver. Penelope Pitstop had the beauty-salon-equipped Compact Pussycat, Professor Pat Pending drove the transforming Convert-a-Car, and the Gruesome Twosome traveled inside the monster-filled Creepy Coupe. The Ant Hill Mob raced in the Bulletproof Bomb, while lumberjack Rufus Ruffcut drove a wooden vehicle with circular saw blades for wheels.
The funniest part was that Dick Dastardly probably could have won by simply continuing to drive. Instead, he repeatedly stopped his speedy Mean Machine to build complicated traps that usually backfired, leaving him and Muttley behind everyone else. Across all 34 races, they never recorded a first, second or third-place finish.
The cartoon produced only 17 episodes, each containing two separate races, but its characters proved too entertaining to disappear. Penelope and the Ant Hill Mob returned in The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, while Dick Dastardly and Muttley moved into airplanes for Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines.
Which racer did you root for, and did anyone actually want Dick Dastardly to win?
