While it’s a bit hit-and-miss, the animated series Wacky Races (a reboot of the late 1960s Hanna-Barbera show) eventually picks up its pace and demonstrates a fair amount of wit. It’s a violent program in the typical ‘toon manner, with characters crashing, getting stomped, and falling off cliffs like the immortal Wile E. Coyote. The show’s premise is simple and inexplicably winning: a diverse bunch of racecar drivers, who can’t help but compete over everything, actually form a kind of community with an underlying bond. The fact that one is a villain—Dick Dastardly, with his infamous dog Muttley—at constant odds with the others (including original series faves Penelope Pitstop and Peter Perfect) doesn’t matter, nor does the presence of a racing vampire and his Frankenstein’s monster pal. In the end the Wacky Racers team are all for one and one for all, especially in the episode "Raceketeers," a late-Middle-Ages adventure that transposes the characters into a parody of Dumas’s classic novel. Compiling 10 episodes from the 2017 debut season, this is a strong optional purchase Aud: P. (T. Keogh)
Wacky Races: Start Your Engines!
(2017) 113 discs. 223 min. DVD: $14.99. Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (avail. from most distributors). SDH captioned. Volume 33, Issue 4
Wacky Races: Start Your Engines!
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