Wacky Races is an animated TV series from Hanna-Barbera that aired in 1968-1969. Inspired by The Great Race comedy film, the show followed 23 people and animals using 11 race cars. They competed in road rallies all over the US and the rest of North America in the hope of winning the “World’s Wackiest Racer” title.

The racers were identifiable by their different themes and the strange gimmicks they used to win races. They included Dick Dastardly, an archetypal villain who drove the Mean Machine; Penelope Pitstop, the lone female driver behind the wheel of the Compact Pussycat; the Slag Brothers, a pair of cavemen who drove the Boulder Mobile; the Red Max, a Red Baron like aviator piloting the Crimson Haybaler; and the Gruesome Twosome, a pair of monsters driving the Creepy Coupe.

The show only ran for 17 episodes, broken into 10-minute segments, then the show aired in reruns during the following season. It featured the voice cast of Daws Butler, Don Messick, Janet Waldo, Paul Winchell, Dave Willock, and John Stephenson.

Despite having a short run, Wacky Races inspired multiple spinoffs like The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines in 1969, and Wacky Races Forever in 2006. The show has been adapted into comics at DC in Wacky Raceland, which was a dark reimagining of the kids’ show, and Dynamite Entertainment’s Giant-Size Wacky Races is set to debut in April 2025.