<![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer - io9 Comments]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Speed Racer, or Meteoro if you grew up in South America, was one of the must-see Saturday morning cartoons when I was little, as was Mazinger Z, AKA Tranzor Z. This was WAY before Transformers came out, though.

If NBC remade Speed Racer like they remade Knight Rider, you can bet money that the Mach 5 wouldn't have the "A" button on the steering wheel, because apparently TV budgets nowadays are so incredibly meager. (Turbo Boost was KITT's coolest capability, IMHO. The coolest feature, though, was the scanner and the voice modulator.)

On a separate note, Disney execs never did admit using Kimba as their template (read: plagiarism) for The Lion King.

SayAhh

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Miranda. I'm not sure if he's a regular guest, but I saw Dick Dyszel at Balticon last year. He was walking through the lobby in his Count Gore DeVol makeup and costume and I got chills! It made me realize how much he was the godfather of my sci-fi/horror movie experience waaaaaay before the internet and the sci-fi channel. Captain 20 was the man in charge and he hooked me into anime, Lost In Space, and Ultraman! Nice to know someone else remembers. :-D

-Joe

joetato

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> 10 Questions about "Speed Racer" the movie

1. Why did Speed need a new car for the Grand Prix?
2. Was the 43 Prix really fixed?
3. When did Wednesday get all perky?
4. Why didn't Rex come clean with his family?
5. Ninjas?
6. If the ninjas knew that poison on a thread trick didn't work on 007, why did they think it would work this time?
7. What happened to the Asian girls lips? And is there a cure?
8. If Royalton was so rich, why were his teeth so bad?
9. And couldn't he afford better henchmen?
10. Could Anakin take Speed?










OldDog1

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @corpore-metal: Wow, thanks for quoting that. You reminded me that I meant to look that up earlier this very day.

Yes, I was right! Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass. Cool.

Carry on...

bluewyvern

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]>

Here is a bingo card to use when watching old episodes of Speed Racer:

[swatkins.info]

Have fun!

jamescole

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> You I just realized something. Only a few minutes ago I castigated an io9 author for panning 2001 as slow and sterile and here I am frothing over a proto-anime cartoon.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am legion. I contain multitudes.

corpore-metal

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Speaking as the kid who watched Speed Racer, Jonny Soko and his Giant Robot, Ultraman (Not animation.) and Gigantor when they syndicated in the States in the early 70s. I loved Speed Racer.

I mean as an 8 year old boy how could I not love a story about a mammoth car, made out of gold by an international crime syndicate, smashing its way through a forest?! Whenever I start humming the Mammoth car them music, those in the know immediately catch the refence.

And the story about a automobile engine so powerful and fast you had to take drugs to use it?! So maybe Speed was utter cheese in some ways, for an 8 year old kid, the show had pure genius for writing!

corpore-metal

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @Garrison Dean, King Awesome: I'm exactly the opposite. When I was a kid, I lived abroad as a result of being a military brat, and living in Europe specifically exposed me to imaginations and imagery that was way outside the rigid lines of the Warner Bros/Disney mindset. I think I was spoiled by the material coming out of Europe and Japan when I was younger (even though I'm far too young to have caught Speed Racer's original airing - I lived in Europe in the 80s) and when I got back to the states and started watching American cartoons, I found myself intensely disappointed right out of the gate.

@Priam: This is going to be a bad recurring feature column for you, then, isn't it? Might want to beg out and leave it to the rest of us. ;)

phoenix

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Don't forget Speed Racer's insanely high body count.

I remember Racer X gunning down a bunch of gangsters with a Tommy Gun and them doing the Dead Man's Dance.

Great Stuff.

Capn_Marrrrk

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> And what did we get?

Dastardly and Muttly, The Anthill Mob and Penelope Pitstop!

Heyulp heyulp it's the Hooded Claw!

sir_eccles

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @Miranda Kali: Ah, the count. Dick was amazing. I was shocked when they sacked him, started my own long slide into cynicism and journalism (former TWP editor, here).
Thanks for the memories.


SavannahJack

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @Jeff-Minor:
Here I thought it was more Donica Patrick doing Drag King.
(wow...I'm surprisingly turned on by that idea)

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> ah, simple and nonsensical kids shows.
how i miss you.

mitchel_stevens

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Speed Racer looks seriously metro sexualized...gay. Scarf, a little eye liner. Sorta like a pretty Jeff Gordon.

Jeff-Minor

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Man o Man, how I hate anime.

Priam

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> AHHH! Speed Racer, Kimba and Ultraman. Shades of a long ago time. Sadly my (younger) husband doesn't have the same appreciation. Channel 48 - where have you gone?

geekwitch

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @SavannahJack:
Oh yes. Dick Dyszel was an icon through out my youth. First as Captain 20, then as Count Gore Vidal when I started watching campy horror movies late into the night.
...Come to think of it, if not for him, I may not be the io9, reading woman I am today...
Damn him. ;)

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @Miranda Kali:Wow, you're in DC? Captain 20, "Live long and win lots of prizes" shows the Speed Racer, Ultraman, Marine Boy, Kimba the White Lion, Astro Boy, Gigantor, etc... after school.
Ahhh, memories. Peanutbutter sammich, soda, homework and cheesy cartoons.


SavannahJack

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> I was in love - LOVE! - with Speed when I was 9 and 10 years old. He was so MOD, and so inscrutable! sigh.

themediatrix

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> well, that opening was a little different from what i remember. ;)

but the visuals set off fireworks of nostalgia in my brain. gonna see the movie tonite.

thanks for that!

X: The Eliminator

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @Barum:
Yup, same here..Along with Marine Boy and Ultraman. (ah...good old UHF 20)
...Of course this wasn't 37 years ago, it was more like...uhm. Well, it was recent. Definitely recent. Recent enough that it put me at around twenty-something.
(yes, indeedy)

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> Hulu has the first season of Speed Racer (English) up for viewing pleasure.

latoberg

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> When I was just a wee lad, growing up here in southern New England, we had 5 TV channels, before cable even existed, and one would run Speed Racer episodes once a week.
I was about 6-7 yrs old. I remember it well enough to know that they ran Kimba the White Lion right after.
This was some 37 years ago, too.
Made a huge impression. I loved that show.




Barum

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @MilesFromNowhere: Yeah, damn those American production standards!

Blue Oyster Cultist

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @MilesFromNowhere: I'm with you there. For me a still image with a moving mouth did not animation make. As a side note I've also always hated School House Rock, another bit of forced nostalgia for something many of us probably don't remember.

Garrison Dean, Mr. Privilege

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> @B:
It was the only way to get viewers to accept Spritle. ...Give him an even more annoying sidekick.

Miranda Kali

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> It's Go Go Go.
Not Cry Cry Cry.

Plague

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> I guess I was too spoiled by Warner Brothers and Disney animation to, um...fully appreciate Speed Racer. I was seven years old when it first aired in the US. I did not like it then, time and nostalgia have not changed my opinion.

MilesFromNowhere

]]> <![CDATA[The Original Speed Racer]]> I hate that stupid monkey.

B

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