Tuesday, August 7, 2018

Rein-Toon-Ation: Speed Racer X (1997)

Speed Racer has been in reruns off and on here in the US over the years, most recently on Cartoon Network, but it's been a while since they had the rights.

In 1997, the Japanese producers decided to update the series, which was known as Speed Racer '98 there, but it took 5 1/2 years for the show to reach American shores. Nickelodeon acquired the series, with the English translations produced by DIC.

However, the new show, rechristened Speed Racer X here, didn't last very long. Speed Racer Enterprises, the American rights holders for the franchise, filed suit against DIC, forcing Nick to pull the plug on Speed Racer X after 13 episodes aired out of the 34 that had been produced. Funimation, a prominent American distributor of anime, obtained the show and released it on DVD last year.

Nick aired Speed Racer X as part of their short-lived Sunday afternoon block, along with DIC stablemate Super Duper Sumos.

Here's the opener:



Did you notice the one prominent cosmetic change? Spritle is now Trixie's brother, not Speed's, and Trixie is a reporter in this edition.

Speed Racer X was the 3rd series to represent the franchise in this country. We'll look at the middle entry, The New Adventures of Speed Racer, another time.

No rating.

2 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

The show was technically called "Mach Go Go Go" in Japan, as it first aired in 1997 (no difference in the title between this and the '67 original). The show wasn't a success in Japan unfortunately, a victim namely of a sponsor that pulled out at one point and being retooled with a different plot after the first story arc was wrapped up, but it ended after 34 episodes total (out of 52 planned). I remember getting some recordings of the episodes back around 1999 or so and didn't think much of the show at all, but I suppose they tried (more than could be said for Fred Wolf's take).

Funimation has recently released the series in a subtitled format as "Mach Go Go Go: Restart" and was included in a extensive set release of Speed Racer/Mach Go Go Go.
https://www.funimation.com/shop/home-video/speed-racer-the-ultimate-collection-ce-combo-bld-00594/

hobbyfan said...

I'd read of "Mach Go Go Go" as a title, but I'd also read of it as "Speed Racer '98", which is what I went with. The unnecessary changes I'd described (i.e. Spritle) killed the show.