One of the animated components of the short-lived weekday series Wake, Rattle, & Roll was the Fender Bender 500, which for all intents & purposes was really a revival of Wacky Races with a new title and, save for Dick Dastardly (Paul Winchell) & Muttley (Don Messick), an entirely new field of racers, mostly Yogi Bear and his pals, which now includes Winsome Witch (Jean VanderPyl), who's not exactly Penelope Pitstop when it comes to racing, but, well........!
Shadoe Stevens (ex-Hollywood Squares), who was hosting American Top 40 at the time and had a short-lived action series of his own, Max Monroe: Loose Cannon, earlier in 1990, was tapped to be the announcer for this series. I guess the producers could picture him at the track doing the same thing as a guest for the Indy 500 or something. Anyway, Stevens would later return to toons as Dr. Leonard Samson on UPN's revival of The Incredible Hulk, but this was his cartoon debut.
Right now, scope out "The Russian' Around 500":
As far as Dastardly goes, some things never change. There has been talk of a full on revival of Wacky Races, which hits its 45th anniversary next year, but aside from video games, although there is a pilot out there, WB hasn't been able to green-light the project. Hmmm......
Rating: B.
2 comments:
Wacky Races X Laff -a- Lympics = Fender Bender 500!
It was nice to include Winnie Witch as a contestant, although I hated that they paired her with a cat. On the series she adopted a dog named "Spooky".
I remember Shadoe Stevens primarily from two shows back in the late 80s/90s: His gig as announceer and member of the revival of Hollywood Squares and as a member of the cast of "Dave's World".
I have seen the Wacky Races revival pilot and thought it was a good idea - especially having Penelope Pitstop and Peter Perfect happily married with their kids competing against one another in the new race! It's a shame CN ignored such potential!
I am planning on posting the revival pilot at some point. Considering the morons in charge of CN wouldn't know a good idea if it came up and bit 'em in the tuchis, I'm not surprised. They're more concerned about today's audience and ignoring older fans like us. Their loss, as usual.
Hmmm. Penelope married Peter Perfect? I am not surprised there. It just so happens I'm developing a fan-fic over at Toonzone that would clear up the chronological mess created by having the Races spinoffs set in an earlier period (well, Penelope, anyway, was set in the late 20's), and this was one of the ideas I had. Nice to know I can take this ball and run with it.....
Post a Comment