Wacky Races

Wacky Races is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and Heatter-Quigley Productions. The series was possibly inspired by the 1965 slapstick comedy The Great Race, with each driver hoping to win the title of the "World's Wackiest Racer". One of the unused plans for the series was that the races would be part of a live-action quiz show made by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley Productions in which contestants would bet on which Wacky Racer would cross the finish line first. The villains of the series, in a purple, rocket-powered car with an abundance of concealed weapons and the ability to fly. Dastardly's usual race strategy revolves around using the Mean Machine's great speed to get ahead of the other racers, and then setting a trap to stop them and maintain the lead, but most of his plans backfire, causing him to fall back into last place. Dastardly never saw victory, but came close at least three times: once when he crossed the line first, and is seen to do so in the original and official footage, but a tampered replay viewed by the judges showed him cheating, and another time when he was battling with three other cars to finish first, but he stopped to pose for the photo finish. In the fourth-place finish, he appeared to win but a tampered instant replay video-tape shows the Double Zero car seemingly using a device to stretch out the nose of the vehicle, resulting in Penelope Pitstop being declared the winner by the race Judges.