toons that made racing cool long before F&F

[O.Supreme]

Greetings All,

Fans here know I have zero interest in the wildly popular Fast and the Furious Franchise, but I will never knock its popularity, or those that do have an interest in the films (I am not one to talk since I can legitimately say Bay's Transformers films are dumb fun for me).

But all that being said, I just had to think back to a few cartoons of the past where "racing" your enemy was a theme long before the popular film series was even thought of.

1. Speed Racer (aka Mach GoGoGo!) (1967)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_Racer

Not only a ground breaking anime in Japan, Speed racer also enjoys huge success world wide even today, spawning numerous sequels and reboots, it literally started racing in anime, and inspired such later series as Initial D, and Fast and the Furious as well

2. Pole Position (1984)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_Position_(TV_series)

Based on the popular Arcade video game this short lived animated series was creative in that taking the idea of a simple video game, and developing a whole world of characters around it. This oddly enough was not DiC's only attempt at making a racing/action series.

3.M.A.S.K. (Season 2) (1986)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.A.S.K._(TV_series)

M.A.S.K. is enjoying a renaissance of sorts along with several other HASBRO owned properties via IDW comics. However few fans remember that after the initial 65 episode season one, there was in fact a 10 episode second season affectionately referred to as "The Racing Season". If you ever wanted to know what would happen if GI Joe and Cobra just decided to stop fighting, and decided to settle their differences via Racing, this IS that answer....In season 2 Miles Mayhem meets his long-lost twin brother Maximus. Matt Trakker no longer with Thunderhawk, now has the Goliath, a transforming F1 Racer! This attempt to make the series less violent was its death knell, but it was fun while it lasted.

4. Transformers Cybertron (aka Galaxy Force in Japan) (2005)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformers:_Cybertron

The idea that other Transformers fled Cybertron to escape the endless wars has been around since Transformers stories first were in print, and on television in 1984. However the ideas of those colony worlds were not often explored. TF:Cybertron delved more into these ideas. One of the prominent colony worlds in this series is Velocitron (aka the Speed Planet). Where instead of standard military battles, Speed is king, those who win races get to make the rules, and there's always a new challenger bucking for the position. Optimus Prime had to send his own fastest lieutenant (in this case Hot Shot) to compete and eventually win a series of races just to win the trust and respect of the people of Velocitron.

[william newell]

What, no "Wacky Racers"?!

[O.Supreme]

I actually thought that show was really fun as a kid....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wacky_Races

Thanks for reminding me.

[klen7]

I had a lot of love for Initial D - I haven't kept up with anything after 3rd stage, but that series was among my favorites for a long time

[Dai]

Redline comes to mind; that movie was a lot of fun.

The Battle Angel Alita manga's motorball arc was memorable, and will soon be in the spotlight, as I believe it's supposed to be an element in the (finally) upcoming live-action movie... not that I'm anywhere near as excited now as I was during the interminable 20 years when James Cameron was supposed to be directing it. I can't stand Robert Rodriguez.

I remember a couple of anime doing one-shot Wacky Races type stories. Scramble Wars was an OAV crossing over Bubblegum Crisis and Gall Force. The recent Osomatsu-san reboot had a similar episode called Iyami's Counterattack (that's the character who originated the infamous "shie" pose, by the way).