SPEED RACER

[Vic Sage]

My son took me to see it for my birthday. Comments later.

[soupcan]

I've heard its just awful.

[Vic Sage]

I didn't think it was awful.

It's certainly overlong, especially for kids, at 2.15 hrs. And it doesn't add anything of interest for more mature audiences, earning its strictly PG rating.

But if you love "SR", it serves it up as best one could hope. The movie's video game aesthetic is, for once, an appropriate style for the subject, and the characters are rendered with affection. And the story lines and themes are all ones that were essential elements of the series.

And when the Mach 5 gets forced over a cliff and then Speed hits one of the buttons on the steering wheel, enabling the car to drive straight up the side of an icy mountain, i got chills, as my inner 10-year old jumped for joy.

It's not great, by any means, but i liked it well enough. And the classic theme song keeps playing in my head.

[soupcan]

Is Racer X in the movie?

[Guest AG/DC]

I had comic strips on my bedsheets when I was little. One frame I recall most vividly was Speed Racer, in which Speed is speeding along in disbelief, saying to himself, "I can't believe it. All this time, Chim-Chim was really Racer X!"

The other was from "Terry and the Pirates," where a baldie with a scimitar is chasing Terry saying "Impudent worm! I'll cut out your heart!"

The only strip on my bedsheets that ran in one of my family's papers was "Gasoline Alley."

[Vic Sage]

soupcan wrote: Is Racer X in the movie?

but of course! He provides the major plotline of the movie.

[Frayed Knot]

"I had comic strips on my bedsheets when I was little"

Admit it, you still use them don't you?

[Guest AG/DC]

I asked my Mom to dig them up ten years back, but came up empty.

What was amazing was to know that there were comics that didn't run in Newsday --- serial-driven, action-packed comics. And I read the same dead-end plotline every night, never knowing what happened next, perhaps printed on the next bedsheet out of Hong Kong.

[Willets Point]

Speed Racer is one of those things people talked about nostalgically in college that I'd never heard about. I didn't watch enough TV as a kid.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I have vague memories of the cartoon as a kid. The theme song, Racer X, his "long-lost brother" etc. It was on channel 5 very early in the morning.

[Guest AG/DC]

It pretty much was out of production by the time Willets was born (though it's not like cartoons don't re-run in perpetuity in some markets). My recollection of it was clearly fueled less by seeing the show itself than by having older sibilings singing the song, and, you know, my bedsheets.

I vaguely recall singing the song while riding in the infant seat on the back of my Dad's bicycle, and Dad telling me to shut up. I think it was becausse singing the song led me to lean into turns that weren't there and I was throwing him off-balance.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I remember when I was in, I think, fifth grade (which would have been around 1973) a lot of my friends were really into Speed Racer but it never did anything for me. I was more of a Flintstones guy.

I did see the show a few times, but remember nothing about it other than the theme song. I don't even know who Racer X is.

[Guest themetfairy]

I remember thinking that Spridel was the stupidest name ever.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

I was never into the Speedracer cartoons as a kid. I don't recall ever watching more than a few random minutes of it from time to time. I always felt there was a better cartoon to watch on another channel.

[Frayed Knot]

Never liked it either.
I remember the theme song so I probably watched it a handful of times or maybe I just shut it off after the intro.
I think the "new" style of Japanese illustration made it seem like it wasn't a "real" cartoon to me.

[soupcan]

I remember the song 'Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer Go.....!' but I don't remember it saying in the song that Racer X was Speed's brother.

Of course any Speed Racer fan knew that, but I'm amazed to hear that it was in the song.

OE: I misread Lunchables post. Yet again I'm an idiot and seriously considering enrolling in remedial reading comprehension classes at the local CC.

[Guest AG/DC]

Here he comes
Her comes Speed Racer
He's a demon on wheels
He's a demon and he's gonna be chasin' after someone.

He's gainin' on you so you better look alive.
He's busy revvin' up a powerful Mach 5.

And when the odds are against him
And there's dangerous work to do
You bet your life Speed Racer
Will see it through.

Go, Speed Racer!
Go, Speed Racer!
Go, Speed Racer, Go!

He's off and flyin' as he guns the car around the track
He's jammin' down the pedal like he's never comin' back
Adventure's waitin' just ahead.

Go, Speed Racer!
Go, Speed Racer!
Go, Speed Racer, Go!

[Guest themetfairy]

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Now I see why I never Speed Racer much as a kid.

[DocTee]

It was part of a Sunday morning lineup on TBS that featured TopCat, The Mighty Hercules and some other oldies....plus, The Little Rascals and The Three Stooges. Of that lineup, it was my least favorite (Mighty Hercules was the best).

Maybe we need a thread on old cartoons and such.

[Guest themetfairy]

DocTee wrote: It was part of a Sunday morning lineup on TBS that featured TopCat, The Mighty Hercules and some other oldies....plus, The Little Rascals and The Three Stooges. Of that lineup, it was my least favorite (Mighty Hercules was the best). Maybe we need a thread on old cartoons and such.

I LOVED Top Cat! Still do!

Yeah - start that thread NOW!!!

[DocTee]

If I knew how to Split, as opposed to start a new one, I would. But then we'd lose the introdcutory posts, no? If you're game, have at it.

[DocTee]

"Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs"

WTF? I take back that earlier comment about this being my favorite childhood cartoon!

[Valadius]

I loved Speed Racer as a kid. I remember the buttons on the wheel that made the car jump and buzzsaws come out the front, and the little brother and Chim-Chim always in the trunk.

[Vic Sage]

In the mid-60s, US broadcasters starting buying Japanese "anime" (cartoons), and dubbing them into English, for domestic audiences.

After their initila runs, these shows, including Astroboy (1963-66), Gigantor (1964), Tobor the 8th Man (1965), Kimba the White lion (1965) and Speed Racer (1967-68), went into syndication on weekday afternoons from the late 60s into the early 70s.

They were unlike anything else i'd seen, and they had a huge impact on me, especially Speed Racer. The show had a subtext about family and honor that marked it as particularly Japanese in its cultural viewpoint, and a level of violence uncommon in u.s. kiddie fare. The Mach 5 was the coolest car ever, Spritle had a monkey for a playmate, and oh, that song!

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I liked Gigantor, as I remember it.

[Guest AG/DC]

Battle of the Planets made me the man I am today.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Vic Sage - "After their initila runs, these shows, including Astroboy (1963-66), Gigantor (1964), Tobor the 8th Man (1965), Kimba the White lion (1965) and Speed Racer (1967-68), went into syndication on weekday afternoons from the late 60s into the early 70s."

Speed Racer is the only one of the group I have any recollection of from my childhood. Of course it may have something to do with having spent 1964-1966 in Adana, Turkey. It wasn't until moving to southern Califoirnia in the fall of 1966 that I became acquainted with cartoons. I remember being big on the aforementioned Top Cat and The Flintstones as well as Space Ghost, Jonny Quest and my all time favorite, (Wile E.) Coyote and the Road Runner.

[Vic Sage]

Battle of the Planets made me the man I am today.

Battle of the Planets (1978-1985) was part of the second wave of anime, cashing in on the SF craze caused by STAR WARS. This second wave washed over the US in the 1980s with shows like Gundam (1979), Starblazers (1979), Transformers (1984), Fist of the North Star (1984), Robotech: Macross (1985), Lensman (1987), Ranma 1/2 (1988), and Dragon Ball Z (1989).

[Guest AG/DC]

Yeah, but none of them made me anything.