Once seen in childhood, Speed Racer is never forgotten, which can be a bogey or a blessing depending on one's attitude. Devotees of the daily, half-hour series can't get enough of Speed Racer and his adventures both on and off the race track. Non-fans find the program ridiculous in the extreme, its "funny" artwork jarringly at odds with its "straight" plotlines. Either way, the series has remained in healthy distribution since its simultaneous 1967 Japanese/American release-- representing for many viewers the quintessential Japanese animated import.

The archaeology of Speed Racer has been meticulously traced by anime historian Fred Patten. In the original 1960s Japanese comic book created by Tatsuo Yoshida, Speed Racer's high-tech car was the star as indicated by the title Mach Go Go Go; Go being the Japanese word for "Five," which explains the number 5 emblazoned on the side of the auto. Speed's original name was Go Mifune, after legendary Japanese film star Toshiro Mifune, and that explains the letter "M" on Speed's helment and jacket. Go Mifune competed in worldwide racing events on behalf of his father Daisuke's Mifune Motors. Working on behalf of Daisuke's organization was his wife Aya, Go's kid brother/mascot Kuo, and an extended family of close friends and coworkers: Go's girlfriend Michi Shimua, mechanic Sabu, and a comedy-relief monkey (complete with cute cap) named Senpei. Casting an ominous shadow over the action was a mystery figure, the Masked Racer, who popped up sporadically to save Go Mifune from the various dishonest racers, master criminals and foreign spies that plagued the hero. Unbeknownst to Go, the Masked Racer was actually his older brother Kenichi, who for a complexity of top-secret reasons (including an implied death sentence from his own government!) was compelled to divorce himself from the rest of the Mifune family.

The serialized program, distributed by K. Fujita Associates, ran in prime-time on Japanese television, then was picked up by American distributor Trans-Lux for stateside ditribution in 1967, in hopes of matching the U.S. success of another Fujita animated release, Marine Boy. As was usually the case with made-in-Japan cartoonery, Trans-Lux retained only the physical series, altering all the character names for domestic consumption. Go Mifune, as mentioned, was transformed into "Speed Racer"; his girl Michi became "Trixie"; mechanic Sabu was changed (logically) into "Sparks"; little brother Kuo was changed (who knows why?) into "Spridle"; and Sempei the monkey was now "Chim Chim." The mysterious Masked Racer was altered to the mysterious "Racer X," while parents Daisuke and Aya Mifune were left with merely "Pops and Mom Racer" (evidently Trans- Lux lost its "name the baby" dictionary).

Once the names were changed, Trans-Lux began to recondition Speed Racer's interior. The Japanese version piled steaming heaps of tense violence atop its standard intrigues of gangsters and secret agents. The really rough stuff would have to be weeded out for the American version, a job entrusted to writer/actor Peter Fernandez, a fomer radio juvenile performer and a "regular" in the world of redubbed Japanese animation. More than two decades later, Fernandez is still proud of the fact that in his variation of Speed Racer, no one is ever killed. (This may explain those arbitrarily inserted shots of prone and supine bad guys with comic book planets and stars circling around their heads, indicating that although they were down, they were not permanently out.)

The one aspect of Speed Racer blessedly left intact was Speed's car, known in the U.S. version as the Speical Formula Mach Five. If you can't quite remember the function of each button on the Mach Five's steering wheel, the pilot episode, "The Great Plan," lays it all out. Button "A" activated the auto's jets; "B" handled the special grip tires for tough roads; "C" operated the rotating saws that could cut a swath through wooded terrain (hmmm-- not very pro-ecoloical, there); "D" activated the deflecting mechanism, principally the bulletproof and crashproof windshield; "E" provided long-range headlight illumination; "F" was for underwater driving, operating the oxygen and periscope (Boy! was this the neatest!), and "G" released a little birdlike robot, ideal for sending and receiving messages. The most remarkable feature of the Special Formula Mach Five was that it boasted the only push-button transmission in the history of the automobile industry that never jammed.

As mentioned at the outset, virtually everyone who's seen it has vived memories of the 52-episode Speed Racer, notably of its insistent theme song ("Here he comes/Here comes Speed Racer/He's a de-mon on wheels..."), but it's much harder to find anyone unequivocably in love with its production values. Even its truest fans are hard put to justify fully Speed Racer's dizzying kaleidoscope of clumsy animation, inordinately wide-eyed character designs, ragged bursts of violence, comic characters uneasily rubbing shoulders with deadly serious opponents, and that eardrum-piercing voice given the allegedly amusing kid brother Spridle. The one firm element in Speed Racer's everlasting favor is that it truely lived up to its American title--the damned thing never stopped moving, making it an ideal recent entry in the schedule of the MTV cable network, a service specializing in rapid-fire, "Short attention span" musical material.

In the early 1990s, plans were formed to update Speed Racer. A live-action feature film directed by Richard (Lethal Weapon) Donner was promised, but the most immediate result of these plans was the 13-week, syndicated New Adventures of Speed Racer, from Fred Wolf Films (Wolfs' previous big-money cartoon entry had been Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles). The characters and the Special Formula Mach Five were given a new, streamlined design courtesy of artist George Goodchild, and a fresh sci-fi angle was introduced with Speed's ability to travel through time. Unfortunately, either out of necessity or misguided homage, the animation quality was on the level of the original series. This might have been forgivable, and New Adventures of Speed Racer might have had a better chance at survival past its first season, had not the series committed the ultimate sacrilege: It changed the theme music!

Today, rumors of yet another live-action Speed Racer movie are in the works, this time around with the names of Johnny Depp and John Travolta being bandied about for the roles of Speed and Racer X. Will this rumor prove more substantial than the last one?

This profile came from The Complete Anime Guide by Trish Ledoux & Doug Ranney, Tiger Mountain Press, Issaquah, Wa, 1995 .

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