Cartoon Car Toons!

I think one of the best cars brought to “life” as of late were those in the movie Cars. You don’t have to be a kid to appreciate what a good movie that was. Great animation, and superb voice talents. Mater had me laughing my socks off (voiced by the funny Larry the Cable Guy) all throughout. And the movie was full of racing greats the like of the King Richard Petty and Mario Andretti. Junior was there too, as was Michael Schumacher (am I spelling the guy’s name right?). Anyway, Cars was one for the ages, for all ages.

Great animated movie that one.

Competing for the title of “World’s Wackiest Racer” entails a lot of WORK. LOTS OF IT. It can be scheming with your sidekick with ingenious ideas; racing ahead of the pack or simply blowing up your competitor’s cars.

That is what the show “Wacky Races” is all about. With the resident villain Dick Dastardly and his sidekick Muttley the Dog scheming with all kinds of ideas, the race is never a drag. Dastardly usually races ahed of the pack with his rocket-powered car, then sets up and waits for unsuspecting races to come by. When that happens, all kinds of misfortune befalls the unlucky racer.

But like all bad guys, Dastardly never wins. So much for the saying “Good guys finish last.”

I was particularly amazed by the peculiarity of the “flintmobile.” This family car by the Flintstones, specifically driven by Fred to and from work, is basically two stone logs linked together under a carriage with an animal skin canopy powered by Fred’s two feet. This is true for all modes of land transportation in the cartoon series “The Flinstones.”

What’s so cool (especially for a kid like me those days) is that even the ride is shaped like a steamroller and the wheel is made of super-heavy solid rock, he could manage to power and drive it with his own two feet even if it takes taking the whole family for an outing. But overall, the series is entertaining. It’s just that the flintmobile just kept pesking my mind.

If there could be voting of the best cartoons featuring cars, I would say, my hands down choice would the Transformers.

Growing up in the early 80s, the Transformers became a staple weekend viewing for me. Who could resist the temptation of seeing “hot” cars transforming into robots? For a four year old, that was heavenly, watching the Autobots defeating the hated Decepticons.

My early years were filled with memories of Optimus Prime and Megatron slugging it out on top of a dam, Shockwave with his “spy” tapes, and Starscream plotting every time to  topple Megatron but getting foiled again and again.

Bumblebee was the gentlest Autobot, Ironhide was the stoic second in command, Wheeljack the nerd, Mirage the trickster. I could go and on.

Anyway, I could say that the Transformers bug has bitten me, hard. After all these years, every time I  see one, I go back to being the four year old  kid again.