Cartoon Car Toons!

The Wacky Races… one of my all-time favorite cartoons show back during my childhood years! The characters and the vehicles they drive is one of a kind… they’re classics! It’s the best racing cartoon show during that period! My favorite characters are Dick Dastardly and his ally pet Muttley, Penelope Pitstop and of course, the Ant Hill Mob! The latter were the cutest team to join the Wacky races - the classic midget mobster!

One of the “lethal” competitors of the Wacky races is the Ant Hill Mob squad led by Clyde, with Danny, Kurby, Mac, Ring-A-Ding, Rug Bug Benny, and Willy. They are apparently gangsters in a 1920s saloon car called the Bulletproof Bomb also known as the Roaring Plenty.

Clyde, the leader of the mob, can be mean to his members at times but actually, he cares for them so much. I remember one time on one of the Wacky Races episodes, when the rest of the gang was stuck in the Creepy Coupe, Clyde was threatening the Gruesomes and said, “Alright, you Creeps, where are my boys?!”

The Ant Hill Mob drove in car number 7 and were pint-sized characters - a reference to the seven dwarfs. Their typical manner of improving the speed of their car was “getaway” power which was attained by extending their feet through the floor of the car and running! That’s how Fred Flintstone exactly accelerates his own prehistoric vehicle.

Clyde’s name most likely inspired from car gangster Clyde Barrow. When broadcasted in French, his name was changed to “Al Carbone”, a spoof character of Al Capone. They came back with the wingmen dressed in blue outfits (silver for Clyde) and had name changes and a new living car, Chugga-Boom, in the spin-off series The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.