Speed Racer: Sounds fabulous. Powerful. 

Pops: He's moving

so fast I can hardly see him. 

Matthew: Well, hello NDK! 

Hello! And welcome to a special episode of the I MP podcast. My name is Matthew Porter, and I'm Ian Porter. I'm his dad. He's my son, and I make him watch television. Old television. Every episode of the I double MP I make Ian watch an old movie or TV show or read a book or listen to a record that was important to me in my youth, way back in another millennium in the 20th century, and I get to learn why he's this weird.

It's excellent. It helps a lot. But here we are on NDK, and it's a Saturday morning. And we know what Saturday mornings mean. 

Ian: Ooh. 

Matthew: Now, Ian. Hotel rules. No food. You're not wrong. Saturday mornings mean sugared cereal. But you're right. Somebody said they mean cartoons. So we're going back to a cartoon that I watched when I was like five or six years old.

Speed Racer. This is one of those things. One of your uncles got me into this. Your Uncle Tom. Oh, of 

Ian: course. Yes. 

Matthew: And the fact that, to my five year old eyes, Tom, kind of looked a bit like Speed Racer was doubly awesome. Oh, 

Ian: good. Cool brother to have. Yeah, although, although brothers in Speed Racer are a dangerous topic.

This is true. I was just gonna say. 

Matthew: This is true. I never knew when he was gonna put on a mask and leave the house for a while. But, but it still worked out okay. 

Ian: This is one of those properties that just always existed for me. In the cultural zeitgeist, Speed Racer was one of these formational anime that happened long before any of the shows that I grew up with.

Matthew: Well, this look. This style. As with most anime, this doesn't assume you've seen it before, so they set everything up in the opening.

Ian: That implies something else. 

Matthew: Very jazzy. 

Ian: Very jazzy! Yeah.

Um, uh, 

Music: Um, 

Matthew: Oh! We'll come back to that point. That's pretty important. Yeah!

Ian: This image is like burned into my brain. Oh, just the crossing the map? 

Matthew: Yeah, crossing the map into the checkered flag.

Now since we are talking about what I watched when I was a kid, we are talking about, we're not talking about Mach Go Go Go. The original Japanese manga or the anime that came from it. Although we need to acknowledge that. What we're mostly talking about is Speed Racer. The Americanized version that showed up on local TV.

Starting in the late 60s. Shortly after it came out in Japan. Because it was such an interesting and popular, um, property there. But we do want to acknowledge, Gomi Fune, the Japanese character Speed Racer, and also Tatsuo Yoshida, who created Speed Racer, who created Mach Go! Go! Go! 

Ian: And Speed Racer definitely did get some edits and changes, some compiled stories and combined characters from what I understand, but There's a lot of the general structure that does have to carry over, no matter what, with a show like this.

Matthew: Yeah, and one of the reasons I think this adapted so well for American audiences was that it had so many American influences, and we'll talk about that as well. But we also want to acknowledge another person who's pivotal in Speed Racer. And that's Peter Fernandez. Mm hmm. He had a few things to do with bringing Speed Racer to the U.

S. He was the, the producer, and the writer, and the voice actor who voiced Speed Racer, and Racer X, and a number of other characters. He's the guy who adapted that theme song that we just heard in the American version. We wouldn't really have Speed Racer in America without Peter Fernandez. It really was a labor of love for him.

Ian: Having done some of the research now, having seen some of the episodes, there's something that reminds me in a very positive way of fan projects, like, uh, Dragon Ball Z Abridged, or things like that, where some where a group of people very passionate about it, Edit something and re voice act it to make it available to other people and show their love for it.

In a much more formalized version here than, than those later fan works. 

Matthew: So what we get in the, in the Americanized version of this is something that takes those American influences and kind of brings them back. And creates something more, more American with it. Unlike, say, Gigantor, which is the first anime that I saw as a little kid where I knew this was from another place.

Speed Racer was just a cool cartoon. I had no idea until much later that this originated in Japan and had all these other influences. 

Ian: Speed Racer also doesn't really quite have nationalities as it has car brands and racetracks. It's got a world that is completely revolving around race cars in a, a fascinating way.

Matthew: Yeah, to the point that international intrigue largely focuses around auto races. Yes. But it's as a lot of anime of the time, it's very episodic. You, you can jump in at almost any time. So you're really connected with the characters. So let's talk through some of these characters. Absolutely. Of course we've got Speed Racer.

First name Speed, last name Racer. Nominative determinism. 

Ian: This is a world where what you are named at birth changes everything you do. I'm sorry, if you're named Speed Racer, you're good at car. If you are named Snake Oiler, You are untrustworthy, but possibly redeemable. There is no changes. You are just what you are named in a brilliant way.

Are you saying that inspector detector didn't have a wealth of career 

Matthew: opportunities? 

Ian: I'm saying he probably wasn't going to become a pastry chef.

Matthew: But talking about American influences, um, Speed Racer was influenced by a very specific character in American culture, very popular in Japan in the mid 1960s. And that is Elvis Presley, specifically Elvis Presley in Viva Las Vegas, in which he played a race car driver. Oh, that makes so much sense. You can see in the style of the, the, just the production design of the anime, but also the character design of speed.

He's very influenced by Elvis. Yeah. And specifically in Viva Las Vegas. And the jaw. Yes. That is absolutely 

Ian: drawn from that. Absolutely. Um, I, until the, until the side by side, I hadn't seen him spot on. Oh, he's got a little bit of a Superman thing going on with the hair too. 

Matthew: A little bit more of a curly Q there.

Yeah. He's got a bit of helmet hair. And that's one of the influences that we'll talk about. But we also have to talk a little more about the rest of the, uh, the racer family, because Speed, of course, very influenced by Pops Racer. And I have to admit that on this rewatch, I was a little more identifying with Pops Racer than I was watching this at the age of five or six.

Oh, really? Yeah, I couldn't grow the mustache in time for the con. 

Ian: Ah, that makes sense. The player's not that dark anyway. 

Matthew: But Pops Racer, Speed Racer is, has the potential to be the best race car driver in the world. But they make the point early in the series. He doesn't have the experience. He doesn't have the even keel that he needs to truly be great.

Pop's racer, on the other hand, is an engineer. He's a car designer. He, um, he lives for racing, but not for driving. He wants to, to be behind the technology. He's proud of his, his son for wanting to be a racer, but he's very protective. Wants his son to make sure he has the, the right training and experience.

Before he jumps into this dangerous world 

Ian: watching the series. Pops is also haunted by so many ghosts. Like if there is a bad, if there's a race with something dangerous, pops has a story of a guy he knew who died there every single time. I'm just imagining like Pops Racer opening up his old school yearbook and crossing off another face because there are so many dead people he used to know.

It is terrifying. Like one episode, it makes sense. By the 52nd episode, it's getting 

Matthew: scary. That's why we occasionally see him falling asleep after a marathon session working in the garage. Because whenever he tries to go to sleep, these faces just haunt him. I think so. It makes sense. We also have Mom Racer, who doesn't get a lot to do.

Ian: Was her name Mom before she got married? Before she, they had 

Matthew: speed and wrecks. I don't know. You're taking that nominative determinism a little bit too far, but maybe you're right. It's scary. Mom, Mom Racer's job is, well, she's got two main jobs. One is to make sure everybody's taken care of, which is an important job.

And doubly important in this family. Our job is also to occasionally talk some sense into Pops Racer when necessary. Half the time sense is 

Ian: let our child do the dangerous deadly thing, which is a wonderful inversion from other mom in anime stereotypes. There's this like, oh yeah, he can make that jump.

Pops is like, I'm 

Matthew: not sure if he can make that. Let him. It's only a 15, 000 mile race across an icy mountain through caves of lava. 

Ian: Exactly! 

Matthew: He's gonna have to do it someday, he's a growing boy. I, uh, Oh, and But then we also have the other female recurring character in this show. 

Ian: Which is Trixie. Thank internal combustion for Trixie.

Yeah! Narrative stories would either end short or not happen in Speed Racer if it wasn't for Trixie. Whose powers seem to be actually watching what's going on and helicopter, but 

Matthew: those are needed. They are, and Trixie is an example of something you see in anime. We talked about this last year in Star Blazers.

You get it in Trixie in Speed Racer. There's a kind of feminism you get in that 60s and 70s anime. Intentional or maybe accidental, it's that, well, we've got all these characters, we have to have a girl character. But because there's just the one girl character, she is given so many cool things to do as one person.

So she flies a helicopter, like you said. She's got pretty impressive kung fu. She is smart. She is a great character. I love Trixie. Oh, 

Ian: yeah. Trixie covers everyone else's faults and keeps them running. Yes. That's brilliant. She's also, uh, Weirdly enough, the most maligned at other times, because everyone, like, ignores her, rejects her, or tells her to stop talking.

And she'll be like, fine, and then goes and does something that actually fixes the problem while everyone else is debating. It happens in more than one episode, and it's always, always a delight. 

Matthew: And then, uh, well then we go back to the racer family for another beloved character. Spridle and 

Music: Chim 

Matthew: Chim, who are one character.

They're a hive mind. They are. When they have an idea, you never know which head it originated in. No, 

Ian: no, no, no. They're a hive mind. Spridle is the hive. Chim Chim is 

Matthew: the 

Ian: mind. Chim Chim is smarter. 

Matthew: It keeps happening. Spridle is the very young sibling in the racer family. Chim Chim is his Gutsier and sometimes smarter half.

Yeah, I don't remember, did they ever explain why they have a 

Ian: monkey? Or does monkey just exist? There, there is monkey. 

Music: I don't think they ever asked Siri a few 

Matthew: months ago. Thank you, yes, why? Why a monkey? Why, why, why not monkey? There is, there is monkey, why not have monkey? I, 

Ian: okay, that's a good point. Yeah, although that implies.

That implies that we can put ChimChim in the same category as things like QB. Where people with amazing powers have an animal companion. 

Matthew: Which has terrible 

Ian: implications as well. 

Matthew: If ChimChim is like QB, then he's just biding his time to offer a strange and terrible contract to Spritle when he comes of age?

Or wait for 

Ian: Pops to build him something terrible enough he can actually enact his plans. I wanna 

Matthew: see that follow up. 

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. 

Matthew: And then we get more of the kind of the racer motors, uh, the racer motors group, which includes Sparky, Sparky, an underappreciated character. He's the, he's a mechanic of the, of the, 

Ian: yes, he'll, but he's the one who explains why things are happening.

He explains the thing. Everyone else gets worried. Trixie fixes what Sparky explained. 

Matthew: and pops racer made design really cool and complicated, cars. Sparky's the one that keeps them running. He keeps them on the track, or on the highway, or on the icy mountain. So I like Sparky. He needs more appreciation.

Ian: On the on fire icy mountain highway. 

Matthew: Yes. And then we get to another character. Something I think this is a character in Speed Racing. Most important character. A Mach 5. Absolutely. The pinnacle of Pops Racers automotive engineering. The most powerful racing car in the world. As they are frequently happy to tell you in the anime.

And it is a 

Ian: cool car. It is a cool car, and it is a cool car for so many reasons. Because it's not just a high powered racing car. It's not just a racing car with, like, jump fins and, uh, and jacks and all these things. It has trunk space. You can go on a picnic with the Mach 5. This thing's got a features list that just does not stop, and they still have like, normal everyday civilian use mode.

It's got a trunk that 

Matthew: will carry your entire lunch, plus a toddler, plus a chimpanzee. Exactly! And have room for your spare tire. That's impressive! Not that you need a spare tire in the Mach 5. 

Ian: No. Because you're probably not going to be able, you're probably not getting just a flat if the Mach 5 has trouble.

Matthew: But, and you'll see this more in some other cars that we see. Exactly. There was not a great concern with pedestrian safety when it came to car design in Speed Racer. Let's put as many razor sharp points at the front of this vehicle as we possibly can. 

Ian: The Mach 5 could, in fact, make a jump towards a target and stick like a dart.

Matthew: And it has gadgets. It has lots of cool gadgets. They actually explain This whole array of gadgets in this second episode of the series. 

Speed Racer: These are the controls of the most powerful and amazing racing car in the world, the Mach 5. Control A releases powerful jacks to boost the car, so that Sparky, our mechanic, can quickly make any necessary repairs or adjustments.

Control B. Press this button and the Mach 5 sprouts special grip tires for traction over any kind of terrain. At the same time, 5, 000 horsepower is distributed equally to each wheel by auxiliary engines. Control C. For use when I have to race over heavily wooded terrain. Powerful rotary saws are protruded from the front of the Mach 5 to slash and cut any and all obstacles.

This is control button D, which when pressed releases a powerful deflector which seals the cockpit into an air conditioned bullet and crash proof and watertight chamber. Inside it I am completely isolated and shielded. He's ready for bulletproof. E is the control for special illumination, which can be traversed singly or in tandem.

And which enables me to see much further and more clearly than with ordinary headlights. It's invaluable in some of the weird and dangerous places that I race the Mach 5. 

This is control F, which I use when the Mach 5 is underwater. First, the cockpit is supplied with oxygen. Then, a periscope is raised to scan the surface of the water.

Everything that is seen is relayed down to me by television. Control G releases a homing robot from the front of the car. The homing robot can carry pictures or tape recorded messages to whomever and wherever I want to send them. The Mach 5 is the most complex and ingenious car ever built. A tribute to my father's imagination, genius, and technical skill.

Ian: I'm sorry, none of that included an airbag. Ha ha ha, no. I do want to see just the little clip of Speed Racer, like, hitting a bump, the Mach 5 stalls, His head hits the thing, and you just see the little drone go POOP! As his button hits G. 

Matthew: Yeah, it is, it is nice that they added those, uh, those rotary saws.

Those rotary saws! Just in case you're not doing enough damage. And they're extremely well prepared to be underwater. Yes! It's usually a sign that things are not going well. 

Ian: I'm just also thinking, like, the combination, it's like, okay, I hit this combination and I can be underwater in a bulletproof environment with saw blades.

What are you ready for, pops? Is this what the ghosts tell you to build? Is this the work of a haunted man? I think it is. It's the 

Matthew: Winchester House racing cars. Yes, it 

Ian: is! But it's amazing. And I love how the, the most The most innocuous of those, the jacks, so we can, uh, you know, fix the car, are the best of them all.

Because the idea of just quick double tap of that button and your car jumps. 

Matthew: Oh my word. He that for pit stops. He 

Ian: does not use that for pit stops. He uses that in the coolest way ever. 

Matthew: And, uh, The least weird thing about all of those, it's the homing robot. Yeah. You put a compartment with a quadcopter and a GPS.

It's great. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. 

Music: Maybe the buzz saws are something darker. Yeah. Yeah. . 

Matthew: Yeah. Maybe those buzz saws do indicate something very dark. Yeah. Some strange plan that pop's racer has. Yeah. You know, he is yet to tell his kids about it. Yeah. 

Music: Yeah. 

Matthew: I, 

Ian: I, I'm, I'm confused as to why it contains this, you know.

For driving in the woods, that's why. Absolutely, that is made up on the spot, for sure. 

Matthew: It has nothing to do with any thoughts of vengeance against the gang who killed my family 30 years ago. Exactly, nothing to do with that. But this is another area of influence on the creator of Speed Racer. And that is James Bond's Aston Martin, specifically from Goldfinger.

Oh, yes. Another movie that was really popular in Japan when Speed Racer was being created. A really cool car filled with useful and sometimes deadly gadgets. And if 

Ian: you don't believe it, check the tires. It has the little Aston Martin three wing parts on the tires there, just like it, which you see in scenes of this.

Not James Bond, 

Matthew: more his enemies. Yeah, I don't know if he had the boss songs. That's why it's scary. Also, Pops is really preparing his kids to be Bond villains. 

Ian: Which makes a lot of sense, because they're A's or P's of the racer family we haven't talked about yet. 

Matthew: That's true. There's another character, a recurring character, a guy called Racer X.

Hmm. He shows up from time to time, he kind of helps out. Yeah. If there was only some way we could know what his connection was to the racer family, why he got himself involved. 

Narrator: Unknown to Speed, this is his older brother Rex, who ran away from home years ago and is now known as Racer X! Not far away, Racer X, whom Speed does not know is his older brother, races to the rescue.

Rex, secretly Speed's older brother, who ran away from home years ago, is ready to protect Speed. It's Speed's older brother, Rex, in disguise as Racer X. Speed does not know that the driver of this car is secretly his older brother, Rex, who ran away from home years ago. 

Speed Racer: There's something about him that reminds me of Rex, my brother.

Racer X: Can something be the matter? You're looking at me in a very strange way, Speed. 

Ian: Like trying to send an email chain but not make it look it? Just removed re and posted the same thing. 

Music: Yeah, 

Matthew: they make sure no matter where you're jumping in, you know who Rex Racer is and eventually speed twigs to it in this next to last storyline.

At which point his brother knocks him out and runs away. 

Ian: Who told you? The announcer over there trying to hide. Oh goodness. Oh, but I will say also, like once again, nominative determinism. Rex Racer. We could have seen this coming. Of course he would go missing in a fiery crash. You named him that! 

Matthew: Yes, you named him Rex.

Dang it. Every time. Oh, 

Ian: goodness. 

Matthew: So that's kind of the setup we have. We have the racer family, and we have a succession of bad guy racers, or difficult races, or strange plots they have to deal with. There is a certain structure you get to a speed racer story. 

Ian: Oh, yes. 

Matthew: There's some kind of upcoming race.

Most of their races begin and end at a racetrack. and go through bizarre, surreal landscapes on the way. And there are some competitors who are sportsmen like the very first other racers we meet in the first episode are saying, Oh, great race speed. You beat us fair and square. And then there are guys who are willing to put time bombs and other people's cars or plant traps or use ray guns and everything they possibly can as the weird and evil competitor.

And sometimes they just want to win the race. And sometimes They have some other motivations. 

Ian: But there, there are people being laced with experimental drugs to allow them faster reaction times. There are, uh, issues with, like, cars with, designed so, so fast that they cause hallucinations. There's all sorts of wild stuff.

Even on what seems like a normal racetrack, The race will be weird and bizarre because the something else is wrong. There is never just a standard, standard track in a standard race. There's always a twist. 

Matthew: And then every episode, every story, there's some aspect of Speed's psychology. How is he feeling about the race?

Is he confident enough? Is he overconfident? Is he prepared for this race? How is his relationship with Pops right now? It, it gives another dimension that was, was more interesting than so many cartoons that I could see on television when I was a kid. Yes, but at the same time, 

Ian: seeing more of Speed's personality, he is a shonen protagonist.

He is our adventurous plucky hero with the special ability of car, and he's ready to do his thing. The problem is, That when things actually start to happen. We realize that Speed's personality is not the protagonist we know nowadays, it's what we'd give the rival. Speed Racer is more like Bakugou. He's more like all of these other characters who are weirdly intense and determined and get really dismissive and aggressive.

He is scary and dangerous if he gets interrupted. It is Actually frightening because it felt like there was no purely happy go lucky character except Spridle and Chim Chim Which I don't want to think about. 

Matthew: And even Spridle could be pretty dark. 

Ian: Even Spridle could be dark. 

Matthew: You try to get at Spridle snacks, you're in for trouble.

Ian: Yes, that's true. That kid is just Yeah, just powered by sugar. Understandable, 

Matthew: but still. Yeah, And we talked about the fact that there are all these weird thrills and dangers and strange landscapes. And they literally are driving over the Alps. They're driving through lava caves. They're driving through dark forests and usually these appear to be hundreds or thousands of miles.

These races. Yes, it's it's. It's. More Le 

Ian: Mans, less NASCAR? 

Matthew: I guess so. Where it's always an 

Ian: endurance race. There's a lot of, you know, rally stuff in there. We're not, we're not dealing with go fast, turn left. We're dealing with go fast, jump cliff. Yeah. 

Matthew: And not everybody comes through there. There is the unexpected help.

Sometimes from Racer X. Sometimes from someone else. Secretly, Speed 

Ian: Racer's brother. What? 

Matthew: Spoilers. Come on. And then something else that features in every single Speed Racer story is the carnage. The, the, today, almost unfathomable levels of violence. Yes! Sometimes it's firearms, you're right, sometimes it's dosing people with strange chemicals, and very often it is car wrecks.

And lots of car wrecks. There is so much carnage.

Those are just a few wrecks from about a three minute stretch in the first episode. And that sets the tone. And occasionally, you will see a driver thrown to the side. Clear to safety, but not always. Yeah, and 

Ian: think about that. We've got that crash in the opening. That means that there's an, at minimum, 52 body count, because there's one at the start of every episode, plus everything else.

Every single one. Every time. Poor dude. Gone! Go Speed Racer! He's dead. Go Speed Racer! He's never coming back to see his family. Go Speed Racer, go! 

Matthew: Like, that's what we get. Every time to start. Every time. And you're right, there are 52 episodes of this. You could watch Speed Racer every Saturday morning for a year.

Ian: Every single episode. Before you run out. So, like, every single race Speed Racer's on is, Here's our main character and this colorful cast of wild characters, and you know a good chunk of them are going to die, and another chunk of them will be the reason they died. Why is Speed Racer just Danganronpa in cars?

I did not expect this comparison, but it fits. Same with the color schemes sometimes, wildly bright reds and pinks. I just was not ready for the number of deaths. And they even have fun with the people who don't. Someone who doesn't is a big surprise. They expect them all to die. 

Matthew: So that's kind of our setup.

That's where we, we, the building blocks that we have. 

Ian: Yes. 

Matthew: For Speed Racer. So I didn't make you watch all 52 episodes. 

Ian: No, you didn't. 

Matthew: You're welcome to go back and see them, though. They're all on 

Ian: Plex, by the way, for free. 

Matthew: But the first episode we watch, and most of them are two parters. They're storylines with two episodes. There are a few one parters. There's one or two three parters. But, uh, but a little bit unusual for the time. They expected you to come back for at least one more episode. But when they do, they spend at least ten minutes of the second episode giving you a recap.

So you can jump in at any time. But the great plan is, uh, the first storyline, in which we get the setup, we learn who they are, We kind of learn some of the relationships like speed and pops and pops leaves his job as the top engineer for a A giant auto company because they don't want to finance The building of his incredible new design.

Yeah, 

Ian: uh, didn't he sneak plans out using a piece of windshield glass and invisible ink? It's spycraft from moment one. 

Matthew: Yep, he paints the, uh, the secret plans for his, uh, for his design on the windshield. But then It's kind of a weird automotive gift to the Magi. Yes! In order to earn money to give to Pops to build this car, Speed fixes up the Mach 5 to be in a race and uses the windshield that has the only copy of these special plans on them.

And there are a bunch of bad guys, of course, who want to steal the plans. 

Ian: So, of course, they've got to race him for the money and his car, but not destroy his car, but stop him. It's a very tense first setup with this. This construction of, of multiple different plot lines converging. 

Matthew: And a lot of very cool car versus, motorcycle gang, almost Mad Max y sort of, scenes.

Very Mad, very Mad Max y. And we also learned some other, some, some important things about Pops, like his history as a champion Greco Roman wrestler. Yes! So he's got some kung fu as well. 

Ian: Everybody's got a fighting style, none of them are, none of them are the same, but I always love the idea of like, Oh, finally, I got you out of your car, Speed Racer, I'll kick your a Oh, there are four people here who can each kill me.

I was safer when you were in the car. Okay, like, so, bad guys keep falling for this. They will get Kung Fu'd by Trixie, they will be thrown to the ground by Pops, they will get monkey attacked by, uh, Chim Chim, they, there's always something. 

Matthew: Yeah. And Sprital likes the, the effect of a, uh, a socket wrench on a person's nose.

Yeah! That's his, his go to move. Yeah, he's just, he's just pure pugilist in that sense.

And then our second storyline was the challenge of the Masked Racer, where this mysterious person, Racer X, shows up. Say it with me. Secretly, Speed's brother ran away from home years ago. Exactly

Ian: But that one was fun kind of setting that up Setting up wait racer X as being the guy who will like He knows what's gonna happen and he lets it because he needs it to There's a lot of times when it's like I'm gonna do the thing wait Okay, now do it. Why'd you make me wait? Watch his explosion. 

Matthew: That's why.

And for so much of, of Rex's interaction with speed, it's to come up to speed and tell him, don't be in this race. It's too dangerous. You shouldn't be here. You can't trust the other drivers. Don't race this way. They're like, who are you? Why are you telling me not to do what I do? 

Ian: Walk up. Don't, don't have an anime convention.

Why? We love it here. Please let us. Okay. 

Matthew: And that carries over. into the most dangerous race. This is one of those three parters. Not entirely sure they had three episodes worth of story. 

Ian: Not sure. This one was fun though, just because we meet the car acrobatics team. 

Matthew: These are the sinister racers whose cars can sort of defy physics.

Ian: Yeah! They fly and float and they stack their cars on top of each other for, like, stunt shows. It's very much like Bring in the Clowns, but the clowns are the cars kind of thing. 

Matthew: And this is the one in which they are racing over alpine mountains, and through incredibly dangerous terrain, those cliff jumps that you were talking about.

Yeah, they draw lots to see who 

Ian: has to jump the cliff, because every person who jumps it makes the cliff smaller. And so it's literally like, well, at least half of us are gonna die, let's draw straws to see who it is. It's a plot point that they put, like, the entire second episode on. 

Matthew: Very dark. Very dark.

But we also see that The car acrobatic team is kind of cult like. They're led by Captain Terror, and they have nighttime meetings where his acolytes make torchlit circles while he gives them stirring speeches. Yeah. They're, they're an interesting, and they do come back, so they're an interesting recurring nemesis.

The ones that make it come back. Yes, they don't all recur. I guess they have a pretty good recruiting program. Apparently. They left a lot of them at the bottom of that mountain. 

Ian: Yeah. But I, I do love, it also is fun because having an entire team of similarly, uh, designed cars is great for the animators, because they can play the same animation of cars over and over.

It meant I had a hard time figuring out how many of them there were. They are, they are the Carabatic team, they are legion. Just as many cars as they need to do whatever it is. 

Matthew: And something else we get to see in this one is that the Mach 5 is kind of a living vehicle, it's still changing. After examining what kinds of equipment the car acrobatic team have on their cars, they add to the Mach 5, like these little winglets that help it jump farther.

I'm not entirely sure how the physics there works, but they're always on the lookout for ways to improve the Mach 5. Don't worry, I 

Ian: filled the trunk of the Mach 5 with helium, so it's lighter. Where are Spritel and 

Matthew: ChimChim? And then we get To what could be, it was probably the most surreal episode by far.

Yes. Oh, this one's so 

Ian: weird. Which is 

Matthew: the fastest car on earth. And you can see on that one image there, it starts out in a graveyard. Where people are exhuming something that is buried there. And what is buried there? Is a car engine. This is Franken car. We learn later, that Pops Racer knows of this engine and was involved in its construction and it was so dangerous and he saw so many racers crash up.

Nobody just crashes, they always crash up or smash up. So many racers crash up in this, it was unsafe, so they like buried it in a graveyard at midnight. And someone discovered the secret of it. And, and exhumed it and put it into that really cool car. But that's because 

Ian: this is an engine that makes a car go so fast, it causes hallucinations.

Speed is there passing out saying, I'm seeing another dimension of speed. Speed. Yes. It reminded me of the warp drive from Space Battleship Yamato, where the entire screen just goes trippy and you wind up someplace else. But in a car. 

Matthew: Yes. I don't have the clip about reaching a dimension only accessible through speed, because there are rules about promoting substance use at NDK, and I did not want to come close to that line.

But yes, this was so strange. And this is the one where, in order to In order to withstand the effects of driving the car with this incredible engine, they had this aerosolized substance, this drug that they would spray the drivers with. And these are the bad guys who wanted to use this engine. And it allowed people to withstand driving this car for a while.

Ian: It was also negated with water. So you wound up with like these, these, these drivers slowly dehydrating and begging for a drink. While they try to avoid losing their minds in the face of incredible, incredible velocity. 

Matthew: What's, were they like, essentially giving their drivers spray on rabies? I guess, maybe, I think.

Do you withstand 

Narrator: this? 

Ian: Like, hi, you know, we figured out that the only thing that could survive going this quick is a raccoon. So, here, we launch you out of a 

Matthew: cannon. And then we also watched the return of the car acrobatic team. That's Captain Terror, by the way. Dude's got branding.

Yes. And torch wielding acolytes, so, you know, what more do you need? But this was an interesting one because it almost showed a kind of redemption arc for Captain Terror and the car acrobatic team. Because it starts out with Speed gets a, a challenge from the car acrobatic team for a rematch, another alpine race.

And the car acrobatic team on mountaintops is saying, we're finally going to beat Speed Racer. And then we cut to the international spy and espionage and anarchy syndicate. Where we a whole lot of clips of previous Speed Racer episodes, this was a clip show. But they finally want to take out Speed Racer.

And it turns out that the spies sent the messages to both to set up this race so that they could take out Speed Racer and so that they could draw out. This Racer X, who they know is working for the International Criminal Secret Police. And we want to take him out because they've been thwarting our plans.

Don't worry, he's Interpol? But there is a redemption arc, sort of, because once they learn that all of this was a set up, and that our cars have been booby trapped with time bombs, and people are interfering with the, the, the honor of racing, they team up with Speed and Racer X. Drive their booby trapped cars to the spy's hideout and then run away, blowing the spy's hideout to kingdom come.

For 

Ian: once, the people who die in an episode of Speed Racer are not the people in cars. Yes. That's actually rare. So 

Matthew: that gave you kind of a taste of Speed Racer. That gave me a good idea. 

Ian: This gives you a good variety. There's plenty of episodes, plenty of races in between. Um, but this is the ones we really watch.

Yep. And that brings us to our main questions. Our 

Matthew: final questions for every episode is binge or no binge. Do you recommend that people go out of their way to watch Speed Racer? 

Ian: Honestly, I'm going to say yes, but I'm going to give it a copy out like I sometimes do. Speed Racer is an anime, for sure, but in terms of its writing and pacing, it's a radio drama.

They explain everything very well. It is always that heightened kind of description. Honestly, Speed Racer is some wonderful background watch. Like, you're folding laundry, you're doing some It's a fun thing to have engaged in the back of your mind, podcast. I love it, so I say binge, but I think it's not a you've got to be watching every single second of it kind of binge.

Matthew: I would go along with that as with a lot of anime at the time There's a lot of repetition. You can kind of look up every five or ten minutes listen to the rest of it and repetition 

Ian: in speed racer How else will I remember that racer x is secretly his long lost 

Matthew: brother? So, yeah, I would say the same thing binge It doesn't it's not a high commitment binge though 

Ian: Yeah, 

Matthew: but that's our brings us to our second question which is Revive, Reboot, or Rest in Peace.

Revive means either a prequel or sequel, something in the same continuity. Reboot is, let's start again with the idea. Rest in Peace is, even if we love it, even if we're gonna watch it again, we don't need more. Let it be what it is. So what do you think for this? Revive, Reboot, or Rest in Peace? 

Ian: Well, I always look at what's already been done, in terms of these things, and Speed Racer has had a lot of different versions.

Speed Racer itself, it's gotten many different comics, which have new stories about it. It had things like, , New Adventures of Speed Racer, which was an updated, or Speed Racer X, which was a different, updated remake of the series. Speed Racer Next Generation, which is kind of a sequel. It's very, very mid aughts in terms of it.

Yeah, it's like Speed and Trixie's son after they grow up. It's not even that, it's like a kid who is named after Speed, who's like a, an orphan who follows in his footsteps or something. And of course, we've got the Wachowski movie. Oh, you 

Matthew: mean the Wachowski Speed Racer Triumph of Global Cinema? Yes, that one.

Yes, that is such a good movie. Good movie. That is such a good movie. And it's, it is true to the original. And yet, it brings so much new to it. Very. Love that movie. Excellent movie. It's not perfect, but it's great. 

Ian: So, with all those in mind, We've still got that question of Revive, Reboot, Rest in Peace.

And my response is to say, I want to see a reboot. Because seeing Speed Racer, it is the Shonen Action anime that we watch. It is in the same sort of genres as our Barnardos are My Hero Academia's, are Belich's. It's got that same sort of protagonist and their plucky band facing new and interesting enemies every time.

This just happens to be with cars. And I think that some of those modern pacings and sensibilities could really do amazing stuff with this, with this property. Being able to do a speed racer, where making him a bit more of the underdog, learning from the same way he saw the wings on the car acrobatics team's vehicles and had them added to the Mach 5, seeing him build a set of tools.

Don't give him the whole wheel of that, of that controller to start. Add them piece by piece as it goes and you can have a really interesting show. So I'm hoping we get more Speed Racer and a, a new revival of it in that sense, a new reboot. 

Matthew: I would, I would agree. I think a reboot could be great. It would be hard to top.

The Wachowskis movie a triumph of global cinema, but it is to me. Okay, but yeah, I would say a reboot bringing that into the 21st century even farther. That would be cool 

Ian: Oh, yes, 

Matthew: and I were about out of time.

Thank you all for joining us here. You have been great. We really appreciate it. Hope you enjoyed this as much as we did. If you want more about the In Inter Millennium Media Project podcast, you can go to imm project.com or IMM project on YouTube. Over 150 back episodes, plus more bonuses. There's also a contact page on that if you want to let us know what you thought of this.

If you've got other ideas about, especially anime, about which I, for which I can force Ian to, uh, to watch these and let me know what he thinks about them. But thanks again. Really appreciate it. And also, on the way out, you'll IMMP t shirt. Free stickers! Thank you very much for joining us. Have a great convention.

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