49 Fun Facts About Speed Racer

What is Speed Racer's original Japanese title?

Mach GoGoGo. The comic version came first, launched in 1966 to show wary TV sponsors that a racing cartoon had an audience; the anime followed in 1967.

Who wrote and illustrated the original Speed Racer manga?

Tatsuo Yoshida. Superman comics brought to occupied Japan by American soldiers made him want to draw, and in 1959 he was hired to draw a Superman series for Japanese readers.

Which studio produced the 1967 Speed Racer anime?

Tatsunoko Production. Its name means 'seahorse', and its founders mortgaged their family land in Kyoto to turn a comics studio into an animation house.

Which two hit films gave Speed Racer's creator the idea for his racing hero?

Viva Las Vegas and Goldfinger. The hero got Elvis Presley's race-driver look, black pompadour included, and his car got gadgets in the spirit of James Bond's Aston Martin.

Speed Racer's Japanese surname honours which film actor?

Toshiro Mifune. In Japan the hero's family name is Mifune, and the American dub simply renamed him after its new title.

How did the original Speed Racer anime tell many of its biggest adventures?

As two-part stories. Starting with its opening adventure, the series often split a tale across two of its 52 episodes, using the extra time for deeper plots.

Which syndicator acquired the English-language rights and premiered Speed Racer in 1967?

Trans-Lux. The company had made its name with stock-ticker displays for trading floors, yet its small TV arm had the dubbed cartoon on American stations by the summer of 1967.

Who wrote, directed and voiced much of Speed Racer's English dub, including Speed and Racer X?

Peter Fernandez. Told only to 'Americanize' the show and handed very sparse translations, he made up much of the dialogue himself.

What is the name of Speed Racer's girlfriend?

Trixie. She was no cartoon damsel in distress: she worked on Speed's racing team as his spotter and often did the rescuing herself.

What is the name of Speed Racer's little brother?

Spritle. The writer of the American dub coined the name from 'sprite', a fitting label for a boy who never sits still.

Where do Speed Racer's kid brother and his pet chimp usually hide to tag along on adventures?

In his car's trunk. The two stowaways keep popping out of the Mach 5 in the middle of a race, and their mischief often ends up getting Speed out of trouble.

What weapon do Speed Racer's kid brother and his pet often use against threats?

A slingshot. In the show's opening adventure the pair pelt a gang of thugs with rocks, giving Speed the opening he needs to fight back.

What was Pops Racer's career before building race cars?

Champion wrestler. It is why the hot-tempered car builder can flatten the thugs who come after his family and his engine designs.

What is Racer X's real first name?

Rex. Behind the mask he is Speed's long-lost older brother, and he keeps throwing away his own wins to shield Speed from drivers out to hurt him.

What is Racer X's yellow number 9 car called?

Shooting Star. In one Alpine race the masked driver abandons it and fakes an injury so that he can ride beside a temporarily blinded Speed and steer him to the finish.

Which actress plays Speed's girlfriend in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

Christina Ricci. She said she wanted far more action for her character, having trained to do her own fights only to see much of that footage cut from the film.

Why did Speed Racer's older brother leave home before the series begins?

He fell out with Pops over a crash. Within sight of the finish he wrecked the car his father had built; told he was not ready to race, he left home to make it as a racer on his own.

How does Speed Racer deploy the Mach 5's gadgets?

Buttons A to G on the wheel. Pops built a custom device behind each letter, and the show stops in its second episode to walk viewers through all of them.

Which Mach 5 gadget lets Speed Racer leap obstacles?

Auto jacks. They were built so the mechanic could raise the car for quick repairs, but Speed also fires them at high speed to leap whatever is in his way.

Which actor was lined up to star in a live-action Speed Racer film in 1995 before it stalled?

Johnny Depp. Director Julien Temple had him ready to star, but the budget ran too high and the film sat in limbo for more than another decade.

Away from the track, what is Racer X's other line of work in the original Speed Racer anime?

Secret agent. As Agent 9 he battles an international spy ring, which finally works out that he is Speed's brother and rigs a race to lure him into the open.

Which vehicle does Speed's girlfriend often pilot during races to spot for him?

In the manga her father is president of Shimura Aviation, which explains why she has one.

Which police officer keeps asking Speed Racer for help catching criminals?

Inspector Detector. Whatever country the race is in, he turns up to recruit the teenage driver, which is how so many of Speed's races become crime stories.

What do Car Acrobatic Team cars use to leap gorges in Speed Racer?

Wings. The team sails across the chasms of the Alpine course on them, so Pops has to fit the Mach 5 with a pair before Speed can take the same jumps.

Who leads the Car Acrobatic Team, Speed Racer's rivals in the Alpine race?

Captain Terror. The skeleton-faced leader watches a team-mate's car blow up at the Alpine finish, and a year later brings the whole team back for a grudge race against Speed.

Which hotheaded Car Acrobatic Team driver taunts Speed Racer before the Alpine race?

Snake Oiler. He ignores a warning that his car is leaking oil, and it blows up within sight of the finish; the 2008 film brought him back among Speed's rivals.

In Speed Racer, what was the Mammoth Car built almost entirely from?

Stolen gold bars. Racing it abroad was meant to slip $50 million past the police, who searched every car and found nothing until it hit an oil tank and melted.

Which Speed Racer villain built the Mammoth Car?

Cruncher Block. The crime boss's train-like machine is over 200 yards long, and when Speed starts snooping he flies in himself to have the Mach 5 finished off.

In Speed Racer's first adventure, where does Pops hide the plans for his new engine?

On the car's windshield. He copies them there in invisible ink, so the gang after the plans ends up chasing the Mach 5 itself, until Speed smashes the glass with his helmet.

Which actress plays Mom Racer in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

Susan Sarandon. Mom is missing from many episodes of the cartoon and says little when she appears, but the film makes her the backbone of the family and its racing team.

In Speed Racer, what is the GRX?

A deadly engine housed in a gold car. It killed its inventor and four test drivers, so it was buried in his grave, until a rival team dug it up to win a Grand Prix.

In Speed Racer, what side effect does V-gas have on drivers of the GRX?

A phobia of speed after drinking water. The gas sharpens reflexes but leaves drivers desperately thirsty, and the inventor's son crashes fatally after a drink at a pit stop.

In Speed Racer, the car called the Melange is named after whose horse?

Napoleon. His warhorse was Marengo, the name the Japanese script used; the English dub garbled it, though the episode still shows a famous painting of the emperor on horseback.

The Speed Racer title sequence is an early anime example of which effect?

Bullet time. Speed freezes in mid-jump while the view turns from front to side; the animators struggled to draw the Mach 5, so its designer drew the tricky shot himself.

What is the title of the English theme song to the Speed Racer cartoon?

Go Speed Racer Go. The writer of the American dub reworked the Japanese melody and wrote the English words, and the 2008 film plays an updated version over its end credits.

In a 1996 TV commercial, Speed Racer swaps his sabotaged Mach 5 for which carmaker's hatchback?

Volkswagen. The GTI ad's pitch was nostalgia: the campaign counted some 40 million Americans, by then aged 21 to 38, who had grown up watching the cartoon.

Which composer scored the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

Michael Giacchino. He took the cartoon's theme tune apart 'like a custom built car', as one reviewer put it, and rebuilt its fragments as motifs running through the whole score.

Which network revived the original Speed Racer in late-night reruns in 1993?

MTV. The music channel ran the uncut 1960s episodes around midnight, and the reruns fed a 1990s revival that brought new comics, toys and an American remake.

The studio behind which hit cartoon made 1993's The New Adventures of Speed Racer?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Producer Fred Wolf gave the characters a 1990s makeover, but the remake was gone after 13 episodes.

What was the English version of the 1997 Japanese remake of Speed Racer called?

Speed Racer X. It reached Nickelodeon in 2002, but its run was cut short and the company dubbing it and the American rights holder ended up in court.

Who directed the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

The Wachowskis. The makers of The Matrix saw it lose money in cinemas in 2008, earning less worldwide than it cost, yet it has since gathered a cult following.

Who plays Speed in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

Emile Hirsch. A fan of the cartoon since he was six, he prepared by watching every episode and visiting a NASCAR speedway to meet champion Jimmie Johnson.

Who plays Pops Racer in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

John Goodman. He described Pops as deeply wary of the tycoon who wants to sign Speed yet willing to let his son decide, and the family backs Speed when he says no.

Who plays Racer X in the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film?

Matthew Fox. The Lost star took a role that Vince Vaughn had been set to play a few years earlier, in a version of the film that never got made.

Where was the 2008 live-action Speed Racer film shot?

Potsdam and Berlin. Germany's new film fund drew the production to Babelsberg Studios with its biggest grant to date, about $12 million, for a shoot done against green screen.

Which film beat Speed Racer to number one in May 2008?

Iron Man. Speed Racer opened with $18.6 million, behind it and the comedy What Happens in Vegas, and ended on about $94 million worldwide, well short of its $120 million budget.

In the 2008 Speed Racer film, what is the corrupt tycoon Royalton's racing car called?

The GRX. Its driver, Cannonball Taylor, uses a hidden and illegal spear-hook in the Grand Prix; Speed flips both cars to show it to the track cameras and puts him out of the race.

Which rapper's "Daytona 500" video is built from clips of the original Speed Racer cartoon?

Ghostface Killah. The track comes from his 1996 solo debut, for which producer RZA sped up Bob James's much-sampled 'Nautilus' into a careering beat.

Which producer's company had a live-action Speed Racer series ordered by Apple TV+ in 2022?

J. J. Abrams. His company landed the Apple order in 2022; years earlier he had been one of a string of writers hired for the long-stalled Speed Racer movie.