The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The Wacky Races Handbook

Egmont

This happens every year around this time. One of the lovely things about doing the reviews here at the FPI blog is that people send me their books for review. Usually, given that we’re pretty well known as a comics blog, they’re comics and graphic novels to look at. But then, just occasionally, there’s the out of the blue, plain weird review submissions I get sent – most often around this time of year with Christmas is fast approaching. Books that have no connection with comics whatsoever but have some vague connection with the TV/pop culture side of FPI.

And the Wacky Races Handbook is definitely one of those. It appeared in the post earlier this week, part of the “Hanna-Barbera Official Trivia Collection” that Egmont have out for Christmas.

I imagine they all follow the same basic template – lots of pictures, basic text providing a bit of behind the scenes stuff, a bit of trivia, you all know the sort of thing I’m looking at here. Without being mean, it’s a little nothing of a book, designed for that Christmas stocking filler audience. Which may well be you.

(A taste of the design work and the style of The Wacky Races Handbook – click on the pic for a full size, readable version)

It’s certainly a fun little nothing of a book, diverting enough, nicely designed, with a few mildly interesting text pieces and lots screen-grabbed artwork interspersed with some genuinely rather lovely art pieces – these might be from the original series, it might be just for this book – sadly, with no real credits aside from designer Cali Hughes, we shall never know.

There are pages pages devoted to the cast of Wacky Races, all those familiar names to take you right back to your childhood; The Slag Brothers, Blubber Bear, The Gruesome Twosome, Peter Perfect and more. There are blueprints of the various wonderfully daft cars involved, a quick pitstop to look at Penelope and her troubles with a certain wonderful Hooded Claw and a full listing of all 34 races/episodes, complete with a final driver’s championship table – you’ll have to buy the book for that, my lips are sealed as to the eventual winners.

(Two of those rather nice bits of artwork that appear occasionally throughout the book. No idea who the artist is, or indeed whether this is something produced just for this book or for the original cartoon series)

As you might expect, the real stars of the show get more pages than anyone else, with both Dick Dastardly and Muttley featuring throughout – a few of Dick’s dastardly devices, his tamperer’s toolkit, a look back on their days in the air chasing that bloody pigeon and even an interview with Muttley- “Medals, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gimme, gimme, gimme!“.

This Wacky Races Handbook certainly triggered the warm, contented feeling we get when looking back on younger, carefree days epitomised by our remembrances of a few great cartoons. I was born in 71, so never saw the Wacky Races (’68-’70) or Stop That Pigeon (’69-’71) the first time round, but have so many happy memories of seeing the episodes on children’s TV in endless repeat. I have learned one very important thing from the book though – seems what I always thought was called “Stop That Pigeon” was correctly called “Dastardly and Muttley in their flying machines” – who knew?

The thing is, with anything like this, your interest in the book is only as much as your memory of the TV show itself. There’s definitely nothing in here to better the cartoons themselves, and I have to admit, halfway through the book, I actually stopped reading and headed over to You Tube for these:

And in just those few minutes, I got everything I needed for my nostalgia fix, and they were far more enjoyable than the book, no matter how well designed, no matter how temporarily amusing it might be. As with all of these types of books, published on the back of some other property, it’s no substitute for the original.

But it is perfect for it’s purpose. We used to have a Giles book every year that did exactly what this does, other families have something on The Simpsons or The Guiness Book Of World Records that they use to while away the tired, flat hours of Christmas Day between the final mouthful of turkey and the start of Doctor Who. And this is one of those things, a perfect little stocking filler to keep that difficult to buy for Uncle of a certain age quite happy.