I first saw this in the 70s at some point and it was different. I had said that Jonny Quest was different and it was but this one…was completely different than anything I had seen. It was my first viewing of Japanese Anime. Speed Racer was one of the first Japanese anime cartoons to make it stateside back in the 1960s. The show originally called Mach Go Go Go reached millions of kids around the world while in syndication. My first thought while watching it while I was older…this was NOT Hanna-Barbera.
I discovered Speed Racer and Jonny Quest at the same time. I would watch it at my cousin’s house and was blown away by the different animation.
Speed Racer (Go Mifune) is the young driver of the Mach 5, an incredible supercar designed by his father “Pops” Racer (Daisuke Mifune). Speed would race dangerous routes against dangerous people and come out on top with his “girlfriend” Trixie (Michi Shimura) trailing him in a helicopter and his little brother Spritle (Kurio) and his pet chimp Chim-Chim (Sanpei) frequently stowing away in the trunk.
Through the years there have been remakes of the show in the 90s and a movie in 2008 which was not received well. It was a groundbreaking show in the US and opened the door for Japanese Anime afterward.
I still catch the show when I can.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/SpeedRacer
PowerPop... An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture 
I remember the animation being different in this cartoon. I did not know it was from Japan. I also remember watching it just before I went to school.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You and I watched it…Jonny Quest also…they came on back to back.
LikeLike
That’s what I remember. Not knowing it was from Japan and how weird the animation was. Like why weren’t their lips matching the words?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes and all of the ooohhh ahhhhhs…kinda confused me but I grew to like it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I never watched this cartoon, but the way you started off this post made me think of that song Maneater by Hall & Oates.
LikeLiked by 1 person
In all fairness, the movie was awful. Casting Susan Sarandon and John Goodman, who were old enough to be Speed Racer’s grandparents, as his parents was kind of a dumb move. The show was great: WFLD in Chicago, which at the time had a difficult time capturing even a small piece of the after-school market from WGN (they had just gone on the air in ’66), started running it, and pulled a significant number of kids away from reruns of “The Mickey Mouse Club.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes the movie was very colorful…I will give it that…but that is it.
As a kid I was a bit confused at the show at first with the oooohs, ahhhs…but I grew to love it.
LikeLike
Have long hard of it & am familiar with what he looks like but never saw it. P robably would have been quite fun if I had back in the day!
LikeLike
You know what I always wondered? When he pressed the G button on the steering wheel and the blades came out the front of the car, how could he just drive through a forest? For one, when he was slicing through the trees he would have been leaving tree stumps, and some of those damn trees would have fell on the car!
LikeLiked by 2 people
You know…you have a point about the stumps!
LikeLiked by 1 person