Tonight's cartoon pick, Speed Racer: Peak nostalgia, pure silliness and a wildly unhinged hero at the wheel

I was around seven, when I first watched Speed Racer. You don’t have to fathom much: It focuses on a boy named  Speed. He’s a racer.

And he drives the Mach 5, a car that’s practically sentient. There’s nothing that the car didn’t possess that wouldn’t miraculously ensure its survival. He would press an ominous red button, and it would ‘shield him’ from people shooting at him during the race (Yes, this would happen too, cheer for the joy of a cartoon).

That car was meant for all terrains, all climates---rocky cliffs, to deserts, to somehow managing in water once, if I remember correctly.

But then again, at that age, you’ll believe anything. The way it was written, the Mach 5 might as well have been forged alongside the Eleven Rings—and in some alternate universe, Sauron could’ve been chasing after it too. Anyway, this car wasn’t just a vehicle; it was practically a full-fledged character in Speed’s world.

The Mach 5 carried him through races that stretched across countries (don’t ask questions, just roll with it). Along the way, mysteries unraveled, adventures exploded, and Speed often got a helping hand from the mysterious 'Racer X'—who, of course, turned out to be his runaway brother. Sometimes it was “the most dangerous race ever,” other times the longest one, complete with car chases, swimming, and, if memory serves, even a plane.

And, sometimes these adventures would find him without actual races too. You would probably see Speed stopping on some abandoned terrain about a woman who had lost her memory and now believed she was Cleopatra. I remember that was my favourite episode as I was particularly stressed: Speed had to go and look for a priceless artifact in time and race back, before his girlfriend Trixie is er…fed to the fire. She wasn’t of course, he arrived in time.

As you can see, Speed Racer, for a seven-year-old was addictive and particularly stressful. You never knew who would turn up on those races, or, what he would end up doing. But what really stuck wasn’t the Mach 5’s absurd Swiss Army knife features—it was Speed himself. It’s because he was such an aggressive, unlikeable character who would invariably quarrel with his friends and family.

The good news was that I clearly wasn’t the only one who felt this: Years later, I discovered clips of Speed Racer on YouTube, where fans poked fun at his sociopathic tendencies. For instance, in one clip, a harrowed Trixie begs him to lose a race as his opponent’s daughter is really unwell and needs the money. A stern Speed snaps back: “Doesn’t matter to me what his reasons are! It wouldn’t be fair if I let him win.” Trixie begs and pleads but Speed, actually speeds up, and loses the race. And there’s another one where Speed jumps out of a crashing plane with all parachutes to make sure that his enemy doesn’t survive.

It doesn’t help that Speed delivers his lines in a brittle, almost scolding tone. Honestly, I’d probably sob harder if he jumped out of nowhere and barked, “Stop crying, it won’t do you any good—now get started on your work!” And since it’s a 1970s cartoon, he said everything in such a breathless rush you’d likely take him seriously, too.

But that was Speed Racer—a baffling fragment of childhood, yet a fragment all the same. Maybe someday we’ll have cars that rocket us off cliffs at the push of a button. Until then, a rewatch is worth it—if only to marvel at how wildly unhinged kids’ cartoons used to be.