Maximum Cartoon Overdrive.

Thirty-two years before "Cars," there was "Wheelie And The Chopper Bunch."

At the time, I considered this Hanna-Barbera's most unique series. Not a single human or funny animal. Every character was a car or some other vehicle with human traits. And they all spoke, except for Wheelie, who honked his horn, and flashed words and pictures on his windshield.

I noticed that the cycle Revs was also called Engymes. Can't understand that. And every time, High Riser did something stupid, I thought, "What did Chopper ever recruit him for?"
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Wheelie and his girlfriend Rota Ree dealt with the Chopper Bunch, a gang of four motorcycles. But there were other antagonists like Dr. Cycle and his evil alter ego Mr. Ride, Dr. Clankenstein and his monster car Moto, and the oil-sucking vampire car Dragula. Of course, there were also friendly vehicles who lent Wheelie a helping tire, like the rickshaw Carfucius, and the Gendarme, who imprisoned the Chopper Bunch in the Bastille. Aside from Wheelie, my favorite character was Scrambles. I liked imitating his cries of "I told ya! I told ya!" And Wheelie himself held a variety of jobs, from volunteer fireman to delivery car to farmhand. Why, I even nicknamed every red VW I saw on the road "Wheelie." Just kidding.

But my favorite episode of this short-lived series was "Dragster Net," in which paddy wagon Captain Tough delivered a Friday-style narration as he and police motorcycle Officer Fishtail set out to track down and arrest a mysterious thief. It even parodied the "Mark VII" logo seen at the end of each of Jack Webb's productions. Webb himself must have loved this one, for to my knowledge, he never filed a lawsuit against HB.

When the show was cancelled in 1975, I couldn't figure out why, since it had more originality than other series. At any rate, NBC didn't buy any new shows from HB until 1977. But that's another thread for another day.

Trivia Question 54: Which of the following vehicles was never seen in any episode of the series? A. Tractor. B. Mail Truck. C. Jeep. D. Pirate Ship.

Answer: D.

I watched syndicated reruns of this H-B series on Sunday mornings in 1984, and it was okay to see it then. But after that, I realized I was never a fan of this series. I am not a fan of cartoons that do not involve humans. I can handle talking dogs if there are humans in the cast, but I am not a fan of series involving just talking vehicles. Same principle applies for "Pac-Man" - even though it had only one human, a villain - but all the other characters were either ghost monsters of Pac-Man like characters and the environments involved strictly geometric shapes.

Though, oddly enough, I do like "The Get Along Gang" (DiC production) despite that all characters are animals and non-humans.