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The Speed Racer media franchise of manga and animated cartoons started as the 1967 Japanese anime Mach Go Go Go (マッハGoGoGo).

The central character in the anime and Tatsuo Yoshida's manga was a young stock car driver named Gō Mifune (三船剛 Mifune Gō). The M logo on the hood of his race car and the front of his helmet stood for his family name Mifune, and the given name Go also happens to be how the number of the race car, five, is said in Japanese, and this also appears to explain why he has a letter G embroidered on his shirt.

English-language rights to Mach Go Go Go were acquired by an American syndicator a few years later where major editing and dubbing were undertaken. When the series emerged before U.S. television audiences as Speed Racer, fans were quickly drawn to its sophisticated plots involving fiendish conspiracies, violent action, and hard-driving racing. The main character Go Mifune was given the name Speed Racer in the English version.

The Mach Five, the car Speed Racer drove in the series, is a technological marvel containing useful equipment such as (among other things) jacks that can be used to jump over obstacles, buzz saws for negotiating jungles, a canopy that is both watertight and bullet resistant, batteries and oxygen systems that allow the car to be operated underwater, and tire enhancers that allow it to go into four-wheel-drive mode. A robotic homing pigeon could also be launched from the vehicle to send and retrieve messages and items. All of these gadgets were easily deployed by pressing a button marked 'A' through 'G' on the steering wheel hub. The "nyock nyock" sound effect played whenever the car jumped through the air is instantly recognizable to the show's fans.

Speed Racer had a younger brother named Spritle (Kurio Mifune, 三船くりお Mifune Kurio) who along with his pet chimpanzee Chim-Chim (Senpei) constantly got into mischief and hid together in the trunk of the car. Other regular characters included Sparky (Sabu サブ), the company mechanic; Speed's father, Pops (Daisuke Mifune, 三船大介 Mifune Daisuke); and his mother, Mom (Aya Mifune, 三船アヤ Mifune Aya); and also Speed's girlfriend Trixie (Michi Shimura, 志村ミチ Shimura Michi). Trixie has legs that seem to be about 6 feet long and frequently wears pink. She flies around in a helicopter during each race and advises Speed Racer via a radio link to the Mach 5.

A frequent recurring character, driving car number nine (the "Shooting Star"), is the enigmatic Racer X (覆面レーサー), a mysterious soldier of fortune whose secret identity is that of Rex Racer (Ken'ichi Mifune), Speed's older brother, who years earlier had a falling out with the family, and left for undisclosed reasons.

There was a brief revival of Speed Racer in 1994 with new episodes set contemporaneously, and also a more recent series, Speed Racer X, bearing a date of 2002, which was played on Nickelodeon's Slam, however was discontinued the following year with Slam's demise.

Hot Wheels Toys produced a miniature replica of the Mach Five called the Second Wind.

Speed Racer was the first anime successful in the United States. Many real-life race car drivers became fans of the show. The title character was "interviewed" in a humorous series of promos for auto racing that ran on ESPN.

The early dubbing made Speed Racer famous for the "fast" dialogue of the characters in the show.

The Speed Racer characters appeared into an animated commercial for the for the Volkswagen GTI. In the ad, entitled "Sabotage", Speed drives a GTI to victory after the Mach 5 is disabled. The ad also incorporated the Matrix-style rotating freeze frame shot from the cartoon's ending credits, with the GTI replacing the Mach Five in the shot.

External link

• Official Speed Racer Website (http://www.speedracer.com/)

ja:マッハGoGoGo