Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch

This was one the many quaint and amusing cartoon shows produced in the 70s. The art was so-so, among 2nd to the last American made cartoons.

I watched this show as it was aired on its Saturday morning cartoon slot. (yes i am old.)

One of the lesser known things about this show is that character known as Chopper (voiced by Frank Welker) seem to carry-on beyond this show. Chopper (aka a talking, winter hat wearing chopper motorcycle) and leader of gang had this particular speak-problem. A lisp when he talked that sounded like a mechanical "cha-pa" kind noise, sounding like a motor sputter. This was some how carried over to the a early 1990s cartoon character in show named "Bonic Six" and again character's name was Chopper.

The 2006 Pixar movie, Cars, has strong resemblance to this old cartoon.

More than 30 years before the movie Cars came on the scene, there was Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch. This Saturday morning cartoon from Hanna-Barbera was different from anything produced. There were no animals or humans, just talking motor vehicles. The show centered around wheelie, a red, non speaking stunt car and his girlfriend Rota Ree who battled an evil motorcycle gang The Chopper Bunch. Chopper, the leader tried to pursue Rota with no avail and the gang's attempts to wreck Wheelie always misfired and usually landed the bad cycles in trouble.

I thought the show was one of the most original ideas at that time but like many other cartoons, it suffered from repetitive plots. To make matters worse, it was opposite Bugs Bunny and ran out of gas after one season. The voice work was outstanding, including Frank Welker as both Wheelie and Chopper, Paul Winchell as hyper Revs, Lennie Weinrib as dimwitted Hi-Riser, Judy Strangis, the only female regular as Rota and HB veteran Don Messick as Scrambles who kept telling Chopper "I told you! I told you!" Even though Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch is rarely seen on TV, it deserves to be released someday on DVD. I told you. I told you.

In addition to the previous post, Wheelie was not a motorcycle but a car who could only talk by sounding his horn and his girlfriend was a car as well but she could talk.The Chopper Bunch was all talking motor cycles like a bike gang but with bikes only and without the bikers.

I thought this show was unusual but fun for children and is better than what kids see today.

I saw this one a couple of times on Cartoon Network's weekly "Boomerang" preview, and one can say that it's pretty bizarre but in a nice way. The show stars a motorcycle named Wheelie who can talk only by making noises, and his girlfriend whom is also a motorcycle. They usually run into the Chopper Bunch who are a trio of bad motorcycles who usually cause trouble for our cute couple. That's pretty much all I can remember about the show for now.

One thing that kinda bugs me is that Wheelie can't talk with words, but his girlfriend, and the Chopper Bunch can. That seems to bother me, but oh well.

This show gets a 8/10.