The show was a parody of the movie Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965).
The German version had the main characters' names changed to Fliegbert von Sichthofen and Meutrich. In the German dub of 'Wacky Races', their original names were kept.
Unusually for a Hanna-Barbera show, only two voice actors (Paul Winchell and Don Messick) provided all the characters' voices.
The show's Hungarian dubbed version, titled "Süsü keselyük" ("Dopey Vultures") was one of the few American cartoons allowed to air on television in communist Hungary. It inspired the name of the comedy puppet show Süsü, a sárkány kalandjai (1977) ("The Adventures of Süsü the Dragon"), which was based on a comedic Serbian radio play. When translating the radio play from Serbian to Hungarian, writer István Csukás suggested naming the main character Süsü after this series. The radio play was then adapted into a Hungarian puppet show that became one of the most popular pieces of Hungarian entertainment and far overshadowed the series that inspired its title.