Hot Wheels

This was just one of the cartoons I would watch religiously as a kid. It never even occurred to me that it was a 30 minute commercial for the miniature cars. It and it's sister program "Skyhawks" had catchy '70's era theme songs which had my friends and me playing with our Hot Wheels cars and toy airplanes and singing the songs every time we let the cars roll down the track. The Hot Wheels show was almost the American version of Speed Racer and traced the exploits of the Hot Wheels race club from one race to the next. Looking back, I wonder how it held my attention for more than the first episode. But even after 30 years, I can still hear the theme song in my head... "Hot Wheels! Hot Wheels! Always racin', always chasin'... Keep a turnin' Hot Wheels! Please someone get it out of my head!!

A some of the other posters have mentioned, this and "Skyhawks" were probably the earliest examples of cartoon series that had a toy tie in. Of course, this was several years before shows like "Transformers", "He Man" and "GI Joe" would hit the airwaves and would make weekday afternoons into a virtual infomercial for various toys. However, this show was one of the first and probably one of the best. I still fondly remember it and I would look forward to watching it on Saturday morning. At least they had some cool animation to make you keep watching even if you didn't want the toys. Of course, I did get plenty of Hot Wheels cars as well as the tracks, but this cartoon really didn't have an impact on my decision. Besides, I was only three years old at the time.

This definitely is a lost classic.

I watched this avidly when it came out, my Father bought me my first Hot Wheel (Silhouette, blue) in '68, at a K-mart in Ann Arbor and had those same cars that were in the cartoon. My collection still grows, though not as fast as it did in the '60s, 70s. Latest acquisition, The Batman Vs Superman Batmobile.(always purchase two, and keep one in original packaging) Of course I was a child of the '60s-'70s, so the cartoon fit right in with the times. Of COURSE it was a commercial for the fans, but what about when G.I. Joe (the smaller figures, not the original 13 in. ones, of which I had a Navy guy) Why didn't the FTC shut THOSE down? They were in the very same category, along with GO bots, Transformers, My Little Pony, Care Bears, and all the other toys with cartoons bunch....I have given up on ANY governmental agency being FAIR, I guess....

This may the among the first of a dubious trend - a 30-minute toy commercial masquerading as a Saturday morning cartoon. Hot Wheels was a wildly popular toy car line, spawning several imitators (like Johnny Lightning). As a product, it was quite enjoyable, and a high-quality product that now is among the mega-collectible boomer toys. And yes, my mom in fact DID throw out my "wheel" carrying case with all my cars in it! But I digress

Hard to say how the cartoon came about. Did someone say, "hey, my kids love Hot Wheels cars, let's make a cartoon vaguely related to Hot Wheels and cash in", or alternatively, "hey, I had this great idea - why not make a cartoon about our toy, and maybe we can sneak it into the Saturday morning line up, advertise our toy, and also get paid for doing it!"

The cartoon itself was the typical, generic, limited animation that looked like it cost about $150 an episode to produce. The plot was nominally about a race car club competing in some unspecified series, with some rival "bad guy" car club as a frequent antagonist. Rule #1 about cartoons - if it's about a race, it's gonna stink! This cartoon did not prove to be the exception, it stunk out loud. Nonetheless, it worked pretty well and it was relatively popular for a while. Whether it ever sold any more Hot Wheels cars is unclear.

I vaguely recall an airplane-related sister series, but it's been too many years.

This is probably the first cartoon I can remember. I was 4 when this came out, and I remember the theme song to this day. The idea of a 30 minute commercial is quite normal by todays standards, since every cartoon out there now sells merchandise. I would like to see this come out on DVD now, because there are those of us out here that remember the cartoon, and would love to go back to 1969 and revisit this era, when it seems everything was better (at least for a kid).