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?"

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.

Jack Webb apparently had a pretty good sense of humor. He once did a "Dragnet' style comedy sketch with Johnny Carson on the "Tonight' show.Years earlier, he let Stan Freberg use the orchestra who worked on Webb's radio show when Freberg recorded 'St George and the Dragonet'.

Frank Welker used the same sputtering engine Chopper vocals for Schlepcar's (love that name) sputtering vocals for the live-action "Wonderbug" for Sid and Marty Krofft.

Welker also used the same Chopper voice (without the sputtering) as the leader of another Chopper group...
Bog, the leader of the Troll Choppers motorcycle gang in "The Trollkins."

Paul Winchell's spoonerism-prone Revs's voice was an imitation of radio comedian Hugh Herbert. Winchell used the same voice as the Scrubbing Bubble in the tv commercials for Dow kitchen sink cleaner.

Wheelie was a show i thought would not get the chance to see. Upon my earliest internet days discovering "oh wow there was so many more i had no yet seen" Wheelie was one of them. Until one day CN showed a super chunk of Wheelie on a saturday afternoon. And i got my first taste of Wheelie and he was cool.

I like this show, the Chopper Bunch is a fun bunch of antagonists. Scrambles "i told ya! I told ya!" is funny and during the end where Revs and Hi-Riser join in make it a nice coda. I have to say though the fact that each show had three wheelie segments to be felt a little strange. I had gotten used to three different segments or one in the middle. So the chance to see three of the same was just something different. The parody segment with Tough and Fishtail seemed like what i would have expected to be the middle segment but only one was made.

All in all, this is a fun show that made a fun motor vehicle world. Even though it was not the first to do so, nor the last (even if some of our annoying very lazily researchers seem to have neglected this fact) this show had a good formula. Wheelie re-runs hit the mark for me. CHARGE!