Speed Buggy

Speed Buggy
Genre	Animation
Directed by	Charles A. Nichols
Voices of	Mel Blanc Michael Bell Arlene Golonka Phil Luther Jr.
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	16
Production
Executive producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Running time	30 minutes
Production company(s)	Hanna-Barbera Productions
Broadcast
Original channel	CBS
Original run	September 8 – December 22, 1973

Speed Buggy was a Saturday Morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975 on CBS. Similar in style to Hanna-Barbera's successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Speed Buggy followed the adventures of an anthropomorphic, fiberglass Dune Buggy, Speed Buggy (voiced by Mel Blanc), his driver Tinker (voiced by Phil Luther, Jr.), and Tinker's friends, Mark (voiced by Michael Bell) and Debbie (voiced by Arlene Golonka). The three young adults and their car traveled from race to race, often encountering spy capers and mysteries along the way. Speed Buggy's trademark quotes were always "Roger-Dodger!" and "Vroom-a-zoom-zoom!"

Though Speed Buggy (nicknamed Speedy by his friends) had a mind of his own, based on Disney's Herbie the Love Bug, he was vulnerable to commands given through a communicator/remote control device made by Tinker when he first built Speed Buggy. Speedy's friends rarely used the device to control his actions, using it mainly for its communication function, but criminals and other ne'er-do-wells would sometimes steal or duplicate the device and manipulate Speedy for their own purposes.

Sixteen 30-minute installments of Speed Buggy were produced in 1973. The show was a such a huge success that it aired on all three major networks. It aired first run on CBS until 1975. Reruns aired on ABC in January 1976 replacing Uncle Croc's Block, then on NBC, replacing the canceled McDuff, The Talking Dog, from November 27, 1976 until September 3, 1977 (thus completing the cycle of being on all three networks). Then was picked up by the USA Network for their Cartoon Express shows from 1982 to about 1990.

The first episode, "Speed Buggy Went That-A-Way", is featured on the DVD compilation Saturday Morning Cartoons: the 1970s Volume 1 released on May 26, 2009.

Episodes

SB-1. "Speed Buggy Went That-A-Way" (prod. #65-1, September 8, 1973)

SB-2. "Speed Buggy's Daring Escapade" (prod. #65-2, September 15, 1973)

SB-3. "Taggert's Trophy" (prod. #65-3, September 22, 1973)

SB-4. "Speed Buggy Falls in Love" (prod. #65-4, September 29, 1973)

SB-5. "Kingzilla" (prod. #65-5, October 6, 1973)

SB-6. "Professor Snow and Madam Ice" (prod. #65-6, October 13, 1973)

SB-7. "Out of Sight" (prod. #65-7, October 20, 1973)

SB-8. "Gold Fever" (prod. #65-8, October 27, 1973)

SB-9. "Island of the Giant Plants" (prod. #65-9, November 3, 1973)

SB-10. "Soundmaster" (prod. #65-11, November 10, 1973)

SB-11. "The Ringmaster" (prod. #65-10, November 17, 1973)

SB-12. "The Incredible Changing Man" (prod. #65-12, November 24, 1973)

SB-13. "Secret Safari" (prod. #65-13, December 1, 1973)

SB-14. "Oils Well That Ends Well" (prod. #65-14, December 8, 1973)

SB-15. "The Hidden Valley of Amazonia" (prod. #65-15, December 15, 1973)

SB-16. "Captain Schemo and the Underwater City" (prod. #65-16, December 22, 1973)

Other appearances

The Scooby-Doo detectives cross paths with Speed Buggy and the gang in a 1973 The New Scooby-Doo Movies episode "The Weird Winds of Winona". Mark's skin color is noticeably darker here.

• Speed Buggy and the gang guest starred in a September 29, 1973 episode of The New Scooby-Doo Movies, "The Weird Winds of Winona"; it was the only time that Mark, an Indian, was shown in a darker skin color.

• In 1975, Charlton Comics published a 9-issue series Speed Buggy comic book.

• In 1977, Speed Buggy and Tinker also competed in the "Laff-A-Lympics" as part of "The Scooby Doobies" team (where Tinker was voiced by Frank Welker) on Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics.

• On cable, repeats of this show aired on USA Cartoon Express in the 1980s and, from 1992 to the present day, Cartoon Network and its sister channel Boomerang.

• Speed Buggy appeared in a joke flashback in Stroker and Hoop, in which they think back to when they had caught a criminal named Beeffinger.

• Speed Buggy appeared at the end of an Johnny Bravo episode, "Bravo Dooby Doo", where Johnny meets Mystery Inc. He was voiced by Frank Welker.

• Characters from Speed Buggy appeared in the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "High Speed Buggy Chase" with Speed Buggy voiced by Maurice LaMarche, Tinker voiced by Chris Edgerly, and Debbie voiced by Nika Futterman.

External links

• Speed Buggy at the Internet Movie Database
• Speed Buggy at TV.com
• Cartoon Network: Dept. of Cartoons: Speed Buggy - cached copy from Internet Archives