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Speed Buggy
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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.
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Encyclopedia
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 (CBS, NBC and ABC) until 1979, then was picked up for syndication until 1983.
Most likely due to the shows inspiration, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, the character Tinker shares many visual likenesses to Scooby's beatnik best friend, Shaggy. Also, there are some similar character traits between Mark and Fred Jones, and Debbie appears to be very similar to Daphne in multiple ways.
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
* 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.
- 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.
External links
- - cached copy from Internet Archives
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