Speed Racer Zooms To Nicktoons!
By Ryan 'The Rican with the Irish name' McLelland on June 20, 2007
One of the films I'm looking most forward to is the Wachowski brothers Speed Racer project. The Matrix guys doing a race car movie based on the greatest Manga of all time!?!?!?!
Lionsgate, sensing a monster hit, has announced a partnership with Nickelodeon in launching an all-new Speed Racer cartoon! The first season will feature 26 episodes and will air on Nick's all-cartoon channel Nicktoons.
In the new franchise, young Speed Racer enters a racing academy for the fastest kids on Earth -- and discovers that he's the son of the legendary (and original series') Speed Racer. He also finds out in the first few episodes that he has a brother -- the new Racer X -- whom he never knew existed.
Speed Racer wows the school with his Mach 6 (an updated version of the original show's Mach 5) -- the most advanced vehicle in the universe, which doesn't run on gas. Speed and X team together to prevent villains from stealing the Mach 6 and to find out who's behind the mysterious disappearance of their father.
Other characters returning include original Speed Racer's younger brother Spritle, now headmaster of the racing academy. And chimpanzee Chim-Chim is now a mechanical robot.
A robot??? Why change the formula when you can have a CHIMP ONBOARD!!!!
Ken Katsumoto is the executive vice president of family entertainment at Lionsgate. On Speed Racer zooming back on the small screen he said, "It seemed like the right time to do a revival. When this opportunity arose to revive such a classic property, we jumped. What we're hearing from licensees is they love the longevity of a series brand. This franchise deserves more than a 10-week box office run. It deserves a five-year TV run."
Every three episodes of "Speed Racer" will operate together as a mini-movie but will also be divisible into a daily strip.
Now this isn't the first time a revival has been attempted. While the original 1967 series successfully made it here twice (MTV relaunched the series in the ninties to wide acclaim) a 1993 'New Adventures of' and a 2002 'Speed Racer X' both bombed.
Here's hoping they do it right this time. Hopes they'll bring back one of the great chimps of all time have now fallen to an all-time low.
