Speed Buggy

Speed Buggy was broadcast on CBS as part of their Saturday morning children's lineup between September 8 and December 22, 1973.[21][36] Before being cancelled, it continued to air regularly until August 31, 1974. After its original run, CBS included reruns of Speed Buggy in their children-oriented television blocks, it was broadcast from February 4, 1978, to September 2, 1978, and September 18, 1982, to January 29, 1983. It also played on both ABC and NBC, when they acquired syndication rights for the series.[37][38] ABC aired it at noon in from September 6, 1975, to September 4, 1976. When NBC abruptly canceled McDuff, the Talking Dog after its November 20, 1976, airing Speed Buggy aired on NBC in reruns from November 27, 1976, to September , 1977.[37][38][39] According to The A.V. Club's Will Harris, the series was successful and had a large fan base because it aired on all three major television networks in the 1970s.[11]

During the 1980s, the series was rerun as part of the USA Network's USA Cartoon Express block, and Cartoon Network has broadcast Speed Buggy on several occasions since its initial launch in 1992.[40][41] As part of a Valentine's Day event in February 2007, sister channel Boomerang aired the program alongside other cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, The Jetsons, and Dexter's Laboratory.[42] The episode "Speed Buggy Went That-a-Way" was featured on the Warner Bros. Presents DVD compilation Saturday Morning Cartoons – 1970's Volume 1 and released on May 26, 2009.[43] As part of the Warner Bros. Home Entertainment's Archive Collection, the complete Speed Buggy series was made available on DVD as a four-disc set.[3]

In retrospective reviews, critics saw the series as similar to the Scooby-Doo franchise. Aubrey Sitterson of Geek.com included Speed Buggy on their unranked list of "favorite Scooby-Doo knockoffs". He noted similarities between Speedy and Scooby-Doo's "Mystery Machine", and joked that Tinker is "basically just Shaggy in a jumpsuit". However, he hinted that Speed Buggy's success could have been derived from its shared storylines as seen on Josie & the Pussycats.[5] Similarly, Harris from The A.V. Club agreed and wrote that the main difference between the two shows was that Speed Buggy "substitut[ed] racing for rock 'n' roll". He also claimed that the main character "confirm[ed] that sidekicks don't always have to be animals".[11] Speed Buggy and the Scooby-Doo gang would be featured in a crossover episode ("The Weird Winds of Winona") in the second installment of the Scooby-Doo franchise, The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972-1973).[44]

Several comparisons were made between the show and other works created by Hanna-Barbera. David Mansour, author of From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century, wrote in his book that Speed Buggy shared several characteristics with Hanna-Barbera's Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!. He speculated that Mark was the "Freddy-esque handsome brain", Debbie was the "Daphne-esque pretty girlfriend", and Tinker was the "Shaggy-esque mechanic and driver". Furthermore, he considered Speed Buggy to be one of the most "famous dune buggies of pop culture" alongside the buggies in The Funky Phantom, The Banana Splits, and the Big Jim toy line.[13] In a retrospective view of older cartoons, the staff at MeTV included the show on their list of "15 Forgotten Cartoons from the Early 1970s You Used to Love".[45] On a more negative note, author David Perlmutter found Hanna-Barbera's use of "humanized automobiles" to be too predictable and repetitive.[46]

Speed Buggy would not be the last time Hanna-Barbera incorporated automobiles into animation. Both Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch and Wonder Wheels also featured cars that were able to talk and act like humans.[47] Perlmutter grouped the three shows together, calling them a "trilogy".[46] Wonderbug, an occasional live-action segment on ABC's The Krofft Supershow (1976-1978), featured three teenagers and a talking dune buggy and often drew comparisons to Speed Buggy and The Love Bug.[48] Also compared to the show was Adult Swim's Mike Tyson Mysteries, with Rolling Stone's James Montgomery calling it an ode to classic cartoons like Speed Buggy, Scooby-Doo, and Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.[49]

The characters in Speed Buggy would also be featured in a 1973 Milton Bradley board game, where players would race Speed Buggy and other buggies in a fictionalized version of Baja California.[2] Speed Buggy would also make cameo appearances in later cartoons, including Johnny Bravo, My Life as a Teenage Robot, Invader Zim, the 2020 Animaniacs series, South Park, Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, and Futurama.[11]

In 2018, an updated version of Speed Buggy appeared in the DC comic book The Flash/Speed Buggy Special.[50]

The characters make a brief cameo at the end of the second episode of Scooby-Doo and Guess Who?, which also is a crossover with The Funky Phantom.

Speed Buggy and Tinker both appear in the HBO Max original series Jellystone! with Tinker voiced by Dana Snyder.

The characters appeared in the 2021 CW special Scooby-Doo, Where Are You Now![51]

• Erickson, Hal (September 1, 1998). Sid and Marty Krofft: A Critical Study of Saturday Morning Children's Television, 1969-1993 (illustrated, reprinted ed.). McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786430931.
• Erickson, Hal (August 1, 1995). Television Cartoon Shows, an Illustrated Encyclopedia (illustrated ed.). McFarland & Company. ISBN 0786400293.
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• Mansour, David (June 1, 2011). From Abba to Zoom: A Pop Culture Encyclopedia of the Late 20th Century. Andrew McMeel Publishing. ISBN 978-0740793073.
• McNeil, Alex (1996). Total Television: The Comprehensive Guide to Programming from 1948 to the Present (fourth, revised ed.). Penguin Books. ISBN 0140249168.
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• Catalog of Copyright Entries: Third Series (third ed.). United States Copyright Office. 1975.