Saturday. 7.30am
It's waaaay too early to be up on a Saturday, but I am.

So I'm watching Wacky Races on the Cartoon Network (there's sod all else on, and NPR doesn't get good until 10am).

I haven't seen Wacky Races for years, not since childhood in fact, but it's all coming flooding back.

The first thing that strikes me about it, is that Dick Dastardly wasn't nearly as dastardly as I remember. I mean, he would never qualify to be a Republican politician or get a seat on the board of Enron. And unlike those dastardly folk, he gets his comeuppance soon after every single wrong-doing.

If anything, Penelope Pitstop is just as evil. Throughout the race, she constantly uses the fact that she's "just a woman", to get other contestants to help her out of a jam, after her abysmal driving has caused her to get stuck. How many women, even in this day and age, have we met who've done just the same.

Unlike modern day motor racing, there's clearly no check on competitor's cars being unmodified. Prof. Pat Pending would never survive in a modern day rally, with that car that converts into a whole bunch of different shapes and vehicles. And BTW, someone should tell him that the balding mullet look isn't working.

You can tell that it's an old cartoon, because if it took place this year, rather than the late 1960's, the Army Surplus Special would win every race, due to the Republican administration's insane increase in military spending.

Peter Perfect - gay. In the closet, very butch, but gay.

The most realistic entrant is the Arkansas Chuggabug. From everything I've been told about Arkansas, it's still on the money, and Luke and Blubber Bear are probably still fine tuning the Chuggabug. Of course since the cartoon was made, Blubber Bear went on to become President of the United States, until an unfortunate incident with a cigar.

The Ant Hill Mob are an odd lot. OK, maybe compared to the Gruesome Twosome or the Slug Brothers, they looked normal, but really... four-foot tall mobsters? Purrleease. How did their extortion racket work? Pay up, or they bite your ankles?

I wonder who'd be competing in a modern-day remake of Wacky Races? The Colorado entrant would be a soccer mom driving a Ford Excursion, badly. She'd probably be competing against The Lunkhead Brothers, driving their Ford F150 pickup, which has never hadd anything more heavy duty than golf clubs in the back.

The Californian entrant would be driving a Lexus or a BMW, and would have no fucking idea whatsoever on how to drive it it rains or snows.

Of course if you commute on I25, you may be for forgiven for thinking that they're already filming Wacky Races, every day, during the drive home from work.

I don't know about you, but many's the time when I've been going into the I25/I225 interchange, gotten cut up by some asshole in a 4Runner, and thought, "Drat, and triple-drat!"

I look over at Miles, who's glaring at the 4Runner, and muttering, "Sackenfrackenwrackbastard4Runnnerdriver."

One of these days, I'll give him a medal.