MATTEL'S SPEED RACER

By: Jeff Cope

Let’s get something out of the way right off the bat.

I love Speed Racer.

I’ll be turning 43 this summer. I was born in 1965, just a few short years before Speed Racer began airing on American television in 1967. I used to watch Speed Racer every morning (right after Kimba, the White Lion) before heading off to pre-school and, later, elementary school.

I was enthralled. As cheesy and hokey as the old series may seem now, there was nothing like it on TV. I was captivated. Speed has held a soft spot in my heart ever since.

Speed Racer merchandise has been spotty over the years, especially in the action figure category.  ReSaurus took a valiant stab around 1999, producing two series of figures and a wonderful Mach 5 (that has gone on the be reused by both Toynami and Art Asylum).

But this year, Speed Racer is finally getting the big screen treatment from the Wachowski Brothers (creators of The Matrix Trilogy, as if you didn’t already know that). Last year Mattel announced they had picked up the toy rights to the movie, which seemed like a natural fit given the Hot Wheels connection.

If you’ve been to a Toys R Us or Target lately, you may have noticed that Mattel has produced a veritable tidal wide of product tying into the movie. There’s a little something for everyone from die-cast cars in a variety of scales to action figures and action figure scaled vehicles.

I recently got our hands on a sample of the figure-based product and got to play around with them a bit. This is a fun toyline!

The action figures themselves are definitely on the smaller side, clocking in at around 3.5”. They still pack some nice articulation: cut neck, ball & socket shoulders, elbows, ball & socket hips and knees. It’s a nice amount of articulation for figures at this size. I was able to get Racer X into some nice action poses.

There are three core vehicle/figure assortments. There’s action figure two-packs that come with a mini-vehicle, car and driver sets, and deluxe car and driver sets.

All the cars feature transforming battle features like launching discs, extending blades, firing missiles and more.

Vehicles include the GRX and its driver, Cannonball Taylor. The front end of the car opens up and extends to reveal a missle launcher.

Racer X’s classic Shooting Star features a pop-up missle launcher. Racer X also has a deluxe version available featuring a different version of his car (not shown) with a launching mini vehicle.

Taejo Togokhan brightens up the raceway with his bright red Street Racer which also features a pop-up missle launcher in the rear section of the car.

Of course, the line wouldn’t be complete without Speed Racer himself and his famous Mach 5.  There’s a basic and a deluxe version of the iconic race car available. The basic version features a split-open hood section and firing disc-launcer, whereas the deluxe has a buzz saw that pops out of the front section, and the Mach 5 also launches a mini-vehicle (sort of a souped-up golf-cart) with it’s own missile launcher.

The big winner of the line is the Battle Rig and Mach 6 playset. The Battle Rig is a big race car hauler. Part RV. Part battlestation. The vehicle opens up to reveal the Mach 6 (any of the other cars would fit, as well) and an array of snap-on weaponry to upgrade the Mach 6 into a car worthy of Mad Max! The Battle Rig is, simply, a blast!

The action figure two-pack/mini-vehicle assortment nets fans a variety of characters from the movie including Speed (two versions), Racer X, Trixie, Spritle & Chim Chim, Pops Racer, a Ninja, Mr. Royalton, Taejo Togokhan and Snake Oiler. The Trixie/Snake Oiler two-pack is currently shipping at one per case in some cases, so it may be tougher to find for awhile. It makes for a nice selection of action figures available from the movie. There’s still plenty of other characters that could be made, so hopefully we’ll see a line expansion later.  I’d love to see characters like Sparky and Mom Racer get the figure treatment, along with some of the other race car drivers.

The mini-vehicles themselves seem to be an updated homage to the end credit sequence of the original animated series with it’s variety of crazy vehicles.

As previously mentioned, this is a fun line. It’s not a line that will necessarily appeal to the hard-core, 6-inch, super-articulation, hyper-detail crowd. It’s definitely targeted, like many of the great toylines, right at kids. But it works. And, for older collectors, it seems to tap into a bit of nostaligia not only for Speed Racer but for Kenner’s old MASK line from the 1980s.

I had a blast actually playing with these toys on the floor of our living room along with my 3-1/2 year old daughter. She loved them! Her giggles of joy and surprise when a car fired a missle was precious. That’s fun you can’t put a price on right there.

In closing we wanted to show how the new figures compare to previous Speed Racer figures from ReSaurus and Art Asylum (unfortunately, we don’t have the Toynami figure to show), and a size comparison between a Speed Racer figure and Matt Tracker from MASK.

Mattel hasn’t disclosed any future plans for Speed Racer yet, but I’m hoping the movie and toys are a huge hit and there’s more Speed Racer toys in the future. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I’m be one happy Speed fan if Mattel picked up the Classic Speed Racer license and gave us figures and vehicles in the style of the movie product.

Also, I’d like to see Mattel pursue the new Speed Racer: The Next Generation animated series (debuting on NickToons in May).