The fourth volume of Speed Racer is out, and it doesn't bring the series to a close like many fans were hoping.  Unfortunately they only included eight episodes this time around, the least of any release so far, leaving eight more shows to go.  Even with this being a light volume, the disc is a lot of fun.  Speed and the gang get in and out of more than their share of trouble and drive in some pretty exciting races.  No fan of the show will want to pass this up.

Series Background:

Though it wasn't the first Japanese cartoon to be shown in the US, Speed Racer was the first to become really popular.  Released in Japan as Mach Go Go Go!, Trans Lux, the company the brought Gigantor to the States, bought the rights and translated it into English.  The man behind the show though was Peter Fernandez.  He wrote the scripts, edited and directed the shows and even provided the voice for Speed and Racer X.  This one man production team was really responsible for giving Speed Racer the feel that it had in its American incarnation.

The show is about Speed Racer, a young professional race car driver who pilots the coolest car ever:  The Mach 5.  This car is an ingenious and speedy machine that was designed and built by his father, Pops Racer, with some help from their mechanic Sparky.  In addition to traveling at high velocities, the Mach 5 has a number of unique inventions that allows it to jump over obstacles, cut down trees in its path, travel underwater, and even get traction in any terrain.  With this car, Speed is almost unbeatable.

Speed is accompanied on his journeys by his girl friend Trixie and his brother Spritle and Spritle's pet monkey Chim-Chim.  Together the group always seems to find trouble while attending a race, and Speed isn't one to back down from a fight or ignore an injustice.

The show is really action packed, and the story travels at a fast pace.  Even the people talk fast in this show.  This was really so they could fit all of the dialog into the space where the cartoon character was moving his mouth, but it had the nice side effect of making the show seem even faster paced than it was.  There is often little time wasted on background stories at the beginning, they'll start Speed off racing down a speedway and fill in the rest as they went along.

Even the opening of the show was fast paced.  Starting off with fast staccato of notes followed by the revving of a car engine as it roars to life, the song was accented by trumpet blast and simple lyrics making it one of the most insanely catchy theme songs ever produced.  The opening credits showed cars racing along, getting into accidents and crashing with tires flying over the other racers.  Within 30 seconds of the show starting, you knew you were in for a wild ride.

The show was a "villain of the week" type program, where Speed would encounter a some crooks with a nefarious scheme and had to bring them to justice and win a race all at the same time.  Roughly half of the shows were two part episodes with the rest telling the story in a single episode.  The double shows are easily my favorite, since the first show would always end with a nail biting cliff hanger, often showing Speed and the Mach 5 plunging off a cliff towards certain doom.

The emphasis in the shows is on getting the bad guys.  The races were only the backdrop, but they did add a lot of excitement.  Speed would take time out of a race to fight a villain or rescue a damsel, then hop in the Mach 5 and miraculously catch up to the other drivers.  Implausible as it was, it Speed often came in first, but just barely.

This volume:

There are some fun episodes included on this DVD.  With only one exception these stories are all single episode adventures which play out pretty well. There is a good amount of action on and off the race track with Speed, sometimes aided by Racer X, foiling bank thieves, crime bosses, and would be world rulers, all while trying his best to win a car race of course.

One of the things I've always enjoyed about this show are the strange races that they come up with.  In The Desperate Racer Speed enters the Pineapple Grand-Prix where each driver has to carry a pineapple with him through the entire race.  I don't know why the folks who run the Indy 500 didn't come up with that idea.  Of course things aren't that easy.  Some crooks have hidden some stolen jewels in one of the pineapples and go off chasing after the racers stealing their fruits.  A hokey idea, yes, but a fun episode.

One of the best stories on this volune is the two part episode The Secret Invaders.  In this adventure, Speed has entered the Mystic Grand Prix and find that a group of ruthless assails are trying to take over the country.  With Racer X working for the International Secret Service trying to bring the bad guys down, this story has everything you'd want in a Speed Racer show.

This is a fun and entertaining disc.  I was happy to see that my two sons enjoyed it as much as I did.  Though the show is over 35 years old, it has aged well and is sure to entertain.

The episodes included on this disc are:

37. The Terrifying Gambler
38. The Secret Invaders (Part 1)
39. The Secret Invaders (Part 2)
40. Man Behind the Mask
41. The Car Destroyer
42. The Desperate Racer
43. The Dangerous Witness
44. Race the Laser Tank

Like the previous two volumes, the initial release of this disc comes with limited edition packaging.  This disc comes with a cool Matchbox sized version of the Mach 5.  A nice bonus that is much better than the round tin that the previous disc came in.  The DVD itself is housed in a standard keepcase and does not come with an insert.

Audio:

The two channel English mono soundtrack is a little bit better than you would expect for a 60's kid show.  There isn't any hiss or background noise, but the dialog did have some distortion.  This wasn't particularly bothersome, but I was hoping for a bit better.  The dynamic range isn't as wide as current shows but that's to be expected.  Overall a solid sounding disc.  There are no subtitles.

Video:

The full frame video looks very good for a cartoon of this age.  The colors are very bright and vivid, and the lines are sharp.  The prints used did have some minor defects, the occasional line or spot on the film, but these were fairly rare.  There was also a bit of grain in some scenes.  There is no edge enhancement, and the only digital defect is some light aliasing in the background.

The only thing that is really wrong is that they've replaced the Speed Racer logo at the beginning with a modern computer generated one.  This is a minor, though easily avoidable, flaw.

Extras:

Unfortunately this disc doesn't have any extras.  A commentary track by the surviving voice actors would have been great, especially if they didn't limit themselves to one episode and reminisced about the entire series.  I guess we can keep our fingers crossed that they'll include something like that on the last disc.

Final Thoughts:

I was a little disappointed that they didn't finish off the series with this disc, but I can stand to wait a bit for the final volume.  Though there are only eight episodes this time around, they are just as fun and exciting as they were 30+ years ago.  Fans of the show will enjoy it, as so will young viewers who haven't seen Speed before.  This disc gets a strong Recommendation.