Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch

Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch is a 30-minute cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired for one season on NBC from September 7, 1974 to August 30, 1975. It aired on Saturday morning from 8:30-9:00 am, opposite the popular The Bugs Bunny Show. 39 six-minute installments of the show were made (3 aired per show). In the 80s, repeats were shown on USA Cartoon Express and later resurfaced on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. Since the show aired on NBC, Wheelie sometimes "imitated" the network's trademark "chimes". This was the first and only Hanna-Barbera series that has no humans and animals in it.

Plot
The series focuses on Wheelie, a red Volkswagen Beetle, and his girlfriend Rota Ree (a pun on the "rotary engine"). Wheelie made his living as a professional- and quite successful- racing and stunt car. Wheelie did not talk, unlike the other characters in the show, but emoted by honking and displaying symbols across his windshield showing his inner thoughts such as a heart for love or a lightbulb for an idea. Wheelie could also produce any form of prop needed from his trunk thru the use of special mechanized hands, much like Inspector Gadget would later. Wheelie's regular nemeses were a 4-member motorcycle gang called the Chopper Bunch which included the leader Chopper (who was jealous of Wheelie and had a spiked motorcycle helmet for a head), Revs (a sputtering three-wheeled motorcycle who often mixed up his words), Hi-Riser (who was tall in body but shorter in brains), and Scrambles (a small minibike who acted more like the good kid caught up in the wrong crowd). Scrambles would constantly try to warn Chopper that his plans were about to backfire only to be rebuffed ("Muffle it, Scrambles!") and end up taunting his sullen leader once they inevitably did:
 * (SCRAMBLES: "Itoldja! Itoldja!"
 * CHOPPER: "I know! I KNOW!!")

Two other characters were used on occasion to keep the Chopper Bunch in line. They were Captain Tough a hulking Police car, and Fishtail, who was literally a motorcycle cop.

Comic book
The show was the subject of a seven-issue comic book from Charlton Comics, published from July 1975 to July 1976. The first five issues featured some of the earliest published artwork of John Byrne(#2-4) and Joe Staton(#1,#5)

Episodes
Each 30-minute episode consists of three 6-minute cartoons.

Voices

 * Frank Welker - Wheelie, Chopper
 * Don Messick - Scrambles, Fishtail
 * Lennie Weinrib - Hi-Riser
 * Paul Winchell - Revs, Captain Tough
 * Judy Strangis - Rota Ree

DVD release
Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch was included on Disc #1 of Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1 released by Warner Home Video on May 26, 2009.

On January 25, 2011, Warner Archive released Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.

Other media

 * Hi-Riser appeared in the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law episode "SPF" voiced by Maurice LaMarche. He appeared as one of the many characters who were victims of cybersquatting.
 * Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch were referenced in the Psych episode "Zero to Murder in Sixty Seconds."
 * The series is believed to have been one of the inspirations for Cars, the CGI-animated Pixar/Disney film.