Western Animation / Hot Wheels: World Race

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Hot Wheels: World Race is a 2003 animated series made by Mattel, Inc, Mainframe Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television, based on Mattel's Hot Wheels line of toy cars. It premiered on Cartoon Network from July 12th to August 2, 2003, airing five 30-minute episodes: "Ring of Fire", "Greatest Challenge", "Desert Heat", "Frozen Fire", and "Wheel of Power". A full-length movie was later released on December 2, 2003.

The plot involves 16-year-old Vert Wheeler and 34 other drivers racing for Dr. Tezla, who wants the Wheel of Power located in another dimension.

Hot Wheels World Race provides examples of:

• All of Them: When Tezla tries to use the Wheel Of Power to power his base, it overloads and shuts down the power instead, leading to this exchange:
  Vert: What happened?
  Tezla: I'm not positive, but I think I just blew every fuse in North America.
• All There in the Manual: The Racers are not brought up by name, and their backgrounds, their cars and their specs are revealed in non-canon promo comics and DVD extras. It wasn't obvious Taro Kitano was supposed to be Asian until his redesign in Acceleracers.
• Always Save the Girl: When Lani says she needs help, Taro immediately goes back to save her. Vert does the same, but only because he wasn't sure Taro could save her alone.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: Markie is this to his older brother Kurt Wylde, who finds him incompetent to the point of refusing to give him a spot on his team.
• Artistic License – Engineering: Tezla's comment about how he "blew every fuse in North America" is completely unfounded, as not only would that imply that a single contiguous power grid connected the entire continent, there's also smaller fuses throughout things that aren't reliant on mains power like cars, which would be unaffected unless the surging grid produced an EMP in the process.^Plus...We're never told whether Tezla's base is connected to the grid to begin with. It could have its own independent power source, as demonstrated when a few taps on a keyboard restore power.
• Artistic License – Physics: Vert's final Jump to return the Wheel. The rest of the stunts may be justified, given the fact that the materials for the cars is never given and they're racing in an alternate dimension where gravity might be slightly weaker.
• Ascended Extra: Dan Dresden, who goes from just a random name that Markie mentions to leader of the Street Breed and finishing in 9th place.
• Bash Brothers: Though not of the team-up variety, Kurt and Markie frequently cause other drivers to experience collisions. At one point, they're even bashing each other.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: Banjee uses Taro's "I'm gonna pass you" catchphrase against him.
• Broken Pedestal: After Kurt was found out to be a spy working for CLYP, Markie no longer looked up to him if not despised him. Luckily, after all that was said and done, the pedestal was rebuilt.
  Mark: "I always looked up to you, Kurt. That's why I wanted to be a driver and be like you. But I'm not you... I don't cheat to win!"
• Car Fu: When a driver doesn't want to let someone pass or make it harder on the other drivers.
  Banjee: "Give me some road, Kurt! You're not winning this race."
  Kurt: "With my eyes closed, Banjee!"
  *SMASH!*
  Banjee: "With your mouth closed, the better!"
  Kurt: "Actions speak louder than words!"
• Cassandra Truth: Kurt quickly tries to warn Markie about the huge minefield he's driving towards. But after being outed as a spy, Markie decided to ignore him. And then he saw the mines...
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Too many times to count. It's become a staple of the series for this to happen.
• Cold Ham: Taro is usually rather stoic but is just as hot blooded about racing as the others. He even has a catchphrase: “I’m gonna pass you”.
  • Gelorum is this too. Despite being normal cruel, emotionless, and evil, she does things like park her helicopter in the road while waiting for Kurt just so she can personally tell him he is no longer needed and fly off dramatically with her armor of robot drivers flying over head shortly there after. And also her taunting Vert with her “ half a car” bit before trying to cut his car in half with a laser.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Zed-36 tries to defy this, thinking he can win without cheating but Gelorum forces him to anyway, though this is just as much because Kurt doesn't want to actually hurt or kill the other drivers.
• Dramatic Irony: Trying to use the Wheel of Power as a high-efficiency power source results in the base (and, presumably, the entire continent) losing power instead.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The colourful skid-marks and frequent use of Split Screen are not carried through into Acceleracers.
• Enemy Mine: Of sorts. While Kadeem and Taro are still fighting for first, Alec suggests "giving the new guy (himself) a shot at first place". 2 quick nods and both drivers proceed to spin Alec out.
• Either/Or Title: The movie is also named Hot Wheels Highway 35. Or if you want the full title, Hot Wheels Highway 35 World Race.
• Fakin' MacGuffin: Halfway into the race, Kadeem gets into the lead and reaches what he thinks is the Wheel of Power. Upon exiting through the portal however, the Wheel is revealed to be a fake as it melts into nothing before he comes out on the other side.
• A Father to His Men: Banjee and Vert are the only team leaders who significantly interact with other drivers on their teams and are friendly, helpful, and protective toward their fellow drivers. Banjee defies Tezla's orders and takes newcomers Skeets and Esmeralda on a practice run before exposing them to the dangers of an actual race.
• Friendly Rivalry: Though some of them bicker with each other on occasion, each of the drivers get along surprisingly well with each other even while racing.
• Grouped for Your Convenience: The 35 Drivers competing in the World Race are grouped into 5 teams, Wave Rippers, Street Breed, Road Beasts, Dune Ratz, and Scorchers.
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Before the ice realm, the team leaders and one of the secondary Street Breed members start engaging in witty banter in what amounts to seeing who can come up with the corniest team slogan. Sadly this scene was cut from the “movie” version apparently due to runtime, but was in the tv episode version.
  • Most of the movie could probably count as this trope, to the point even the main villain, Gelorum, gets in on it. With her famous “Let’s see how well you drive in half a car” quote coming to mind right before trying to cut Vert’s car in half with a laser. Vert throws out even more sayings than she does.
  • Basically anytime the drivers are going head to head, they tend to trade blows. Taro’s “I’m gonna pass you” or just about anytime Banjee addresses his opponents mid race; he even flips Taro’s catch phrase against him at one point.
• Heel–Face Turn: A mysterious racer who is revealed to be Kurt Wylde initially works with CLYP's assistance to stop the racers from obtaining the Wheel of Power so that they can prove themselves to be the fastest racer in the world. When the agents escorting them refuse to leave the racers (including his brother Markie) unharmed however, they decide to turn against Gelorum's orders in favor of saving their fellow racers.
• Hufflepuff House: Five teams of racers (each with specialised cars) appear. All five team leaders (Vert Wheeler, Banjee Castillo, Brian Kadeem, Kurt Wylde, and Taro Kitano) are prominent, fleshed-out characters, but the same can't be said for all of their teams as a whole. Three of Vert's Wave Ripper teammates are prominent characters throughout the movie. The Roadbeasts, Dune Ratz, and Street Breed teams all have two of their lower-ranking members be mentioned by name, speak at least one line of dialogue, and receive some prominence during at least one leg of the race. Taro's fellow Scorcher drivers are all voiceless background characters who don't do anything besides clear a few obstacles.
• Huge Holographic Head: Tezla likes to communicate using massive revolving screens that just show his face.
• Informed Ability: The cars; while the abilities of the numerous cars were given the chance to shine, other cars seem to have unique abilities that never got to be used. Examples include:
  • Felix's Power Pipes' hover capabilities (completely different from the turbo jets).
  • Wayne's Charger R/T's sonic cannons (designed to shatter rocks and boulders).
  • Charlie's Sweet 16 II's ability to dig trenches and cause sand storms.
  • Ricky's 24/Seven's chameleon stealth ability and night-vision.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Kurt Wylde, so very much. While not above sabotaging or possibly hurting the other drivers, he draws the line at killing them, which leads to Kurt going against Gelorum's orders to ignore them and continue the race after her agents set up a landmine trap that nearly wipes out his brother.
• Karma Houdini: Downplayed. Gelorum does ultimately escape at the end of the movie but only after her plans are foiled and she suffered some serious damage, such as her helicopter getting destroyed, damaging her, and then her getting her floating cat knocked out of the air by Kurt albeit it still functions at the end.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Markie is prone to not listening to his team, and at one point, outright refuses to listen to Vert when he drives off too far ahead from the rest of the Waverunners. This bites him in the ass when he fails to see a trail of landmines ahead of him and nearly gets himself demolished.
• Made of Indestructium: The cars are extremely tough, taking high-speed crashes with no damage whatsoever. Vert lampshades it early on.
  Vert: "A wipeout like that, and I hardly got dinged. Man, these cars can really take punishment!"
• Made of Iron: The drivers are just as tough as their cars, with no explanation given to how they suffer nothing worse than mild dizziness during some of the crashes that happen in the movie.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Haziz. The old black man that Kadeem sees. It's unknown if it's a hallucination, if it's real, or what.
• Mundane Utility: One would think Banjee's buzzsaw could be used offensively in a race. When it is actually put to use, its used to slice up the ice debris blocking the racetrack.
• Mythology Gag: This isn't the first time the main character had the last name of Wheeler. (Writer Jeff Gomez intended to connect the characters, but this never made it into the final film.)
• Nitro Boost: Dr. Tezla provided all cars with a Nitrox-2 system, which allows any driver to reach the maximum speed of 300 mph. Also includes flaming trails and wheels, and as shown by Kurt (purposely) and Markie (accidentally) on several occasions, just one container of the stuff can serve as an effective explosive if ruptured.
• No Full Name Given: Fluke, Tono, Maximo, Griffin, Skeet, Yucatan, Mojave, Chuvo, Heralda, Rekkas, Vesuvius, Everest, and Krakatoa.
• Noodle Incident: How Markie was able to get to Tezla's Cube. When Kurt asks how, Markie said it wasn't important and quickly changed the subject.
• Older Than They Look: Markie, only in comparison to Vert. Markie constantly gives the impression that he's younger than Vert, which wouldn't be a problem if Vert wasn't more than a couple of days older than sixteen. It doesn't help that the adjective that Markie evokes is "younger" due to being Kurt's younger brother. So either Markie is only a couple of days to a week younger than Vert (if the World Race started soon after Vert got the Deora II), or Markie is older than Vert.
• One-Liner: Multiple:
  • "What's the matter, Banjee? Didn't you ever learn how to grind a half-pipe?"
  • "Wisdom is a circle; what you receive you must give back."
  • "I'm out of here." (said by Vert right before the Wheel of Power reopens the Portal.)
  • "Some people just can't drive in traffic."
  • "Let's see how well you drive...in HALF a car. "
  • "I'm gonna pass you."
  • "Nobody beats Kurt Wylde."
  • "Nice shot, Slingshot."
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Esmeralda. Normally, she sounds vaguely Hispanic. But during the "Greatest Challenge", her voice lapsed into something that sounds... southern?
• Ordered to Cheat: Kurt Wylde by Gelorum.
• Out of Focus: The Scorchers team gets this sadly. Out of all their team members, the leader Taro is the only one who gets any lines.
• Plot Threads: Despite Vert being the main character, Taro and Banjee are placed center-stage on the track, and Kurt Wylde alternates sharing the non-racing spotlight with Kadeem and Markie.
• Ramming Always Works: While there's plenty of body contact, the Scorchers' cars take full advantage of this with their lava-plows, from opening doors to ramming CLYP cars aside to make a path.
  • On the mechanical point of view, there's Chuvo's and Rekkas' attempt at taking a jump in their heavy trucks. Both fell short and promptly fell back to the bottom. Though one would point out that they did not use their Nitrox boosts, while racers after them did.
• Red Herring: At certain points, stone humanoid faces can be see lying around or carved into the sides of things, such as a humanoid face with it’s “ mouth” serving as altar entrance to a cave in one of the “jumps” near the end of the lava track. Or a stone face lying around in the sand scene at the start of desert track. One might be inclined to believe these are somehow significant, perhaps maybe even alluding to or depicting the unseen ( until the sequel) Accelerons. Yet nothing is ever brought up about these nor does anyone ever seem to notice them in movie; they could simply just be for decoration.
  • The T-Rex statute in the desert track the drivers up is certainly unique and even gets a scene where Kadeem gawks at it and wonders if it’s the “greatest danger” the old man from his apparent vision earlier mentioned. Nothing much comes of this and it was seemingly not the case, with the “greatest danger” being more about Kadeem choosing the wrong method to help his people, thinking money will fix their issues. Why a T-Rex statue is in the desert track is not really explained beyond maybe *Rule of Cool.
• The Reveal: Kurt Wylde is Zed-36. Though it's not particularly hard to figure out due to the fact that Slingshot and Zed-36 are the same shape and never appear together. The "Why is that surf rat prowling around?" scene almost cements it beforehand. Also, Gelorum isn't human.
  • "That's pretty wild. Even for Kurt."
• Robotic Reveal: After Kurt Wilde wrecks one of CLYP's flying cars, the driver inside exits and reveals a mechanical, crab-like bottom half as it attacks Kurt in retaliation. Gelorum is also revealed to be a robot as well after her helicopter crashes, which tears off parts of her face to reveal a cybernetic endoskeleton beneath it.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Vert's surfing and skateboarding skills, Sidedraft's Eye in the Sky, the Turbo Jets' on the Wave Ripper's cars (Vert relies on them for EVERYTHING.)
• Token Minority: 3 Asian drivers, (Taro, Harrison Lau, San Jay Khan) and one African (Kadeem)
• True Companions: Alec is this to Vert. Later on, Markie is as well to Vert.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Looking sleek in all black, the white-haired Gelorum is the primary villain and very evil, wanting the racers "eliminated".
• Vague Age: No one but Vert is given a confirmed age beyond "over sixteen." Though Alec and Markie are likely to be in the sixteen-seventeen range.