Dick Dastardly

Dick Dastardly is a fictional character and the main antagonist who has appeared in various animated series by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1968 onward. Dastardly's most famous appearances are in the series Wacky Races (his initial appearance) and its spin-off, Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. He is partly based on the English actor Terry-Thomas.

The character was originally voiced by Paul Winchell, using a characterization that Winchell would also employ several years later to voice the Smurfs' nemesis Gargamel. Winchell's facial structures were caricatured in the related character design as well.

In subsequent depictions of the character, Dick Dastardly was voiced by Rob Paulsen and by Jim Cummings (the latter of whom was notable for voicing other characters previously voiced by Winchell, including Tigger and Zummi Gummi).

Dastardly's catchphrases in the cartoons were "Muttley, do something!", "Drat, and double drat!" and occasionally "Triple drat!" or "Curses, foiled again!"

In Wacky Races, Dastardly was one of the drivers who competed in each episode for first place, in a long and hazard-filled cross-country road rally. As his name implies, Dastardly aimed to win solely through cheating and trickery. His race car, numbered double-zero and named The Mean Machine, featured all sorts of devious traps for him to use against his opponents. As Wacky Races was inspired by the film The Great Race, so was Dastardly derived from the film's chief villain, Professor Fate, played by Jack Lemmon. Dastardly in this series wore old-fashioned racer's gear — a long blue duster overcoat often worn by early motorists, along with long red gloves, a large striped hat with driving goggles attached, and sporting a handlebar mustache.

Dastardly was aided in his schemes by his sidekick, a scruffy anthropomorphic dog named Muttley who had a distinctive wheezy laugh, heard most often when Dastardly's schemes failed. Despite Dastardly and Muttley's best efforts, the "double-dealing do-badders", as the opening narration of Wacky Races describes them, failed to win a single race. Dastardly came close to winning on several occasions, but always failed, either through his own actions or bad luck, such as posing for his picture as it was a photo finish, stopping to sign an autograph for Muttley, and having Muttley sabotage his own vehicle (Dick told the hound to "stop the winning car"). On one occasion, Dastardly did cross the finish line in first place, but was revealed to have extended the nose of his car at the last moment, and was disqualified in favor of Penelope Pitstop; this despite the fact that other characters had pulled similar stunts in the past without punishment (and indeed the original footage showed that Dastardly had not extended the nose of his car). In another episode, The Mean Machine accidentally crossed the finish line first, but Dick was still disqualified; due to a series of crazy vehicle mix-ups, Dastardly and Muttley were in the wrong car!

It seemed likely that if Dastardly had not bothered to cheat, he might have won many of the races fairly. The Mean Machine was the fastest car on the grid (indeed, in many races, he would take the lead before stopping to set traps for the other drivers), and Dastardly's driving ability was often shown to be superior to the other racers. Alas, Dick seemed bound to a code similar to that of wrestler Gorgeous George: "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!" (In fact, in one episode he came close to crossing the finish line first without cheating, but chose not to win and let the other racers finish before him, as he did not want to win fairly.)

Dick Dastardly (actually Dick Dastardly Sr.; see below) continued his villainous career in the Wacky Races spin-off Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. The series was inspired by the 1965 film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines and Dastardly's appearance is based on the film's villain, Sir Percival Ware-Armitage, played by Terry-Thomas. Dastardly and Muttley flew with two other pilots: Zilly, a coward who would hide in his own clothing when ordered to deploy, and Klunk, the mechanic/inventor, who speaks a language largely composed of strange sounds that only Zilly can understand.