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, "The Mean Machine", featured all sorts of devious traps for him to use against his opponents. As Wacky Races is 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, and 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 attempts, the "double-dealing do-badders", as the opening narration of Wacky Races describes them, failed to win a single race. Dastardly's plans were always foiled either by his or Muttley's incompetence, the actions of another racer, or sheer bad luck, resulting in Dastardly crossing the finish line last, if at all. On some occasions Dastardly is very close to winning, but he will fail at the final hurdle. Once Dastardly had an opportunity to win legitimately, but he stopped in front of the finish line to pose for his picture as it was a photo finish. Another time he came close to winning the race, but stopped to sign an autograph for Muttley, ending up in fourth place again.
On one further occasion, in an episode which was voted the worst of the series, Dastardly supposedly won the race, but it was revealed he had cheated by extending the nose of his car, even though the actual finish showed no such cheating, implying that the judges possibly had the replay footage altered out of bias. However, in the DVD release of this scene, the photo finish was covered with smoke, thereby adding even more questions to this scene. After the replay, the Mean Machine's nose remained extended until Muttley – once more abused by his master after snickering – kicked the nose back into its closed position on Dastardly's hand. This may imply that the "actual finish", not the replay, was altered.
Often it appears that if Dastardly had not bothered to cheat, then he may have won fairly. Upon tasting defeat, Dastardly would utter his catchphrases, "Drat, drat, and double drat!", "Triple drat!" and even "Curses, foiled again!" His other main catchphrase was "Muttley, do something!" Excluding Dastardly and Muttley, each of the other racers won three or four of the Wacky Races.
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