Speed Racer - Speed Racer Enterprises

Speed Racer Enterprises

The show's mainstream success in the United States spawned an ongoing Speed Racer franchise, ranging from comics, video releases, merchandise, a live-action film, and newer series either rebooting or continuing the original series. The franchise began in the early 1990s when a company, Speed Racer Enterprises, grabbed rights to the original series. At the time when the series was originally released, very few merchandise pertaining to the series was released in the United States. However, during the series' re-airing during the 1990s, Speed Racer Enterprises was responsible for the spawning of actual Speed Racer merchandise, ranging from small collectible die-cast cars, action figures, and even video releases of episodes from the original series. Speed Racer Enterprises was also involved in creations of new original American takes on the original Japanese series such as The New Adventures of Speed Racer and Speed Racer: The Next Generation.

Due to Speed Racer Enterprises, the original 1967 series made a comeback as reruns on MTV broadcast in the early morning hours. In 1993, the series was rebroadcast in syndication concurrently with a new American-created remake. Since all the rights were now under the hand of Speed Racer Enterprises, all references to the original rights holder, Trans-Lux, were removed. Therefore, the opening sequence included an entirely recreated logo, which most people are familiar with today.

This is the version that later aired on the Cartoon Network in the late afternoon (and later on in late night/overnight) programming, and is also the version released on Region 1 DVD. This version can also be seen on the streaming video service Hulu.