You'd expect children's cartoons to have plots as dull as paint drying and characters as wooden as a soapbox derby car careening into a tree. But every so often, something comes along that's legitimately as entertaining when you're 25 as it is when you're, well, five.
The fact that one of these top-notch animated direct to video kids movies uses Hot Wheels as a premise made it a more than worthy candidate for a deep dive here on autoevolution. This is Hot Wheels: World Race, an animated movie made into a miniseries of five television episodes that aired between July 12th and August 2nd, 2003.
Known as Hot Wheels: Highway 35 during its airing as a TV miniseries, this collection totaling 110 minutes of screen time was created in celebration of the 35th anniversary of the Hot Wheels brand under Mattel Toys.
Even almost 20 years later, the fluid and vibrant animation along with eclectic and complex characters turned what could have been a throwaway cash grab into one of the very first classic racing movies of the 2000s.
In 2022, there's still plenty of reason to give this show a watch. Without spoiling the show too much, the plot mostly revolves around a 16-year-old surf rat and totally full of himself narcissist named Vert Wheeler.
Photo: Hot Wheels (Mattel Entertainment)
For those who aren't in the loop, this name's been given to several serialized comic strips and kid's cartoons under the Hot Wheels name for decades. At the start of the movie, Vert has just earned his driver's license. But his strict military father forbids him from using it foolishly.
After a day of skating, gloating, and generally acting like a complete narcissist, he skates home to find the iconic Deora II custom car in his front driveway. Vert enters the vehicle and receives a welcome greeting from Dr. Peter Tezla.
Yup, that's right, Dr. Peter TEZLA, it's as if the show's writers knew what one South African business tycoon was up to at that time. But as much as Dr. Tezla makes a pretty good Elon Musk impression, his goals are fairly straightforward (not).
Tezla himself designed and built all the cars in the World Race. From there, he sent them out to locations around the world where the best racers in the world would find them. They all follow their GPS coordinates to Dr. Tezla's desert-prooving grounds, where the world race begins at the start of the titular Highway 35.
Photo: Hot Wheels (Mattel Entertainment)
Other drivers include Brian Kadeem, African dune racing extraordinaire. Taro Katano, a Japanese American millionaire gentleman racer, Kurt Wylde, an American Grand Prix champion, and Banjee Castillo, a wise-cracking Puerto Rican racer. Then, there's the 16-year-old Vert, who's ready to prove to everyone he's the best racer in the world. These constitute the leaders of their respective racing teams. Consisting of the Wave Riders, the Scorchers, the Dune Rats, the Street Breed, and the Road Beasts. With each car utilizing a special ability to handle specific terrains.
Each car in the race is equipped with the Hot Wheels universe's equivalent of NOS, called Nitrox 2. Each car will accelerate to 300 miles an hour when activated, thus activating a portal to racing realms created by an advanced race of beings Dr. Tezla calls the Accelerons.
At the end of one of these racing realms lies the Wheel of Power, a mystical wheel that could theoretically supply planet Earth with clean energy practically for the rest of time. All while the malicious android Gelorum attempts to take the Wheel of Power for her own nefarious purposes.
Watching the racers with their unique cars, personalities, and complex dialogue while they race across volcano tracks, desert sand tracks, and all kinds of other neat places make for a kid show that has a surprising amount of re-watch ability for 20 somethings who may have been toddlers at the time the show first aired.
Photo: Hot Wheels (Mattel Entertainment)
So if you happen upon a copy of the DVD on your next thrift store expedition, make sure you take it home to enjoy yourself.
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