Pole Position (TV series)

Did You Know?

• The show was produced by DIC Audiovisuel's American branch DIC Enterprises in association with Japanese studio MK Company.
• The character designs were provided by Filipino cartoonist Jesse Santos.
• The mechanical designs were provided by Artmic's co-founder Shinji Aramaki.

Plot

The Darretts are a family of crime fighters who use stunt driving as their cover. They operate under the guise of the Pole Position Stunt Show, a traveling performance secretly sponsored by the U.S. government to fund their investigations and maintain their specialized vehicles. The family originally included two adult children and one much younger child. After their parents died in a road accident, their uncle, Dr. Zachary Darrett, took over the show. He insisted that the two older siblings, Tess and Dan, must carry on their parents' hazardous mission. The cars are packed with hidden features like water skis and hover jets. Their onboard computers, called modules, are portable and can be lifted out of the dashboards using handles. These modules appear as talking, computer-drawn faces on video screens. Tess Darrett, voiced by Lisa Lindgren, is the older sister of Dan and Daisy and acts as the group's leader. She drives Wheels, a red and black 1965 Ford Mustang. Dan Darrett, voiced by David Coburn, is Tess's impulsive younger brother who drives Roadie, a futuristic light-blue coupe. Daisy Darrett, voiced by Kaleena Kiff, is the pre-teen youngest sibling. Dr. Zachary Darrett, voiced by Jack Angel, is a wheelchair-using engineer who runs the operation and develops the vehicles. Kuma, voiced by Marilyn Schreffler, is Daisy's pet, a strange genetic mix of a raccoon and a monkey. Wheels, voiced by Melvin Franklin, has an AI that is more cautious than Roadie's. Roadie, voiced by Darryl Hickman, has a very smart AI that helps keep Dan out of trouble.

Broadcast

Pole Position ran for 13 episodes on CBS in 1984 as part of its Saturday morning children's programming line-up, continuing in reruns through September 1986. The show also aired in reruns for a few months on Showtime in 1986, 1987 and 1988, followed by a run on The Family Channel from the late 1980s through the early 1990s. It was shown in the United Kingdom during the 1980s, first on Saturday Superstore in 1986 and in the CBBC strand, then repeated in the early 1990s on Saturday mornings as part of Going Live! on BBC1.

DVD release

Brightspark Productions put out a complete 13-episode DVD box set in the UK on April 21, 2008. Mill Creek Entertainment later bundled ten of those episodes with ten episodes each of C.O.P.S. and Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors on January 10, 2012. In 2016, Mill Creek released TV Toons To Go, a ten-disc compilation of cartoons from the Cookie Jar Group (now WildBrain). The tenth disc of that set holds the three episodes missing from the earlier combo pack.