There’s a topic for you: I got to come home to some of the best short-subject humor of the ’30s through the ’60s, much of which was originally written for a multigenerational audience. My little brother came home to crap from the ’80s that was not only aimed solely at kids, but was mainly intended to sell toys rather than entertain: Transformers, He-Man, and GI Joe.

Back to Speed Racer: I seem to recall that I found the whole Rex Racer plotline strangely compelling when I was little. I can’t remember if it went off the air before or after my younger brother was born.

Another funny thing is that I’ve developed a strong dislike for anime/manga since then. I get disgusted when I see that manga titles take up twice as much shelf space at the local B & N books than do titles by artists who don’t all draw more or less the same way. I amused myself by hassling some nerdy teens about their reading choices one day: “What do you see in that stuff? Check this out — _The Best Anerican Cartoons of 2006_. Every artist has a different style!” To no avail, of course.

One local critic who gave it a mediocre review noted that the nostalgia factor helped make it bearable, and that may have been at work with me, too. I really liked the original when I was 5. That and Kimba.

I wonder what the NASCAR crowd made of it.