| “ | Sunday driver! | „ |
| ~ Red Max |
Red Max (The Great Red Max) is a Bavarian race car driver, air ace and daredevil that appeared on Wacky Races.
He was voiced by Daws Butler on Wacky Races, then by Greg Burson on the games Wacky Races (2000) and Wacky Races: Starring Dastardly and Muttley.
Currently he´s voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.
Appearance
Red Max is a tall and intrepid racer, has black eyes, black eyebrows, a bulbous nose and a pencil mustache.
He wears a red peacoat with matching belt, crimson gloves and pants, black boots, a orange ascot, a red helmet with two straps tied and flying googles, which he uses to cover his eyes in some episodes, and a parachute only in the episode Mish Mash Missouri Dash.
He speaks with a german accent, which the pitch of his voice changes from high to low-pitched in some episodes of the show.
And in the games, his voice is low-pitched and his accent is heavy.
In every episode, he´s seen with a smile on his face.
Personality
His personallity is over-confident and sometimes over-competitive, but also self-centered, shown in Traffic Jambalaya and in the games, to the point of calling himself of "The Great Red Max".
He´s sometimes a accident-prone racer, shown in episodes like See-Saw to Arkansas, Mish Mash Missouri Dash, Oils Well That Ends Well and Traffic Jambalaya, but he´s shown to ingenious as well, by lauching a rope onto the tail of sea monster, that The Gruesome Twosome called to help the racers pass the sea, to drag-race across the sea in Real Ape Gone, turning on the propeller to avoid Dick Dastardly to smoke him out and using a pepper shot from his mounted machine gun to make the dragon of The Gruesome Twosome sneeze in the episode Dash to Delaware which backfired on him, flying above a movie set, which was being by Dastardly and Muttley as a fake shortcut on Speeding for Smogland or tying a axe on the propeller to cut and pass a tree that had fallen in the road in one episode.
Red Max has more or less of sense of humor, shown in The Super Silly Swamp Sprint where he makes a pun about the tail of The Crimson Haybailer, which it broke seconds before it was fixed, and retail and being clueless in episodes like The Dopey Dakota Derby when the Race Commentator warned him about a peak, which he destroyed with the machine gun and answered "Peak? What peak?" to then the falling peak hits The Haybailer´s tail and the Commentator replies "That peak" or mistaking a amusement park´s kiddie planes for a control tower in By Rollercoaster to UpsanDowns.
He´s shown to be able with the mounted machine gun, which is used sporadically and has pepper and bullets on it. He first uses the machine gun´s bullets in Real Ape Gone, to try to save Penelope Pitstop from a gorilla, who Dastardly hypnotized earlier in the episode, to only to it backfire and is lauched at The Creepy Coupe and destroying one of The Slag Brothers´s club in one episode and uses the propeller as a weapon in Idaho a Go Go, he cuts The Ant Hill Mob´s The Bulletproof Bomb in pieces to pass them.
Some of his accidents involve The Crimson Haybailer´s propeller, in Creepy Trip to Lemon Twist, he tries to get back on the race, by making the propeller work after two failed tries and in the third try to fix the propeller, the propeller comes off and starts to chase him thus making him get back to the race on foot, in Scout Scatter he hits on a rock which causes the propeller jump and cutting The Compact Pussycat in half or in By Rollercoaster to UpsanDowns, where he rips, with the propeller by accident, clothes that Penelope had left to dry.
In Traffic Jambalaya, it´s shown that Red Max can be a bit greedy by wanting to arrive first and catch a tamed and harmless gorilla, which Dastardly disguises himself as, to get a 5,000 dollar reward and ending up, by mistake, discovering a kodak bear on its place and being thrown and in Overseas Hi-Race, he passes the racers by flying over them and says "So long fellas", before unnoticing and hitting a lift bridge that causes him to fall on the sea.
And in Race to Racine, it´s shown that Red Max has a short temper when Dastardly rides a ground drone that he tried to escape and Max passes him, to turn and calling him "Sunday Driver".
Trivia
- On Wacky Races Gold Key comic book stories adapted from some episodes of the show, Red Max and Peter Perfect fight against each other over Penelope, whenever she uses her beauty and charm to make them fight and pass them.
- Red Max and Dick Dastardly are the only racers who are also airplane pilots.
- In the episode Ballpoint, Penn. or Bust!, Red Max reveals that he has friends in high places and doesn´t mind about being possibly arrested, while in the brazillian portuguese version, he says that he has a friend, who´s member of a political party.
- Red Max´s name is a combination of The Red Baron and The Blue Max.
- Red Max is inspired on Manfred von Richthofen, The Red Baron, and his appearance is based on pilot Max Immelman.
- Early drawings of Red Max had a different helmet from the one he uses on the show.
- Red Max has name changes in some countries: In Portugal he´s named Max Vermelho while in the opening his name is Max, o Vermelho, in Hungary he´s Lökös Max and in France, his name is Max le Rouge, another countries didn´t changed his name; In Spain he´s renamed Barón Hans Fritz, in Brazil he´s Barão Vermelho (although in the brazillian dub of Wacky Races, he´s still called Max Vermelho in two episodes) and in Japan, it´s Boss Bat.
- The Crimson Haybailer is the second car not named on the opening credits while the first is the Compact Pussycat.
- He, along with Professor Pat Pending, The Ant Hill Mob, Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear, Rufus Ruffcut and Sawtooth, Sergeant Blast and Private Meekly, The Slag Brothers and the Race Commentator, doesn´t appear in Wacky Races (2017), and were replaced by I.Q. Ickly, Pandora Pitstop, The P.D.Q. Crew, Brick Crashman and P.T. Barnstorm. Similarly they didn´t also appeared in Wacky Races Forever, with the exeception of Professor Pat Pending, The Slag Brothers, a teenage version of The Gruesome Twosome, Dick Dastardly and Muttley, Peter Perfect and Penelope Pitstop and new characters like [[Piper Perfect, Parker Perfect and Mr. Viceroy.