Car Talk: The Cartoon Series
Glenn M.: You've got a cartoon series debuting in a prime time on PBS, is that right?
Ray: Yes. That's the network that no one watches, PBS.
Glenn M.: What is the name of this cartoon series?
Ray: As the Wrench Turns.
Glenn M: What's the story line going to be about?
Ray: Each episode is a half hour. When they air these things, they're going to air two in a row. So starting at 8:00 on July 9, they will show one episode, and it will quickly be followed by another. That's how the thing is going to work.
All of the episodes start with our taking a telephone call in the studio. We come up with some kind of hair-brained idea, which we then carry in to the shop.
For example, we develop a car that runs on pasta. You use pasta for fuel, and we call it the Fuzilli 500. And, of course, it gets like 38 miles to the pound of pasta. But we don't have enough pasta in this country, so what do we do? We contact our relatives in Italy.
We said, "Gino, Mario, we are your cousins from America. We need help, we need pasta."
They say, (Italian accent), "Boys, a-for you, we do anythin' you wan'. We senda you all the pasta you wan' because-a we love you."
So, they're sending pasta, and the Fuzilli 500 is achieving unbelievable success. Sales are skyrocketing and it's the talk of the town. Suddenly, the pasta shipments stop. The cousins from Italy call us.
"Boys, you 5 percent of the world's population, but-a you usin' 25-a percent of the world's pasta! We gotta riots in Italy. People go to the stores and there's a no pasta."
So that's one of episodes. They're all little allegories; they're all little moral lessons.
Tom: And we thought this would be a good idea, because we could still be making money, be home and not have to work.