“Harvey, you just don’t get racing. You can’t be nice if you wanna win. You gotta be ruthless, bust people up, knock ‘em out of your way!”
—Fee
"Bark Kart" is the forty-second episode of Season 1 of Harvey Beaks.
Synopsis[]
When the children of Littlebark enter a go-kart race, Harvey must put aside his manners and learn to drive aggressively.
Plot[]
Harvey, Fee, and Foo are watching for a cocoon to hatch when Randl and his mom ride down the hill in a go-kart modified out of a bathtub with Randl announcing the first-ever annual Bark Kart race. The kids all forget about what they’re doing and follow Randl to his store where he explains his idea is the kids rent his stuff and put it together to make go-karts and race to win a “submarine ride.” The kids are entranced at the idea of a ride in a “real-life submarine” and eagerly rent Randl’s junk and build custom go-karts out of it. Harvey and Fee think of teaming up and racing so Harvey, Fee, and Foo work together to build a kart Harvey nicknames “The Friendship Express.” Harvey is determined that the three of them together putting their heads and their hearts into it are sure to win. Fee expects they will because she really wants that submarine ride. Harvey & the twins' kart is the most elaborate, made out of split logs and complete with bench seats, outside mirrors and a rear spoiler, and drawings of Harvey, Fee, and Foo on the front.
When Randl gives the command for the racers to start their engines, Harvey waves to his opponents and wishes them good luck and to have fun even though none of them are paying attention to him. Fee corrects Harvey, saying not to wish them luck and to put on his game face, and tries to get him to growl to some success. Randl’s mom shoots a gun to start the race and the kids duck in fear. Randl says for the kids to relax, it’s not a real gun, but his mom tells him it is a real gun and he yells “Quiet, mom!” and waves the flag, starting the race. The race starts off close, with Claire falling behind spinning out and spraying mud on a confused Moff standing on his front porch in his robe with his morning coffee. The racers use dirty tactics like ramming into each other, throwing turtle shells at each other, and dropping banana peels to try and spin people out. Harvey is enjoying himself driving at a relaxed pace and singing as everyone passes him while Fee and Foo watch themselves slip into last place confused by what Harvey’s doing. When Fee pleads for Harvey to speed up and actually try and pass everyone else, Harvey explains that “slow and steady wins the race!” Fee responds by saying “No, no, no, man, fast and aggressive wins the race” and points to Princess knocking Claire and Kratz off the track as an example. Princess then passes them and Foo is impressed by her driving. Harvey tries to explain that reckless driving isn’t good and that defensive driving and respecting the rules of the road is how a real winner drives. Fee grabs the wheel when Harvey stops to avoid hitting an acorn and takes the car off the path to take a shortcut which puts them in first place. With Fee happy with their new position, Harvey retakes the wheel and tells her that was “super dangerous.” When Harvey goes extremely slow over a narrow footbridge and angers everyone else in the race who’s stuck behind him, he pulls off the track to let everyone pass him and considers it a courteous gesture for upsetting everyone. Princess stops to ram them over the ravine and down into the river below where their kart sinks and they are forced to swim to the shore. Harvey doesn’t understand why Princess did that to them, and Fee tells him that he doesn’t get racing. That it’s not about being nice, it’s about winning, and knocking everyone out of the way to do it, and that’s what everyone’s doing, so it’s okay. Harvey says that makes sense, but it just seems like something bad guys would do. Fee says it doesn’t matter anymore ‘cause they can’t win now, and says that submarines are stupid anyway. Foo says that Fee is just saying that and she gets upset getting called out that she really wanted to win. Harvey seeing Fee upset gets mad and says they’re not giving up. He dives underwater and drags their kart back up onto shore and flips it back up onto its wheels. He tells Fee that she’s driving now, and he’ll “handle the rest” and that they’re doing whatever it takes and they’re going to win the race. Fee and Foo are impressed and Fee asks about whatever happened to slow and steady and Harvey replies that “That was the old Harvey,” and “this is the new Harvey! The Race Car Driver Harvey!” Foo remarks he likes the new Harvey because he’s strong.
Fee quickly catches them back up into the race, and Harvey’s first action is to knock Princess out of the race. He throws Foo at her who blocks her vision and gets her to drive head-on into a tree, destroying her kart. They intimidate Piri Piri and crash into her kart, splitting it in half. Harvey tells Fee “This is awesome!” and swallows a bug when screaming that he “feels alive!” They dis Rooter and Technobear, Harvey telling them he thought it was a “go-kart race, not a slow-kart race!” Fee then rams them and Technobear falls out of the kart on Moustache Mountain and Rooter wrecks later in the woods. Harvey, Fee, and Foo continue to ram into everyone in their path, taking out every other racer with the Friendship Express. With the finish line in sight, Harvey looks back and realizes the destruction he’s caused and see the wrecks of all the other racers behind them. At this point, Harvey & the twins' kart is the last one in the race. Harvey instantly feels bad for what he's done and throws on the parking break, skidding the Friendship Express to a halt, just inches away from the finish line. Fee angrily tries to nudge the kart over the finish line with the break on, but then looks back and changes her mind and decides she doesn’t want to win this way. When she says “Dang it! I just wanted to win!” Harvey says he knows and that everyone wanted to win. And then he has an idea. He goes back and picks up every other racer he knocked out of the race and piles them onto his kart and drives them all over the finish line together with him, Fee, and Foo. Therefore, everyone wins the race! The engine dies and they coast across the finish line, Harvey saying they’ll just have to go “slow and steady.” No one was waiting for them at the finish line, so, after cheering by themselves, they go find Randl in his store eating a sandwich. Harvey tells him that they finished the race Randl had already forgotten about, being pleased with the money he made off of them. When Harvey tells him that they all won, he doesn’t agree to it, but Harvey rips Randl’s sandwich out of his hands and insists on the submarine ride for everyone. Fee compliments Harvey on being aggressive and Randl agrees to let them go on the submarine if they just give him his sandwich back. He pulls the tarp off the “submarine” and tells them to get in, and reveals it to be three connected cardboard boxes with portholes cut out in them. The kids imagine being on a real submarine and are super excited while Randl stands unhappily holding his garden hose soaking the cardboard box submarine.
Characters[]
Major Characters[]
Supporting Characters[]
Minor Characters[]
- Randl's Mom
- Technobear
- Rooter
- Princess
- Piri Piri
- Claire
- Kratz
- Dade
- Seth
- Willy
- Mikey
- Pip
- MJ (cameo)
- Moff (cameo)
- Fogbark Monster (cameo)
- Spirit of Wetbark Lake (cameo)
- Jeremy (cameo)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
Mustache Mountain is seen again after its debut in "Junior Squealers" when Harvey and Fee painted a giant mustache in the mountain giving the name to it. The mountain was confirmed on Twitter by the writers Harvey Beaks as canon when the "Junior Squealers" were issued from that moment onwards.
- Seth's kart has Blargus's face drawn on the front as an Easter egg that refers to his appearance as "The Blargus" in "Harvey Isn't Scary".
Cultural References[]
- The turtle shell and banana peel used as items during the race are references to the Mario Kart series. Carl Greenblatt commented that "This is what happens when we play Mario Kart for months. It seeps into the show!"[1]
- When Harvey named his kart the "Friendship Express", it could be a reference to the train of the same name from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.