The show had three supporting segments: Galaxy Goof-Ups, The Buford Files and The Galloping Ghost. The latter two were later combined into one half-hour show.
This cartoon provides examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: The Phantom Phink, the "finagler of fiendish foul", and his alter ego Captain Good, the "great guardian of goodness".
- Alliterative Name: Phantom Phink, Nugget Nose.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Phantom Phink won most of the races, either as himself or as Captain Good. Too bad for him the prizes are crap.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: So can women, bears, dogs, ducks and even sharks.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: One episode featured a joke about "No gambling on Saturday morning." Amusingly this was in response to the villain's sidekick suggesting they should hang fuzzy dice on their rearview mirror.
- Captain Ersatz: Quack-Up from Galaxy Goof-Ups is Daffy Duck with white plumage. Mel Blanc even does almost the exact same voice for him.
- Captain Superhero: Captain Good is a parody of the type, although there's more to him than meets the eye.
- Cassandra Truth: In one episode, the space race's official computer El Fabuloso finally discovered that Captain Good and Phantom Phink are one and the same, but nobody believed. At least Good/Phink had to rescue the others to protect the masquerade.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Yogi's pal Boo Boo is nowhere to be seen.
- Clark Kenting: Granted, "Captain Good" and "Phantom Phink" couldn't look more different unless they had different genders, but the two of them officially enter the same races and nobody finds it odd they're never seen together even when the races were about to begin. Well, they do find it odd but not enough to suspect they're one and the same.
- Crossover Cameo: Quick Draw McGraw, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble, Jana of the Jungle have made appearances. Deputy Goofer, and Mr. Fuddy have also appeared in at least one episode each.note
- Dastardly Whiplash: The Phantom Phink is a pretty standard example.
- Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Rather, Phantom Phink stops to cheat.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Jabberjaws is obsessed with getting respect in a light-hearted, wistful way and the word works into about half of his sentences.
- Epic Race: . . . In Space!
- Identical Grandson: Captain Good was once said to have had an ancestor named Sir Good during the Middle Ages. Sir Good even had a cat who looked like Captain Good's cat. Of course, since Captain Good was just a cover for Phantom Phink, it's questionable how true this is.
- Identity Impersonator: Somehow, Captain Good/Phantom Phink never needed one to preserve the masquerade.
- In the Blood: Phantom Phink was described in a Space Race Biography as a descendant of Dr. Jekyll. The narrator said it explains about Phink being a bad guy. (And that's because he doesn't know [or knows but refuses to believe] that Captain Good and Phantom Phink are one and the same.)
- Jekyll & Hyde: Captain Good and Phantom Phink. A Space Race biography even described Phantom Phink as Jekyll's descendant. With "Dr. Jekyll" looking like "Captain Good" and "Mr. Hyde" looking like "Phantom Phink".
- Recycled In Space: Literally Wacky Races in space.
- Running Gag: The Phantom Phink—both as himself, and as Captain Good—calling the narrator names, when the narrator talks about him.
- Nugget Nose's jealousy of Captain Good.
- Sludge often rambling about something related to the race, or even himself, and the Phink giving him a Dope Slap afterwards.
- "Quiet, Sludge, before I (various "Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon"-based threats; he's also done this as Captain Good)!
- The Phink telling Sludge that he won't share the prize with him, or that no dogs are allowed, or any other excuses he can think of for leaving Sludge out.
- It only happened in a couple of episodes, but there's also the Phink telling Sludge that "[he] can watch it on instant replay!"
- Jabberjaw being ignored by Buford when he tells him to do something, or even when trying to talk to him, followed by his (or rather, Rodney Dangerfield's) trademark complaining of getting no respect.
- Any time Scare Bear reminds everyone about his so-called "cowardice".
- As mentioned before, there's also the prizes turning out to have some kind of catch, or otherwise turning out to be bad in some way.
- The "Space Race Biography" segments.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The Phantom Phink must know a lot of other bad guys, since a number of episodes involve the Phink trying to stop the other racers from winning by either teaming up with them or asking for their help.
- Shout-Out:
- In one race, Sludge stole Rita's glasses by stretching his front leg the way Dynomutt does.
- When you look at the show's logo, what does the "font" used for the "Space Race" part look like?
- The last episode starts with a parody of the game show To Tell the Truth.
- Atilla the Space Hun telling his "Hustling Henchmen" to "do the Hustle" is likely a reference to the instrumental "The Hustle" by Van McCoy.
- One episode is set on the planet Oz; also somewhat overlaps with Whole-Plot Reference.
- In "Race Through Wet Galoshes", when the second half starts, the narrator refers to the show (or rather, to the Space Race itself in-universe) as "often imitated, never duplicated".
- 2-D Space: Sometimes when flying across a planet the racers would act like they were trapped if they flew into something like a dead end canyon. Despite racing in spaceships.
- Undesirable Prize: All of them. Every single prize offered to whoever wins the episode's race has some highly unpleasant catch to it. For example, one episode's prize is a trip on a luxury transport plane called the Zoncorde. At the end of the episode, Huckleberry Hound is shown clinging to the wing of the Zoncorde saying to Quack-Up, "Maybe next time we can ride in the Zoncorde."
- There are a few prizes which genuinely could be good but go bad due for various reasons (a space bear that Yogi and Scare Bear antagonized chasing them all the way to their vacation place, Captain Good getting stuck inside a compact car that works perfectly as a prank by Clean Cat, Good and Clean Cat winning free passage on a cruise but forgetting to reserve a cabin until they're all taken etc.)
- Or they'd be good if anyone else won them: Such as a vacation at Fuddy Dude Ranch, but that's where Rita and Wendy (the prize winners) work, so it wouldn't be a vacation at all for them.
- Unreliable Narrator: One episode's Space Race Biography portrayed an ancestor of "Captain Good" and another showed an ancestor of "Phantom Phink".
- Villain with Good Publicity: Captain Good.
- Wacky Racing: IN SPACE!
- Wolverine Publicity:
- The cartoon isn't so focused on Yogi Bear as the title suggested.
- Besides his appearance in Space Race, Yogi does figure prominently in Galaxy Goof-Ups.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The Phantom "Phink", as opposed to "Fink".
The Galaxy Goof-Ups segment provides examples of:
- As You Know: Lampshaded when "The Treasure of Congo-Bongo" returns from a commercial break. Rupert tells Dimitri that they need the Goof-Ups to find a downed spaceship containing the Treasure-matic computer and further explains what the computer does.Dimitri: I know that!
Rupert: Oh, yes, you know it, and I know it, but what about the kids who tuned in late? - Butter Face: The space disco segments show a woman with a human body and a bizarre alien face that changes forms as she dances.
- Call-Back: For Captain Snerdley, John Stephenson uses the same voice he uses for Mr. Peevly (The Hair Bear Bunch), and Mr. Finkerton (Inch High, Private Eye).
- Disney Acid Sequence: The infamous disco freak-out numbers.
- Distaff Counterpart: "Space Station USA" features a female foursome matching the Goof-Ups member for member. The protagonists take a break from their current mission so they can take the ladies to the disco.
- Everybody Do the Endless Loop: The disco dance numbers often have the Goof-Ups, but especially Yogi and Huck, do one specific dance move; gets subverted occasionally, especially when Yogi dances with one of the other dancers.
- Five-Finger Discount: The richest man in the galaxy tells his son he's the richest one for never buying anything he wants.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Huckleberry Hound seems to have a knack for inventing strange gizmos that thankfully, help the Goof-Ups get themselves out of a number of scrapes.
- It Must Be Mine!: In "Space Station USA," once the titular station is found, the richest man in galaxy wants to add it to his space station collection and has no moral objections against stealing it.
- Minion with an F in Evil: The only person helping the richest man in the galaxy to do his dirty work is his son, who'd rather suggest him to merely buy the abandoned space station he wants (a suggestion he rejects because the Galaxy Museum would never sell it and he'd rather not have to buy anyway) or give up on collecting space stations and start a stamp collection.
- Mistaken for an Imposter: A villain wants to capture the Goof-Ups for his private zoo and lures them into a trap. Captain Snerdley tries to warn them, but they won't listen because they think he's an impostor.
- Peacock Girl: The lead singer/dancer in the aforementioned disco sequences.
- Quacking Up: Quack-Up Duck, full stop. The guy is simply not right in the head.
- Running Gag:
- Any time Quack-Up comes into the room, the others declare a "Quack-Up alert" and put on helmets, because he always crashes into a wall, with the ceiling, and occasionally other objects, coming down on their heads.
- The Goof-Ups going to the disco instead of completing their mission, although they do eventually.
- Quack-Up (and occasionally the others) interpreting Captain Snerdley's orders literally because of Ambiguous Syntax.
- When in dire straits, they'll mention a specific emergency plan to get out of this. Quack-Up boasts how that plan never fails and then asks what it is exactly. Huck or Yogi then demonstrate.
- Space Opera: Some episodes make it more clear than others that this segment (especially) is a parody of one.
