Chick Hicks

**Chick "Thunder" Hicks**, or known as **Chick Hicks**, is the main antagonist of 2006 Disney/Pixar film, *Cars*. and a minor character in *Cars 3.* he was the HTB Racer and the rival of Lightning McQueen.

He was voiced by Michael Keaton in Cars and Bob Peterson in Cars 3

## Biography

### *Cars*

Chick was seen taking a pit stop in the Dinoco 400. Later, he bumps the Transberry Juice racer, showing that he is the main villain. However, he was unexpectedly overtaken by The King, Strip Weathers. Darrell Cartrip and Bob Cutlass showed that Chick was behind his arch-enemy in his entire career, and became more impatient when McQueen came in. Chick was trying to overtake The King but failed, and later had to stop McQueen. He won Round 1, but lost Round 2. Because of this, Chick slams McQueen off the track to get back to The King. To make sure he gets more distance between him and McQueen, he slammed the RPM racer, who hits the Sputter Stop Racer, who hits the Faux Wheel Drive racer, and so on, and causes a massive crash. Unexpectedly, McQueen went through.

When Chick was in the pits, he was in pride till his crew chief told him McQueen went through and told his pit crew to go faster, ending up with him being in the back. He rushed from the back to front to win, and he used his time wisely to win when McQueen lost his tires, but he failed. Chick later comes in after McQueen's pit crew leave. He taunts him, saying that the Piston Cup was his, but McQueen attracted more paparazzi. Later, when the three-way tie scene happens, Chick hosts his plan by telling McQueen whoever gets to California first gets Dinoco all for themselves. Knowing that McQueen wanted to be with Dinoco, he presumably had the Delinquent Road Hazards to keep his driver staying up all night so McQueen may get lost. When McQueen was lost by Chick's plan, the latter steals his fans by stealing how McQueen attracts people and sh-ooze with Dinoco. Later, when McQueen watches Mack's TV, he sees that Chick stole most of his fans, and stole his catchphrase as "Ka-chigga" as well.

After attracting more fans, he was in the track "Kachigga"-ing McQueen. When the race happens, he slams his door and laughs when McQueen goes out of the track. When McQueen was coming, Chick slams McQueen, but his backward trick made Chick's plan fail. In anger, he burst McQueen's tire, but Guido's record made Chick enraged. Because of this, Chick tries to hit McQueen but misses him, so he slams McQueen and The King off the track, and the latter was about to lose. As McQueen nears the finish line, Chick, refusing to finish the race behind The King again, PITs his rival (sideswipes in the bumper), sending The King into a violent crash. McQueen sees The King's condition on a TV monitor, and (recalling Doc Hudson's famous crash) stops just before the line, allowing Chick to win the race. However, as Chick braggingly celebrates his victory, he realizes that the fans (including McQueen's friends) aren't cheering him on because of his notorious act, and instead giving praise to McQueen for his respectful act on helping The King.

After McQueen pushes The King to the finish line, Chick comes into the podium and asks for his Piston Cup. Later, he asks for confetti, but to his shock, they slammed him with the confetti instead of using it as a celebration for him. Later, he "Kachigga"s, but the media and his fans booed showing they are unhappy with him because they all finally clearly saw his heartless actions and found out he won by cheating, finally knowing Chick Hicks was the one who crashed all the racers, popped McQueen's tire, and later they all saw him take out Strip Weathers, they all threw discarded tires, debris, and other stuff on him. Chick gets away with the Piston Cup but defeated and possibly chose to retire or got banned from racing for bad sportsmanship after McQueen wins his 4th Piston Cup. But Chick has tainted his image because of his self caring heartless actions and will never have any fans ever again now they all know who he truly is. Nevertheless, McQueen is still given applause by his friends and the rest of the crowd for his good sportsmanship, along with the King, and the former is given the opportunity by Tex Dinoco to become their new racer. However, McQueen declines, choosing to stay with Rust-Eze instead, but tells Tex to have Mater ride on a Dinoco helicopter.

### *Cars 3*

Chick is disqualified from racing for crashing the King and now an announcer for RSN and hosts his own news style TV show *Chick Picks*, where he introduces Jackson Storm along with special guest Natalie Certain. When Storm wins the Gears and Glory 450 at the Heartland Motor Speedway, Chick accompanies him on the winner's podium. Later, McQueen watches on Mack's television where Chick and Natalie give a report on Storm beating the record for fastest lap in Piston Cup history at the Florida International Speedway and the possibility of McQueen's retirement, which resulted McQueen turning off the TV in disappointment (similar to how people turn off CNN due to it being fake news). He is not seen again afterward. Despite this, he shows some delight that Lightning lost showing that he might not have gotten over what happened. That said since he hosts his own show he might have gained some of his former fans back though its implied that most fans don't watch his show because of his dirty actions, as one of the forklift TV crew looks unimpressed. It is also unknown why he became an announcer because he crashed the King.

## Personality

Although highly talented and gifted at racing (he would not have maintained #2 spot as long as he had if he was not, which may have resulted from cheating), Chick Hicks is extremely rude, arrogant, conniving, self-centered, manipulative and focused on himself and winning, like McQueen himself, but has grown impatient with losing. He often harasses others with his catchphrase "Ka-chigga.". This along with his ruthless cold hearted methods eventually cost him his fans.

During his brief cameo during *Cars 3*, despite now being a news reporter and hosting his own show, Chick still remains an unpleasant and selfish bully. He derides McQueen on TV several times throughout the film for not being as good of a racer as Jackson Storm, and once again shows that he let his arrogance and anger control his actions.

He also gloats on his Piston Cup victory and presents his trophy next to him. Because of this, his selfishness once again becomes his downfall when McQueen finally beats him in a virtual race at the canonical Disney World attraction, *Lightning McQueen's Racing Academy*.

## Trivia

* He was very similar same as Ripslinger in Planes film. the spin-off of Cars franchise created by Pixar and Jackson Storm in Cars 3.
* Chick largely serves as a dark parallel to McQueen. They are both racers who dream of getting at Dinoco, which represents the peak of success. However, with the influence he got from Doc, Sally, and Mater, McQueen learned humility, compassion, and that there was more to life than fame and fortune after helping The King finish his race. On the other hand, Chick failed to learn the error of his ways and let his anger be his downfall after getting booed off the stage following his unfair Piston Cup victory at LA Speedway. Thus, Chick serves as an example of what McQueen would have become if he had allowed his arrogance to consume him and had not realized the importance of humility.
* However, these traits are more exaggerated in Chick Hicks, and often make him more argumentative, ridiculous and obnoxious than his red counterpart is. Chick always brags about winning, and he is also shown to be a very sarcastic, unpleasant, treacherous, intimidating and formidable enemy. Having lived all of his career in the shadow of The King has made him bitter and devoid of any sense of fair play. One of his actions involved knocking the King (who was about to retire anyway) into the off-road.
	+ Chick is the most recurring villain in the *Cars* franchise as he appears in *Cars*, *Cars 3*, and almost every video game (excluding *Cars: Mater-National Championship*).
	+ Chick makes his team wear "mustache" grilles to represent him.
	+ According to the 2009 Die-cast Collectors Guide, Chick Hicks has 334 decals on him.
	+ Chick is a 1979 Shyster Gremlin, a car that does not exist. It is designed after a 1987 Buick Grand National.
	+ Chick's number "86" could come from 1986, the year that Pixar was established and when *Luxo, Jr.* was released. "86" is also slang for "destroying" or "to get rid of".
	+ Even though Chick did not appear in *Cars 2*, he can be obtainable via downloadable content in *Cars 2: The Video Game*.
	+ On his right door, there is a picture of the Marshy-Marshmallows logo. This is mostly the same company which was seen in *A Bug's Life* under the name of "Joel's Marshy Marshmallows".
	+ In the Polish version, his name is **Marek Marucha**. *Ma rucha* means "He has speeds of the film".
	+ Chick's primary sponsor is the Hostile Takeover Bank (htB), which is fitting considering his bad nature and that "hostile takeover" is basically to describe when one company directly approaches the owner of another companies and buys it, even if the previous owner didn't want it to be bought.
	+ Chick should have been disqualified even before the events of the movie because of PIT'ing and aggressive driving but for the convenience of the plot, he was kept as a racer. Because of this, it is implied that the race officials allow him to play dirty just because he's in contention of winning the Piston Cup.
	+ It is unknown what Chick looked like when the production of *Cars* originally started, maybe his sponsor was Nitroade as the Nitroade racer in the teaser trailer hits the red racer who was the old McQueen.
	+ Though he is the main villain, Chick has little screen time as the movie focused on McQueen lost in Radiator Springs along with his attitude from Doc Hudson to learn that there are more important things in life than winning.
	+ In the normal version of the first film, Chick was voiced by Michael Keaton and in the Danish version, he was voiced by Mads Mikkelsen. Both Keaton and Mikkelson portrayed villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Keaton portrayed Vulture in *Spider-Man: Homecoming* and Mikkelsen portrayed by Kaecilius in *Doctor Strange*.
		- His Danish voice actor, Mads Mikkelsen also did the voice of Randall Boggs (who is another Pixar villain) in the Danish version of *Monsters Inc.*
	+ Chick Hicks is one of the four main Pixar villains to actually succeed in his plans, with the other three being Chef Skinner from *Ratatouille* (despite his plan on getting revenge Remy and Linguini failed), Ernesto de la Cruz from *Coco* (despite his plan being foiled), and Gabby Gabby from *Toy Story 4* (despite turning good at the end).
	+ Whether Chick is truly evil or simply has a horrific attitude to the point of hitting other cars regardless of how much he damages them is debatable. Regardless, he moved on from his actions in the first movie to be just a snarky news reporter in the third. That said, he still hasn't reformed as shown still insulting McQueen on TV over the possibility of retiring.
		- However, it should be noted that Chicks Hicks' actions are less-than heinous than the likes of Sir Miles Axlerod and Professor Zündapp, Who damaged several racers during the races and were more than willing to kill other cars if it meant getting their way. This proves that while Chicks Hicks' was indeed a cheater who wanted to do whatever it takes to win, he wasn't willing to go as far as to kill Lightning McQueen (despite ramming the King which causes him harm).
	+ In the Rioplatenese version of *Cars*, he is voiced by Marcos di Palma, an Argentinian race car driver known for his brash attitude.
	+ Chick Hicks bullying McQueen on television can be compared to J. Jonah Jameson trying to incriminate Spiderman as a bad guy in newspapers due to considering him a threat to society.
	+ In the *Cars 3: Driven to Win* video game, Chick mostly appears in the background on his TV show set during menu navigation. However, he has a tendency to leave the set in anger, with forklift TV crew putting a cardboard version of himself.