| Wally Gator | |
|---|---|
 Title card. | |
| Genre | Comedy |
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Voices of | Daws Butler Don Messick |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 52 |
| Production | |
| Producers | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Running time | 24 minutes |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | First-run syndication |
| Release | September 3, 1962 (1962-9-3) – August 26, 1963 (1963-8-26) |
Wally Gator is an Americananimated television series produced byHanna-Barbera Productions that originally aired as one of the three segments from thesyndicated blockThe Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series.[1] The other two segments that compose the series areTouché Turtle and Dum Dum andLippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har.[2] The segment consisted of 52 episodes that aired from September 3, 1962, to August 26, 1963.[3]
Wally Gator appears in theHBO Max seriesJellystone!, where he is portrayed as the town ditz and voiced byJeff Bergman.[4]
Wally Gator (voiced byDaws Butler impersonatingEd Wynn) is ananthropomorphic, happy-go-luckyalligator who wears a collar and apork pie hat. Although his catchy theme song describes him as a "swingin' alligator of theswamp," his home is in the cityzoo.[5]Mr. Twiddle (voiced byDon Messick) is thezookeeper who keeps a close watch on Wally, who likes to check out what life is like in the outside world.[6]
Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman noted thatWally Gator follows the formula that Hanna-Barbera established in the previous series, such as theYogi Bear series. The set up in which these shows placed an animal character within a human-controlled environment and had these characters deal with the social boundaries placed and enforced by humans.[7] An example being: Yogi lives in a park under the care of a park ranger; Wally lives in a zoo under the supervision of a zookeeper. The theme that drives the series is Wally's desire to escape the zoo, a derivative of theTop Cat series, where the titular character keeps trying to get away from life in the alley.[7]
Lehman notes a rather depressing underlying theme: the zoo and life in captivity seem to be the proper place for Wally. No matter how much he struggles to fit in the society of the outside world, Wally remains an "Other" and is doomed to fail. Thestatus quo follows every unsuccessful attempt at change.[7]
Episodes ofWally Gator were released on VHS many times. A DVD set release of the complete series was originally announced for 2006 fromWarner Bros. for theHanna-Barbera Classic Collection but was later canceled due to the poor condition of the masters and was delayed. In 2006, a Warner spokesperson said of the DVDs: "They were pulled because significant remastering work needed to be researched. We are exploring adding them back to the schedule next year." The first episode is available on the DVD set “Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Vol. 2”.[8] The show was released on iTunes video in 2017 as part of Hanna-Barbera's 60th anniversary and was released on a made-to-order DVD set fromWarner Archive on June 25, 2019.[9]
