Wally Gator is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that originally aired as one of the three segments from the syndicated block The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series. The other two segments that compose the series are Touché Turtle and Dum Dum and Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har. The segment consisted of 52 episodes that aired from September 3, 1962, to August 26, 1963.

Wally Gator was initially voiced by Daws Butler, the voice of many other Hanna-Barbera characters of the same era. Wally appears in the HBO Max series Jellystone!, where he is portrayed as the town ditz and voiced by Jeff Bergman.

Plot

Wally Gator (voiced by Daws Butler impersonating Ed Wynn) is an anthropomorphic, happy-go-lucky alligator who wears a collar and a pork pie hat. Although his catchy theme song describes him as a "swingin' alligator of the swamp," his home is in the city zoo. Mr. Twiddle (voiced by Don Messick) is the zookeeper who keeps a close watch on Wally, who likes to check out what life is like in the outside world.

Analysis

Animation historian Christopher P. Lehman noted that Wally Gator follows the formula that Hanna-Barbera established in the previous series, such as the Yogi 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. 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 the Top Cat series, where the titular character keeps trying to get away from life in the alley. 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 from Warner Archive on June 25, 2019. It was released on Blu-ray by Warner Archive on December 16, 2025.

See also

  • List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions
  • List of Hanna-Barbera characters
  • The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series
  • Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har
  • Touché Turtle and Dum Dum

References

Sources

  • Big Cartoon DataBase: Wally Gator
  • Toonopedia