Ah, yes.....the greatest swamp operator, Wally Gator. This lovable cartoon character ranks as one of my most favorite....even to this day (thanks to Boomerang), I still enjoy watching him. Released in the year 1962....along with such cartoons as "Lippy the Lion"& Touch'e Turtle, Wally Gator is always trying to escape from the Zoo, & getting into mischief or trouble or ....something. Unfortunately, the people in the city didn't take too kindly to an alligator trying to fit into a human society....only seeing him as a either shoes, a handbag, etc. Like a lot of the earlier Hanna Barbera cartoons, Wally's adventures were always fun to watch. I was amazed to find out there are over 52 episodes of this cartoon series...so, try to catch them if you can. Oh, I just recently saw a "Wally Gator" cartoon (this one was updated & "computer drawn") where Wally is "rescued" from the zoo, & taken back to the swamp, only to get re-rescued at the swamp & Wally & the "other"gators drive back to the zoo & enjoy "life in captivity". At the very end, a little bird with a "big" beak is yelling to the gator rescuers...."eat me....eat me. You're messing with the order, no one messes with the order......eat me....eat me!" It's too funny....!

I watched this cartoon as a kid, and a lot more now that Boomerang is showing it. It's another one of the Hanna-Barbera formulas where a zoo-keeper or similar is trying to keep an animal from getting into mischief. These would also include The Hair Bear Bunch, Squiddly Diddly, Magilla Gorilla, Yogi Bear, and I'm sure a few others that aren't coming to mind. This is what I would consider good Hanna-Barbera, where I'd put Yogi, Huckleberry Hound, and Quickdraw McGraw as the best. I at least like this formula better than the group of teens solving a mystery formula, which was WAY overdone after Scooby-Doo, and with little talent. The one thing I don't get about Wally Gator is that the opening theme has him riding a boat around a swamp, while the theme song says "Wally Gator is the greatest operator in the swamp." The show takes place at a zoo though, there is no swamp there. There's one episode where he breaks out of the zoo and returns to the swamp to steal turnips from a farmer, which he says he used to do when he lived in the swamp. So maybe he was once there, but not in the show. You could wonder why the greatest operator in the swamp would allow himself to be captured and put in a zoo, but then he does mention how zoo life is much more luxurious, meals brought to you, etc... so maybe its exactly what he wanted.