The Peter Potamus Show | |
---|---|
Also known as | 'Peter Potamus and His Magic Flying Balloon' |
Genre |
Animated Comedy Adventure |
Written by | Tony Benedict Warren Foster Dalton Sandifer |
Directed by |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
Voices of |
Daws Butler Don Messick Howard Morris Mel Blanc John Stephenson Hal Smith Doug Young |
Composer(s) | Hoyt Curtin |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language(s) | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 27 |
Production | |
Producer(s) |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
Running time | 22–26 minutes |
Production company(s) | Hanna-Barbera Productions |
Distributor |
Screen Gems (original) Warner Bros. Television Distribution (current) |
Release | |
Original network |
Syndication ABC |
Picture format |
Black-and-white (syndicated) Color (ABC) / NTSC (480i) |
Audio format | Monaural |
Original release | September 16, 1964 – October 23, 1965 |
The Peter Potamus Show is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera and first broadcast on September 16, 1964. (Early promotional materials for the series carried the title Peter Potamus and His Magic Flying Balloon, but that title never appeared on screen.)
The Peter Potamus Show was divided into three segments: Peter Potamus and So-So, Breezly and Sneezly and Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey. Peter Potamus was a companion series to The Magilla Gorilla Show and both series premiered in first-run syndication before being picked up by ABC in January 1966. At that time, the Breezly and Sneezly segment was swapped with Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-Long, a segment on The Magilla Gorilla Show. After the ABC run ended in 1967, cartoons from Magilla Gorilla and Peter Potamus shows were syndicated together.
The original Peter Potamus series used to be seen on the cable TV channel Boomerang, often as part of its anthology series Boomerang Zoo. During the original run of the cartoon (1964), at the end of each episode, the closing song ended with the phrase: "And there he goes Peter Potamus, our ideal" (The Ideal toy company was the sponsor of the television series. A similarly subtle sponsor reference appeared in the Magilla Gorilla theme song lyrics: "He's really ideal").
The main segment featured Peter Potamus (voiced by Daws Butler impersonating Joe E. Brown; Butler used an identical voice for Lippy the Lion) and his diminutive sidekick So-So the monkey (voiced by Don Messick). Peter is big, purple, and friendly, dressed in a safari jacket and hat. Episodes generally consisted of Peter and So-So exploring the world in his hot air balloon, which was capable of time travel at the spin of a dial. When faced with a precarious situation, Peter uses his Hippo Hurricane Holler to blow away his opponents.