Magilla Gorilla


Magilla Gorilla is a fictional gorilla and the star of The Magilla Gorilla Show by Hanna-Barbera that aired from 1964 to 1965. Also, the Brazilian boxer Adilson Rodrigues has called himself "Maguilla" after the cartoon.

Character description

Magilla Gorilla is an anthropomorphic western lowland gorilla who spends his time languishing in the front display window of Melvin Peebles' pet shop, eating bananas and being a drain on the businessman's finances. Peebles marked down Magilla's price considerably, but Magilla was invariably only purchased for a short time, typically by some thieves who needed a gorilla to break into a bank or by an advertising agency looking for a mascot for their new product. The customers always ended up returning Magilla, forcing Peebles to refund their money. Magilla often ended episodes with his catchphrase "We'll try again next week."
Many of Hanna-Barbera's animal characters were dressed in human accessories; Magilla Gorilla sported a bow tie, shorts held up by suspenders, and an undersized derby hat.
The only customer truly interested in obtaining the trouble-prone Magilla was a little girl named Ogee. During the cartoon's theme song, "We've Got a Gorilla for Sale", she asks hopefully, "How much is that gorilla in the window?", but she was never able to convince her parents to let her keep Magilla.
In Yiddish, a megillah is a long tedious or embroidered account, from the Hebrew megillah, a story written in a scroll. One episode has Magilla saying, "Such a megillah over a gorilla."
The brazilian world boxer champion Adilson Rodrigues received, adopted and is recognized by the public by the nickname "Maguila", in a reference to the cartoon.

Episodes

Season 1 (1964)

Season 2 (1965)

Inception

As pointed out on the Rhino Records' CD liner notes for their collection of Hanna-Barbera theme tunes, part of Magilla's purpose was to sell likenesses of himself. The show was sponsored by Ideal Toys, which produced a Magilla stuffed toy.

Other appearances

According to one reading of the show, the trials of Magilla mirrored the attitudes that some American citizens had towards racial integration during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Christopher P. Lehman, in his 2007 book American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era: A Study of Social Commentary in Films and Television Programs, 1961-1973, writes that The Magilla Gorilla Show perpetuated the idea that non-whites should be segregated, with Peebles selling Magilla to white customers who would invariably return him to the pet shop by the end of each episode.

''Magilla Gorilla'' in other languages