Magilla Gorilla

Magilla Gorilla is a fictional Gorilla and the star of The Magilla Gorilla Show by Hanna-Barbera that aired from 1963 to 1967.

Character description
Magilla Gorilla (voiced by Allan Melvin ) is a 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 (voiced by Howard Morris and later by Don Messick) 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."

Like many of Hanna-Barbera's animal characters, Magilla Gorilla was dressed in human accessories, sporting 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 (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl and pronounced "Oh Gee!"). During the cartoon's theme song, "We've Got a Gorilla for Sale", she asks hopefully, "How much is that gorilla in the window?" a twist on the old standard, "(How Much Is) That Doggie 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."

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

 * Magilla Gorilla appeared on both the 1972 made-for-TV movie Yogi's Ark Lark and the 1973 spin-off Yogi's Gang series, where he would run the treadmill that powers the Ark as long as there are plenty of bananas.


 * In the 1982 special Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper, Magilla Gorilla (alongside Wally Gator and Yakky Doodle) was unable to help Yogi and his friends locate J. Wellington Jones.


 * Magilla appeared in the 1985-1988 syndicated series Yogi's Treasure Hunt.


 * Magilla made a cameo appearance as an HB reporter in the 1988 TV-movie The Good.


 * In the "Fender Bender 500" segment of the 1990 series Wake, Magilla Gorilla was partnered with Wally Gator as they rode a monster truck called the Swamp Stomper.


 * In Yo Yogi!, Magilla appeared as superstar rapper Magilla Ice (a spoof of Vanilla Ice).


 * Magilla Gorilla appeared as Sinbad on the 1994 TV special Scooby-Doo! in Arabian Nights.


 * In the 2005 Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law episode "Free Magilla," Magilla Gorilla (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) is kidnapped by radical animal rights activists, causing Mr. Peebles (also voiced by Maurice LaMarche) to sue them. Magilla is quickly abandoned by the activists after they grow sick of his many puns. During the course of the episode, Mr. Peebles confesses to having grown attached to Magilla.


 * Magilla Gorilla made a cameo in a 2012 MetLife commercial entitled, "Everyone".


 * Magilla and Mr. Peebles make cameos in the 2013 direct-to-video film Scooby-Doo! Mask of the Blue Falcon as images in the Hanna-Barbera convention.

Cultural references

 * Da Lench Mob mentions Magilla Gorilla (as well as fellow cartoon simian The Grape Ape) in the title track of their 1992 album Guerillas in tha Mist.


 * In the X-Men comics, Hank McCoy (Beast) was nicknamed "Magilla Gorilla" in High School.


 * Howard Stern Show co-host Robin Quivers was nicknamed Magilla Gorilla by comedian Bob Levy.


 * Comedian Rondell Sheridan has repeatedly joked about his resemblance to Magilla Gorilla, dating back to being teased for it as a child.


 * In the second season finale of Lost, Sawyer refers to Hurley and Kate as "Magilla Gorilla and Pippi Longstocking".


 * In the Australian National Basketball League, the Hobart Devils import Jim Havrilla in 1993, was nicknamed 'Magilla the Gorilla', due to his force in smashing backboards with his slam dunks.


 * In a season 18 episode of The Simpsons titled "Ice Cream of Margie (With the Light Blue Hair)", Marge makes a giant sculpture of Homer out of popsicle sticks, to which he gleefully proclaims, "You made me a sculpture of Magilla Gorilla!"

Interpretation
According to one reading of the show, the trials of Magilla mirrored the attitudes that 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 (the gorilla iconography thus evoking a reference to 19th-century racist artwork portraying blacks as subhuman primates) to white customers who would invariably return him to the pet shop by the end of each episode.

Magilla Gorilla in other languages

 * Brazilian Portuguese: Maguila, o Gorila
 * Spanish: Maguila Gorila
 * Japanese: ゴリラのゴンちゃん (Gorira no Gon-chan)
 * Finnish: The same as in English
 * Hungarian: Magilla Gorilla
 * Italian: The same as in English
 * Polish: Goryl Magilla (pronouncing with double "l")
 * Persian: گوريل انگوري (Gooril angoori) - Gooril angoori is Grape Ape.