The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series
| The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series The Wally Gator Show Cartoon Zoo (WPIX-TV) |
| Genre | Cartoon series |
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Voices of | Daws Butler Bill Thompson Mel Blanc Alan Reed Don Messick |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 52 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producers | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | First-run syndication |
| Release | September 3, 1962 – August 26, 1963 |
The Hanna-Barbera New Cartoon Series (also known as The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series or The Wally Gator Show) was an American syndicated television package of three animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The package started on September 3, 1962, and ended on August 26, 1963, and included the following unrelated short cartoon segments featuring talking animals characters:
The package consisted of 52 episodes, each with three individual segments and no bridge animation. Each individual cartoon segment had its own opening theme and closing title.
The title The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series was an off-screen promotional title to distinguish this package from other Hanna-Barbera cartoons available at the time (such as The Huckleberry Hound Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show and The Yogi Bear Show, all of which had bridge animation between the cartoons). For example, WGN-Channel 9 in Chicago ran the three segments in a half-hour timeslot under the name Wally Gator. In New York, WPIX-TV originally used the segments for a local series, Cartoon Zoo, featuring Milt Moss as host and "Zookeeper", with life-sized cutouts of the characters in "cages" as a backdrop.
The package was originally syndicated by Screen Gems, the television division at the time of Columbia Pictures. The Hanna-Barbera studio was later purchased by the Taft Broadcasting Company, which distributed the studio's product first through Taft-HB Program Sales, and later through Worldvision Enterprises. Over time, the studio regained control of many of its earlier productions and distributed them through Worldvision. The elements of The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series were split up, with Wally Gator airing as a segment on Magilla Gorilla and Friends on USA Network's Cartoon Express from 1987 through 1991. Meanwhile, Touche Turtle and Lippy the Lion were part of another package of cartoons aired on The Family Channel. Following the purchase of the Hanna-Barbera library by Turner Entertainment (which in turn, was later acquired and absorbed into Warner Bros. Television Distribution), these shorts eventually appeared on Cartoon Network and later Boomerang.
As of February 17, 2025, all three segments are currently airing as part of "House of Hanna-Barbera", a programming block on MeTV Toons. Like the other H-B shorts aired in that block, these three segments are presented in brand new HD transfers by Warner Bros., despite the fact most of the segments could only be sourced from poor and low-quality transfers and still look somehow fuzzy.