Gridiron Gorilla

A football coach comes to the pet shop and wants Magilla to play on his football team. Recruited to play football for the team in trouble, he starts clobbering the other team - until they realize he's a gorilla and bring out their secret weapon.

Magilla Gorilla, Mr. Peebles, Coach, Football Players

Magilla Gorilla holds a special distinction for two reasons: First, Magilla (along with Peter Potamus) was one of the few cartoons to begin its run in syndication and then move to network television. Magilla Gorilla was picked up by ABC on January 1, 1966. Secondly, the show was one of the first to be created in conjunction with a toy company (Ideal Toys) in order to market character toys immediately. This series followed up on such Hanna-Barbera characters as Yogi Bear and Pebbles Flintstone, which had spawned successful Ideal lines of toys and games.

Magilla was voiced by veteran character actor Allan Melvin, best known as Sam the Butcher, Alice's long-time beau on The Brady Bunch.

Also of note is the fact that in its third year, when it was picked up by ABC (from syndication), Ricochet Rabbit and Droop-a-Long was switched with Breezly and Sneezly from Peter Potamus and his Magic Flying Balloon in an effort to promote the hippo's show, which was trailing in the ratings.