Peter Potamus

Peter Potamus is a purple animated hippopotamus that first appeared in The Peter Potamus Show, 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
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").

Peter Potamus and So-So
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.

Breezly and Sneezly
A polar bear named Breezly Bruin (voiced by Howard Morris) and his friend Sneezly the Seal (voiced by Mel Blanc) use various schemes to break into an army camp in the frozen north, while trying to stay one step ahead of the camp's leader Colonel Fuzzby (voiced by John Stephenson).

Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey
Three dogs named Yippee (voiced by Doug Young), Yappee (voiced by Hal Smith), and Yahooey (voiced by Daws Butler) aka The Goofy Guards, work for the King, a short, complaining ruler (voiced by Hal Smith) who is often on the receiving end of their antics. The trio's plumed hats and swords are reminiscent of the Three Musketeers.

Voice cast

 * Daws Butler - Peter Potamus and Yahooey
 * Don Messick - So-So and Ricochet Rabbit
 * Howard Morris - Breezly Bruin
 * Mel Blanc - Sneezly and Droop-a-Long
 * John Stephenson - Colonel Fuzzby
 * Hal Smith - Yappee and the King
 * Doug Young - Yippee

United States

 * Television syndication (1962–1992)
 * Cartoon Network (1992–2004)
 * Boomerang (2000–2014)

Other appearances

 * Peter Potamus and So-So appeared in Yogi's Ark Lark and its spin-off series Yogi's Gang.
 * Peter Potamus guest starred in the episode "India and Israel" on Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics.
 * Peter Potamus guest starred in some episodes of Yogi's Treasure Hunt.
 * Peter Potamus made a cameo appearance in The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound as a captain of a boat to Tahiti.
 * Peter Potamus appeared in teenager form in the early 1990s series Yo Yogi!, where he was voiced by Frank Welker. He and So-So were shown to own a plant store at Jellystone Mall called Peter Potamus' Plant Palace. In "Tricky Dickie's Dirty Trickies," he is shown to be allergic to goldenrods.
 * Peter Potamus and So-So were seen as animatronics in the Dexter's Laboratory episode "Chubby Cheese" during Chubby's song sequence.
 * Potamus was also a recurring character on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, where he is voiced in a Brooklyn accent by Joe Alaskey and later voiced by Chris Edgerly. In it, he is a sexually charged hippo and a lazy and sleazy (but inexplicably successful) lawyer who is forever obsessed with strippers and sandwiches. He works at the Sebben & Sebben law firm with Harvey Birdman. Peter has the trademark phrase "Did you get that thing I sent you?" Starting with episode 6 of season 3, "Return of Birdgirl", Peter's hands were changed to hooves.

Home media
The episode Fe Fi Fo Fun is available on the DVD Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Vol. 1. The episode Wagon Train Strain is available on the Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960's Vol. 2 set. The episode Cleo Trio is on the Hanna Barbera 25 Cartoon Collection DVD, part of The Best of Warner Bros. series.

On November 1, 2016, Warner Archive released The Peter Potamus Show- The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.