Review: The Magilla Gorilla Show: The Complete Series [Blu-ray] from WARNER ARCHIVE

Warner Archive delivers a beautifully stunning and newly remastered episodes of Magilla Gorilla on Blu-ray!

Direct from his Peebles Pet Shop habitat, Magilla Gorilla swings into the Blu-ray jungle, his inimitable goofiness and penchant for stumbling into trouble still intact to delight new generations of cartoon fans.

As the naive ape demonstrates, primates and humans share similar situations. Magilla gets to be an Army draftee (Private Magilla, featuring famous news anchor Walter Crancake), a football player (Gridiron Gorilla), an astronaut (Planet Zero) and more, ever silly situation an occasion for laughs.

You can also relish the frisky feuding of Punkin' Puss and Mushmouse in a rootin'-tootin' shooting gallery of hillbilly hilarity. Lightning-fast sheriff Ricochet Rabbit and his coyote deputy Droop-a-long round out the animated animal antics.

All 23 original episodes of this Hanna-Barbera classic series have been newly remastered from 4K scans of the original negatives for pristine quality, along with eight bonus Magilla cartoons that are sure to please!

This classic gem of a show The Magilla Gorilla Show debuted on January 15, 1964 as a first-run syndication show. The series got a DVD release on August 15, 2006. And now for the first time ever on Blu-ray and as mentioned above newly remastered from 4k scans of the OCNs.

I am so happy Warner Archive continues to deliver these 4k remasters of the Hanna-Barbera collection. As technology advances so does the capabilities these companies have to truly make something special for the fans.

All episodes from the series are presented on 3 discs totaling 539 minutes in all.

Read on down below for our review and find out what bonus features there are on this release! :)

Picture

Rating: 5/5

The picture quality of each episode is absolutely stunning and exactly as described “pristine”. Great detail and quality is enhanced with each episode with colors popping and backgrounds such as the cash register in the store or items on shelves are clearly visible. There’s also a nice and cirsp film grain that adds depth to the picture of each episode.

The animation is so beautiful with the 4k scans brings to life this 1960s era cartoon like no other.

Each episode is presented in 16x9 1.33:1 with side mattes.

Audio:

The DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono master audio tracks of each episode are crisp and fresh and sound incredible! You can hear dialogue clearly and music and effects are nicely detailed in each track. With an animated show from the 60’s there’s those charming nostalgic slap stick sound effects that are significantly enhanced with these audio tracks.

This show is an instant classic and warms the hearts of everyone who grew up watching it.

There is definitely a night and day difference from the 2006 DVD release.

Packaging:

5/5

Warner Archive like their visuals and audio presentations never disappoint with the packaging of their releases. Magilla Gorilla has each episode labels on each of the 3 discs and which cartoon segment is on each episode clearly outline on each of the individual discs.

Bonus Features:

There are 3 bonus cartoons from the show not previously released before including the following:

MAGILLA THEME SONG: LIVE AND UNPLUGGED

MR. PEEBLES PET SHOP

HERE COMES A STAR

Overall

This 4k re-master on BD is truly pristine and a must own!

I pulled some additional information to give you some history on the show courtesy of Wikipedia down below—

The show made its first premiere on January 15, 1964, on first-run syndication. When The Magilla Gorilla Show first aired on television, the show was not broadcast on the same day of the week or the same time, in every city's affiliation. For its original run until 1965 in syndication, some of the major markets in cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Dallas aired The Magilla Gorilla Show on independent stations, such as WPIX, KCOP, KTVU, WGN, WTTV, and KTVT. Overlands and overseas, the show aired on CBC Television in Canada at the time since its debut; and in Australia, The Magilla Gorilla Show didn't air in Australia until April 6, 1965, when Network TEN ran the entire series. Beginning in 1966, new episodes and reruns of the earlier episodes then began airing on ABC's Saturday Morning schedule until its last run on December 30, 1967. In Canada and Australia, the show continued its reruns until 1969. After the reruns were mostly canceled in America, Only a few stations continued their portion to rerun The Magilla Gorilla Show. Chicago's WFLD once carried The Magilla Gorilla Show during the early-1980s in their morning schedule, and one of the longest-running stations to air The Magilla Gorilla Show, New York City's WPIX, continued to rerun The Magilla Gorilla Show for more than a decade until 1984. At the time, no local station in America has aired them since then. Apparently in the United Kingdom, Yorkshire Television reran the series in the early 1980's; and in Australia, Nine Network reran the show during the mid-1980s. Both channels reran The Magilla Gorilla Show for a short period of time. Back in America, the show was then returned on cable-only USA Network later on during the decade, and Cartoon Network began running the series when it launched years later on October 1, 1992. Cartoon Network's run lasted until 2004 due to its sister station Boomerang at the time airing the show since Boomerang's early years. Boomerang continued to air The Magilla Gorilla Show until July 22, 2012. The show made a return on November 26, 2020 for four days until November 30, 2020, on a Boomerang Thanksgiving weekend containing episodes of various classic Hanna-Barbera shows. During the run, both Punkin' Puss & Mushmouse or Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-Long segments were not aired during the four-day period; which was replaced by another Magilla Gorilla segment to fill the schedule instead, with both opening theme and closing theme/credits intact throughout every segment. Out of the 31 Magilla Gorilla segments in total, only 20 of them were aired. In 2024 it was announced that The Magilla Gorilla Show would be begin airing soon on MeTV Toons.