Peter Potamus

You know what made Peter Potamus so entertaining? Well, mildly entertaining, at the very best. Anyway, what made him so cool was that he had a time-travel cartoon that DIDN’T try to teach you anything! Nearly every cartoon that had time-travel as a major plot-point used it as a front for supplemental education. Back to the Future the Series, Flint the Time Detective, Peabody & Sherman, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventures, Times Squad…the list goes on!

But not Peter Potamus, no sir. Sure, he might tell you a date or something and give you a vague idea of when pilgrims hunted turkeys and wore those stupid hats, but nothing blatantly educational. The writers really just used the time-travel angle as a means for Peter to get his skull caved-in in new environments. One day he’d be eaten by a dinosaur, another day he’d be riddled with arrows by screaming Indians, and still another day he’d be hung from the gallows by a mob of Puritans believing him to be a witch. His little monkey pal never lifted a finger to help him, either.

Additionally, Peter Potamus was much like Ricochet Rabbit in that he had a super power. He called it his “Hippo Holler” or his “Hippo Howler” or something equally lame and predictable. Essentially, he could scream real loud and cause people’s ears to bleed uncontrollably.

Peter Potamus also didn’t give a damn about “time paradoxes” or “preserving the chrono-stream” or garbage like that. He’d go back in time, get into a fight with some Knight of the Round Table, blow his head off with his patented hippo-scream and BAM! John Cleese suddenly ceases to exist. Peter Potamus didn’t play by anybody’s rules, least of all God’s.

Peter Potamus can currently be seen on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law airing on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim line-up. Despite being obscure and never very popular, and has managed a brand new catchphrase; “Didja get that thing I sentcha?”

Is this the beginning of a Peter Potamus-resurgence? I hope not.

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