♫ Each one is special in their own way! ♫ note
The Get Along Gang were characters created in 1983 by American Greetings' toy design and licensing division, "Those Characters from Cleveland" (now Cloudco Entertainment), for a series of greeting cards. The Get Along Gang was a group of twelve (and later, fourteen) pre-adolescent anthropomorphic animal characters in the fictional town of Green Meadow, who had formed a club that met in an abandoned caboose and who had various adventures whose upbeat stories intended to show the importance of teamwork and friendship. The success of the greeting card line led to a Saturday morning television series, which was produced by DiC Entertainment and aired on CBS for one season, from 1984 until 1985. The time slot was replaced by Disney's The Wuzzles. From January until July 1986, CBS aired reruns.
Each of the characters had obvious faults, which they learned to overcome with the aid of their friends. Montgomery Moose, the group's leader, was quite clumsy, Woolma Lamb was extremely vain and self-centered, Dotty Dog could be careless, Portia Porcupine was a bit of a crybaby and had temper tantrums, Zipper Cat could be overbearing, and Bingo Beaver could be greedy and tended to get himself and/or others into trouble, although he was not mean-spirited like the Gang's enemy, Catchum Crocodile.
Contains examples of:
- The Ace: Montgomery.
- Ageless Birthday Episode:
- In the episode "Woolma's Birthday", we never find out how old the eponymous Woolma is.
- In the book "The New Neighbor", it's Rudyard's birthday. The gang avoids him deliberately to plan a surprise birthday party for him but Rudyard misunderstands this, thinking everyone doesn't want him around anymore.
- Alliterative Name: Montgomery Moose, Dotty Dog, Portia Porcupine, Bingo "Bet-It-All" Beaver, Rocco Rabbit, Flora "Forget-Me-Not" Fox, Bernice Bear, Catchum Crocodile, Leland Lizard.
- Animation Bump: The pilot, which was produced by Nelvana rather than DiC Entertainment, features not only some notably different, more cartoony character designs, but also much smoother, livelier and more fluent animation than the series.
- The Atoner: Rocco Rabbit in "The Big Bully" is stunned at how upset his antics made his friends and when he overhears Catchum and Leland's plan to cover the clubhouse in chocolate syrup, quickly leaps into action to foil their scheme, netting him his friends' forgiveness.
- Brought to You by the Letter "S": Montgomery, and Dotty wear shirts that have "M", and "D" respectively.
- Characterization Marches On: In the pilot Catchum was slyer and craftier and Leland was dumber.
- Portia was a bit of a ditz; when the gang was thinking of better prize for the scavenger hunt than a blue ribbon, she suggested two blue ribbons. She also messes up two of the scavenger items: bringing a phone booth instead of a phone book and a trampoline instead of a tambourine.
- Chekhov's Gun: Early in "The Big Bully", Dotty relates an old story about how the bridge to the gang's clubhouse and nearby swimming hole supposedly once had trolls under it; later, a chocolate-covered Rocco uses said chocolate and leaves to disguise himself as a troll to scare off Catchum and Leland.
- Child Prodigy: Montgomery's scientific creations include a fully functional robot and an anti-gravity formula.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: The show has acquired the reputation among some people as being solely built around this trope, but in fact the trope isn't all that prominent for an 80s cartoon. The idea that this is "The Complainer Is Always Wrong, the Cartoon" probably stems less from the show itself and more from an oft-quoted interview with Mark Evanier.
- Inverted in the episode School's Out. All of them save one, had very good reason to complain: Catchum and Leland had switched test papers, making it look as though none of them even answered the test questions. Montgomery was willing to have all of them accept their "punishment" anyway, but the others knew it wasn't right. In this case, the "complainers" were right this time, plus they were even able to get Catchum and Leland to confess what they had done.
- Similarly inverted in "The Big Bully", wherein everyone, including Montgomery, is very upset with Rocco's pranks and insensitivity and while Woolma's suggestion of putting worms in Rocco's shoes is called out, it's only in the sense that doing so wouldn't fix the actual issue and when Rocco finally goes too far, the story allows the rest of the gang to be well within their rights to tell him to go away and not come back until he's ready to make up for what he did.
- Cousin Oliver: Subverted with one-time characters Cousin Wilton, Dotty Dog's cousin, and Cousin Tabby, Zipper Cat's cousin, both of whom are elderly adults (a grumpy old man for Cousin Wilton and an implied Cool Old Lady for Cousin Tabby). How exactly they wound up being cousins to people way younger than them is not explained, but it's implied it's a long story as to why.
- Demoted to Extra: Any gang members who weren't the original six. The pilot and the series handle these characters differently:
- In the pilot, only the original six have actual dialogue. The rest of the members are all there, and get the occasional small moment (especially during the opening and closing credits) but apart from some nondistinctive background chatter (and a single Haughty "Hmph" from Flora in the final scene), none of them speaks a single word.
- In the series they were simply not in the gang. Braker became an unaffiliated friend, Rocco, Flora and Bernice had non-speaking cameos and Rudyard and Lolly didn't appear at all.
- Didn't Think This Through: Bingo attempts to get rich by using Montgomery's anti-gravity formula on himself and the head of an airline company. The man is impressed but then asks how they're supposed to get down... Fortunately for them, the formula's effects were only temporary.
- The Fashionista: Woolma seems to be this, often worrying about her appearance, and not liking disgusting themes. She even talks like one.
- Female Feline, Male Mutt: Inverted with Zipper (a male cat) and Dottie (a female dog).
- Free-Range Children: The gang is able to go pretty much anywhere they pleased. They can even travel in their Clubhouse Caboose using a handcar-like lever. A few members have their parents mentioned a couple times but are never seen.
- Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: The anthropomorphic critters in the cast all wear clothes. Even Braker Turtle.
- Funny Animal: The cast, obviously.
- Furry Confusion: One story involves a non-anthropomorphic elephant named Elmer who got separated from a circus. He's the size of an actual elephant, walks on all fours, and doesn't speak, trumpeting like an elephant usually does. The gang eventually finds him and returns him.
- Gone Horribly Right: In "The Bullies" Catchum gets the gang banned from the park by convincing the Pig sisters that the gang is trying to keep them out. Catchum boasts that he and Leland now have the park all to themselves, but then the Pig sisters kick them out, saying the park is theirs.
- In "The New Neighbor", the gang and their peers work very hard to keep their planned surprise party for Rudyard a complete secret and it works...unfortunately, their secretive behavior has convinced Rudyard he's an outcast and he runs away.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Catchum dowsing Rocco in sticky chocolate in "The Big Bully" gave the rabbit the ability to convincingly disguise himself as a troll by sticking leaves to his fur, this disguise allowing Rocco to disrupt Catchum's intended prank by scaring him and Leland away from the gang's hideout.
- Informed Flaw: It isn't said why exactly everyone's so scared of Sammy. It might be because he's a skunk but again, nobody outright says so.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Rocco Rabbit, as demonstrated in "The Big Bully"; while he saw no problem with pulling pranks that the audience can clearly see aren't remotely appreciated by the rest of the gang, he is genuinely startled to find out how hurt they were and is quick to stand up to Catchum when he overhears the crocodile's plan to ruin the clubhouse.
- Just Eat Gilligan: Removing Bingo "Bet-It-All" Beaver would have saved the gang some problems.
- Karma Houdini: The townspeople in "Zipper's Millions", who kidnap several members of the gang and lock them in Zipper's Cousin Tabby's cabin because they thought she deserved the fortune more than Zipper did. The gang simply forgives them and they receive no comeuppance for the trouble they caused.
- Kiddy Coveralls: Bingo Beaver wears these with a red patch on one knee. He's a prankster, and the overalls also evoke the "blue collar worker" aspect as beavers are known for building dams.
- Kids Driving Cars: In the pilot episode, the Gang had to drive in a car race to win the last item from the scavenger hunt list, and nobody in the gang is even old enough to have a learner's permit!
- Loophole Abuse: In "The Missing Caboose", Bingo lost a bet with Catchum and his forfeit is that he owes Catchum the stove the Gang keeps in their clubhouse. Catchum takes advantage of the fact that the bet never clarified he could only take the stove and takes the entire clubhouse to get it.
- Meaningful Name: Lolly Squirrel is the daughter of the owner of the local candy factory and is fittingly named after the lollipop AKA one of the most iconic sweets.
- The Last Straw: In "The Get-Along Gang and the Big Bully", the rest of the gang tolerates, though with growing irritation, Rocco's assorted pranks and generally insensitive behavior for a good while. However, when his antics get them all kicked out of the local ice cream parlor, even Montgomery is completely fed up with him and the whole gang tells him to go away.
- The Load: Portia gets treated like this in one story, which is strangely out of character for the others who usually include her in all of their activities, but in this story, everyone is so busy with the kites they're building for a kite flying contest, they don't have time for her, and start treating her like a pest. She later makes her own kite, and then wins the contest.
- No Hugging, No Kissing: There is very little elements of romance in the series. The closest is Rudyard's crush on Woolma, but he was Adapted Out of the show.
- Not as You Know Them: The thankfully canned reimagining. You can't watch
this pilot
without planting some Epileptic Trees regarding how sweet little Portia Porcupine may have possibly betrayed the original Gang sometime in the past 60 years and is now organizing a new Get Along Gang either to atone for her previous sins or to facilitate a Batman Gambit against the "common foe" the theme song speaks of... or both. Bonus: Where did they get Holograms? - Not-So-Forgotten Birthday: This happens to Woolma in the eponymously named "Woolma's Birthday", although in this case, they were trying to avoid her. This leads to her writing a note saying she was going to visit her aunt on the waterfront, which is implied to not be a safe place. Eventually, not only does the gang celebrate her birthday, they also celebrate Sammy Skunk saving Montgomery from being run over by a car.
- On One Condition: Zipper was once given a deadline to claim an inheritance.
- Pom-Pom Girl: With her white monogrammed sweater, pleated skirt, and saddle oxford shoes, Dotty looks just like one, although she doesn't do actual cheerleading in the show. Some artwork, including the episode title cards, even has her holding/waving pom-poms.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Bad guys: Catchum Crocodile and Leland Lizard; Good guys: Braker Turtle.
- Spell My Name With An S: "Dotty" is the official spelling of her name.
- Sweet Sheep: Woolma the Lamb who's very cute and kind with others.
- Through a Face Full of Fur:
- In the pilot, a happy Portia kisses Montgomery on the cheek when they win the scavenger hunt. Montgomery can be seen blushing as a result.
- In the episode "Woolma's Birthday", Woolma kisses Sammy Skunk, also causing him to blush.
- Too Smart for Strangers: Ends up being subverted, since one-off character Sammy Skunk ("The toughest carny there is") is really a nice guy. He did save Montgomery from being hit by a car, after all.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Zipper and Bingo. Zipper is always annoyed by Bingo's antics and is constantly yelling at him, but there has been proof in the show where Bingo has referred to Zipper as his "best buddy."
- Zany Scheme: Bingo sometimes tries these, and sometimes they get the entire gang into trouble, like in "School's Out" when he... "borrowed" Officer Growler's megaphone for their plan to trick Catchum and Leland into confessing to Ms. Dearing (the teacher) about switching the test papers. Woolma even calls him out on it.
