Green Gators

Wow. They really do smile.^{From top to bottom} Crocodiles in The Lion Guard, crocodiles in real life.

"And take some of them green alligators and long-necked geese..."

—The Unicorn by Shel Silverstein

You wouldn't know it from cartoons, but crocodilians are usually a dark shade of gray or brown, with some appearing to be deep olive green, and often have variegated coloration on their backs and tails - baby alligators, for example, are easily recognised by the yellow stripes they have along their sides and back. This makes sense, as a large predatory animal colored one solid bright color would stand out a mile away, even in green surroundings.

Crocodilians in fiction, especially cartoons, however, are typically depicted as bright, vibrant green, similar to some lizards and amphibians, without any kind of markings or patterns (though some may have a paler green or yellow underbelly). This is perhaps the most egregious when depicting alligators, which are a dark slaty blue-gray as adults, and can even appear to be a glossy black colour under the right light conditions. This may be done out of ignorance, but if intentional, Acceptable Breaks from Reality are involved since it makes it easier for young viewers to identify the animal and looks better. While this trope is often associated with cartoons, it is actually surprisingly old— even Ancient Egyptian artwork of crocodiles often depicted them as green◊.^note This is because the Nile crocodile's gray-and-olive skin does look vaguely greenish.

Subtrope of Amazing Technicolor Wildlife, Green and Mean, Green Is Gross, and Somewhere, a Herpetologist Is Crying. See also Never Smile at a Crocodile, Red Live Lobster and White Bunny.

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Examples:

Advertising

• French clothing company Lacoste has a green crocodile in its logo.

Animation

• Cheburashka: Gena the Crocodile is a talking crocodile with lime-green scales (which are further emphasized by his dark-red jacket).
• Cocomong: Justified with Agle the crocodile, as he's part cucumber.
• Happy Heroes: The alligators that Smart S. encounters in the circus in Season 3 episode 33 are different shades of green.

Comic Books

• InvestiGators: The main characters are two green alligators, Mango and Brash. Brash is a lighter yellowy-green, and Mango is a darker green.

Comic Strips

• Pearls Before Swine: The crocs have set up a frat house next to regular character Zebra, with an eye toward making a meal of him. All the crocs are green, and often Too Dumb to Live, which is why after many years, Zebra is still alive and well. The crocs? Not so much.
• Pogo: Albert the Alligator is bright green.

Films — Animation

• All Dogs Go to Heaven: A tribe of sewer rats take Charlie Barkin and Ann Marie prisoner, and set them out as a sacrifice to their god: a huge vivid green alligator with a bone through his nostrils.
• The titular human-gator hybrid protagonist of Arlo the Alligator Boy and its follow-up series is green.
• Disney Fairies: Crocky the baby crocodile from The Pirate Fairy is light green, albeit with a yellow belly.
• Fantasia: Ben Ali Gator is dark green.
• Kung Fu Panda 2: Master Croc is a yellowish-green saltwater crocodile.
• The Lion King: The crocodiles in "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" in the 2002 special edition are green. Averted in the theatrical version and in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, however, where the crocodiles are depicted as gray.
• Peter Pan: The Tic-Toc Croc's shade changes depending on the scene, but he's always a shade of green.
• The Princess and the Frog: Louis is an olive-green alligator.
• The Rescuers: Nero and Brutus, Medusa's pet crocodiles/alligators, are green.
• The Rescuers Down Under: The crocodiles are dark green.
• Robin Hood (1973): Captain Croc is a green crocodile.
• The Secret Life of Pets: Derick is a vivid green Sewer Gator.
• The Wild: Stan and Carmine are green. An unusual example in that the film uses a realistic art style, so they look just like real crocodiles except that they're green.

Films — Live-Action

• Rampage: Lizzy, depicted as a gigantic mutated American crocodile instead of a Not Zilla, has murky green skin, as opposed to Ralph's grey fur and George's albinistic white fur and pink skin. In her pre-mutated state, however, she's colored realistically.

Literature

• Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator!: The alligator is dark bluish green. Justified in that it is a stuffed toy.
• Lyle Lyle Crocodile: The titular Nile crocodile is green.

Live-Action TV

• Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger: GaoLigator is a green alligator mecha.
• Loki (2021): The alligator variant of Loki is dark green. His coloration is lampshaded when the other Loki variants claim that Alligator Loki is one of them, due to Loki commonly being associated with the color green.
• Moon Knight (2022): Ammit is a crocodilian goddess who is portrayed as dark green.
• Out of Jimmy's Head: Crocco (who is an alligator despite his name) has dark green skin and a lighter belly.
• Power Rangers Wild Force: The Alligator Wild Zord has a predominantly green color scheme.

Puppet Shows

• Sesame Street: The Alligator King in the animated musical segment of the same name is pale green.

Music

• King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard: The band’s mascot is a green alligator, originating in the video for “The River” and appearing on merchandise and album covers.
• In "The Unicorn", written by Shel Silverstein and made famous by the Irish Rovers, the refrain is a list of different kinds of animals, including "green alligators".

Sports

• The Canton Crocodiles were a minor league baseball team that used to play for the Frontier League. Its mascot was a green crocodile.
• The Florida Gators is the sports team of the University of Florida, and its mascot is a green alligator.

Toys

• LEGO: Crocodiles and alligators are almost always green or dark green, as depicted in Fabuland, LEGO Pirates, LEGO Adventurers, LEGO Indiana Jones, LEGO Agents, LEGO City, Legends of Chima, and The LEGO Movie. There are rare exceptions, such as Legends of Chima having the brown-scaled Crug in the otherwise-green Crocodile Tribe, or Hidden Side having a tan-colored crocodile in its Deep South-inspired setting, but green is the most common color. In the Batman line, the figures for Killer Croc, a crocodile-like man, are all colored green, although the later versions are more of a muted green compared to the original design's saturated dark green.

Video Games

• Animal Crossing: Boots and Drago (a lazy and jock villager, respectively) are green alligator/crocodile villagers. Others are Amazing Technicolor Wildlife examples.
• Banjo-Kazooie: The shaman Mumbo Jumbo can transform Banjo into a crocodile with forest-green scales. There's also a gigantic crocodile of the same green colour, whose head emerges from the swamp. Inside its mouth you'll find another crocodile, a red-scaled bully named Mr. Vile, who challenges you to an eating contest.
• Batman: Arkham Series: Killer Croc, a mutant crocodilian man, has green scales with a grayish underbelly.
• The titular protagonist from BROK the InvestiGator is green.
• Croc: The titular character is a bright green crocodile.
• Die Anstalt has Kroko being depicted as green. This is somewhat justified as Kroko is a plush toy.
• Dillon's Rolling Western: Mayor Gates is a bluish-green alligator.
• Donkey Kong Country: Zig-zagged with the Kremlings; while King K. Rool himself has green scales, his henchmen have varying colors; Klumps have brown scales in the original game, pink scales in Donkey Kong 64, and lime green scales in the animated series, Krushas have blue scales for the weaker variants and grey for the stronger ones, Kritters have a variety of different scale colors, including green, grey, pink, and blue, and Klaptraps have light blue and purple scales.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach: Montgomery Gator is bright green. Justified because he is an animatronic character designed In-Universe to entertain children, so it makes sense that they would make his design vivid and eye-catching.
• In The Incredible Machine, Edison Alligator is colored green.
• Investi-Gator: The Case of the Big Crime: The Gator brothers, who are anthropomorphic alligators, are colored different shades of green that highlight their personalities. Investi-Gator is a lush, dark green, which fits his friendly, easygoing nature. Insti-Gator is a pale yellowish green, which fits him as more of a sneaky, shifty type.
• Later Alligator: Exaggerated. Aside from the game's cast consisting entirely of alligators in various shades of green, only the alligators and a few other objects are drawn in color, while most of the game is in black and white.
• Moshi Monsters featured an evil, green, anthropomorphic crocodile named Biggie Diddles III.
• Night in the Woods: Bea Santello, one of the main characters of the game, is a bluish-green crocodile.
• Paleo Pines: Downplayed. Postosuchus is a crocodylomorph and its two most common colour palettes are both green, but it rarely comes in other colours as well. The other crocodylomorph, Desmatosuchus, also has two green palettes, but one is uncommon and the other is rare.
• Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: The Guacodile plant is green-colored, although it is partially based on avocados, which are sometimes nicknamed "alligator pears."
• Averted in Pokémon, where the crocodilian-looking Totodile line, Sandile line, and Fuecoco line, are colored blue, brown, and red, respectively.
• Sam & Max Hit the Road: The gators at the Gator Golfing are bright green.
• Scribblenauts: Zig-zagged. While Alligators are correctly colored brown, Crocodiles are the same model colored a bright green instead.
• Shrek 2: The crocodiles that you have to get through without being snapped and killed are all green.
• Skator Gator: Greenjamin Gator is a bright green alligator. His friends go beyond this into Amazing Technicolor Wildlife, coming in colors like red, cyan and gold.
• Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus: Mz. Ruby the alligator has dark green skin with a lighter underside.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Vector the Crocodile the leader of the Chaotix detective agency is a bright vibrant green color.
• Where's My Water?: Swampy is green. So are all the other alligators that show up in the game.
• World of Warcraft has Crocolisks, which are sometimes realistically covered (Greyish) but are also greenish too sometimes. Somewhat zig-zagged in that tehse are technically not true crocodilians.
• Undertale: Bratty is a bluish green alligator monster.
• Yo Kai Watch 3 introduced OMGator, an alligator-like yokai with bright green scales.

Web Animation

• hololive: One of Amelia Watson’s Animal Motifs are alligators, as a pun on investigator. Whenever she shows herself with an alligator on stream, they’re always a light green. This also applies to most of the alligator related fanart she’s showcased on her streams.
• Minilife TV: Slar, one of the fighters of the 28th Legondo World Martial Arts Tournament, is a green crocodile-like humanoid.

Western Animation

• 101 Dalmatians: The Series: Steven, the Swamp Rat's alligator henchman, is dark green.
• 64 Zoo Lane:
  • Kevin the crocodile has bright green skin.
  • Victor the crocodile has dark green skin and spikes on his back.
• Batman:
  • The Batman: Killer Croc, a crocodile man, has dark green scales. This version of Killer Croc also looks much more like an anthropomorphic crocodile than other versions, which look more like a crocodile-human hybrid.
  • Batman: The Animated Series: Zig-zagged. The Sewer King's Sewer Gator minions are green. Killer Croc, however, is a more realistic pale gray color, at least until the Art Shift.
• Camp Lazlo: Gretchen is a green alligator, despite real life alligators being blue-gray.
• Can You Teach My Alligator Manners?: Al the alligator is dark green, while his belly is a lighter shade of green.
• Courage the Cowardly Dog: The Great Fusilli, from the episode of the same name, is an anthropomorphic, dark green alligator. His underside has olive green and pale green stripes.
• In a few episodes of The Crumpets, Grownboy takes care of some crocodiles, at least two going by the name of Renado, who are green in color.
• Darkwing Duck: Gumbo, Jambalaya Jake's alligator sidekick, has green skin.
• Doc McStuffins: Gustave the Gulpy, Gulpy Gator is green all over. Justified since he's a toy.
• DuckTales (2017): "The Forbidden Fountain of the Foreverglades!" showed a pale green alligator.
• Fluffy Gardens: Camille the crocodile is green.
• Grossology: The sewer gators seen in "Flushed Away" have green skin (though Lab Rat notes that the ones raised in captivity while the ones in algae-filled waters have greener skin), and later, the Detective wears a green gator suit to blend into the sewer.
• Jellystone!: Wally Gator is a green gator, just like he was in his cartoons.
• Johnny Test: The Sewer Gator from "Johnny's Royal Flush" is bright green.
• Jungle Junction: Crocker is a bright green crocodile car, much like the other brightly-colored Animal Vehicle Hybrids in the setting.
• The Lion Guard: The crocodiles are all green. They are an even brighter green than the crocodiles in the first film.
• The Little Mermaid: Ebb and Flo are green, with Ebb darker than Flo.
• Littlest Pet Shop (2012):
  • Wiggles McSunbask the alligator from "Alligators and Handbags" has bright green skin.
  • Big Al the Sewer Gator from "Fish Out of Water" has dark green skin.
• Madagascar, The Penguins of Madagascar: Roger the Sewer Gator and other members of the Crocodile Kingdom are green.
• In the Magic School Bus episode "Cold Feet", the Bus's alligator form is bright green compared to the realistically gray gators in Herp Haven.
• Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart: Gary the crocodile Sweetypie is turquoise green.
• My Gym Partner's a Monkey:
  • A recurring character, the Nerdy Crocodile, is green, and his underside is a slightly lighter shade of it.
  • A crocodile seen in "Sidekicked" is also completely green, with some lighter-green freckles.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Crocodilians, including regular crocodiles, Pinkie's baby alligator Gummy, and monstrous creatures such as the Cipactli and cragadiles, are all various shades of green. This discrepancy is especially obvious in a gag in "Pinkie Pride" when a scene cuts to Gummy as a real baby alligator in live-action, whose hide is a much duller hue than the animated Gummy's bright emerald green.
• The Octonauts:
  • Salty the saltwater crocodile from "The Saltwater Crocodile" is green.
  • Nipper the little alligator from "The Baby Alligator" is dark green, but he has some lighter-green markings as well.
• Phineas and Ferb: Doof's crocodiles from "The Ballad of Badbeard" (both named Susan), Crikey the Crocodile from "What A Croc", and a crocodile who works for OWCA as an agent are all green.
• Pound Puppies (2010): Rover from "The Really Weird Dog" is a dark-green alligator.
• The Raccoons: Mr. Knox is a dark green alligator and his nephew, Bonneville, is a lighter shade of green.
• Rubbadubbers: Terence is a crocodile who has green skin and a yellow belly.
• The Simpsons: Crocodilians in the show usually come in different shades of green. For example, Captain Jack from "Kill the Alligator and Run" is an alligator with an emerald green back and a pale green underside. Subverted in "Havana Nice Weekend", which showed brown alligators.
• South Park: The episode "Prehistoric Ice Man" features Steve Irwin hunting green crocodiles.
• Taz-Mania: Axl Gator has green skin, but his underside is yellow.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Leatherhead, a mutant humanoid alligator, is a much darker shade of green than the turtles.
• Total Drama: Crocodiles and alligators are always green and look virtually identical.
• The Transformers: The Decepticon Headmaster Skullcruncher transforms into an alligator, with a mostly green color scheme.
• T.U.F.F. Puppy: Francisco, one of Verminious Snaptrap's henchmen, is an alligator depicted with green scales.
• Wally Gator: The titular character is a lime green alligator. Harmony, an Everglades alligator that appears in "Rebel Rabble", is dark blue in color. Beauregard from that same episode is a dark green alligator, while Ella, Wally's abusive one-time girlfriend, is an olive green alligator.
• Woody Woodpecker: Gabby Gator is a green alligator.

Real Life

• Sometimes invoked by the crocodilians themselves, when they swim in fresh water that's fully covered in duckweed. These tiny floating plants can blanket a croc's body so completely, when it surfaces, that it blends in with rest of the bright green water plants.

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