Western Animation / Go Go Gophers

Go Go Gophers, watch 'em go go go!

Go Go Gophers was an animated western comedy series satirizing racism and created by Total Television. It started as a side segment of Underdog on CBS in 1966 and consisted of 48 episodes, each about 4 and a half minutes long (5 if you count the opening sequence.) This segment was so popular that from 1968 to 1969 it was its own show on CBS, and only consisting of reruns of all 48 episodes.

In this series, Colonel Kit Coyote and Sergeant Okey Homa (both being coyotes) try to claim the western town Gopher Gulch for the U.S. calvary, but their attempts are undermined by Chief Running Board and Ruffled Feather. These two gophers are the only tribe members to still live on their native land, as the rest of the tribe was moved to a reservation up north due to the increase of settlers moving to Gopher Gulch.

The premise of the episodes often had the same formula. The coyotes would discuss the colonel's latest plan to get rid of the Gopher Indians, never knowing that Ruffled Feather would secretly find out the scheme. Ruffled Feather would rush back to the tepee and report his news to his best friend/housemate Running Board, and would always come up with a plan to thwart the coyotes. Using Ruffled Feather's ideas, the gophers would prevail against their rivals and stay one step ahead. The Colonel would usually lose as a direct consequence of his racist contempt for the Gopher Indians.

One recurring gag throughout the show is that Okey Homa would try to warn Kit Coyote with any suspicions the sergeant has when they try to stop the gophers; additionally, Okey Homa would usually advocate just learning to live peacefully with the Gopher Indians, an idea intolerable to the racist Colonel. Thus, Colonel Kit Coyote nearly always ignored Okey's warnings, which is one of the reasons why the coyotes fail to get rid of the Gopher Indians. Another running gag in the show is that during exchanges of dialogue Ruffled Feather would speak in his native language (in a fashion that parodied the cowboy movies of the time) and someone who doesn't understand him (usually the colonel) would ask Running Board, "What did he say?" Running Board would then translate his friend's statements into English.

Besides the four main characters, there were two recurring characters who each appeared in a few episodes. The first was Colonel Coyote's human boss, General Nuisance, who sometimes visited the fort to work with the cavalry to stop the Gopher Indians. When the gophers thwarted the cavalry, the general would get angry with the coyotes and lock them in the guardhouse as punishment for their failure. The other recurring character was Corporal Crimp, a coyote who tried to help the colonel stop the gophers, only for them to turn the tables on him, landing Crimp in trouble with Colonel Coyote.

---

Oopie doopie! We have tropes!:

• All Just a Dream: The episode "He's for the Berries" used this trope.
• All Just a Prank: "Mesa Mess", "Indian Treasure" and "Crash Diet" all have these plots.
• Attack Animal: The Gopher Indians sic a termite on any wooden items near the coyotes in "Termite Terror".
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Colonel Coyote dreams about eating wild gopherberries and becoming a giant as a result in "He's for the Berries."
• Benevolent Boss: Colonel Coyote has been shown to be this toward Sgt. Homa, as shown when he says "Forget our difference in rank," as he offers to treat him to something.
• The Bet:
  • "The Carriage Trade" has the gophers race in their car against the coyotes in their horse-drawn wagon. The conditions are that if the gophers win, they can trade the car for the wagon, but if the coyotes win, the gophers would have to leave Gopher Gulch. The gophers win the race.
  • In "California, Here We Come", the coyotes race against the gophers to California. The conditions that Col. Coyote proposes are that if the coyotes win, the gophers would have to leave Gopher Gulch for good, but if the gophers win, they can take over the cavalry's fort. The gophers win this race as well.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: Okey Homa and Kit Coyote, respectively, though the former has more common sense.
• Bilingual Dialogue: The gophers' conversations consist of this.
• Bland-Name Product: The Vells Cargo wagon in "Blankety-Blank Blanket".
• Braids, Beads and Buckskins: The Gopher Indians are clad in typical Hollywood Natives attire.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Most episodes ended with Okey Homa inviting viewers to watch the next episode. In the 2 episodes where he doesn't appear, Corporal Crimp did this instead.
  • In "Wild, Wild Flowers", Ruffled Feather winks at the viewers while spying on Colonel Coyote (the colonel was talking with his aunt Flora).
• Bucket Booby-Trap: Col. Coyote tries to do this to the gophers once, only for General Nuisance to fall for it instead.
• Butt-Monkey: The gophers' rivals were often this.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: Happens briefly with Ruffled Feather when he tests the Lonesome Mesa chute.
• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: The Gopher Indians dislike Colonel Coyote, but they need to rely on his incompetence so they can stay in Gopher Gulch.
• Cassandra Truth: In General Nuisance's debut episode, he doesn't believe Colonel Coyote's warnings about the gophers until a surprise attack is launched on the two soldiers.
• Catchphrase: A few main characters have these:
  • Running Board would often say one or two of the following to Ruffled Feather (usually two after the latter explained his plans to thwart the coyotes): "Oopie doopie!", "You-um genius!" and "We have fun!". When asked what Ruffled Feather's unintelligble statements meant, Running Board would say, "Him say..." and then translate his friend's statement into English.
    • He also sometimes asked "You got-um plan?" when asking Ruffled Feather for ideas to thwart the coyotes.
  • Colonel Coyote would often say, "Bully!" to express his delight at something. He would also sometimes yell, "Charge!" before he and Sergeant Homa try to attack the Gopher Indians. He would also often comment on how some things that happened were against the regulations in his rule book, whether by reading one of the regulations or by saying something like "Regulation expressly forbids it!" or, "This is against regulations!"
  • Sergeant Homa would often say, "Begging the colonel's pardon..." before expressing his suspicions about a situation to Colonel Coyote.
• Comically Cross-Eyed: Ruffled Feather is usually this. Subverted in that silly as he is, he's also the brains of the duo.
• Comically Lopsided Rivalry: The gophers always stayed one step ahead of the coyotes. "The Indian Giver" had the coyotes triumph for once, but that was just part 1 of a 3-part arc, and the gophers came back on top in the second part, "The Big Pow-Wow", and have stayed there since.
• Comically Missing the Point: In "The Cleveland Indians", Colonel Coyote reads a newspaper headline saying "Cleveland Welcomes Indians" in the sports section, and thinks they're real Indians. When Sergeant Homa tries to correct him, saying they're just a baseball team, the colonel replies as follows:
  Colonel Coyote: I don't care what they play, just so long as Cleveland likes them.
• Continuity Nod: In "Moon Zoom", Sgt. Homa tries to tell Col. Coyote about how savage the Gopher Indians are, only for the colonel to tell him the regulation, "Indians are Indians." Later, in "Introducing General Nuisance", Col. Coyote tries to warn his boss about the gophers and gets reminded of the same regulation.
  • Also in "Moon Zoom", when the gophers lock the coyotes in the tepee rocket, Col. Coyote tells him it's against regulation 4082B: No locking big-wigs in wigwams. He later tells them the same thing in "Tricky Tepee Trap” after the gophers lock the coyotes in their own cage.
• Delayed "Oh, Crap!": When the coyotes find a lit stick of dynamite in the colonel's vacuum cleaner in "The Colonel Cleans Up".
• Disguised in Drag: The coyotes disguise themselves as squaws to lure the gophers into a cage disguised as a tepee in "Tricky Tepee Trap". It almost works, but Colonel Coyote blows their cover without knowing it (they wore their uniforms under their dresses).
  • Sgt. Homa also dresses like a woman in "Gatling Gophers".
• Double Take: After the gophers detach the engine from the train to escape the coyotes in "Choo Choo Chase", Ruffled Feather does this when he sees that the coyotes are chasing the engine on a handcar.
• Drives Like Crazy: Ruffled Feather in "The Carriage Trade".
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The Gopher Indians were depicted as being more savage and having a ruddy complexion and dark gray noses in the first three episodes. Starting with the fourth episode, "Gatling Gophers", they got lighter complexions and red noses and their behavior was toned down.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Multiple episodes end with the gophers laughing at the coyotes' misfortune.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Sergeant Okey Homa is only called by his rank.
• Expository Theme Tune: Two of the opening sequences had a song explaining the show's basic premise.
• Face Palm: Sgt. Homa does this when Col. Coyote says that if the gophers win the race to California, they can take over the fort.
• Fire-Breathing Diner: Colonel Coyote, Sgt. Homa and General Nuisance have all been this.
• Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Both the gophers and all the coyotes are this.
• Game of Chicken: Col. Coyote's last attempt to defeat the gophers in "Go Go Gamblers" is a game where a keg is set under the bench the coyotes and gophers sit on, and whichever team gets off first loses. The gophers replace the sand keg with an actual powder keg, light it, then jump off the riverboat casino and swim back home, leaving the powder keg to blow up on the coyotes.
• Glad I Thought of It: In "Look Out! Here Comes Aunt Flora", Colonel Coyote quotes this trope almost word for word in response to Corporal Crimp's idea of faking an Indian attack to try stopping the colonel's aunt Flora's stagecoach from reaching the cavalry fort.
• Goofy Buckteeth: The mischievous gophers have these.
• Handcar Pursuit: This is how the coyotes try to catch the Gopher Indians after they steal the train engine in "Choo Choo Chase". The coyotes wind up getting chased by the gophers.
• Head-Turning Beauty: Parodied in "Tricky Tepee Trap", when the Gopher Indians are turned on by what they think are a pair of squaws and chase after them. At the time, they didn't know that the "squaws" were really the coyotes in disguise.
• High-Dive Hijinks:
  • In "Amusement Park" the gophers dive into a pool on wheels while running from the coyotes, and then replace the pool with a 2 wooden buckets of water before the coyotes dive off the board.
  • In "Three Ring Circus", the gophers replace the water-filled tub from the high-diving act with a bucket filled with sand.
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture:
  • In "Cuckoo Combat", Running Board does these when Colonel Coyote is about to use his self-defense moves on Ruffled Feather in the first two demonstrations, until he sees that Ruffled Feather has the upper hand.
  • Colonel Coyote does this three times in "Radio Raid".
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Running Board understands Ruffled Feather perfectly. Justified in that Ruffled Feather is speaking the tribe's native language.
• Iris Out: "Back to the Indians" ends this way.
• Ironic Echo: In "The Carriage Trade", the gophers find themselves riding their car backwards in and out of the fort, and Col. Coyote taunts them with, "Get a horse! Get a horse!" Later, when the coyotes' wagon comes loose from the horse and goes backwards down the mountain, the gophers' car passes ahead (backwards, of course) and Running Board taunts the coyotes with, "Get-um horse! Get-um horse!"
• Kneel, Push, Trip: The Gopher Indians did this to a police officer in "The Cleveland Indians".
• Lethal Chef: In "Kitchen Capers", the Gopher Indians prepare a super-spicy soup and explosive biscuits and the coyotes fall victim to both.
• Like an Old Married Couple: The gophers' domestic fights in "Tricky Teepee Trap" follow this trope.
• Meaningful Name: The colonel's aunt Flora loves flowers.
• Misspelling Out Loud: Sgt. Homa spells two as T-O-O in "Moon Zoom". Later in "Honey Fun", he spells two as T-O-O-O and Col. Coyote spells three as T-H-R-E-E-E.
• The Mutiny: The gophers do this against the coyotes in "Mutiny a-Go-Go".
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Colonel Coyote is essentially Teddy Roosevelt as a coyote- though with a name based on Kit Carson, and Sergeant Homa's voice was based on John Wayne.
• Oh, Crap!: The coyotes are the ones who usually have these moments, though the gophers sometimes get them, too.
• One-Word Title: "Tenshun!"
• Only Sane Man: Sergeant Homa is this, having more common sense than Colonel Coyote.
• Opaque Lenses: The colonel's aunt Flora's glasses has these.
• Opening Narration: The rare first opening sequence had one explaining how the events of the series got started.
• Out Sick: Sgt. Homa was this in "Wild, Wild Flowers", hence Cpl. Crimp replacing him.
• The Prankster: The gophers, of course.
• Punny Name:
  • Okey Homa and General Nuisance.
  • Running Board gives the following retort to Colonel Coyote in "Choo Choo Chase":
    Running Board: You be general, all right: General Disaster!
• Randomly Reversed Letters: A few things the gophers write have these, like the letter about Lonesome Mesa.
• Ridiculously Fast Construction: Some of the gophers' schemes involve this.
• Running Gag: Anytime someone has to ask Running Board to translate what Ruffled Feather said into English.
  • There's also when Col. Coyote constantly ignores Sgt. Homa's warnings and/or reads one of the regulations in his rulebook.
• Shout-Out:
  • "Don't Fence Me In" alludes to the song of the same name. Likewise, "California, Here We Come" is a nod to the song, "California, Here I Come".
  • In "The Indian Giver", when the coyotes put hot coals in the river to stop the gophers from sneaking through it, Col. Coyote quips, "There'll be a hot time in the old gulch today!", a reference to the song "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight".
• Signing-Off Catchphrase: Most episodes ended with Sgt. Homa inviting viewers to watch the next episode. Two episodes had Cpl. Crimp do this instead.
• Single Tear: In Col. Coyote's dream about being gigantic in "He's For the Berries", after he has the gophers cornered and is ready to thrash them, Ruffled Feather sheds one in fear as he unintelligibly begs the colonel to spare him and Running Board.
• The Smart Guy: Ruffled Feather. He often spies on the coyotes to find out their plans and easily comes up with his own ideas to thwart them.
• Strictly Formula: Episodes went typically like this: Colonel Coyote devises a plan to get rid of the gophers, which Ruffled Feather overhears and reports to Running Board. Ruffles Feather comes up with plans to stop the coyotes, which he and Running Board successfully execute.
• Termite Trouble: The gophers invoke this on the coyotes with just one termite in "Termite Terror".
• Timber!: When the gophers cut down the tree the coyotes and the gatling gun are on in "Gatling Gophers", Ruffled Feather says this in his native language which is followed by this exchange:
  Col. Coyote: What did he say?
  Running Board: Him say "TIMBER!"
  • Running Board also says it twice in "Don't Fence Me In": first when the gophers knock a tree onto the coyotes, then after sawing off the parts of the trees the coyotes are on.
• Title Drop: "The Cleveland Indians", "The Big Banger", "Tenshun!", "The Great White Stallion", "Amusement Park", "Three Ring Circus" "Steam Roller", "The Indian Giver" and "Back to the Indians".
• Tonto Talk:
  • This is how Running Board speaks. In fact, a few episodes reveal the gophers even write this way.
  • "The Big Pow-Wow" shows human Indians that talk this way.
• Totem Pole Trench: The gophers do this when posing as a map reader in "Indian Treasure", with Running Board on top.
• Train Escape: "Choo Choo Chase" involves the coyotes chasing the gophers on a train, and at one point, the chase takes place on top of it, and the gophers run onto the engine and unhook it from the rest of the train.
• Translator Buddy: Running Board is this for Ruffled Feather.
• Treasure Hunt Episode: "Indian Treasure"
• Trojan Horse: The "Trojan Totem", obviously.
• Two Men, One Dress: The "Great White Stallion" disguise the gophers wear, with Ruffled Feather in front.
• The Unintelligible: Ruffled Feather speaks an incomprehensible language native to Gopher Indians. Running Board is the only character who understands him perfectly. Ruffled Feather frequently peppers his speech with English words and phrases, albeit very few at a time.
• Unscrewed Salt Shaker: A variant in "Introducing General Nuisance": Running Board unscrews the cap on a pepper shaker and empties the contents into the stew Colonel Coyote cooks for lunch, and when General Nuisance eats it, he becomes a Fire-Breathing Diner.
• Use Your Head: At the end of "Locked Out" Col. Coyote uses Pvt. Crimp as a battering ram to try to open the gate.
• Vocal Evolution: Over the course of the show, mainly in the latter half, the pitch in Ruffled Feather's voice gradually increased.
• White Stallion: The fabled "Great White Stallion", which the gophers disguise themselves as to trick the coyotes.
• You Are Fat: When Col. Coyote tells the gophers that an army travels on its stomach, the gophers retort that the army could go pretty far on the colonel's.
• You Won't Like How I Taste: When the coyotes think that cannibals are going to cook and eat them, Col. Coyote begs them not to do this, saying that he's too tough and that Sgt. Homa's even tougher.

---

Ruffled Feather: [gibberish]

Col. Coyote: What did he say? What did he say???

Running Board: Him say your life is now ruined! [both gophers laugh]