I was watching an episode of the old TV show “Leave It To Beaver” where the boys ordered a baby alligator from an ad in their comic book. It arrived in a shoe-box with holes in it and they raised it until it was a couple of feet long, and then they took it to a nearby alligator zoo.
Did they really sell actual alligators out of comic books? If so, what did people do with them? If it’s real, it seems marketing alligators to kids seems like a pretty foolish thing to do.
I don’t know how real that was to place those ads in comic books, but I do know that you can still purchase baby alligators and caimans online through reptile suppliers, and they’ll ship to any ol’ joe (minus to a few states that ban ownership of crocodilians- in that case, you have to go there yourself to pick up your baby gator).
I saw the episode of Leave it to Beaver that you’re referring to, and it was astounding. Remember when the baby alligator wasnt thriving, so Wally and the Beav took it to a zoo? The zoo’s owner, instead of saying something like “Well boys, you have a nice alligator here, but I think Captain Jack would be happier with some friends at my zoo- maybe a frog would be a better pet”- or something like that, he says “Give your alligator a little whiskey and he’ll feel better.”
My jaw dropped. Seriously 1950s, what was WRONG with you?
Oh yeah- and when Ward noticed that some of his booze was missing, he didn’t once suspect that Wally or Beav might be taking nips. Instead he just mentioned it confusedly to June, who seemed uncurious about it.
I suspect she thought he had been drinking late at night again, with a kid like that.
Not only was the booze missing, but June’s beauty lotion was also mysteriously vanishing. Hmmm… lotion and booze slowly disappearing. Nope, the boys couldn’t have anything to do with that 
(the boys were using the lotion to keep the alligator’s skin moist)
The way they presented the alligator ad was so casual and normal, it seems like it had to be a common thing. This was the 2nd episode, and I didn’t think they would have to stretch for ideas or make up stuff so early in the series.
There were also rumors in the 70’s about alligators in the New York city sewers that used to be people’s pets until they got too big and were flushed away. If kids were ordering them from comic books, no doubt many of them would end up there.
There was even a documentary about it.
Yes, that was a real thing. My grandmother kept my father’s old magazines from when he was a kid in the 50’s and they sold all kinds of things in the back including live animals. 10 year olds could order rifles, power tools, wood burning kits and lots more. It was a popular sales method at the time.
I had a pet alligator named Alexander when I was young in the late 1970’s. We got him at the pet store because that was something they sold there too. I kept him in the bathtub and took him out when I wanted to use it. The plan was to raise him to be big enough so that he could be released into a pond on our property but, sadly, he didn’t make it that long. The electric heat went out one night and it got cold enough to kill him.
My family had a hardware store/general store for most of the 20th century. My grandfather was eccentric as they come and he was always trying to sell bizarre things but animals were some of his favorites because they brought lots of attention to the store. He sold not only alligators but also iguanas, tarantulas and spider monkeys at different times. The monkeys were kept in main display case facing the street but they were also allowed to just run around wreaking havoc when the mood struck.
It was a very different time back then.
I have a photo in an old album showing my two older cousins proudly holding a baby alligator one of them had won as a prize in an arcade game at the Minnesota State Fair. This must have been in the early '60s.
I don’t remember actually seeing an alligator at their home, so I’m assuming my aunt and uncle did something with it. It’s all rather sad.
In 1960 I bought a squirrel monkey from an ad in Popular Science magazine. I wanted a spider monkey, but they were $29. The squirrel monkey was $19. Being eleven years old, I didn’t have a lot of cash flow. I didn’t ask for permission from the parents. When it arrived via air, the parents were pretty pissed.
I also ordered a skunk (descented) from the same magazine. Things were different back then.
Yeah, I recall comic book ads for pet monkeys and miniature dogs when I was a kid in the 1960s.
I don’t recall alligator ads, but you could buy babies in pet stores and no doubt mail order them from Florida, so it was entirely plausible.
Here is the ad from the Johnson Smith catalog for baby alligators:
What ended up happening to those animals?
All I remember are ads for sea monkeys.
In the late '50s/early '60s, my eldest brother ordered a flock of ducklings and somebody in the family had a spider monkey delivered.
Pretty sure they all died off by now. 
I suspect that what killed them off was a change to the postal code, prohibiting the shipping of live animals.
After teaching the monkey not to bite me, he became a nice pet. I would take him everywhere with me. My brother helped me make a large cage for him. Eventually, I got bored with the up keep. Monkey shit stinks! And I sold him for $50. Always regretted not getting the spider monkey. They use their tails. Squirrel monkeys don’t.
The skunk never did arrive. They ran out of them, and returned my money.
I don’t know about alligators (even my Dad had limits) but the little foot-lockers of plastic army men were actually kinda cool. And they worked as great targets for the slingshot (Wrist Rocket) I got from another ad.
When I was about 7, the little boy next door to me and I sent in a similar order for 2 chameleons. When the package arrived, there was only one chameleon (the other one had obviously escaped, by the look of the box) and even that one was pretty sickly. I forget how soon it died, but real soon.
Such a terrible practice. Thank god the Postal Service got wise to it. Too bad that still people can order exotic animals with no check-in about how they’ll be cared for.
I’m from the hills around Zanesville, OH,where that stupid sonofabitch released dozens of wild animals a few years ago and they all had to be killed.
This phenomenon goes well beyond baby alligators. I caught the tail end of it and these types of things would be unthinkable today but they were the norm in the not so distant past. My father was a licensed gun dealer so I had access to the trade magazine Shotgun News which went well beyond its name. You could buy virtually anything for not much money even in the late 1980’s. Military guns, cannons, flame throwers, rocket launchers, tanks, and even fighter planes were up for grabs for not much money.
I liked to restore old WWII guns so I bought them myself as a 15 year old no questions asked. They were not dysfunctional relics either. My purchases were always the high caliber rifles like a 30/06 Mauser or a .308 that only needed a little cleaning and a stock refinish to make them looking good again. They were always functional right out of the box for less than $100. Don’t worry, my father was a gun dealer who drilled safety into my head every single day so there was no risk for me but there could have been for many others. I knew how to take apart a rifle and and put it back together since I was 10 years old (hold the applause, they aren’t very complicated).
I think today’s ubiquitous and oppressive safety measures are a mixed bag. They probably prevent a few deaths and injuries but they also kill the human soul. I find it very surprising and a little sad how far the nanny mentality has stripped people of their experimental spirit. A lot of the stuff I did growing up would be classified as terrorism today. I built actual working bombs and detonated them. It was on our own land blowing up things like junked cars and completely innocent but that type of thing could land you on a do-not-fly list today.
I have also had a whole list of exotic pets including a raccoon, armadillo, iguana, alligator and chinchilla (current). However, you would be surprised how weak that list is. Exotic pets are legal in most of the U.S. and there are little to no regulations for most of them. Do you know how much a it costs to get a pet tiger? It is less than a desirable dog breed. For less than $1000, you can get a non-pedigreed tiger cub of your very own straight from the in internet because they are prolific breeders.
I learned as a kid that if you order sea horses you shouldn’t do it during the winter, especially if you mail box is half a mile from the house. One miraculously survived, and lived for a pretty long time.
Cool.
I wonder how many people bought the five-foot alligator for $25. And I wonder how many successfully taught their alligator to SING and LAUGH!
Oh my goodness, the ignorance in that one is profound. “They require nearly 200 years to obtain full growth, growing just a few inches in the first few years.” That is about the worst marketing speak I have ever heard. Alligators in the wild grow up to a foot or more a year and none of them live too be 200 years old.
They are basically telling kids that their little sick baby alligators are perfectly normal and there is nothing wrong with them. I grew up in Louisiana during the 1970’s and 80’s when alligators were still considered endangered to threatened. Those conservation efforts worked almost too well. Today, they are so common that they are considered to be a pest no thanks to people that think that alligators live to be 200 or the babies only grow a few inches in their first years of life.
Long live alligators in the wild. They outlasted the dinosaurs and they are beautiful creatures. Louisiana alligators are the stoners are the crocodilian world and almost never hurt people unless deliberately provoked. I have swam within close proximity to them many times without any worry because they are just really cool like that.
I knew that the Post Office mails baby chicks.
Don’t forget about those cool decoder rings, too! :dubious: 
