Das Nilpferd Hugo

A lot can be said about how different family entertainment was back in the 1970s, as some of it could step into bizarre territory unlike most movies nowadays. In the case of the Hungarian-American fantasy adventure musical Hugo the Hippo, although largely forgotten about since its release in 1975, it has garnered an interesting cult following amongst the home video community. Made with the talents of the Osmond kids, Burl Ives and the now defunct Hungarian animation studio Pannanoia, this film might be one of the strangest oddities even for its time, which is truly saying something.

Set primarily in Tanzania, the film tells the story of a young hippopotamus named Hugo, whose entire family is kidnapped by the Sultan of Zanzibar to prevent shark attacks. After the hippos are no longer relevant to the city, they begin to starve and rampage for food. This prompts Aban-Khan, the king's adviser, to execute all the hippos, but Hugo escapes and befriends local children in the town of Dar es Salaam. Admittedly a very disturbing premise for a family movie, and perhaps that might be the biggest turning point of the feature. In addition to its tone flip flopping from light hearted to shockingly morbid, Hugo the Hippo suffers from a nearly disjointed narrative that feels it needs to come up with all sorts of crazy scenarios just to get its vague environmental message across. While the film does keep its insistence on the consequences of neglecting wild animals all throughout, it tends to get side tracked by trippy visuals and an over abundance of musical numbers that tend to slow the pace down. And yet, strangely enough, those sidetracks are what make the film work in its own weird way.

Thanks to the loose flow across the feature's runtime, numerous sequences will fluctuate in a very playful and relaxing manner. Sometimes they contrast poorly with the more slow and realistic moments between Aban-Khan, the adults and children, which does make them stick out like a sore thumb. However, when the film allows for the right amount of levity to take place, it becomes surprisingly heartwarming. Some of the better examples include Hugo befriending a little Tanzanian boy named Jorma and his fellow schoolmates, showing how much children understand the emotional appeal of animals better than adults. The voices of the children sound fairly authentic to how much passion can come from within someone so young and innocent defending an otherwise wild animal. The adults on the other hand range from two dimensionally evil to arrogantly simple minded to full on stereotypes that would not be accepted today. Had it not been for the vocal talents of Paul Lynde, Robert Morley and Len Maxwell, the adult roles would have fared even worse than the kids.

Adding in to the peculiar psychedelic nature of the film, Graham Percy's production design is quite a sight to behold. Although the colors are fairly muted, there is a large variety of every notable hue throughout the palette spectrum, especially in portraying the detailed jungles and cities. The character designs can often look so humanesque that they don't suit well for caricature, but the character animators did the most with specific poses and expressions. Most notable of a highlight are the musical numbers that look and feel like you're in a bizarre dream of colorful hodgepodges and stylistic technical tricks. Speaking of the musical numbers, mostly all performed by Burl Ives, Marie and Jimmy Osmond, some are in lieu of the story while others are merely there to pad out the running time. No matter which one plays, a lot of them fit well enough as their own entities to be an independent record away from the movie itself. Maybe the film would have caught on if the soundtrack was further pushed in the marketing, but one will never know unless they gave it a proper listen.

To put it in the nicest way possible, Hugo the Hippo is one of the strangest features of both its era and especially nowadays. While its story goes all over the place and the animation and songs instigate its sporadic nature, it does at least have its heart in the right place in conveying a message about protecting wild animals from the eyes of children. Unless you've already grown up on this in some capacity, I'd say give this at least one watch out of morbid curiosity, since there really isn't anything else like it out there. For a movie about a baby hippo befriending human children, it's surprisingly complex.

Now the television schedules (in England, at least) are crammed with home improvement, bargain-hunting, house-hunting and cookery shows in the afternoons, the chances of any of the terrestrial broadcasters digging out a complete obscurity like this to occupy a couple of hours of screen time on a slow afternoon are slender, to say the least. But back in the eighties, the BBC did just that, and guess what, I watched it. And it's a testament to the overwhelming weirdness of this Hungarian-American co-production that I can still remember large chunks of it, over twenty years later. To begin with, the eponymous hero appears briefly during the opening titles, only to vanish again for at least half an hour. (Imagine AN American TAIL re-edited so Feivel is nowhere to be seen, and you'll appreciate how confusing this is.) There's a supremely bizarre bit of animation where one of the characters gets his elaborately waxed moustache tweaked and stretched, complete with a boingy sound effect that causes him to go boss-eyed. Probably hilarious if you're stoned, but to a child, quite disturbing. Speaking of which, the infamous 'hippo cull' scene is represented in an abstract manner - clouds in vague hippo shapes are struck by lightning - but it's still pretty unpleasant. In fact, this film is pretty cold and uninvolving throughout, a sad state of affairs hardly helped by the strange-looking production design, all muddy colours, wobbly lines, bloated forms and that uniquely European bleakness reminiscent of Jan Svankmajer, only not as compelling. Then, to cap it all, we get songs by the Osmonds! This isn't so much an awful film as a deeply misguided one, not so much phantasmagorical as a rather bad trip.

Yes, I did call this a candidate for the greatest film ever made. Its a masterpiece of hippo films. A truly magical experience for everyone who takes part in it. Its about this hippo. This hippo named Hugo. He's the prince of the hippo's. He saves the day. Their are songs along the way and some great animation. It's gold, I tell you, GOLD!!!

My buddy found a VHS from 1980-something with this movie on it, and I was shocked and amazed that anything this good could come outta the 70's. Couple things I noticed: The Animation rocks the casbah - the colours all meld very nicely, the segues are all prefect (you can't even tell they're there until the next scene starts), and the motion of the characters is a lost art; the story provokes every emotion you can have - sadness, envy, happiness, disappointment, fear... the list goes on; the songs are so good, one of my friends sampled a couple of them and uses them, to this day, in his house sets...

I definitely agree with Peter's comments - IT'S GOLD I TELL YOU! GOLD!

I first saw this film when I was about 4 (a whole 24 years ago!), and have been enchanted by it ever since. A wonderful tale of morality - about how money corrupts and the importance of not forgetting those who help you. But the message diffuses into you, as you become lost in the fantastic animation (think Disney Fantasia levels of imagination) and songs that Lloyd Webber and Rice would be proud to call their own (I remember all of the words to all of the songs even now, and I haven't seen the film for at least 20 years!). I don't have any other sentimental attachment to any other programmes of my youth, but this fantastic film touched me in a way that no other has. If you do get a chance to see it, you really must. An enchanting, engaging film, with beautiful animation, charming songs and a lovely story which takes you through an emotional sine wave as you follow the adventures of Hugo and his friends (and those who are certainly not his friends). Once viewed, never forgotten. You will be singing the songs all week, at least. Fantastic for young children and adults alike. I can't recommend it enough.