Hugo (franchise)

Hugo
Format	Game show
Created by	Ivan Sølvason and Niels Krogh Mortensen
Presented by	Nina Klinker Jørgensen, various
Country of origin	Denmark
Production company(s)	ITE Krea Medie (only games)
Broadcast
Original channel	TV2
Picture format	480i
Original airing	September 1990
External links
Website

Hugo the troll (Skærmtrolden Hugo) is an international media franchise which was created in Denmark in 1989 for the purpose of interactive television for children between the ages of four to 14. It is based around the titular fictional character of Hugo, a 400-year-old friendly, small forest troll. Since its premiere in 1990, this popular "live one-player multi platform interactive game show" has aired in more than 40 countries (43 as of 2007), spawning dozens of video games and numerous other merchandise.

TV show

The idea for an interactive video game TV show was conceived by Ivan Sølvason (by then an editor-in-chief of COMPuter magazine) and Niels Krogh Mortensen (an animator) in 1987. Their small Danish company SilverRock Productions, later turned into the Interactive Television Entertainment (ITE) ApS in 1992 developed both the character of Hugo and the designated computer hardware system ITE 3000, which converted telephone signals into pulses to remotely control the characters in the game and allow the interaction of the audience and the TV action without delay. Sølvason and Mortensen created the concept and character of "Hugo the TV troll" (tv-trolden Hugo) in 1988. The TV program was launched in 1990.

In the early scenarios set in a remotely-modern (featuring an early 20th century technology such as steam locomotives and biplanes) fantasy version of Earth, Hugo usually fights against a wicked witch Scylla (named Afskylia in the original Danish version; she also has different names in some other countries, such as Hexana in Germany or Sila in Turkey) who has kidnapped his wife Hugolina (Hugoline) as well as their kids: Rit (TrolleRit), Rat (TrolleRat) and Rut (TrolleRut), so she can be beautiful. The other, later-addded characters are mostly non-human cartoonish creatures and anthropomorphic animals, including Hugo's friends such as the tucan Fernando and the chimpanzee Jean Paul, and his enemies such as Scylla's crocodile servant Don Croco.

Hugo was first aired on Danish national television TV2 in 1990 in the program Eleva2ren, featuring a video game that was played by the audience via telephone connection. A player would call the show's production, then be prompted by a human host to control a cartoon character on the TV screen in several scenarios by pressing the number keys on the phone, assorted to the character controls. The show has been aired continuously for five years. Later, it got gradually expanded with more characters and more diverse environment and gameplay on a jungle island. ITE 3000 system also got later replaced by ITE 4000, which used a real time motion capture system Animation Mask System (AMS) to transfer an actor's body/head/eye movements and facial expressions to Hugo's character on screen.

The programs were licenced for some 50 TV shows around the world (first in Spain in 1992, followed by France), including in Argentina (on Magic Kids), Columbia (on Canal Capital), Croatia (on HRT), Ireland (on TG4), Malaysia (on ntv7), Poland (on Polsat), Portugal (on RTP), Serbia (on BKTV), Singapore (on TV12), Venezuela (on Venevision) and the Middle East (on ART). A complete list of all Hugo shows, including the TV stations and the dates of airing, can be seen there, with some more additional details there (in German). These programs were often vary widely in content. For example, in 1996-1997 there was a spin-off of Germany's Kabel 1 program Hugo-Show, called Hexana-Schloss ("Hexana's Castle"), which was hosted by a live-action version of Scylla/Hexana as played by Julia Haacke and didicated to Sony PlayStation. Many people think the program is native to their countries, as Hugo spoke Danish only in Denmark.

Eventually, in a science-fiction re-boot "Agent Hugo", Hugo became a futuristic James Bond-parody special agent in an employ of R.I.S.K., fighting against high-tech enemies such as mad scientists and robots. In Russia, Hugo is known as Kuzya (Кузя).

Krogh Mortensen broke off from ITE in 1997, founding his own company, Krogh Mortensen Animation A / S (KMA). In 2002, Sølvason was forced to sell all of ITE to the venture capital company Olicom A/S for only $5 million, having lost an earlier offer of $80 million in 2000 due to a 10-minute fax delay by an advisor. Olicom then invested $22 million into the company, reduced the staff of ITE by a third to 60 employees and attempted to expand more into the US, UK, and Asian markets. Olicom in turn sold ITE in 2006, by then staffed by only 35 workers.

As of 2011, ITE is now a part of NDS Group, while copyrights to Hugo are currently held by the Danish game publisher Krea Medie A/S (part of the media company Kraemedie).

Video games

Cover for Hugo Ice Cavern, the first PC CD-ROM Hugo game released in 1996

Main articles: Hugo (video game) and Hugo (series)

Niels Krogh Mortensen and his brother Lars directed more than 30 Hugo games that sold more than 10 million copies, including over three million in Germany alone, and got released for multiple personal computer, game console and mobile phone platforms (not counting numerous small browser games). In some of them Hugo's family members, friends or even enemies (in the multiplayer games) are also featured as an alternate or even the only player characters. Most of the tiles are the platform games or minigame compilations, but there are also several educational games.

The first title in the long-running series of Hugo games was created in 1991 for the Commodore 64, followed by the games for the Amiga, PC (DOS and Microsoft Windows), Game Boy and PlayStation. The first 3D platform game, Hugo: Quest for the Sunstones, was published in 2000. In most of the games Hugo opposes Scylla and attempts to free his family from captivity or, in the later games, to foil the witch's various revenge plots and defeat her schemes to gain supreme evil powers.

In 2005, Hugo was rebranded as Agent Hugo for a new series of four 3D platform games.

In 2009, the new publisher, Krea Medie, released a complete reboot game Hugo - Magic in the Trollwoods (Hugo - Magi i Troldeskoven) with no connection with neither any of the Hugo show characters or the Agent Hugo series, featuring Hugo as a troll magician-in-training. It became the only game listed on the games' official website, all the previous content having been entirely removed. In 2010, however, Krea released a game-making program that featured an original version of Hugo and the other classic characters.

In 2011, the company's new owner Henrik Kølle said he hopes that release of a new video game would be "one of many exciting steps towards the new Hugo rise as a global brand." Krea has seemingly abandoned an idea of the reboot (which got removed from the official website) and successfully returned to the original version of the franchise with Hugo Retro Mania, featuring the original version of Hugo and a classic scenario of rescuing his family captured by Scylla (renamed as "Sculla" in the English version). According to Krea's Henrik Kølle, "For the first time since acquiring Hugo, [Krea Medie] have developed a project tailored to Hugo".

Other media

In 1996, a theatrical musical The Magical Kingdom of Hugo (הממלכה הקסומה של הוגו) was played in Tel Aviv, Israel, telling a story of a group of kids who were sucked into the television screen and summoned directly to the Hugo's world Trolndih by the witches of Griselda (גריזלדה, an Israeli name for Scylla). A recording of it was released on the VHS in 1997.

A children's animated/documentary series Hugo Safari was produced in 1999-2000, aired in several countries and was also later released in home media on the DVD.

A canceled CGI-animated film titled Hugo and the Diamond Moon, a co-production of ITE and Sandrew Metronome, has been planned in 1999 to be released in 2002, its budget was set at around US$12 to US$15 million (or US$15-20 million). It was written and was excepted to be directed by the Disney and Pixar veteran Jørgen Klubien, and was storyboarded with over 8,000 pictures by Frank Madsen, Jørgen Klubien, Mike Cachuela and Mads Themberg. In the film Hugo and his grandfather were supposed to "travel to a diamond moon" and the now-defunct Krogh Mortensen Animation a/s published storyboards showing Hugo battling Scylla in space. The movie's basic plot premise appears to be very similar to the later (2003) educational game Hugo in Space, in which she plans to extract the rare magical black diamonds (first introduced in an action game Black Diamond Fever in 2002) from an asteroid core and become the most powerful witch of all time.

Magazines

The characters of Hugo were also a subject of periodical magazines, such as Hugo in Germany (1999–2003) and Świat przygód z Hugo in Poland (2003–2010, along with its coloring book offshoot Baw się i koloruj z Hugo)

Merchandise

Also produced were licensed food products (ice cream, candy, chocolate bars, etc.), as well as numerous merchandise (such as puzzles, watches, backpacks, sticker books and activity books), including many audio CDs, collections of plush dolls and PVC figures, posters and clothing items. Some items were released exclusively for the fanclub Den Faktyrlige Bogklub (Hugo's Book Club), established in co-operation with the Danish publisher Carlsen Verlag in 1999.

Non-Danish merchandise was generally mostly different in various countries, for example the children's booklets Troll Story in Poland, the story book Hugo: Cadı Sila'ya Karşı in Turkey, the comic books הוגו in Israel were published only in their respective countries of origin.

Reception

Hugo gained a high popularity among the children in many countries (for example, Vui cùng Hugo became one of the highest rated shows in Vietnam, reaching 20,000 phone call per episode). The program won awards for a best entertainment show in eight countries, including the Golden Cable for the best children's program in 1995 in Germany, best rated children's show of all time in 1996 in Sweden, Troféu Nova Gente in 1999 in Portugal and TV Presenter of the Year in 2000 in Ireland.

Game sales exceeded 6 million copies by 2001 and 8.5 million by 2005. In 2009, Hugo was selected to be the central part of the Danish digital heritage exhibit in the Royal Danish Library.

External links

• Official website (ITE version)
• (German) www.Hugo-Troll.de
• (Spanish) Jugendo con Hugo