Hungry Hungry Hippos

Hungry Hungry Hippos

Publisher(s)	Milton Bradley
Players	2–4
Playing time	10 minutes
Random chance	Medium
Skill(s) required	Dexterity

Hungry Hungry Hippos is a tabletop game made for young children, currently produced by Hasbro, under the brand of its subsidiary, Milton Bradley. It was published in 1967 and introduced in 1978. The purpose of the game is for each player to collect as many marbles as possible with his or her 'hippo' (a toy hippo model).

The game is currently being marketed under the "Elefun and Friends" banner, along with Elefun and Gator Golf.

Gameplay

The game can be played with up to four people.

The game is playable by two to four players and is recommended by the manufacturer for children ages 3 and up. The object of the game is to cause the player's hippo to "consume" as many of the twenty white plastic marbles on the playing field as possible. The player presses a lever on the back of their hippo which causes the hippo's mouth to open, extend towards the center of the board, close and retract. Marbles are drawn back into a depression within the hippo, so they do not drift back into play once properly consumed. Play ends when all of the marbles have been consumed by the hippos.

The shaking of the lightweight playing field during play, particularly when children are pounding on the levers to make their hippos capture marbles, introduces a strong random element to the game. The game also is very loud, with the constant slamming of the hippo levers, and bouncing of marbles on the plastic board.

In a 1990 short story published in The New Yorker (and sarcastically named after the game), Edward Allen wrote, "The object of the game [is essentially] to press your handle down again and again as fast as you can, with no rhythm, no timing, just slam-slam-slam as your hippo surges out to grab marble after marble from the game surface...."

Similar children's games popular in the U.S. include Don't Break the Ice, Don't Spill the Beans and Ants in the Pants.

Advertising

Television ads for the game memorably featured a series of brightly-colored cartoon hippos dancing in a conga line and singing, "Hungry Hungry Hip-pos!" to the beat. The older theme offered a mini song:

"It's a race, it's a chase, hurry up and feed their face!

Who will win? No one knows! Feed the hungry hip-ip-pos!

Hungry hungry hippos! (open up and there it goes!)"

The 1970s-era advertisement featured a different song:

If you wanna win the game you've gotta take good aim

And get the most marbles with your hippo

Playin' Hungry Hungry Hippos

Hungry Hungry Hippos

As of 2009, the song in the commercial is now the Elefun and Friends theme song that appears in the first five commercials.

Characters

Happy Hippo (pink), Henry Hippo (orange), Homer Hippo (green), and Harry Hippo (yellow)

There are four hippos in the game: Lizzie Hippo (pink), Henry Hippo (orange), Homer Hippo (green), and Harry Hippo (yellow). In some versions of Hungry Hungry Hippos, Henry is replaced by a blue hippo of the same name. A later edition of the game replaces the purple hippo, Lizzie, with a pink one named Happy. The most recent edition of the game (purchased in Fall 2009) has a lighter blue base with pastel colored versions of the Hippos: Sweetie Potamus (pink), Bottomless Potamus (yellow), Picky Potamus (orange), and Veggie Potamus (green).

Arcade Version

In 1991, ICE created a redemption arcade version of the game, a supersized resemblance of the board game version. The amount of marbles consumed was displayed at the top of the dome for each player. The more marbles a hippo consumed, the more tickets that hippo's player received.

In Popular Culture

The game has left a legacy of related content in its wake with those growing up who played it. One of many examples is the comic Board Game Movies by Web Comic Up Up Down Down which satires the creation of movies based on board games.

In the Simpsons fourth season episode Mr. Plow, Homer starts a snow plow business, but has trouble attracting customers. He records his own commercial, and after it runs on TV, he says, "Now, we play the waiting game." A few seconds later, he says, "Aw, the waiting game sucks! Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!"

In issue 2 or the DC Comics/Marvel Comics crossover miniseries JLA/Avengers, the Atom meets with Batman and Captain America in the Grandmaster's lair, and they navigate to a recording console while passing a giant Hungry Hungry Hippos set.

The animated series Robot Chicken has parodied Hungry Hungry Hippos on two occasions, including one showing the standard toy hippos rapidly consuming the marbles until the orange hippo suffers nausea and vomits all his marbles back onto the game board. The green hippo eats one of the regurgitated marbles, to the discomfort of the others. Another sketch shows a trailer for a Hungry Hungry Hippos movie, depicting the hippos as leather-jacketed gun-toting vigilantes "hungry... for justice!" in a crime-ridden town. In a third sketch, the camera pans across a homeless man holding a sign saying "Will Work For Food," then to a hippo holding a sign "Hungry Hungry."

In the film Donnie Darko, Donnie admits to his psychiatrist that he is regretful that his parents did not buy him Hungry Hungry Hippos as a child.

At the end of the Family Guy episode A Very Special Family Guy Freakin' Christmas, Stewie opens a present, hoping to find plutonium, but is disgusted to find Hungry Hungry Hippos instead.

In the How I Met Your Mother episode No Tomorrow, when most of the marbles fall into on Lily's hippo it gives her the notion that the floor of the apartment they are in is slanted.

External links

• 15-second television ad for Hungry Hungry Hippos, from YouTube.
• The Frantic Marble Munching Game!, a detailed set of game-playing instructions from Hasbro.
• Hungry Hungry Hippos at BoardGameGeek
• Arcade version of Hungry Hungry Hippos
• Elefun and Friends page at Hasbro website