Partially because of the
usual attrition one experiences during life, and partially because my family
moved a large number of times while I was younger, I no longer possess many
artifacts from my childhood. Yet for a good three decades, I inexplicably
retained a paperback tie-in book for the 1975 animated musical Hugo the Hippo—even though I have no
recollection of seeing the movie during its original release. More likely than
not, I held onto the book for the colorful illustrations, which showcase an
ornate style of line art. In any event, the book finally drifted out of my life
a few years ago, but the normal business of this blog led me to track down Hugo the Hippo itself. And while I can’t
describe the experience of watching the movie as one of tarnishing a beloved
memory, I worry for the sanity of my younger self if seeing Hugo the Hippo was something I deemed
worthy of commemorating. One can only hope the book was a gift from some
misguided relative.
Originally made in Hungary, but later dubbed into English
and festooned with an American song score, Hugo
the Hippo is easily among the weirdest children’s films of the ’70s, which
is saying a lot. The movie is alternately cloying, disturbing, dull, offensive,
psychedelic, saccharine, and tragic. Not many pictures contain gentle ballads
sung by Marie Osmond as well as shockingly racist portrayals of black people,
but Hugo Hippo does.
Set in Tanzania,
the bizarre picture begins when sharks invade the port of Zanzibar, frightening
away the porters who work waist-deep in the water every day and forcing the
Sultan of Zanzibar to seek a remedy. The Sultan orders the importation of a
dozen hippos, which presumably can drive the sharks away. Entrusted with the
task is the Sultan’s green-faced Minister of Finance, sadistic schemer Aban-Khan.
He leads a hunting party into the jungle, and they successfully acquire animals
including little Hugo, the adorable son of the King of the Hippos. Released
into the harbor, the hippos defeat the sharks but are subsequently abandoned
and slaughtered, turning Hugo into an orphan. Desperate to survive, Hugo
escapes to a farming community and eats crops until he’s arrested and put on
trial (!), becoming the center of a conflict between the goodhearted children
of Tanzania and the nature-hating adults.
Yes, Hugo the Hippo is yet another ’70s movie riding the
environmental-crusade bandwagon.
Nearly every scene in Hugo the Hippo is so peculiar as to seem like part of a
drug-induced hallucination, which means that a complete inventory of the
picture’s oddities would take too long. A few highlights shall suffice. In one
sequence, Hugo and his best pal, a little boy named Jorma, have a food-themed
dream that culminates with Hugo and Jorma evading corn cannons and pumpkin
samurai by riding a giant butterfly toward a planet made of cauliflower.
Seriously. Elsewhere, Jorma and other children serenade Hugo with these
promises: “If you go to jail, we’ll get parole for you; if you go below, we’ll
save your soul for you.” FYI, this ditty about venturing into hell to rescue a hippo is sung by Marie’s little
brother, Jimmy Osmond. Unbelievably, it gets worse. The voice of Aban-Khan is
provided by game-show staple Paul Lynde, the bitchiest queen of the ’70s, so
every line the villain speaks sounds like an example of gay camp.
And as
syrupy-sweet as some of the songs performed by the Osmonds and by Burl Ives
are, the underscore is dark, giving parts of Hugo the Hippo the texture of a surreal horror movie. How horrific?
Let’s try the montage of sharks eating everyone in the harbor or the sequence
in which Aban-Khan systematically murders Hugo’s entire family. And then there’s
the racist content—think monkeys performing a Harlem Globetrotters-style
routine (completely with whistling), or Jorma enjoying his favorite breakfast
cereal, “Jungle Pops.” On every single level except artistic execution—thanks
to a gorgeous color palette and relatively ornate line work—this movie is about
as wrong as the ’70s gets, so I’m glad
that time has erased the reasons why Hugo
the Hippo first entered my young life.
Hugo the Hippo: FREAKY
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