Manthast Absolutely amazing

Aedonerre I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Lee Eisenberg Bill Feigenbaum's "Hugó, a víziló" ("Hugo the Hippo" in English) is one of those movies that leads the viewer to think "Oh my god, someone actually put this on the silver screen." This Hungarian-American co-production purports to be about a hippopotamus and how the children befriend him after the sultan's assistant has the other hippopotamuses killed. In reality it comes across as the sort of movie bound to give children nightmares. Particularly confusing is the fact that even though it takes place in Africa, the children all have American accents. Moreover, Paul Lynde does the voice of the sultan's assistant and basically turns the character into a rehash of Uncle Arthur on "Bewitched". Oh, and Marie Osmond sings some of the songs.Now that you have had a chance to let all this sink in, I should note that much of the movie is a bunch of politically incorrect stuff trying to be psychedelic. Burl Ives narrates and the sultan (voiced by Robert Morley) looks very much like Ives's gregarious genie in "The Brass Bottle". This was truly a movie that "Mystery Science Theater 3000" should have riffed. It's worth seeing if you want to have to have your mind blown.

shoefairy I just have to comment on this movie! It's one of those films you see as a kid and get vague flashbacks of forever and wonder 'Where do I get those images of cartoon men in turbans shouting at hippos??' Thankfully, my brother is 4 years older than me and he was always there to tell me these memories were from a real film; 'Hugo the Hippo'and that I wasn't a crazy person. I'm adding this comment just to say, that if you haven't seen this film for years and years and have happy/crazy memories of it, leave it that way! Please don't watch it again as you will be disappointed! Oh, OK, maybe just once, but never again! This movie is crazy! Check out the lyrics to the song that goes 'It's really real, this story is real, it really is real, it's really real...' Odd.

world_of_weird 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.

shodan1234 When I was younger, I remember seeing this movie on TV and having nightmares about certain sequences, including the one in which all of the hippos were slaughtered. Was this film really intended for kids? It's weird how people complain about shows like "South Park" which are geared towards adults, yet consider something like "Hugo The Hippo" as family entertainment.As for the main villain being voiced by Paul Lynde...I know the guy was gay in real life, but it's rather homophobic for such movies to portray their male villains as effeminate, conniving queers (e.g. Scar from Disney's "The Lion King" is another example).And if that doesn't turn you off from watching it enough, the movie also features sappy and vomit-inducing musical numbers.Do yourself a favor and avoid this piece of excrement at all costs.