Hugo the Hippo

1975 cartoon

Rating: 14/20

Plot: The plight of the titular river horse as he and his hippo tribe fight off some sharks and are then forgotten by the people of Zanzibar they saved.

This is either allegorical or the product of a secondhand marijuana haze. Or maybe it's just the product of its time. There's a cheapness to the animation that actually contributed to the psychedelia. Things get as trippy in chunks as the trippiest moments in Yellow Submarine, all sorts of colors and ideas coming together to make something that's not quite for children but not quite for adults either. It's not the kind of thing that's going to dazzle, but it's worth a look for fans of 70's animation or LSD-inspired lunacy.

At times, this seems as square as an animated movie can be. I mean, Burl Ives narrates the thing and sings at least two songs, and fucking Osmonds are involved. Ives had to have been confused with his work although maybe the talking reindeer and snowmen set him up for it. His narration includes nuggets like "Everyone knows the difference between animals and people. People take medicine, fight wars, and read books. Animals don't," that give the whole thing a naive profundity.

I didn't realize this was a musical until the second song. The opening credits--complete with weird shots of animal faces--had a song about what a "strange story" this was going to be. But then there was another song and another and another. I'm not sure what to make of the songs. The lyrics, as well as the dialogue for that matter, make it seem like this was translated poorly from another language and then dubbed, but apparently it wasn't. One song has somebody spelling hippopotamus like that Jiminy Cricket encyclopedia song. A song Ives sings called "You've Said a Mouthful" was especially wacky, including word play gems about eating the ox out of the oxygen. I half-expected to look up the songwriter and find out it was somebody who went on to bigger and better things, but Bob Larimer only did a few off-Broadway things and jingles for fragrance commercials in the 70s. "H-I-P-P-O-T-O-T-A-M-U-S" was apparently too much for the guy to overcome. There are a lot of songs here, so maybe he just shot his proverbial songwriting wad and had no more ideas. The rest of the soundtrack is filled in with cheapo funk 'n' roll music.

Maddening editing in an early storm-of-sharks sequence, one complete with sharks who are smoking and wearing funny hats, made me believe I was in for a treat, and for the most part, I did really enjoy seeing what the animators had to show me. There were green-faced bad guys, psychedelic foliage and vegetables, a variety of animals, lots of hippos, an apple assassin. It's great trippy fun with something to see on nearly every inch of the screen, and I looked forward to seeing more from director Bob Feigenbaum. But alas, Bob Feigenbaum didn't do a single other movie.

That might have been the result of an unfortunate sequence in this where monkeys are used to satirize the Harlem Globetrotters, complete with "Sweet Georgia Brown."

The great Paul Lynde voices the main villain in this. It's a voice that will remind people of a certain age of villainous voices on Hanna-Barbera cartoons. He's perfect!

Apparently, this is based on an actual story about a hippo.