watched on a long bus ride that has a dvd player while listening to the residents the whole time lmao
The Sultan of Zanzibar has a harbor infested with sharks, which makes it impossible for ships to trade with him. In an attempt to fix the problem, he brings twelve hippos into the harbor to keep the sharks away. His idea works well enough, but once the hippos are no longer a novelty and the people no longer feed them, they begin to starve. After the hungry hippos rampage through the city looking for food, Aban-Khan, the king's adviser, slaughters all the hippos except one, a little hippo named Hugo.
Hugo the Hippo is showing in 1 cinema in Bucharest - next screening Sunday 15 November at 11:00 at Cinema Muzeul Țăranului.
Next screenings: Sunday 15 November.
Full schedule
Hugo the Hippo showtimes, refreshed every morning
Pick your cinema, get a nudge before it leaves screens.
watched on a long bus ride that has a dvd player while listening to the residents the whole time lmao
A supremely strange animated film, but then most were in the 1960s & '70s. Strange and dark. You think you or your kids were traumatized by Mufasa's murder? Try an ENTIRE FAMILY OF HIPPOS, leaving behind the titular orphan. There's quite a bit here that frames that G rating as adults asleep at the wheel. But man, oh man, that animation! I've never seen another film in this overall style. It's full of stylized forms with vibrant, psychedelic colors, and every frame looks like a page from a picture book. And it's the animation that is really its saving grace. Because it's still a problematic film. Besides being too dark for the kiddies, it has quite a few instances of racial insensitivity, as you would have in 1975 with a largely black story told by Hungarians. There's a throwaway scene with monkeys playing basketball and wouldn't you know it's set to the Harlem Globetrotters theme? And Paul Lynde as a mincing Arab villain. And a teacher named Mr. M'Bow-wow (probably M'bauwau or similar) but don't those Africans have funny names???? Then there are just bad elements like the music. Some songs hit, most don't. The tunes are fine but the lyrics are real dogs. If I had been assured in the opening Marie Osmond song that "this story is really really (no, really) true" one more time.... And a Burl Ives song tells 5-year-olds that he "wants to eat the pie out of πr²." Know your audience. Still, I can't get past the enchanting animation to dislike the film. It has a real sense of wonder and it's certainly original. As a side note...I'm too lazy to find the connection, but someone on this movie had to have worked on 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙥𝙢𝙪𝙣𝙠 𝘼𝙙𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚 12 years later. I kept trying to place where I had seen the animation style of the human characters before and it finally dawned on me. I always found it unique when I was growing up how they were drawn and how they moved and this is spot-on the same.
A beautiful reminder of me and my sister watching this several times.
A Sultan in Zanzibar introduces twelve hippos to a shark-infested harbor to restore trade, leading to severe unforeseen consequences when the animals are neglected by the local population.
Hugo the Hippo was co-directed by Bill Feigenbaum and József Gémes in 1975 as an unusual international animated feature.
Hugo the Hippo is rated G in the US.
Hugo the Hippo was released in Hungary on December 25, 1975.
