Hugó, a víziló

Plot synopsis:
The harbor of Zanzibar becomes infested with a group of vicious sharks, which makes it impossible for trading ships to dock. In an attempt to fix the problem, the Sultan charges his advisor, Aban-Khan, to bring twelve hippos from Africa 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 viciously slaughters all the hippos except one, a little baby hippo named Hugo. Hugo escapes across the sea to the city of Dar es Salaam, on the African mainland.
A group of children, led by a farmer boy named Jorma, find Hugo and attempt to hide him as best they can, building a garden to feed and take care of him. However, Hugo is discovered, and the garden is burned by the angry parents to prevent their children wasting their time with him and neglecting their schoolwork. As a result, Hugo is forced to scavenge from the local farms for food. When Aban-Khan, still obsessed about catching Hugo, hears of the incident, he travels to Dar es Salaam and with the aid of the Sultan's court wizard converts the farm of Jorma's family into an enchanted garden filled with gigantic fruits and vegetables. Once Hugo is lured into the trap, the plants turn into bizarre monsters thirsting to kill both Hugo and Jorma, who has come to Hugo's aid. Despite their best efforts to get away, they end up overwhelmed and captured by Aban-Khan.
Hugo is put on trial for the damage his nighttime raids caused. Fortunately, the children manage to contact the Sultan, who agrees to appear in court to speak for Hugo. The ruler makes a powerfully impassioned speech about how the hippos were mistreated both by their neglect and their uncalled-for culling, which removes all doubt that Hugo is the true injured party in this affair. As a result, while Aban-Khan comes to feel the wrath of a populace's mind turning against him, Hugo is released and the children are charged by the judge to care for him for the rest of his days.

Tags: cult, psychedelic

Review:
I first saw this film when I was about 4 (a whole 24 years ago!), and have been enchanted by it ever since.
A wonderful tale of morality - about how money corrupts and the importance of not forgetting those who help you.
But the message diffuses into you, as you become lost in the fantastic animation (think Disney Fantasia levels of imagination) and songs that Lloyd Webber and Rice would be proud to call their own (I remember all of the words to all of the songs even now, and I haven't seen the film for at least 20 years!).
I don't have any other sentimental attachment to any other programmes of my youth, but this fantastic film touched me in a way that no other has.
If you do get a chance to see it, you really must.
An enchanting, engaging film, with beautiful animation, charming songs and a lovely story which takes you through an emotional sine wave as you follow the adventures of Hugo and his friends (and those who are certainly not his friends).
Once viewed, never forgotten.
You will be singing the songs all week, at least.
You will be singing the songs all week, at least.
Fantastic for young children and adults alike.
I can't recommend it enough..
mind-blowing!.
My buddy found a VHS from 1980-something with this movie on it, and I was shocked and amazed that anything this good could come outta the 70's.
Couple things I noticed:  The Animation rocks the casbah - the colours all meld very nicely, the segues are all prefect (you can't even tell they're there until the next scene starts), and the motion of the characters is a lost art; the story provokes every emotion you can have - sadness, envy, happiness, disappointment, fear...
the list goes on; the songs are so good, one of my friends sampled a couple of them and uses them, to this day, in his house sets...I definitely agree with Peter's comments - IT'S GOLD I TELL YOU!
GOLD!.
Just Phantasmagorical!.
Hugo the Hippo is an excellent children's movie.
I don't think I would have been able to spell hippopotamus without it.
This movie has brought back some of my fondest childhood memories and I think it should be made available on DVD.
In terms of content, it was a cartoon beyond its years, the storyline, the colours and the music.
The sharks were humorous and quite memorable but the message even more, how easily we forget, discard and turn against people( in the movie that lovable hippo) once they are of no use to us.
I hope that this movie makes a come back and is not lost for all eternity.
It's just simply phantasmagorical!.
Perhaps the greatest film ever made!.
Yes, I did call this a candidate for the greatest film ever made.
Its a masterpiece of hippo films.
A truly magical experience for everyone who takes part in it.
Its about this hippo.
This hippo named Hugo.
He's the prince of the hippo's.
He saves the day.
Their are songs along the way and some great animation.
It's gold, I tell you, GOLD!!!.
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..
Mother of mercy, is this the end of Fakrash and Uncle Arthur?.
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..
A weird childhood memory.
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..
Disturbing and violent crap...not recommended for kids.
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.