Greed is good

Not, you’ll note, Hungry Hungry Hippos. As far as we’re concerned, you can leave all that Americanized, homogenous, “brand realignment” at the door. Especially when it means changing the name just ‘cos the advert jingle was so bloody catchy¹. They did it with Snickers, Starburst and Oil Of Olay, but those Yanks can keep their hands off our indigestion-proof ungulates. The name’s Hungry Hippos - well, technically The Hungry Hippos Game – but one adjective is enough, thank you very much.

Billed, typically, as “a fast and furious” game, it might have been better described as “ten minutes of slam, slam, slam, then back in the box”. The stars of H2, as no one calls it, were the four grasping hippopotami - Henry, Happy, Homer and Harry - whose heads you took command of. An RSI-inducing lever mechanic powered the marble-munching feeding frenzy, the object of which was to capture more of the baby-choking balls than your opponents.

Much less a game than a great big din, the combination of plastic marbles (surely not a recognised staple of the river horse’s predominantly vegetarian diet) and hippo jaws caused such a cacophony in the average household that parental curfews were swiftly applied. The comparably sedate Grabbin’ Dragons was much less popular, which would seem to indicate that kids either prefer to really hammer their toys or they really, really love hippos². Later editions were more flimsy than the big-box original, although one or more of the pastel gobblers would ultimately capitulate under too much punishment whatever the size.

Psychologists could probably make much of a child’s selection of hippo – girls could be relied upon to pick the pink one (presumably ‘cos it reminded them of George from Rainbow), boys the blue – we, frankly, can’t. But if you see a Cream-era child wander past those grey mud-wallowing things in the zoo without even a flicker of recognition, we think you now know why.