Happy Hippos and other Silly Things

I'm on a happiness kick here.

Saturday we had our grandchildren here for an Easter Celebration. Every time they come, the game Happy Hippos appears. My husband always puts it away after they are here, such as on obscure shelves in the basement, but the hippos always appear. Last time he said, "We have to get rid of this thing." Okay, the hippo heads slapping the board is kind of annoying, especially after it continues for a long period of time. And yes, we do seem to find stray marbles for a few weeks after our grandchildren have been here.

For those of you not in the know, Happy Hippos is a plastic square board with plastic hippos on each of the four sides. If you hit the levers that are their tails, their heads pop up and "eat" marbles placed on the board and then the marbles each hippo captures go into a little tray, the players count them and the person with the hippo with the most marbles is declared the winner.

Above is the "team version" of the game. However, my grandkids play the "pick-up game." This is how it went yesterday, a game between my 21 year old grandson who is an A student at the university and my four year old grandson who I am sure is the smartest kid in his day care center.

These two geniuses sat on the floor and began pushing the hippo tails very fast. They would throw marbles in the center and then throw more in from the little trays. Then the four-year-old decided to take the head off the yellow hippo, and still tried to pick up marbles with the beheaded body. Then they decided to only try to catch one brown marble, but by this time these cousins with a seventeen year difference in age were rolling on the floor laughing uncontrollably.

The four-year-old's mother said, "How old is that thing anyway?"

"I think it could be almost thirty years old," I replied.

"Perhaps you could take it to the antique road show," she replied.

No way. We aren't getting rid of this game!

Love, Carol

That is so funny, Carol. Little children seem to bring out the best in most folks. They help us let our inner child out to play.

Shelagh,

I knew you'd come up with a picture!!

And to think I've been calling this game "Happy Hippos" all these years.

The box with the correct name decayed long ago.

Carol

Several years ago, my son-in-law, Chris, Lynn's husband, mentioned that he had never hunted Easter eggs. His father was a minister, and every Easter Sunday, his family left early for the church, and it was Cris's job, along with his brother, Todd, to hide eggs and treats for the other children of the parish.

We: me, my mom, and my children all decided that was a sad thing, so one Easter we decided to fix it, and Mom and I spent the night before dying eggs and fixing baskets for our 30-odd-year old children and their spouses. The next morning, Mom went out early and hid the eggs. We gave all the children their baskets, and they ran whooping out into the back yard for one last great hunt -Chris's first and last. For a few minutes, they were all little kids again. It was a happy day.



Ann

I used to love Hungry Hippos when I was a kid too. The funny thing was no matter how rough we seemed to be (I recall the head removal your grandson tested Carol), the thing never fell apart. That old plastic was something!
This weekend, Steph and I played Yahtzee for the first time in years. It was a great change from the console electronic types of games (like the Wii) which I am really bad at. At least with dice there is a chance I can do well. Not a big one, but a chance all the same. We had some good laughs, and have left the game handy for next time.

I loved playing Hungry, Hungry Hippos when I was a kid! And, Ants in Your Pants, A Barrel of Monkeys and my favorite as a kid, Cootie!

Ann, that is so great. I'll bet all those big 'kids' had a ball hunting for eggs.

zadaconnaway wrote:

Ann, that is so great. I'll bet all those big 'kids' had a ball hunting for eggs.

I wish you could have seen it. It was priceless, from the mock battles to the bragging rights.

Ann

We always play board games at our cabin: dominoes, Scrabble, Apple to Apple and Imagine If. Imagine if is a game where people are given questions like "imagine if Tom were an animal, which would he be. " The one that cracks us up is the one about what he would do on an airliner where the captain had a heart attack. One of the answers is, "Help fly the plane." Of course he would also have to deal with "holding the hand of the person next to him."

Anyway, we have a great time. One time though, I suggested we play dominoes and my grandson and his girl friend decided it was time for them to leave.

Carol