Perhaps they're thirsty, too

Serving as a rather direct contrast to the German board games in my previous post, this week's topic deals with one of America's greatest board games (term used loosely) for kids--and, naturally as an invention of American ingenuity, one that requires effectively zero skill: Hungry Hungry Hippos. As described in a 1990's article of similar nostalgia by Edward Allen in the New Yorker: "The object of the game [is essentially] to press your handle down again and again as fast as you can, with no rhythm, no timing, just slam-slam-slam as your hippo surges out to grab marble after marble from the game surface...." No game theory required this time around; in its place, though, lies a wonderful theme song that no child should ever have to grow up without. The fact is, the game is mind-numbingly loud, involves fat, relatively stupid animals consuming large quantities of food, and is made of plastic, probably in a factory in China: in other words, it's the quintessential American board game. But hey, it's also really brightly colored.

And thus, I recently felt the urge to find an original version of this game that brought so much joy to my own childhood, and luckily amazon fulfilled just such a need. The photo here shows the hands of three of my starving friends at the kitchen table pounding away on the hippo levers (clearly, the Brooklyn Lager is in control of the yellow hippo). Unfortunately, playing the game demonstrated the slight tilt that apparently exists in our apartment's foundation, as the northernmost hippo won 95% of the time. So not much in the way of true competition, but wildly entertaining nonetheless, particularly (necessarily?) when accompanied with a few beers.