Harry and the Hairy Hippo
Story Quest – Stories for Kids
Fun Kids
4.2 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When an enormous, chocolate-brown creature drifts into a sleepy English village, the local residents are shocked to discover it is actually a hippo that has sprouted a thick coat of fur.
The village’s curious hero, Harry, strikes up a conversation with the polite beast to uncover the bizarre series of events that led to his "fuzzy" transformation and his escape from the zoo.
Faced with a heatwave and a very uncomfortable hippo, the community must pull together to perform a unique makeover that balances the animal's need for warmth with his desire to stay cool.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is StoryQuest. Today's story is Harry and the Hairy Hippo. |
| 0:11.0 | When the hippo first floated past the reeds at Little Wobbleford Nature Reserve, nobody screamed. |
| 0:18.8 | They did, however, stare. |
| 0:21.6 | I mean, you would, wouldn't you? |
| 0:23.0 | We don't see many hippos outside of zoos, really. |
| 0:26.5 | Hippos, as most sensible people know, are not supposed to be in England. |
| 0:30.6 | They're definitely not supposed to be drifting down a narrow river between a picnic bench |
| 0:35.2 | and a sign that says, please do not feed the ducks. |
| 0:38.5 | And they are absolutely not supposed to be hairy, but this one was. |
| 0:44.6 | He was enormous. He was pinkish grey, and from nose to tail he was covered in thick, shaggy, |
| 0:50.5 | chocolate brown fur that waved gently in the breeze like a badly brushed carpet. |
| 0:56.4 | Mrs. Crumble from the cafe was serving some customers on the veranda and dropped an entire |
| 1:02.1 | tray of flapjacks at the site as he sailed past. It's a, it's a bison, said Mr. Wheeler, |
| 1:13.4 | who had once watched half a wildlife documentary. |
| 1:15.8 | He probably should have watched the other half. |
| 1:21.1 | It's a floating sofa, shouted a toddler, which was a fairly accurate description. |
| 1:28.2 | Harry Herman, aged 10 and 3 quarters, peered through his binoculars and said calmly, |
| 1:30.1 | It's a hippo. |
| 1:32.3 | Everyone looked at him. |
| 1:34.9 | A hairy one, he added. |
| 1:38.5 | The hippo blinked at them, yawned enormously, |
| 1:45.9 | and revealed a mouth so wide it could have swallowed Mrs. Crumbles's entire cafe, including the specials board. And then it sneezed. The sneeze created a small tidal wave that gently rearranged the ducks. |
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