I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas Day
On this summer day in 1953 Gayla Peevey recorded one of the biggest novelty hits of Christmas, I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas. We declared today to be I Want a Hippopotamus Day of Christmas, with just 169 days remaining until Christmas.
Peevey was a child star from Oklahoma with a five year contract with Columbia Records. Songs such as “All I Want for Christmas Are My Two Front Teeth” and “I’m Gettin’ Nothin’ for Christmas” are indicative of the popularity of novelty songs in the 1950s. Peevey was selected to sing I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, a song written by American songwriter John J. Rox, known for a few Broadway songs of some popularity.
Peevey’s talents and the song was hyped on various radio and television venues during late 1953 but it was this Ed Sullivan show appearance that sent I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas up the charts to #24 in December of 1953:
The song famously spurred a fundraiser for a local Oklahoma Zoo. The popularity of the song prompted a local promoter to raise funds to actually buy a hippo for Gayla. The gag worked and Peevey was famously presented with the hippo, which she in turn donated to the zoo. The hippo, named Matilda, happily entertained zoo visitors in Oklahoma for over 50 years.
The song has gone on to Christmas immortality and is both loved and reviled as a classic today.
