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The Commercial That Broke Canadian Children’s Hearts
Yes, all my canucks out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Let me tell you a little story about a commercial that has stuck with me all the way from my childhood until adulthood and will probably still have me feeling forlorn right up until my death bed.
Years ago, as in decades, Concerned Children’s Advertisers put out a commercial that broke every child’s heart in Canada. Yes, it’s the famed House Hippo.
This bad boy was so well done that children across the country wondered if there really were house hippos that invaded people’s homes, eating peanut butter, and making nests out of old dryer lint! They wondered why they hadn’t seen them before and why their parents hadn’t said anything to them. These little hippos were depicted as cute munchins, running wild in the home, much like a mouse does. They would take baths in the cat’s water dish, leave little peanut butter trails, and nestle into a warm bed of dryer lint, lost mittens, and bits of string. Who wouldn’t want a house hippo?
Unfortunately, towards the end of the commercial, a new voice comes on, stating that everything you just watched isn’t true, and that we all knew that. Of course we knew that! We just wanted those dang cuties to be real so bad that we were happily ready to believe whatever the TV told…
