All a cute, curly haired 10-year-old girl named Gayla Peevey wanted for Christmas in 1953 was a hippopotamus.
And amazingly enough, after “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” became the biggest hit song of that holiday season, she actually got one, a 700-pound baby named Matilda. She promptly donated it to the Oklahoma City Zoo, where it lived to be nearly 50, a ripe old age for hippos.
As for Peevey’s song, it may never die.
“That one just really took off, and it’s still going strong, stronger than ever. Sixty-three years later! Hard to believe,” Peevey, an ebullient woman of 73, says during a recent phone interview from her San Diego-area home.
Some people will tell you it’s an annoying ear worm, a tune with such silly lyrics and a melody so maddeningly memorable that it will play endlessly in your head every holiday season until New Year’s Day.
But that’s part of its charm, says Tim Moore, iHeart Radio’s New Hampshire programming director who over the decades has played it plenty of times.
“It’s got the sound of an old-time recording,” Moore says. “It sounds dated. It sounds a little corny. But that’s the thing about it. Also, not to be discounted is its effect on children.”