Jungledyret Hugo

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I don't recall ever having seen any threads about this Danish franchise before, so i thought id be the first to start one.

In case you haven't ever heard of the series before (which i guess is quite likely), a very short summary of it is that it originated as a Danish animated film in 1993 about a supposedly very rare "jungle animal" ("jungledyr") named Hugo who is captured by a bunch of people who wants him to star in movies and proceed to take him back to Denmark, after which he escapes and befriends a vixen named Rita. Over the course of two sequels (released in 1996 and 2007) and an animated series (which premiered sometime in the early 00's, the exact year escapes me at the moment) the two main characters form a more romantic relationship, while also apparently getting on eah others nerves a lot, leading to a lot of furry drama.

Here is a little sample of the series, more precisely the second movie (the English dubbed version, for you non-Danish speakers):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4fmJlbd7YY

Oh and it might also be worth mentioning that after the first two movies were released on DVD in the United States in 2005, the series have actually developed a small internet-based fanbase, which mostly seems to consists of either Danes and other Scandinavins who grew up with the films, and, to a greater extent, members of the furry-community. And the series main female protagonist have even become a 4chan meme.

My own interest in the series is due to the fact that i belong to the Scandinavian kids who grew up with the first two films (which for some reason originated a lot of in-jokes in my household). And i find it pretty neat that these obscure films, which i until a few years ago would never have dreamed would be known to practically anyone outside of Scandinavia, have recently gotten it's own international (small, nut still international) fanbase.

So, have you ever heard of the series before? Any thoughts about it? Or f you haven't heard f it before, what is your initial reaction to it?
 
That's a disturbingly horny ... whatever that thing is. I can see why furries would like it, though. That clip was definitely leading up to hot whatever that thing is on fox action.
 
Actually, it just leads up to a mouse interrupting them the second after the video ends.

But importantly, it later it leads to a lot conflict between the two mammals because Hugo finds their new home cold and wants to go home to Africa and Rita thinks Hugo is ungrateful and starts yelling at him and Hugo just starts whining even more and... well, it goes on like that.

And, besides my nostalgic affinity for the series, the main reason i can watch and enjoy these films as an adult (despite the films really not being particularly well-made in many respects) is that these very Disney-ish looking teenage characters in their very Disney-ish looking universe have a kind of relationship that you would expect to see in a teen-drama film rather than a kids cartoon (or at least a Scandinavian teen-drama, which tends to focus a lot more on negative emotions than Hollywood ones). In the original Dansih version, the character even throw rather harsh curse-words at each other from time to time. Not that i am normally interested in relationship drama in entertainment, but in this series (much like in the anime series Maple Town) i find it amusing simply because it contrasts so much with it's usual "funny animal" premise.
 
Yeah, these movies are pretty popular here in scandinavia. I loved them as a kid and still find them somewhat amusing as an adult thanks to the great animation and characters. I do wish the third hadn't gone over to CGI, but it was still a fairly good movie.
 
It was nice we got these first two films at all, despite who was involved in making the English version to begin with (Miramax, when it comes to animation, they don't have a very good track record).


Not bad for a little Danish production! I first only heard of Jungleyret Hugo from a mid 90's issue of the trade publication "Animation Magazine", and even then I wasn't sure if it would show up or not.


The way the internet works these days it's fascinating (and tape trading).


From what I saw, I thought it had some pretty nifty animation in the movies, though I haven't seen the most recent one to see if it has declined or inclined since the 90's.
 
Declined. VERY MUCH SO.

And i am not saying that simply because the first two movies were traditionaly animated and the third one was computer animated. No, it's because the traditional animation in the first two films were rather nicely done traditional animation (probably the best ever produced in Scandinavia up to that point) and the computer animation in the third film were absolutely horrible computer animation. Possibly the worst looking CGI film intended for theaters that i have ever seen.
 
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