Fastest time to clear a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos by a team of four (Under 16s)

The fastest time for a team of under-16-year-olds to clear a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos is 7.76 seconds, by Alfie Harris, Malachy Hodnett, Darcie Warner (all UK) and Ektoras Panagiotopoulos (UK/Greece) in the Garden Theatre at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival in Gloucestershire, UK, on 13 October 2024.

Hungry Hungry Hippos is a table-top game invented by Fred Kroll and produced by Hasbro/Milton Bradley. In the two- or four-player game, you are tasked with eating as many plastic marbles as possible by pounding on a lever that activates a mechanical plastic hippopotamus head. As the head protrudes and snaps down, it "eats" the balls and deposits them into a recess, and the player who eats the most balls is the winner. Competitive Hungry Hungry Hippos tournaments have been held since 2015* but for this particular GWR record, the players do not compete against each other; instead, they must work together to clear the playing area of all 20 marbles in the quickest time.

The hippos were originally named Lizzy (pink, later replaced with Happy), Henry (red), Homer (green) and Harry (yellow), before being recoloured and given their current names: Sweetie Potamus (blue), Bottomless Potamus (yellow), Veggie Potamus (green) and Picky Potamus (red).

The record attempt took place as part of a talk given during the Cheltenham Literature Festival by GWR Editor-in-Chief Craig Glenday. Eight children were chosen at random out of the audience and divided into two teams. The winning foursome beat their rival team by 2 seconds.

*The first Hungry Hungry Hippos World Championship took place at the table-top-gaming convention Gen Con in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, on 2 August 2015.