Kinder Happy Hippo is a cookie/candy made by the Italian chocolate and confectionery company Ferrero SpA.
The candy consists of a wafer biscuit shaped like a hippopotamus. Inside the crisp hollow biscuit are two flavors of icing: milk-flavoured and hazelnut cream in the original flavor, milk cream and chocolate cream in the cocoa flavor. The underside of the wafer is dipped in chocolate frosting sprinkled with crumbly meringue pieces.
Happy Hippo were made famous by a series of popular animated commercials featuring a dog and a hippo getting into various situations that generally end in the two sharing a Happy Hippo biscuit. The original light blue Happy Hippo character was created by the French designer André Roche for Ferrero chocolates in 1987 and became famous worldwide due to its repeated appearances as a toy in "Kinder Surprise" chocolate eggs. The Happy Hippo toys came in various costumes and character designs, including an authorized parody character (named "Hipperium") from the George Lucas Star Wars trilogy.
The Happy Hippo book series made its debut on August 15, 2009 which was published by Brandon Baume and Joel Robison. The second book of the series Happy Hippo's Halloween, was released on September 7, 2009, and the third book, Happy Hippo Saves Christmas, was released on November 20, 2009.
Kinder Happy Hippos can be purchased in parts of the United States (primarily in the Northeast and New York City), Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Israel, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Puerto Rico, Hungary, the United Arab Emirates, Romania, Cyprus, South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Chile, and Brazil. In Latvia, they are mostly available at Sky.