hippos by ricky at double happiness
found abstraction with arms, legs and tops of heads; polyrhythmic clicking soundtrack; chaos gradually resolving into order; observable and individual styles of game play; rigorous symmetry challenged by bobbing, rocking movement; play of light and shadow; unusual, severe camera angle; overt pop culture reference; mesh of nostalgia and aesthetic disassociation; medium that works across media (photography, flash video, social networking, "found object art," color field painting, amateur video).
From wikipedia:
In a 1990 short story published in The New Yorker (and sarcastically named after the game), Edward Allen wrote, "The object of the game [is essentially] to press your handle down again and again as fast as you can, with no rhythm, no timing, just slam-slam-slam as your hippo surges out to grab marble after marble from the game surface...."
[...]
In the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Mr. Plow", Homer says, "Now we play the waiting game... Eh, the waiting game sucks, lets play Hungry Hungry Hippos." Another Simpsons episode, Hungry, Hungry Homer is a reference to the game (as well as Homer being one of the four hippos). It also has a mention in Donnie Darko when Donnie informs his psychiatrist that he always wanted Hungry Hungry Hippos for Christmas but he never got any. The Futurama episode "300 Big Boys" features some homeless men who refer to themselves as "hungry hungry hobos."
Re: Milton Bradley dropping one of the "hungrys" in the game's name in 2008, that's corporate thinking in microcosm, "if it ain't broke, bland it down."
"Medium that works across media" is Damon Zucconi's phrase.