Quite a few months ago a friend of mines (no really mines is a word, at least in Hawaii and I've been reading a book from there, I promise I'm not illiterate!) Facebook status caught my eye. It said "What I would give to hug a farting hippo right about now!" (Or something like that...) Now, you would only understand this if you avidly watch NCIS and love the character Abby Sciuto. If you still don't understand you can watch this YouTube montage on Bert, the farting hippo.
Well, immediately after seeing this status I had to look online to see if you could actually buy a farting hippo like the one on NCIS. Here is what I found out. First, Abby's hippo on the show doesn't actually fart. They add the noise whenever the hippo gets squeezed. (This was a little devastating for me) Secondly, I found that farting hippo's aren't that common. (Surprise, surprise) I found a couple places but they wanted $50-65 and I was not about to pay that. Then came the inspiration...I would make a farting hippo.
Do you feel inspired yet? I was sooo excited! I can't even explain how giddy this idea made me feel and how much fun I had just throwing that into every day conversation. "Oh, by the way I'm making a farting hippo." The looks, it was fantastic! I kept it a secret from my friend and it's probably good since it seriously took me forever to make it! The idea came quickly it was the doing that took some work.
Keep reading for the tutorial on making a farting hippo.
Gosh, I love saying that!
Here is the Hippo I purchased online to become the farting wonder that he is. He is smaller than the original hippo but I liked him and he was the best deal. I believe he is 18" but it's possible I'm making that number up. Then came the hard part. How the heck was I going to get a fart noise to come out of him?!?!?!
The final result. A recorder from Build a Bear. Brilliant isn't it? It costs $8 and I could record whatever fart noise I wanted on it! Then, there I was with a hippo and a recorder but no fart noise. I finally was introduced to the free Iphone app called Atomic Fart. Yes, it's a real app and yes it is still on my phone. I went through quite a few fart sounds and listened to the YouTube montage over and over before I found the fart noise I thought matched the best and here is what I chose....
At first I recorded the same noise over and over but it didn't seem to fit with the real Bert so I only recorded the noise once and you can press the button however many times you want! Then everything had to wait again. I had the hippo, the recorder, the fart sound on the recorder, I just had no idea how I was going to put the recorder in the hippo. (Can you see now why this project took me 6 months to actually accomplish?)
But the final decision was to push ribbon through the back of the recorder then sew the ribbon to the my hippos stomach so it would be findable and stay in relatively the same place.
Then I sewed this baby up!! Notice my lovely stitching? I figured I didn't have to do it perfectly since it's on the bottom. Right? As long as no stuffing falls our were good. But really, I'm not a sewer so ya....that's just what happens when you aren't a sewer. And here is the final sound of the my farting hippo!
Jayden really wanted to steal it. Every time he came to my room before the hippo got put in the mail he would find it and press all over until it farted, then he would crack up!
So there you have it folks! You now know how to make your own farting hippo just like (or as close as can be) Abby's on NCIS!
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