True Story of I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas song [short version] 

In 1953 Oklahoma City native Gayla Peevey recorded "I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas", and had no idea the world would be facsinated by it 70 years later. Or that people in her hometown of Oklahoma City would really raise the money to buy a 10-year-old girl a hippopotamus. She gave that hippo, named Matilda, to the local zoo on Christmas Eve. It lived to be nearly 50. Her song might live forever.