Hyp originally voiced by Whit Hertford and later by Michael Kelley, is a character and the main antagonist turned-supporting protagonist of The Land Before Time series. He is Mutt and Nod's boss. He first appears in The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving.
Due to insecurities about his family life, he tends to bully younger children, especially the main characters of the series, in order to feel stronger and braver. Because of this, he serves as the secondary antagonist, behind the sharpteeth in the movie and ahead of his lackeys Mutt and Nod. He later became good in the film.
He reappears in the TV episode "The Great Egg Adventure", and is once again a bully. Like the film, the episode manages to give him some development, although it is unclear at this point if it will truly stick.
He is a teenage Hypsilophodon who lives in the Great Valley with his unnamed father.
Character[]
Appearance[]
In The Time of the Great Giving, Hyp is a silver dinosaur with a white belly, square white teeth and gold eyes. In the TV show, Hyp is gray and he has dark brown-gray eyes and triangle teeth.
Role in the series[]
Hyp is an adolescent Hypsilophodon who lives in the Great Valley with an unnamed father (whereas, Hyp seems to have no mother). He would frequently bully other dinosaur children, with his favorite victims being the main characters Littlefoot, Cera, Ducky, Petrie and Spike.
He first appears alongside his two friends Mutt and Nod, in The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving, while interrupting a game Littlefoot and the others are playing, and taunts them for their smaller size. Later, he explains in song that he believes that being older than Littlefoot gives him the right to be mean to them and do wrong things. He pushes Nod right into Littlefoot who was in the river with his friends, hurting him.
He and his friends flee when they are discovered by Cera's dad and Littlefoot's grandfather who are watching them, causing them both to argue over to their kids and wasting water. His father later apologizes to Littlefoot's grandfather and grandmother over his actions and leading Cera's dad to insult Littlefoot. Upon being reminded by Littlefoot and Cera that although he is currently larger than them, they will be the larger ones when they are grown up (this is completely correct, given that Hypsilophodon was one of the smallest of all herbivorous dinosaurs), Hyp's hatred towards them is only intensified.
During the water shortage that follows, Hyp schemes to hoard all available water he finds for himself (and, to a lesser extent, Mutt and Nod). He tries unsuccessfully to stop the main characters from telling the grown-ups about a pond they have found only to get chase away by a wasp which Mutt accidentally insults, and, after it is discovered that rocks are blocking the Thundering Falls' origin point in the Mysterious Beyond, Hyp convinces Mutt and Nod to accompany him to head there and be the first to drink from it.
Later, in the Mysterious Beyond, Hyp almost dies when he jumps into what he thinks is water, but is actually a tar pit. Mutt and Nod prove incapable of assisting him (arguing over on which of them must save him), but Littlefoot and the others arrive and save him by pulling him out. His father then arrives along with Cera's dad and Littlefoot's grandfather and Mutt's father who are looking for them and spots him hiding behind Littlefoot and his friends and scolds him for putting himself in danger and bullying Littlefoot and his friends.
Hyp later appears in the TV series episode "The Great Egg Adventure".
Personality[]
Hyp is depicted as an abusive bully with antisocial tendencies. His anger at the notion of Littlefoot being bigger than him when they both grow up suggests he is insecure about being of a small species. His strict and authoritative father is also implied to be a factor in his bad behaviour. Regardless of his tendency towards bullying, Hyp is capable of being helpful and considerate, if not somewhat edgy.
Although Hyp is the most intelligent member of his gang, it is implied that he is still somewhat naive. He says at one point in The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving he intends to prevent Littlefoot and the others from ever growing up, suggesting that he intends to kill them. However, when explaining his intentions to Mutt and Nod after they fail to catch the drift, he states that he merely intends to hurt them, implying that he assumes he can beat the children up badly enough to stunt their growth.
Character Development[]
Hyp's character design was modified in "The Great Egg Adventure". In "The Land Before Time III: The Time of the Great Giving", the character is coloured a cold, stoney gray, and the underbelly is drawn with a large jutting chin and a lantern jaw, deep frown lines and dark eye bags, evidently so as to appear bitter and intimidating. In "The Great Egg Adventure", he is coloured a warmer shade of gray, and has smoother facial features, possibly to reflect the character's slight change in attitude (despite his aforementioned relapse).
Trivia[]
- His name is spelled "Hip" in the Land Before Time book, We Did It Together.
- He had square teeth in the third movie and triangle teeth in the TV series.
- In terms of personality, Hyp, and his pals Mutt and Nod are similar to the egg thieves in the previous film.
- Hyp and his lackeys are also similar to Jimbo, Dolph and Kearney from The Simpsons.
- It is unknown what happened to Hyp's Mother since she did not appear in any Land Before Time movies and she did not appear in the TV show either.