"Is a hippopotamus a hippopotamus, or just a really cool Opotamus?"

Mitch Hedberg’s one-liner plays with language and expectation, using the word “hippopotamus” to provoke both confusion and laughter. By splitting “hippopotamus” into “hippo” and “opotamus,” he subverts the audience’s understanding of what is fundamentally a single concept: the animal itself. Hedberg suggests, through whimsical phrasing, that perhaps a hippopotamus is merely an “Opotamus” with something extra, specifically, something “hip.” The notion becomes absurdly playful when he wonders whether the animal is just a “really cool Opotamus,” treating “hip” as in “fashionable” or “cool,” and inventing, by implication, the existence of a base creature called an “Opotamus” that could exist independently.

The joke functions on several layers. Hedberg, known for his distinctive deadpan wit, takes an ordinary word and deconstructs it, poking fun at how words are formed and how easily they can be reframed for humor. The prefix “hippo-” actually means “horse” in Greek, and “potamus” means “river,” but Hedberg sidesteps etymology in favor of phonic cleverness. He offers an alternative, imaginary taxonomy based purely on sound, and the result is both surreal and gently absurd.

The deeper resonance of the joke might lie in how humans construct labels and categories. By suggesting that a “hippopotamus” might be just a “cool Opotamus,” Hedberg offers a comedic commentary on how people assign meaning, qualities, or significance to things based on language; that meanings themselves can be funny or arbitrary, subject to playful reinterpretation.

Ultimately, the quote is an invitation to look at language from an unexpected angle, to be delighted by its quirks, to not take such divisions or definitions too seriously, and to allow ourselves a moment of childlike wonder at the silliness inherent in the words we use every day.