Murray Hippo

Murray Hippo (マーレー・ヒッポ, Mārē Hippo), is a fictional character and protagonist of the Sandiego Cooper series. He is a pink anthropomorphic male hippopotamus, best friends and partners in crime with Sly Cooper and Bentley, and is the muscle of the Cooper Gang. He is also the wheelman of the gang who has a great love for his Van, which he is in charge of driving when the gang needs to different locations or make a quick getaway.

As a large pink hippopotamus, he is amazingly strong, but somewhat dim-witted. He often ventures to the field on missions requiring such strength. His demeanor changed drastically between first meeting Carmen and the beginning of the series, going from a timid getaway driver, to someone much more fearless, often throwing himself into dangerous situations just for the thrill of it. It is stated that he has developed a more serious personality, though he remains a happy-go-lucky hippo.

"Fear the Murray!"
 * —Murray Hippo.

Appearance & Biography

 * Voice Actor: Chris Murphy (English), Takashi Nagasako (Japanese), Not Known (Brazilian), Not Known (Chinese), Not Known (Dutch), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (French), Not Known (German), Not Known (Italian), Not Known (Hebrew), Not Known (Hungarian), Not Known (Finnish), Not Known (Korean), Not Known (Norwegian), Not Known (Poland), Not Known (Polish), Not Known (Portuguese), Not Known (Romanian), Not Known (Russian), Not Known (Serbian), Not Known (Spanish), Not Known (Swedish), Not Known (Thai), Not Known (Brazilian Portuguese), Not Known (European Spanish), Not Known (European Portuguese), Not Known (Latin American Spanish), Not Known (Latin Spanish)

Appearance
Murray is a round hippopotamus with pink skin and brown eyes and is depicted as having a muscular upper body and a large stomach. He also wears a pair of driving goggles and blue and white sneakers with red stripes.

He wears a maroon luchador wrestling mask with a vertical yellow stripe going down the middle of the back half of the mask, a light blue tank top with normal blue collars, a dark blue T-shirt underneath it, red track pants with yellow stripes, large belt with a large wrestling plate buckle on the front, adorned with the Cooper gang's logo, and a light blue scarf.


 * Hair Color: N/A
 * Skin Color: Pink
 * Eye Color: Brown
 * Age: Not Known
 * Birthday: Not Known
 * Height: Not Known
 * Weight: Not Known

Personality
"What if he don't wanna come? I don't want to hurt him."
 * —Murray Hippo, to Bentley before kidnapping General Clawfoot.

One of the few comic relief characters in the series, Murray has a health problem of suffering intense hunger when skipping his afternoon fruit.

Murray is a strong, muscular tough guy with an enormous appetite. He also likes to pose in tough guy-like appearances that involves showing his muscles. Before the events of Sandiego Cooper, his love for masked wrestling, and learning that he can put up a fight in the field, made him discover his strength. He is much bolder, but witnessing Bentley get crippled and his eventual soul search gives him compassion and represses his rage to a point where he can call upon it when need be.

It is implied that, despite his incredible strength and his bold personality, Murray has a softer side. There are some occasions where he would prefer not to hurt anyone, even though he often mows down enemies gleefully. For instance, Murray was initially hesitant about resorting to violence to kidnap General Clawfoot, on the grounds that he seemed like a defenseless old man; Murray only went through with it when Bentley explained that Murray couldn't physically harm Clawfoot. Murray also has a tendency to take things that do not go as planned harder than everyone else. He is often the first person to cry in these situations, best shown when Neyla betrayed the Cooper Gang, when the team lost the Cooper Van, and when Bentley became crippled. He also felt inadequate to the team for most of the gang's time in Gungathal Valley when he tried to climb an icy wall, only for Bob Cooper to be called in to do it; while climbing icy walls was Bob's specialty, Murray probably felt outdone because he was the one that trained Bob to get back into shape in the first place.

Murray is also extremely determined and loyal, as he helps mend Bentley's fear of Sly not being his friend, and refuses to give up on his associates at any cost. During the rescue of his van, he is told multiple times that it is far too dangerous, but refuses, as the memories of his time with the gang in there is far too precious to him. His determination is so strong, he even moves the Panda King, who notes that Murray shows extreme compassion and heart.

Friends/Allies

 * Sandiego-Cooper Alliance
 * Cooper Gang
 * Sly Cooper
 * Bentley Turtle
 * The Guru
 * Carmen's Team
 * Carmen Sandiego
 * Player
 * Ivy
 * Zack

Neutral

 * INTERPOL
 * Carmelita Fox
 * A.C.M.E.
 * The Chief
 * Chase Devineaux
 * Julia Argent
 * Penelope
 * Dimitri Lousteau
 * Panda King

Enemies

 * Fiendish Five
 * Clockwerk
 * Muggshot
 * V.I.L.E.
 * Professor Gunnar Maelstrom
 * Coach Brunt
 * Shadow-san
 * Dr. Saira Bellum
 * Countess Cleo
 * Dash Haber
 * Graham
 * Cookie Booker
 * Paper Star
 * Klaww Gang
 * Neyla
 * Don Octavio
 * Mask of Dark Earth
 * General Tsao
 * LeFwee
 * Dr. M
 * Paradox's Gang
 * Cyrille Le Paradox

Powers and Abilities
Murray Hippo's characteristic is strength makes him the strongman muscle of the group. This, paired with his large size, makes him a formidable opponent. Most of Murray's abilities center around the use of his fists or body; these include the Thunder Flop and Fists of Flame, among others. Because of his size, Murray is unable to stealthily pickpocket enemies, so he must resort to picking them up and ruffling their clothes to find loot.

Under the tutelage of the Guru, Murray learned the Aboriginal Ball Form, which enables him to curl up into a ball and use his bulk offensively against enemies or objects. Another ability that he obtained from his Dreamtime training was a Temporal Lock that freezes time for a short duration. As the team's getaway driver, Murray is a capable albeit reckless driver. He is also a mechanic, taking care of his van and building Team Cooper's biplane for the ACES Competition. Despite his large appearance, he is also proficient in some artistics, like coloring, drawing and creative dancing.

Early life
"I'll save you, Sly! Just leave it to... The Murray!"
 * —Murray Hippo, during the cookie heist.

In circumstances that have never been revealed, Murray was orphaned at a young age. He was raised at the Happy Camper Orphanage where he met his lifelong friends, Sly and Bentley. At some point during his youth, Murray learned how to drive by hot-wiring cars. He later got a job as a pizza delivery boy, but was fired after dropping too many pizzas.

During their time at the orphanage, the trio made a plan to steal cookies from the headmistress, Ms. Puffin. In the middle of the night, Sly sneaked into Puffin's office to grab the cookie jar while Murray stood by as getaway driver. The "heist" was cut short when the night janitor entered Puffin's office. Promising to keep Sly from getting caught, Murray pedaled his tricycle (the getaway vehicle) away at full speed. However, the tricycle had no brakes, and they crashed. Murray apologized, but cheered up after seeing that Sly had managed to dump the cookies into his hat at the last second. Later, Murray is seen eating all of the cookies without sharing any with the rest of the gang.

Notes & Trivia

 * Murray's signature color is magenta.
 * Like Sly Cooper and Bentley, Murray can't swim. It was once stated by him that it's because the gang didn't take swimming lessons at the orphanage.
 * Unlike Sly and Bentley's species (raccoon and turtle, respectively), Murray's species, the hippopotamus, cannot swim. They can only move in water if it is shallow enough for them to stand in with their heads above the surface.
 * Also unlike Sly and Bentley, he appears to have overcome this weakness, at least with the aid of scuba gear.
 * As a child, Murray wore a Japanese "Rising Sun" headband.
 * In the Cooper Vault job, he worked "Recovery Team."
 * According to Dr. M, Murray is far more powerful than Jim McSweeney ever was.
 * The trailer "Murray's Mailbag" reveals that the reason Murray doesn't wear pants is because he can't find any in his size, a fact that embarrasses and frustrates him.
 * In Japanese, Murray is called "Captain Murray".