It is based around the fictional character of Hugo, a friendly, small Scandinavian folklore troll engaged in a conflict against a wicked witch, often to save his family.

[2] Hugo's family includes his beloved wife Hugolina (Hugoline in the original Danish version) and their three children, Rit (TrolleRit), Rat (TrolleRat), and Rut (TrolleRut).

Their main antagonist is the evil Scylla (Afskylia, named differently in some localized versions, such as Hexana in German), an ancient and cruel witch with a grudge against the trolls dating back centuries and Hugo always standing in her way.

Scylla often kidnaps Hugo's family because she needs their presence to restore and keep her own youth and beauty due to a curse.

[5] According to Hugo creator Ivan Sølvason, the program's intended message was to teach children to protect their own families at any cost, including risking their lives to save them if needed.

[6] Some later video games and other adaptations dropped the usual Hugolina-kidnapping motif, making Scylla beautiful by default yet still as hateful as ever.

Sølvason's small company SilverRock Productions, which was later renamed Interactive Television Entertainment (ITE) ApS in 1992,[11] developed the character of Hugo as well as the designated, custom-built computer hardware system that would convert telephone DTMF signals into remotely controlling the characters in the game and allow the interaction of the audience and the TV action without delay.

Hugo had to journey through one of the different game environments before he got to one of Scylla's lairs, avoiding various traps and other dangers while collecting gold along the way.

Once the player finished the game, he or she would receive a prize reward according to the obtained game score, which was based on the player's performance in the main scenario but greatly depended on how well Hugo fared in his final and purely luck-based task to rescue his family, with a special bonus for capturing Scylla.

ITE also fought hard against any attempt to abuse Hugo's "good name and reputation", resulting in more than 170 lawsuits against Danish producers and advertisers.

Many of the more than half a billion[17] viewers believed that the program was native to their countries, as Hugo spoke Danish only in Denmark.

They were later joined by Torben B. Larsen,[23][24][25] Jonas Fromm,[26] Claus Friese,[27] Anders Morgenthaler,[28][29] Jakob Steffensen,[30] Jonas Raagaard,[31] Stephen Meldal Foged,[32] Martin Ciborowski,[33] Ulla Gram Larsen,[34] and many other 2D and 3D artists; eventually, over 100 people were working on developing Hugo for ITE.

[39] Hugo copyrights were acquired by the Danish game publisher Krea Medie A/S, a part of the media company Kraemedie.

[47] In the early games, Hugo attempts to free his family from the witch Scylla in familiar scenarios that are the same as in the TV show.

[54] In 2011, the company's new owner,[55] Henrik Kølle, said he hoped that the release of a new video game would enable Hugo franchise to become a global brand.

[67] It was planned that the release of the film would be accompanied by a range of tie-in products, including a soundtrack, toys, and video games.

In this game, Scylla plans to extract the rare magical black diamonds (first introduced in the action game Hugo: Black Diamond Fever in 2002[71]) from an asteroid's core and become the most powerful witch of all time, and so Hugo and his kids follow Scylla across the solar system to foil her before it is too late.

[72][73] It was to be produced by Petteri Pasanen and Trine Heidegaard, directed by Philip Einstein Lipski[74] and Mikko Pitkänen,[75] and written by Tim John and Timo Turunen.

Its plot premise would have followed a former TV-game show star Hugo, who is a hotel janitor and a single father.

His daughter, aware of his former celebrity fame and feeling herself to be abandoned, decides to bring her father home by creating Hugo's new show.

[80] In 1996, a theatrical musical called The Magical Kingdom of Hugo (הממלכה הקסומה של הוגו) was played in Tel Aviv, Israel,[81] telling the story of a group of children who were sucked into the television screen and summoned directly to Hugo's world, Trollandia, by the witch Griselda (גריזלדה, an Israeli name for Scylla).

[84][85][86] In it, Scylla (Sila), played by Eda Özdemir,[87] and Don Croco (Donkroko) make a new trap for Hugo and his family.

[133] In Poland, it included various food products (such as chocolate bars by Groupe Danone,[134] potato chips by Lorenz Snack-World,[135] and a line of juice drinks by SokPol[136][137]) and various CD-ROMs (audio, graphics, and minigames).

[142] Also in 2014, Hugo-themed biscuits were released by Danish company Karen Volf, based on the new games,[143] and YOUNiik launched a shop with Hugo cover and case designs.

[41] In 2001, a 20-meter-high effigy of Afskylia (Scylla) entered the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest witch dummy ever burned at Sankt Hans (the Danish Midsummer festival).

[148] In 2009, the Hugo franchise was selected to be a central part of the country's digital heritage exhibit at the Royal Danish Library.