THE PEBBLE AND THE PENGUIN

'''The Pebble and the Penguin''' is a musical animated film, produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. It was originally released in movie theatres in the USA in 1995 by MGM and was released internationally by Warner Bros. in 1996. Barry Manilow provided the songs for the film. A few notable voice actors contributed to the film, including Martin Short, Tim Curry, and Jim Belushi.

Contents

Plot

Reception

Songs

Production

Home video

Penguin species

External links

Plot

The film follows Hubie, a shy, stuttering, young Adelie penguin desperate to impress a female (Marina) during the annual mating season, wherein the male Adelies present a stone to their favorite female as a gift. If she accepts, they are mated for life. He must present his special pebble to Marina before the pebble festival is over, or lose the love of his life, forever. Just as Hubie manages to pluck up the nerve due to finding a shining green piece of meteor, his evil rival and over-sized bully of the Adelie rookery, Drake, knocks him off the ice, intending to make Marina his mate. Hubie then is swept away. Picked up and caged by the crew of animal research ship, Hubie meets the street-wise Rocco, whose only wishes are to live in sunny climates and learn to fly. Together they escape, and with only five days left before the ceremony begins, Hubie convinces Rocco to help him find Antarctica. When they arrive, Hubie must defeat his worst enemy and gather the courage to propose to his love.

Reception

''The Pebble and the Penguin'' has a score of 0% ("rotten") at Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 3/10. It was a box-office flop, only grossing $3,939,728.[1] However, it has a "C" at Box Office Mojo and proved to be far more successful on home video than in theaters.

Songs

- "Now and Forever" (Hubie, Marina, Company)
- "Sometimes I Wonder" (Hubie)
- "The Good Ship Misery" (Company)
- "Don't Make Me Laugh" (Drake)
- "Sometimes I Wonder - Marina's Reprise" (Marina)
- "Looks Like I Got Me a Friend" (Hubie and Rocco)

Production

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman pulled out on producing and directing this movie due to creative differences with the distributor of the film. With a "final cut" clause in the distribution contract, last minute changes were made to film. Bluth and Goldman could not convince the distributor to leave the film as they had planned it. As a result, much of the film's special effects could not be completed due to the requested changes and unchanged deadline. Assuming that the changes would hurt the film's integrity, they had their names removed from the film. However, the company name "Don Bluth Entertainment" remained above the title. This is the reason they are not credited for directing and producing the project. All of the original animation and about 70% of the color was completed before the two left the project. The changes were accommodated in-house at the company's Dublin studio. Due to the changes much of the ink and paint duties were shared with animation houses in Hungary. Bluth takes no credit for any part of the film. Don Bluth and Gary Goldman returned to the states to head up 20th Century Fox's entry into the animation business, producing and directing Fox's first animated feature ''Anastasia''.

Home video

The film did surprisingly well on VHS and laserdisc in the same year as its theatrical release, and the film was originally released on DVD in 1999, going out of print in 2005. A new "Family Fun Edition" was released in the United States and Canada on March 27, 2007 by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. Many sites like Amazon.com and DVD Empire never gave a description of the special features of the Family Fun Edition, which are: two featurettes, 8 games, and a new-to-DVD widescreen version. Though the DVD was released widely in Canada on March 27th, 2007, it was also released a week early in Wal-Marts in some provinces of Canadian. (The same goof happened with the 2-disc DVD release of ''The Secret of NIMH'' in June of 2007.)

Penguin species

Most of the film's characters are representative of actual penguin species. Hubie and Marina are Adelie Penguins, Drake is probably an Adelie as well, albeit one who is much larger and physically quite different, and Rocco is a Southern Rockhopper Penguin. Also, on "the good ship misery" several of the penguins are Chinstrap Penguins. The pebble-giving ritual used in the film is a factual process in Adelie Penguin courtship.
The film includes the penguin's natural predators such as the Leopard Seal and Orca whale. However, the film does include one inaccuracy in penguin predators: during the song "Don't Make Me Laugh" the lyrics include "Say no, poor dove, and you're a shark's dinner". While sharks may be a threat to penguins in other parts of the Southern Hemisphere, marine life of the shark persuasion is scarce and generally not a threat to penguins in Antarctica.
Rocco is much shorter than Hubie, however in real life Adelie Penguins are no larger than Rockhopper Penguins. In reality the Adelie Penguin, while not the smallest species of penguins, isn't as large as the film depicts.

External links

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★ The Pebble and the Penguin at MRQE