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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.

Plot

Template:Spoiler The film follows Hubie, a shy young penguin desperate to impress a female during their mating-season, wherein the males present stones to the females as gifts. He must present his special pebble to her before the pebble festival is over, or lose his chance forever. Hubie just manages to pluck up the nerve when his callous rival Drake knocks him off the ice, and he is swept away. Picked up and caged by a ship, he meets the streetwise Rocco, whose only wishes are to live in sunny climates and learn to fly. Together they escape, and Hubie convinces Rocco to help him find Antarctica. When they arrive, Hubie must defeat his worst enemy to win over the beautiful Marina, and Rocco must face up to the reality of his dream of flying.

Reception

The Pebble and the Penguin was a box office flop. It only grossed $3,939,728 and received low critical reviews.

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)

Trivia

Don Bluth and Gary Goldman pulled out on producing this movie due to financial concerns and creative differences with the financiers of the film. This is the reason they are not credited for directing and producing the project. As a result of the fallout the final movie was actually completed by other animation houses rather than by Bluth Ltd. Though a reasonable percentage of the animation was done by Bluth's studio, a substancial percentage of it was done by others.

This is also why no mention of the film is made under the "films" section of Don Bluth's website.

Most of the film's characters are supposedly of an actual species. Hubie, Marina and drake are apparently Adélie penguins and Rocco is a rockhopper. Also, on "the good ship misery" several of the penguins are chinstraps.

The pebble giving ritual used in the film is a factual process in Adélie penguin courtship.

The film includes the penguin's natural predators such as the leopard seal and Orca whale. However, the film does make one inaccuracy in penguin predators. During the song "don't make me laugh" the lyrics include "say no my love, and be a sharks dinner" while sharks may be a threat to penguins in other parts of the southern hemisphere, marine life of the shark persuasion are scarce and generally not threat to penguins in Antarctica. The lyrics would have been better suited to say "be a seal's dinner" or "be a whale's dinner" but that just doesn’t seem very frightening.

Adélie penguins are no larger than Rockhopper penguins. In reality the Adélie penguin, while not the smallest of penguins, aren’t as large as the film depicts. I more accurately scaled Adélie can be seen in the character "Ramón" in the film "Happy Feet".

External links

• The Pebble and The Penguin at IMDb
• The Pebble and the Penguin at MRQE

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• 1995 films
• Animated films
• Films directed by Don Bluth
• MGM films
• Films about penguins
• Warner Bros. Animation films
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