How difficult and painful is it to be different from everyone else? Can we all learn to accept ourselves and others just as we are, and celebrate our differences? This inspiring, family-oriented animation drama delves into such deep questions, through the example of Mumble, a little Emperor Penguin. In a society where all his kindred have lovely singing voices, and sing to find their soul mates, Mumble must endure the pain and ignominy of being the odd one out.
He not only has a terrible singing voice and later discovers he has no Heartsong. However, Mumble has an astute talent for something that none of the penguins had ever seen before: tap dancing. Though Mumble's mom, Norma Jean, thinks this little habit is cute, his dad, Memphis, says it 'just ain't penguin.' Besides, they both know that, without a Heartsong, Mumble may never find true love.
As fate would have it, his one friend, Gloria, happens to be the best singer around. Mumble and Gloria have a connection from the moment they hatch, but she struggles with his strange 'hippity- hoppity' ways.
Mumble is just too different; especially for Noah the Elder, the stern leader of Emperor Land, who ultimately casts him out of the community. Away from home for the first time, Mumble meets a posse of decidedly un-Emperor-like penguins--the Adelie Amigos. Led by Ramon, the Adelies instantly embrace Mumble's cool dance moves and invite him to party with...
Cast: Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman
Crew: George Miller (Director), David Peers (Director of Photography), John Powell (Music Director)
Rating: U (India)
Genres: Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Musical, Romance
Release Dates: 17 Nov 2006 (India)
Tagline: WARNING: May Cause Toe-Tapping.
Did you know? First Best Animated Feature Oscar Winner to feature live-action, non-animated elements-as well as actual, telescopic imaging from space (the film must be at least 75% animated to reach Academy standards). Read More
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as Gloria
as Memphis
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
as Nestor
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actor
as Raul
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actress
Supporting Actor
Direction
Director
Codirector
First Assistant Director
Second Assistant Director
Production
Producer
Production Company
Co-Producer
Executive Producer
Line Producer
Associate Producer
Distribution
Writers
Screenplay Writer
Camera and Electrical
Director of Photography
Still Photographer
Key Grip
Gaffer
Sound
Sound Effects Editor
Sound Re-recording Mixer
Boom Operator
Art
Art Director
Production Designer
Set Decorator
Storyboard Artist
Makeup and Hair
Makeup Artist
Special Effects
Special Effects Technician
Film Type:
Feature
Language:
English
Colour Info:
Color
Sound Mix:
Dolby Digital EX, DTS, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound
Frame Rate:
24 fps
Aspect Ratio:
2.39:1 (Scope)
Stereoscopy:
No
Taglines:
WARNING: May Cause Toe-Tapping.
Everybody Dance Now!
The only film that has people dancing in the aisles
Put on your happy feet.
Everybody Dance Now!
The only film that has people dancing in the aisles
Put on your happy feet.
Filming Locations:
Goofs:
Audio/Video Mismatch
In the scene where Mumble is born, Memphis says "woah" a little bit before Mumble's foot actually comes out of the egg.
Continuity
While Baby Mumble is with the Skuas, a small black bow can be seen on Mumble's chest. However, when Mumble falls into the crack in the ice, the bow disappears. When the birds fly away, Mumble rolls to the side and begins to cry, with his bow visible again.
Miscellaneous
During the end credits, there is a typographical error in the music listing for "My Way". It reads, "Performed b Robin Williams".
Revealing Mistakes
When Memphis and Norma Jean find each other in the crowd (when the females are returning), one penguin in the center of the screen walks through another penguin.
Revealing Mistakes
When Mumble and the Amigos are outrunning the avalanche, Mumble hangs in mid-air for a few seconds, and Ramon grabs onto Mumble from behind before they fall. Looked at closely, Ramon's flipper passes through Mumble's feathers right before they nose-dive down the slope.
Revealing Mistakes
When the Adelies and Lovelace are involved in the killer whale attack on the frozen buoy, Mumble surfaces. When he starts speeding up, there's no wake seen behind him.
Errors in Geography
On a zoom out sequence to the globe, the Aquarium where Mumble is held is revealed to be in Miami. That Aquarium and the surrounding park do not exist however. Additionally, the aerial imagery in the movie is flipped.
Factual Mistake
When Mumble is in the aquarium, there is a long zoom out until the earth is visible as a small disk in space. Stars in the background twinkle. However, stars should not twinkle when seen from space. They only twinkle when seen from earth because of variations of the atmosphere.
Miscellaneous
Toward the end of the movie, the penguins start to dance while a human video tapes them. Later, the video of the penguins dancing is played in Times Square and on TVs all over, but the human didn't even have his camera out yet during the beginning part of the dance that is televised.
In the scene where Mumble is born, Memphis says "woah" a little bit before Mumble's foot actually comes out of the egg.
Continuity
While Baby Mumble is with the Skuas, a small black bow can be seen on Mumble's chest. However, when Mumble falls into the crack in the ice, the bow disappears. When the birds fly away, Mumble rolls to the side and begins to cry, with his bow visible again.
Miscellaneous
During the end credits, there is a typographical error in the music listing for "My Way". It reads, "Performed b Robin Williams".
Revealing Mistakes
When Memphis and Norma Jean find each other in the crowd (when the females are returning), one penguin in the center of the screen walks through another penguin.
Revealing Mistakes
When Mumble and the Amigos are outrunning the avalanche, Mumble hangs in mid-air for a few seconds, and Ramon grabs onto Mumble from behind before they fall. Looked at closely, Ramon's flipper passes through Mumble's feathers right before they nose-dive down the slope.
Revealing Mistakes
When the Adelies and Lovelace are involved in the killer whale attack on the frozen buoy, Mumble surfaces. When he starts speeding up, there's no wake seen behind him.
Errors in Geography
On a zoom out sequence to the globe, the Aquarium where Mumble is held is revealed to be in Miami. That Aquarium and the surrounding park do not exist however. Additionally, the aerial imagery in the movie is flipped.
Factual Mistake
When Mumble is in the aquarium, there is a long zoom out until the earth is visible as a small disk in space. Stars in the background twinkle. However, stars should not twinkle when seen from space. They only twinkle when seen from earth because of variations of the atmosphere.
Miscellaneous
Toward the end of the movie, the penguins start to dance while a human video tapes them. Later, the video of the penguins dancing is played in Times Square and on TVs all over, but the human didn't even have his camera out yet during the beginning part of the dance that is televised.
Trivia:
The "zoo" that Mumbles finds himself in is actually the penguin exhibit at Sea World, San Diego California
When Memphis is singing "Kiss", he stops when the helicopter arrived. He tells his son Mumble "I think you better dance now". This line is actually part of the song "Kiss" in the version by Tom Jones.
When Gloria and Mumble are tumbling around on the ice after emerging from the water, they briefly slide into a human mating position (facing each other, lying down) and then slide into a penguin mating position (with Gloria on her belly and Mumble behind her).
During production, the code title used for this film was "Cats Don't Dance (1997)".
This movie was one of the two types of media in 2006 in which Elijah Wood's character hatched from an egg and was forced to find where he belonged. The other was ''The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning'', where he voiced the title character, Spyro.
In order to tell the difference between the male and female emperor penguins, look at their beaks. If it has an orange spot, it's a male. If the spot is pink, it's a female. Also, the golden crest on the "breast" areas anthropomorphically correspond to gender differences.
When Mumble is dancing you can see three black spots over his ankle area, this is in reference to the spats that used to be worn over shoes in early Fred Astaire dancing movies.
The director used Savion Glover in a Motion Capture suit while tap dancing to record Mumble's dancing.
The dancers for the dance sequences not only had to wear motion capture sensor suits for their movement, but also had to wear special headgear to simulate the penguins' beaks to force them to accommodate the anatomical feature for their characters' dancing.
The translation of Raul's Spanish speaking part of "Boogie Wonderland" is: "I am Raul, the coolest penguin, Latino of course, 100% Spanish! My brothers! (What?), they call me crazy. A little lady lights me like flame. The party- dance, dance little girl! My heart has dynamite! BOOM!, (Exactly! that he eats a shortcut!) Let me be your penguin daddy!"
All of the dancers in the film had to go through "Penguin School" to capture the movements of penguins.
First Best Animated Feature Oscar Winner to feature live-action, non-animated elements-as well as actual, telescopic imaging from space (the film must be at least 75% animated to reach Academy standards).
Not only does Steve Irwin provide the voice for one of the elephant seals, but he was also originally cast to play an albatross that Mumble encounters as he crosses the ocean after the aliens. The albatross scene was cut from the final movie, but you can see it in the DVD extras. The scene was cut before animation was complete, so no actual animation existed until they were preparing the DVD for release. The director and the production crew felt that they needed to do something following Steve Irwin's death, so they completed the scene and included in the DVD in remembrance of him.
Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Robin Williams and Nicole Kidman all do their own singing.
Initially, Prince refused to allow the use of his song, "Kiss", for the film. However, after seeing footage of the film, he not only changed his mind and allowed the song to be used, but also wrote an additional original song for the film to use in the closing credits.
Norma Jean and Memphis are obviously named for Marilyn Monroe (who was born Norma Jean Mortensen) and Elvis Presley (who lived in Memphis, Tennessee). Their voices and mannerisms are imitations.
This film is dedicated, among others, to Steve Irwin, whose last film this was.
Mumble features a faded dark spot directly under his neck in the shape of a bow tie. This was added to make Mumble's appearance more like a white tuxedo. This is both to emphasize the Fred Astaire resemblance and is also a play on "penguin suit", a slang term for a black tuxedo.
In December 2006, Nicole Kidman held a special screening of this film, for the ill children at Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick.
When Memphis is singing "Kiss", he stops when the helicopter arrived. He tells his son Mumble "I think you better dance now". This line is actually part of the song "Kiss" in the version by Tom Jones.
When Gloria and Mumble are tumbling around on the ice after emerging from the water, they briefly slide into a human mating position (facing each other, lying down) and then slide into a penguin mating position (with Gloria on her belly and Mumble behind her).
During production, the code title used for this film was "Cats Don't Dance (1997)".
This movie was one of the two types of media in 2006 in which Elijah Wood's character hatched from an egg and was forced to find where he belonged. The other was ''The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning'', where he voiced the title character, Spyro.
In order to tell the difference between the male and female emperor penguins, look at their beaks. If it has an orange spot, it's a male. If the spot is pink, it's a female. Also, the golden crest on the "breast" areas anthropomorphically correspond to gender differences.
When Mumble is dancing you can see three black spots over his ankle area, this is in reference to the spats that used to be worn over shoes in early Fred Astaire dancing movies.
The director used Savion Glover in a Motion Capture suit while tap dancing to record Mumble's dancing.
The dancers for the dance sequences not only had to wear motion capture sensor suits for their movement, but also had to wear special headgear to simulate the penguins' beaks to force them to accommodate the anatomical feature for their characters' dancing.
The translation of Raul's Spanish speaking part of "Boogie Wonderland" is: "I am Raul, the coolest penguin, Latino of course, 100% Spanish! My brothers! (What?), they call me crazy. A little lady lights me like flame. The party- dance, dance little girl! My heart has dynamite! BOOM!, (Exactly! that he eats a shortcut!) Let me be your penguin daddy!"
All of the dancers in the film had to go through "Penguin School" to capture the movements of penguins.
First Best Animated Feature Oscar Winner to feature live-action, non-animated elements-as well as actual, telescopic imaging from space (the film must be at least 75% animated to reach Academy standards).
Not only does Steve Irwin provide the voice for one of the elephant seals, but he was also originally cast to play an albatross that Mumble encounters as he crosses the ocean after the aliens. The albatross scene was cut from the final movie, but you can see it in the DVD extras. The scene was cut before animation was complete, so no actual animation existed until they were preparing the DVD for release. The director and the production crew felt that they needed to do something following Steve Irwin's death, so they completed the scene and included in the DVD in remembrance of him.
Brittany Murphy, Hugh Jackman, Robin Williams and Nicole Kidman all do their own singing.
Initially, Prince refused to allow the use of his song, "Kiss", for the film. However, after seeing footage of the film, he not only changed his mind and allowed the song to be used, but also wrote an additional original song for the film to use in the closing credits.
Norma Jean and Memphis are obviously named for Marilyn Monroe (who was born Norma Jean Mortensen) and Elvis Presley (who lived in Memphis, Tennessee). Their voices and mannerisms are imitations.
This film is dedicated, among others, to Steve Irwin, whose last film this was.
Mumble features a faded dark spot directly under his neck in the shape of a bow tie. This was added to make Mumble's appearance more like a white tuxedo. This is both to emphasize the Fred Astaire resemblance and is also a play on "penguin suit", a slang term for a black tuxedo.
In December 2006, Nicole Kidman held a special screening of this film, for the ill children at Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick.
