Cultural depictions of penguins

Penguins are popular around the world for their unusually upright, waddling gait, their cuteness, their magnificent swimming ability and (compared with other birds) their lack of fear toward humans. Their striking black and white plumage is often likened to a white tie suit and generates humorous remarks about the bird being "well dressed".

Penguins had a resurgence as figures in pop culture in the mid-2000s thanks to films like March of the Penguins, Madagascar, Happy Feet, and Surf's Up. As an April Fools' Day joke, on April 1, 2008 the BBC released a short film of penguins in flight and migrating to the South American rainforest.

Portrayals

The penguin is typically depicted as a friendly and comical figure, with considerable dignity despite its physical limitations. Perhaps in reaction to this cute stereotype, fictional penguins are sometimes presented as irritable or even sinister. Examples include the cute yet somewhat surly Sanrio character Badtz Maru and the penguins in the movie Madagascar, intelligent creatures with devious schemes and plans, who are even capable of defeating humans. Penguins are also often portrayed as friendly and smart, for example in the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion, which features a warm-water penguin named Pen Pen.

• The 1960s television cartoon character Tennessee Tuxedo would often escape the confines of his zoo with his partner, Chumley the walrus.
• In the online role-playing game RuneScape, penguins are portrayed as devious characters with a background reminiscent of the Soviet Union: their capital is Palingrad (suggesting Stalingrad); they have KGP (compare KGB) agents; and they refer to their homeland as the "Motherland". One quest in which they feature is called "Cold War" and the next is called "The Hunt for Red Raktuber", a play on The Hunt for Red October. They have an enormous military complex with training facilities, living areas, interrogation rooms and agility courses. They have plans for domination similar to the penguins in Madagascar.
• In the animated series Wallace and Gromit, a penguin called Feathers McGraw disguises himself as a chicken with a red rubber glove.
• A villain in the DC Comics Universe is called The Penguin.

Logos and mascots

The friendly, slightly comical image of the penguin has often been used by companies and organisations for logos and mascots.

• Theta Phi Alpha fraternity uses a penguin as their mascot.
• Penguins give their name to the Pittsburgh Penguins (mascot's name: "Iceburgh" former mascot: "Penguin Pete") of the National Hockey League, their farm team, the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the sports teams of Youngstown State University (mascot's name: "Pete").
• The school mascot of the New England Conservatory of Music (Boston, MA) is the Fighting Penguin.
• The penguin is an unofficial mascot of Carleton College and its library.
• The mascot of North Otago Rugby Football Union is Bluey the penguin, reflecting two penguin colonies located in Oamaru, one of which is of Blue penguins.
• Diego the penguin is the mascot of Diegos Tartan Army, based in Inverness. Named after soccer player Diego Maradona, he was adopted in Lithuania by members of the Tartan Army, who follow the Scottish football team abroad.
• The Penguin is the mascot of choice for the British-American Rock Band Fleetwood Mac, and was the name of the first of two albums from 1973. (see Penguin)
• Tux the penguin is used as a symbol of Linux. The original image of Tux was drawn by Larry Ewing. Tux is often depicted, in a variety of different attire, in different Linux distributions and programs that feature him as a mascot. He also features in many video games, along with female counterparts Penny and Gown.
• Penguin Vic was a character created to promote tourism in Victoria, Australia, as part of a campaign initiated in 1997.
• Sir Nils Olav, a king penguin living in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland, is also the mascot of the Royal Norwegian Guard and their titular colonel-in-chief.
• Penguin Books, a publisher of paperback books, uses a penguin in its name and logo.
• Penguen (Turkish for penguin), a Turkish satirical magazine, uses a penguin in its logo.

Politics

• Supporters and collaborators of Argentine president Néstor Kirchner are known informally as pingüinos, and pingüino (Spanish for "penguin") is the nickname of Kirchner himself, alluding to his birthplace in the cold southern region of Patagonia.
• In 2009, the vice-chair of The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), a pro-Beijing party in Hong Kong, hosted an episode of an opinion talk show, in the opening of which he mistakenly began by describing the North Pole as a place with few people and many penguins. Although this was edited out in reruns of the episode, it had already caught the attention many supporters of democracy, and they ridiculed the vice-chair and the entire DAB for it, saying that it is common knowledge that penguins are native to only the south, and that if the next generation of party leaders should have such poor general knowledge, it would be questionable for them to lead Hong Kong. This was but one in a long series of incidents that drew ridicule and criticism to the DAB.
• Penguins became the symbol of the 2013 protests in Turkey, after CNN Türk broadcast a documentary about penguins during the protests.

Food items

• Penguin is a brand of chocolate biscuit manufactured by McVitie's.
• Kid Cuisine uses a penguin named K.C. Penguin as its mascot.
• Penguin Mints is a brand of caffeinated mints.

Penguins and polar bears

Despite what commercials and other popular sources may show, penguins and polar bears cannot meet without human intervention, because the two species are found on opposite hemispheres. Polar bears inhabit the Northern Hemisphere, while all penguin species live in the Southern Hemisphere.

Literature

• Three children's books by Janet Perlman – The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin, The Emperor Penguin's New Clothes and The Penguin and the Pea – retell classic children's stories using penguin characters. Perlman also wrote the satirical graphic novel Penguins Behind Bars.
• Pondus the Penguin is the eponymous main character in a 1968 photographed Danish children's book by Ivar Myrhøj.
• The children's book Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard & Florence Atwater tells the story of Mr. Popper and his twelve performing penguins.
• The Penguins of Doom by Greg R. Fishbone features Spots, Stripes, and Solids, three penguins who wear bow ties and follow the main character around.
• Penguin Island is a satirical fictional history by Anatole France.
• At the Mountains of Madness by H. P. Lovecraft features giant blind albino penguins around an underground sea in Antarctica.
• And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole, is the true story of a penguin chick raised by two males at the Central Park Zoo in New York.
• Gus and Waldo's Book of Love features the eponymous gay penguins who are in love with one another.
• Opus the Penguin is the main character of the eponymous Opus (comic strip) comic strip and an important character of the Bloom County comic strip, both by Berkeley Breathed.
• The bestselling business self-help book Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter and Holger Rathberger concerns a colony of emperor penguins struggle to organize a solution to the reality that their iceberg habitat is in danger of melting by the end of the season. The penguins in the story act human and have human names. The story is presented as a fable for demonstrating Kotter's Eight Steps Change model.

Film and television

Feature films

• In the major animated sequence of the film, Mary Poppins, Mary and Bert are served by a group of overeager penguin waiters. Afterwards, Bert has an extended dance sequence with them, soon lowering his trousers to imitate their stubby legs.
• One of the main villains of the movie Batman Returns is the Penguin. In the film, the Penguin is raised by penguins and forms an army of penguins to attack Gotham City. Their equipment included back-mounted rockets and laser eye sights. The Penguin also appears in The Batman vs Dracula: The Animated Movie and Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman.
• In Fight Club, the narrator's "power animal" is a talking king penguin.
• In 50 First Dates, a 2004 romantic comedy, the character portrayed by Adam Sandler has a pet penguin named Willie.
• The movie Billy Madison featured a penguin that was a nemesis of the title character in hallucinations.
• In the movie Gregory's Girl, there is a background running gag involving a child in a penguin costume wandering around the school and being directed from place to place.
• Happy Feet and Happy Feet Two are two popular movies on penguins.
• The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper is a computer-animated short produced by DreamWorks Animation. The 12-minute Madagascar spin-off features the adventures of four penguins, sometimes known as the Madagascar penguins, who live in the Central Park Zoo and are trained as spies.
• The 2014 film Penguins of Madagascar features four anthropomorphised penguins as central characters.
• Mr. Popper's Penguins is a 2011 American comedy family film directed by Mark Waters, and starring Jim Carrey.

Short films

• Janet Perlman's film adaptation of her children's book The Tender Tale of Cinderella Penguin was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film at the 54th Academy Awards and received a Parents' Choice Award. Her one-hour screen adaptation of her graphic novel Penguins Behind Bars was adapted as a 2003 National Film Board of Canada animated short.

Television

• Pingu is a television show revolving around a penguin community.
• Ice King from Adventure Time has a group of penguins, all named variations of "Gunter". One of them, in particular, is particularly mischievous.
• Penguins of several species appear in Shirokuma Cafe.
• Is the second part of the 2nd episode of anime series Urusei Yatsura. Penguins appearance in school is just the start of a full day of panic.
• Break from Beast Wars Neo has an alternate mode of an emperor penguin.
• In the DuckTales TV Series episode "Cold Ducks," part four of the TV Movie "Treasure of the Golden Suns," the ducks in that series encounter penguins.
• In the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, the character Misato Katsuragi has a genetically engineered penguin named Pen-pen as a pet.

Video games

• Penguins are the main theme for the massively multiplayer online game Club Penguin, which revolves around a virtual world where the players control one or more cartoon penguins.
• Chill Penguin is a character in the Mega Man X series, he is a robot based on a penguin and one of the eight boss characters in the first game of the series
• Similarly, The massively multiplayer online game Cosmic Break features penguin-based robots called Pepens.
• Some species of Pokémon are based off penguins, namely Delibird and the Piplup evolutionary line (Piplup, Prinplup, Empoleon).
• Penguins appear semi-frequently as enemies in the PlayStation game Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back. A single penguin named Penta appears in the subsequent games in the series, Crash Bandicoot: Warped and Crash Team Racing.
• The title character of Pengo is a penguin.

External links

• "Penguins Waddle Into the Culture Wars" (ABC News)
• "Penguins in popular culture". (Citizendum).
• "Penguins pack pop-culture punch". Pittsburgh Tribune Review, Tuesday, December 19, 2006, The Associated Press.