Movie with Penguin: Hello Kitty Fairy Tales

Hello Kitty Fairy Tales DVD contains five episodes of the Hello Kitty characters putting on their own renditions of classic fairy tales. One of the characters is a penguin and he plays parts in each of the episodes.

In episode one the Hello Kitty Penguin character plays Robin Penguin.




In episode two the penguin is the Jack that jumps over a candlestick in the Mother Goose Fairy Tale.



In the last episode he is the deputy or the sheriff, I forget which exactly, in the Wild West set rendition of Little Red Riding Hood.

Video Game with Penguins: Madagascar Operation Penguin for Game Boy Advance

Madagascar: Operation Penguin for Game Boy Advance is a fun adventure style game featuring the penguins from the Madagascar movie in a plot about them trying to dig to Antarctica in order to return to where they belong. It is a fun game in which you get to play as a penguin. It is especially fun to do the tobogganing levels and the levels actually based in Antarctica. Sure it is fictional, but the penguins do have somewhat realistic looking graphics and it does have them going to Antarctica in the end.

Shortest Day of the Year Celebrations in Antarctica

The shortest day of the year for down South is June 21. Today I found this article about some of the celebrations in Antarctica celebrating the shortest day/longest night. Part of the celebrations included what at least up north would be called a polar bear swim (perhaps a penguin dive down there?). Another annual tradition at the Australian base is the staff performing a Cinderella play.

Australian Antarctic Medal Awarded to Runway Builder

Matthew Filipowski is receiving the Australian Antarctic Medal. He was the supervisor on the Wilkins runway construction project in the Antarctic. This runway was finished last year and allowed for Australia and Antarctica to be linked by air passenger service. The Australian Antarctic Medal honors outstanding service to Antarctic expeditions and was first awarded in 1987.

Read original article here.

The Australian Antarctic Division website has a list of the past recipients here.

Television Shows with Penguins: Higglytown Heroes

The Higglytown Heroes show is about wobbly kids that in the end call on a Higglytown Hero to help solve a problem. In the "Frozen Fish Follies / Look Who's Squawking" the second half of the show is about penguins being in the garden the kids are starting. They try to communicate with the penguins and try different tactics to get the penguins out of the garden. The hero they call on is a Animal Control Lady and the penguins are returned to their proper place at a zoo. The penguins in show seem to most resemble Adelie penguins, which is an Antarctic penguin species.

Television Shows with Penguins: Inspector Gadget "Winter Olympics" Episode

I entirely accidentally stumbled across there being a penguin-like character in an episode of Inspector Gadget when I was watching a DVD of with episodes of the show. It is a very brief part, but it is unmistakably a penguin reference and it most closely resembles the Antarctic Adelie species. The penguin part is the dog, Brain, using a penguin costume as a disguise as he follows Inspector Gadget on a ski lift as part of following him to try and keep him out of trouble.

By the way the "Winter Olympics" episode is on the Inspector Gadget: Gadget Files DVD.

Television Shows with Penguins: Growing Up... "Penguin" Episode

Growing Up... is a show on Animal Planet about baby animals growing up in conservation programs. One of the episodes is about a penguin chick growing up at the Oregon Zoo. The "Penguin" episode is an interesting look at raising an endangered species for hopefully being reintroduced into the wild one day to keep the species from going extinct. The penguin species shown is the Humbolt penguins, which naturally exist in Peru and Chile. While they are not an Antarctic species, it is still a nice realistic penguin educational show.

This episode plays as a repeat quite regularly with the next showing being at 10am Eastern time on June 17.

Television Shows with Penguins: Little Einsteins "Mr. Penguin's Ice Cream Adventure"

Okay, so the penguin in this episode is not an Antarctic species, however, it is a kind of realistic penguin at least. The Little Einsteins is a Playhouse Disney show for preschoolers that teaches about art and music as they go on adventures. In the "Mr. Penguin's Ice Cream Adventure" episode they help a South American Penguin (I think it is a Magellenic penguin, but maybe it is a Humboldt) deliver ice cream to his friend's birthday party.

Video Games with Penguins: Crash Bandicoot

Several of the Crash Bandicoot games have levels with penguins as the enemies. It is almost sad to kill them that sometimes I just avoid them instead of killing them like I do other enemies. It is just a game, though, so I do not feel that bad if I do it. In most games the penguin characters look most like Adelie Penguins, although the one in The Wrath of Cortex has hair kind of like a Macaroni Penguin (this is the one pictured in my screenshot below).

There first appearance is in the Snow Go, Snow Biz, and Cold Hard Crash levels of Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back for Playstation 1. Another one with penguin enemies is the Arctic Antics level in Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex (Gamecube, PS2, Xbox). There is also the Frostbite Cavern, Snow Crash and Snow Job Levels in Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure for Game Boy Advance. In Crash Team Racing for PS1 there is the unlockable character called Penta Penguin. Penguin characters are also in Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped for PS1, Crash Bash for PS1, Crash Twinsanity (PS2 and Xbox), and Crash Tag Team Racing (PSP, Gamecube, PS2, Xbox).

2008 Christchurch Antarctic Festival

Here is an article giving a little early preview of the plans for the annual Antarctic Festival in Christchurch, New Zealand in September 26-October 3, 2008. This includes giving visitors to the festival as real of an Antarctic experience as possible without actually going there, such as by recreating the beauty through audio, visual, and even physical attractions.

Over 16,000 Condoms Delivered to Antarctic Base

Over the past two days this seems to be the leading Antarctic news story with over half of my Google Antarctic news alerts about the condom delivery. Seriously that is how boring Antarctic news gets in the Antarctic winter and why I have been mostly doing articles to add to my different penguin sighting categories (Movies, Television, and Video Games). Personally I find this a pretty stupid story to be saturating the Antarctic news, but I can no longer entirely avoid mentioning it on the blog.

Here is the first one I got a news alert for. And here is the latest one I got a news alert for. Basically they are just about the year supply of condoms being delivered to McMurdo Station. The condoms are provided free to the inhabitants to avoid embarrassing situations that could arise from having to buy them.

Television Shows with Penguins: Dirty Jobs "Penguin Keeper" episode

Dirty Jobs is a Discovery Channel show showcasing jobs that you get dirty doing. In the "Penguin Keeper" episode the job of being a penguin keeper at the Aquarium of Americas is shown. The penguins that are cared for here include African Penguins and Rockhopper Penguins (a sub-Antarctic species). It sure seems a dirty job with the guano shoveling, however, I am kind of annoyed with the Aquarium of Americas as a reputable educator on penguins. The show got me interested in checking out their website and on it they say "Don’t be surprised that there’s no snow in their habitat—there are 17 species of penguin in the world and just two of them live in the Antarctic." That is total misinformation considering I saw three different penguin species (Adelie, Gentoo, and Chinstrap) when I was just on the Antarctic Peninsula and you could almost even call their Rockhopper penguins Antarctic species as they are in the sub-Antarctic.