| Peculiar Penguins | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Wilfred Jackson |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Music by | Leigh Harline |
| Animation by | Art Babbitt Pete Burness Dick Huemer Hamilton Luske Archie Robin Louie Schmitt Ben Sharpsteen Frenchy de Tremaudan |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
|
Running time | 6 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Peculiar Penguins is aSilly Symphoniesanimatedshort film produced byWalt Disney Productions. It was released in 1934.[1] The song played during the cartoon is called "The Penguin Is a Very Funny Creature", byLeigh Harline.[2]
On an island nearAntarctica, apenguin named Peter sees a female named Polly, and attempts to woo her. First he offers her an ice cream made of snow and icicle, which she accepts. Next, he tries catching her a fish, but only succeeds in catching apufferfish. Polly accepts it graciously, but when she swallows it, she begins inflating and deflating repeatedly until Peter makes her spit out the fish, which then returns to water.
Peter shrugs in embarrassment, but feeling humiliated, Polly slaps him and leaves to swim on a smalliceberg. On the shore, Peter kicks a nearby stick for letting her get away, but then notices a sharkfin moving towards Polly's iceberg. He squawks a danger warning to her, but Polly ignores him, thinking that he's just begging for forgiveness that he won't get. Soon enough, a largetiger shark attacks Polly, who swims away in panic. Needing to act, Peter picks up the stick and charges out to help.
The shark chases Polly around the bay for a while. When it looks like he has her cornered, Peter arrives and clobbers him on the nose. Enraged, the shark starts chasing after Peter. After a while of fighting and swimming away from the shark, Peter tries to escape by climbing up onto a cliff with aboulder on top. Peter unintentionally dislodges the boulder, which falls into the shark's mouth, who then swallows it. Due to the boulder's weight, the shark sinks to the bottom of the bay. The shark struggles until he's too tired to move. Passing fish begin to poke fun at him.
Meanwhile, Polly and Peter reconcile and fall in love, thus Peter's wooing succeeded. They cuddle, and their bodies form a heart-shaped silhouette on the horizon.
Disney animators observed a group of live penguins in preparation for making this cartoon.[3]
InAnimated Short Films: A Critical Index to Theatrical Cartoons, Piotr Borowiec writes, "Beautiful music and competent animation put thisSilly Symphony above most other plotless cartoons featuring cute animals playing in their natural habitat."[4]
TheSilly Symphony Sunday comic strip ran a three-month-long adaptation ofPeculiar Penguins called "Penguin Isle" from July 1 to September 19, 1934.[5]
The short was released on December 4, 2001, onWalt Disney Treasures: Silly Symphonies - The Historic Musical Animated Classics.[6][1]
Silly Symphony film series | |
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