Cast _* Interesting Facts

Directed by: Don Bluth & Gary Goldman
Written by: Rachel Koretsky & Steven Whitestone
Music by: Barry Manilow, Bruce Sussman & Mark Watters

Released on: April 11, 1995
Running Time:  minutes

Box-Office: $4 million in the U.S.
 
 

CAST

Hubie... Martin Short
Drake... Tim Curry
Rocko... James Belushi
Marina... Annie Golden
Narrator... Shani Wallis
Chubby/Gentoo... S. Scott Bullock
Priscilla/Chinstrap... Louise Vallance
Pola/Chinstrup... Pat Musick
Gwynne/Chinstrap... Angeline Ball
Timmy... Kendall Cunningham
Petra... Alissa King
Beany... Michael Nunes
Scrawny... Neil Ross
King... Philip L. Clarke
 
 

INTERESTING FACTS

  In order to win the heart of his beloved Marina, Hubie the penguin must find a special pebble and present it to her before the pebble festival is over -or lose his chance forever. He just manages to pluck up the nerve, when the evil Drake knocks him off the ice, and Hubie is swept away. Picked up and caged by a ship, he meets the streetwise Rocko, whose only wishes are to live in sunny climates and learn to fly. Together they escape, and Hubie convinces Rocko to help him find Antarctica. When they reach the home ice, Hubie must defeat his worst enemy, and Rocko must face up to the reality of his dream of flying.

Tim Curry (Drake), undoubtedly one of the most beautiful male voices of our times, is most famous for his role as Doctor Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975).  Martin Short has landed his voice to a number of animated movies including We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993) as Stubbs the clown, and The Prince of Egypt (1998) as Huy.  Annie Golden (Marina) is the former lead singer for "The Shirts", a late 70s/early 80s new wave band.

This movie was originally titled "The Penguin Story".

Control of the project was essentially taken away from Don Bluth and Gary Goldman towards the end of the movie. "We were done [when we decided to leave the project]. All the storyboarding was complete with final dialogue. The story had had problems and everyone on staff finally agreed that is was working. MGM/UA came in with their TV producers and decided that the story wasn't working and that they wanted to completely redo the dialogues. This did not go down well with the voice talent. We're still hearing about it from the actors. It was also at the time when everyone was in the final push to get the picture done. These changes caused a ton of additional work with changes, including dialogue changes and deletions. These delays affected the efx department's ability to get all the effects done and consequently the scenes on the boat, with all the characters in the cages, during the storm, there is no water on the floor. Many of these scenes had the water effects done but they couldn't get it all done so they elected to omit it on many of the scenes. The big finale with the pod of Orcas is missing the water as well. The biggest issues were story points and the elimination of Hubie saving the baby King penguin which would make him worthy to get the girl (Marina) in the end of the film. Otherwise Hubie is just a guy with no confidence that wanders thru the film, whining about his loss and following Rocko. MGM/UA's actions were arrogant and a huge misjudgement of the content of the storyboards and the like-a-reel or storyreel. Don and Gary left the project when told that changes were going to be made. Don was actually done with storyboarding and had already proceeded to work with Fox. Gary was still directing and giving sweatbox notes to push the animation, cleanup and efx animation through. The notice that there would be story and dialogue changes after finally getting it to work and getting the entire crew on board with it was really a blow. Gary attempted to convince the MGM/UA creatives not to make changes. When that failed, he resigned to join Fox. By the way, this was June or July of 1994. Don and Gary had been under contract with 20th Century Fox from February 1st 1994. Fox had agreed to allow them to complete The Pebble and the Penguin. They both moved back to the US, from Dublin, in August and September of 1994."

At the time of its release, The Pebble and the Penguin was heavily accused by some extremist critics of giving bad examples to kids -teaching boys to solve conflicts with violence, and to girls that their role was to be at a man's side.

Asked about the movie, the co-directors commented in November 2002: "Wow, Pebble and the Penguin! That was back in 1994. There were several changes made to the film. We were basically done with all story boarding and most of the ruff animation when MGM/UA came into the situation. At the time we were hell-bent on making our production deadline. We had a ton of special effects that still had to be done. The 'creative' execs that MGM/UA sent in, decided to make major changes to the story and story boards. Not sure if they went back into the script. We know that they rerecorded the main actors. The actors were not happy. The major issue for us, was that they deleted the Baby King Penguin from the sequence near the end. This sequence is where Hubie saves a lost Baby King penguin. It was the moment where Hubie stops whining and does something that would make him worthy to have the hand of Marina. They also deleted the two Skuas (sea vultures) that were Drake's henchmen. There is a moment, still in the film, where the camera pans up to where the Skuas were overlooking Hubie with the baby penguin--and... they're not there. So why retain the pan? Lots of changes with very poor repair hook-ups after the changes. We knew when we left that the effects issue was going to be huge. And, if they made changes, new animation would have to be done and effects animation would not beable to catch up. They didn't. The finale of the film, with the pod of orcas chasing our heros, was stripped of most of the water effects that would have provided more believability and increased the dramatic affect for these scenes. Many scenes suffered lack of final color/scene planning direction because Gary was not there to issue notes that described percentages and transparencies required, based on preproduction colour keys. You will note that Don and Gary had their names removed as Directors and Producers. Unfortunately, the Don Bluth name was used in the main title as 'Don Bluth Entertainment Ireland, Ltd. Presents.' We were not happy."

Don Bluth's spokesperson confirmed once again in April 2003 that "The Pebble and the Penguin is one of the low moments [of his career]. The film was distributed by MGM/UA but apparently in the contract they had the right to 'final cut' approval. The film was only about 80% animated, the balance was in storyboard form. The men that MGM/UA sent in, had issues with the story, the voice recording, the humor, you name it. Don had already finished the storyboarding and the crew was very excited with the story and were in the crunch mode to complete the film. Gary & Don had already been signed by Fox to help create & head up a new Animation studio back in the U.S. Don went into story development on the Fox front, Gary remained in position to complete the direction and sweatboxing for Pebble, until the news came for story changes. Gary left the production as he knew they could not complete the film with all of the production values planned for it. This means that Gary was not there for the final direction of the character animation, sfx animation, color model approvals, the sound design, music spotting, final dubbing, color timing of the film or the color correct video mastering. We heard later that they even asked the voice actors to rerecord their parts for the film. Looking at the film on DVD today, drives home the point that a film has to be taken to the end by its creators. When you listen to the tracks, the film feels flat, without the energy it once had. Also the color looks muddy and on the verge of RED, a horrible color when put to video (there is a lot of 'bleeding' of color and it causes the other colors to appear somewhat less vibrant). The crew, who had come to Fox with Don and Gary advised them not to see the film. Don and Gary did everything they could legally to remove their names from the film. In the end, the distributors argued and won, to keep the title 'A Don Bluth Ireland LTD Presentation' at the head of the film. However, if you review the credits, you will see that there is no 'Directed by' credit. The production manager, Russel Bowland was credited as the producer. Fair play to him, he faced an impossible task to get the film finished. The story is based on the fact that male Adeli Penguins actually find a pebble and offer it to the female of their choice. If she accepts, they are mated for life. We loved the idea of animating the penguins and thought that the character Rocko, played by Jim Belushi, would be the favorite among the viewers. We really enjoyed working with Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman for the songs and music. In the end, the final product looks so dismal, even with some very nice animation. The original Backgrounds and colored cels are actually brilliantly stunning to look at. The fact that the color was not attended to, at the film and video stages, makes it very difficult to watch. Neither Don, nor Gary have watched the final product through its entirety. It's painful."