I have to admit, this is pretty good. But of course: Terry Jones is involved.
Tip o’ the parka hood to Nature.com.
-
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Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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April 18th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Yup, that’s pretty good. I didn’t understand the “why”, however, until I went to:
uggc://jjj.lbhghor.pbz/jngpu?i=Ck-KF0HUgzf
April 18th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I saw it on the internet, so it must be true!
April 18th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
It was the BBC April Fools Joke lol
April 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Did the BBC actually use this as a promo piece? If so, bully for them! It’s an excellent example of evolution in action.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
This has nothing to do with flying penguins, but for other silliness goto: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080418/od_nm/britain_psychic_dc_3
This link takes you to a story about mediums and English laws. A quit silly premise on the part of the beleagured mediums.
April 18th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Coming from a visual effects guy, that’s some good work…
April 18th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
[...] Deze moet je echt even bekijken! Met Terry Jones (jawel, Monty Python). Ik geloof dat de BBC ‘m als 1-aprilgrap heeft gebruikt. Heel goed hoor. Bron: Bad Astronomy Blog. [...]
April 18th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I was completely fooled until I saw the other cllips.
Very realistic animation.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
I’ll have to admit that I was a bit creeped out about the idea of flying penguins but even the CGI ones were cute so I got over it.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
You’re a bit slow, Mr. Bad Astronomer. That was the BBC’s April Fool’s Joke for the year.
The best part is that the WingNutDaily fell for it at first, but then embarassedly removed it from their web page.
April 18th, 2008 at 1:16 pm
BigJohn,
Yep, our much beloved ‘Beeb’ did use it as a promo (yes, around 1st April, but hey, this is a doff of the cap to the spaghetti film me thinks). There is a lot to be said for an organization that one pays £10 ($20?) a month to allows the production of, and allows us to watch, such wondrous advert and programs as this! ?
April 18th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Did anyone else see that and think back fondly to Bloom County?
April 18th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Here’s how it was done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px-XS0UHtms
April 18th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
>>Did anyone else see that and think back fondly to Bloom County?
I did! “A Wish for Wings that Work”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103272/
April 18th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Saw it April 1st. Well done CGI, but . . . well, kept thinking about the wing area in proportion to mass.
April 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
I really miss Bloom County
April 18th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Wing Area to Mass? just flap fast!
April 18th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Indeed, april fools joke, or spoof rather, as they call it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7324127.stm
April 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
With God as my witness, I thought penguins could fly!
J/P=?
April 18th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
So that’s how the penguin got on top of the television set. I think I’d stay away from the rain forest after 8 o’clock. That’s the time for the penguins to explode.
April 18th, 2008 at 10:32 pm
I saw this on April Fool’s Day and loved it. Such visual poetry! My favorite is the landing shot at the end. Brilliant.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:28 am
They probably would have ruined the gag if they’d ponded the air-speed velocity of the penguins (ladened or not). But admit it, you were all wondering!
Why can’t American media be more like the BBC?
April 19th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
The Beeb do some good April Fool gags. One of my favourites, many years ago, was perpetrated by the Panorama programme.
This rather stuffy political news programme, presented by the extremely serious Richard Dimbleby, covered the spaghetti harvest in Italy, showing the young ladies collecting the long strands of spaghetti dangling from the branches of an orchard of spaghetti trees.
An awful lot of people fell for that one! LOL!
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April 19th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Aww, Terry Jones is by far my favorite Python (don’t get me wrong, all are hilarious). Good one Terry
April 20th, 2008 at 3:19 am
Actually, it was about the bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Swiss_Spaghetti_Harvest/
April 20th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Thanks for the link Ken B
Liam
April 20th, 2008 at 9:54 am
While amazed by the quality of this clip (which had escaped you for 17 days?! An eternity on the web …), it’s also scary: The blending of real footage and CGI is done so brilliantly that from now on one can’t believe in hi-res video footage as proof for anything …
April 20th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Penguins can fly! Only it’s just through water. Spent hours leaning over the railings of a a boat once watching some king penguins “flying” through the water. Truly a gorgeous sight.