Comments on: Monty Penguin

By: shane

shane — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 01:38:07 +0000

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.

By: Daniel Fischer

Daniel Fischer — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:54:33 +0000

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 …

By: Liam

Liam — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 15:12:58 +0000

Thanks for the link Ken B

Liam

By: blf

blf — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:19:36 +0000

… covered the spaghetti harvest in Italy

Actually, it was about the bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland.

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/Swiss_Spaghetti_Harvest/

By: BlondeReb3

BlondeReb3 — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 01:15:08 +0000

Aww, Terry Jones is by far my favorite Python (don’t get me wrong, all are hilarious). Good one Terry

By: Sue Mitchell

Sue Mitchell — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 18:23:14 +0000

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!
–

By: John Weiss

John Weiss — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 15:28:39 +0000

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?

By: Supernova

Supernova — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:32:58 +0000

I saw this on April Fool’s Day and loved it. Such visual poetry! My favorite is the landing shot at the end. Brilliant.

By: aporeticus

aporeticus — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 03:48:30 +0000

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.

By: John Paradox

John Paradox — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 01:28:42 +0000

With God as my witness, I thought penguins could fly!

J/P=?

By: slang

slang — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:16:11 +0000

Indeed, april fools joke, or spoof rather, as they call it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7324127.stm

By: Captain Swoop

Captain Swoop — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:47:34 +0000

Wing Area to Mass? just flap fast!

By: Robmax

Robmax — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:40:20 +0000

I really miss Bloom County

By: KC

KC — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:08:21 +0000

Saw it April 1st. Well done CGI, but . . . well, kept thinking about the wing area in proportion to mass.

By: ThoughtCriminal

ThoughtCriminal — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:33:25 +0000

>>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/

By: Ed Minchau

Ed Minchau — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:30:26 +0000

Here’s how it was done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px-XS0UHtms

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:22:06 +0000

Did anyone else see that and think back fondly to Bloom County?

By: Darren Moore

Darren Moore — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:16:42 +0000

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! ?

By: Cory Albrecht

Cory Albrecht — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:15:21 +0000

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.

By: Mena

Mena — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:14:46 +0000

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.

By: Edward

Edward — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:12:03 +0000

I was completely fooled until I saw the other cllips.
Very realistic animation.

By: Je ziet ze vliegenbijAstroblogs

Je ziet ze vliegenbijAstroblogs — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 19:00:40 +0000

[...] 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. [...]

By: Brando

Brando — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:58:53 +0000

Coming from a visual effects guy, that’s some good work…

By: Pop

Pop — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:31:01 +0000

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.

By: bigjohn

bigjohn — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:28:49 +0000

Did the BBC actually use this as a promo piece? If so, bully for them! It’s an excellent example of evolution in action.