Frank Baum' s American Fairy Tales

American Fairy Tales is a book of short stories written by L. Frank

Baum and published in 1901 by the George M. Hill Co.
The stories in the collection were serialized in five major newspapers, The
Cincinnati Enquirer, The Pittsburgh Dispatch,The Boston Post, The St. Louis
Republic, and The Chicago Chronicle, between 3 March and 19 May 1901; the
book followed in October of the same year. The first three newspapers used or
adapted the book's illustrations for the stories, while the Republic and
the Chronicle substituted artwork from their own staffs.
The first edition of the collection had an unusual design: each page was
furnished with a broad illustrated border drawn in pen-and-ink by Ralph
Fletcher Seymour, which took up more than half the surface of the page. This
probably reflected the influence of the medieval-revival book designs produced
in the late nineteenth century by William Morris at his Kelmscott Press. (Baum's
first book publisher Way & Williams had Kelmscott connections.) Seymour also
designed the book's cover and title page. Each story was supplied with two fullpage black-and-white illustrations, drawn by either Harry Kennedy, Ike Morgan,
orNorman P. Hall.
The first edition of AFT had an unusual and striking design: each page
was furnished with a broad illustrated border done in pen-and-ink by Seymour,
which took up more than half the surface of the page, like a
medieval illuminated manuscript. This probably reflected the influence of the
medieval-revival book designs produced in the late nineteenth century
by William Morris at his Kelmscott Press.
The twelve stories were published in this order in the first edition.
1. "The Box of Robbers." Illustrated by Ike Morgan.
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2. "The Glass Dog." Illustrated by Harry Kennedy.

3. "The Queen of Quok." Morgan.
4. "The Girl Who Owned a Bear." Kennedy.
5. "The Enchanted Types." Morgan.
6. "The Laughing Hippopotamus." Morgan.
7. "The Magic Bon Bons." Morgan.
8. "The Capture of Father Time." Kennedy.
9. "The Wonderful Pump." The single story illustrated by N. P. Hall.
10."The Dummy That Lived." Morgan.
11."The King of the Polar Bears." Morgan.
12."The Mandarin and the Butterfly." Morgan.
The stories, as critics have noted, lack the high-fantasy aspect of the best of
Baum's work, in Oz or out. With ironic or nonsensical morals attached to their
ends, their tone is more satirical, glib, and tongue-in-cheek than is usual in
children's stories; the serialization in newspapers for adult readers was
appropriate for the materials. "The Magic Bon Bons" was the most popular of
the tales, judging by number of reprints.
Two of the stories, "The Enchanted Types" and "The Dummy That Lived,"
employ knooks and ryls, the fairies that Baum would use in The Life and
Adventures of Santa Claus the next year, 1902. "The Dummy That Lived"
depends upon the idea of a department-store mannequin brought to life, an early
expression of an idea that would be re-used by many later writers in television
and films.
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(Baum's story "The Runaway Shadows," published in newspapers in June 1901,

was intended to be part of the collection, but was dropped prior to publication of
the book.)

THE BOX OF ROBBERS

"The Box of Robbers" is a short story by L. Frank Baum, one of his
twelve American Fairy Tales published in 1901.
A little girl named Martha is inadvertently left home alone one day. Her
family members are busy with their own affairs, and the servants disperse too.
(Indications through the story show that Martha's is a well-to-do family of
Prairie Avenue, Chicago.) While playing with her dolls, Martha remembers an
old dollhouse stored in the attic. Up in the attic, she finds an old chest that was
sent to the family from Italy by Uncle Walter, before he went elephant hunting in
Africa and never returned. Her curiosity aroused, Martha hunts through the
house's collection of old keys until she finds one that fits the chest's lock. She
opens the chest, only to be astonished when three Italian bandits climb out. They
are dressed in traditional garb, and sport large mustaches; they are fully
equipped with pistols and daggers in their waistbands. The bandits engage the
amazed little girl in conversation. As surprised as she is by them, so they are
astounded to learn that they are in Chicago in America. They inquire about local
conditions the police, and potential victims. Martha tries to suggest other
lines of work for the men, like trolley-car motor men, or department store clerks,
or even aldermen but the bandits are determined to pursue their ancient and
honorable calling. They begin by robbing Martha's own house; they pile the attic
with their plunder the family silver, the copper kettle, the parlor clock, papa's
fur overcoat, etc. A desperate Martha finds a way out of her predicament when
the doorbell rings. The bandits are amazed and alarmed; looking out the
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window, Martha sees that it is only the postman, who delivered a letter and went
on his way. The girl cleverly tells the bandits that the police have arrived to
arrest them; she talks them into climbing back into the chest, and locks them in
there once more. The moral of the tale: "This story should teach us not to
interfere in matters that do not concern us. For had Martha refrained from
opening Uncle Walter's mysterious chest she would not have been obliged to
carry downstairs all the plunder the robbers had brought into the attic." The story
contains some mild satire.When the bandits inquire about people in Chicago to
rob, Martha supposes that everyone has been robbed already. When she suggests
that the bandits can become police inspectors, they agree that The police need
to be inspected, especially in Italy.
THE GLASS DOG
"The Glass Dog" is one of the three stories in the collection illustrated
by Harry Kennedy. The glass dog magically enchanted to life is a precedent for
the creation of the Glass Cat in The Patchwork Girl of Oz(1913).
Incongruously, a wizard lives on the top floor of a tenement in an
unnamed American city. Disturbed by peddlers and vendors knocking on his
door, the wizard consults his neighbor, a glassblower. The glassblower makes a
pink canine figurine "with a fine coat of spun glass" and a blue ribbon around its
neck. It has shiny black glass eyes. Since the wizard has no money, he pays the
glassblower with a universal healing remedy that will cure his rheumatism. The
wizard easily enchants the glass dog to life. It proves highly effective at chasing
off unwanted visitors.
Before he takes the cure for his rheumatism, the glassblower reads the
news that the rich and beautiful Miss Mydas is hopelessly ill. He goes to her
town house and offers her the cure-all, if she will marry him. She readily agrees:
"I'd marry any old thing rather than die!" she cried.
The cure works; Miss Mydas is restored to glowing health, and quickly
resumes her busy social rounds. She is in less hurry, though, to marry the
unprepossessing glassblower. She asks him where he got the cure, and the
glassblower tells her about the wizard and his enchanted dog. Miss Mydas
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prevails on the glassblower to steal the dog for her and then she uses the dog
to chase him from her door.
The wizard complains to the glassblower that he has lost his dog. The
glassblower offers to look for it, for an appropriate reward. Unable to make
more of the universal cure (he has forgotten the recipe), the wizard offers a
beauty powder in its place. With the glassblower's guidance the wizard retrieves
his dog. The glassblower uses the beauty powder to turn himself into "the most
beautiful man in the world." Miss Mydas falls in love with him and marries him.
Yet things go poorly between them; she is jealous, and puts him on an allowance
of $4.00 per week; he repays her by running up debts. They make each other
mutually miserable.
THE QUEEN OF QUOK
"The Queen of Quok" is a short story by L. Frank Baum, one of his
American Fairy Tales first published in 1901.
The kingdom of Quok has long been ruled by a spendthrift king, who
bankrupted himself and reduced his subjects to poverty with "riotous living"
("Don't ask me to explain what riotous living is," the narrator writes). When this
king dies, "as kings are apt to do," he leaves his ten-year-old son and heir only a
barren palace, a moth-eaten ermine robe, and a battered crown stripped of its
jewels.
The chief counselor can think of only one way to redeem the land's
finances: the young king must marry a wealthy woman. The boy king would like
to marry Nyana the armorer's daughter; but the counselor insists that she is far
too poor. The counselor goes so far as to hold an auction for the young king's
hand: rich women bid enthusiastically with the queendom of Quok. The eventual
victor is a tall, thin, sour-looking, heavily wrinkled old woman named Mary Ann
Brodjinsky de la Porkus, who offers the winning bid of $3,900,624.16. (She
"paid the money in cash and on the spot, which proves this is a fairy story.") The
feckless chief counselor, who aided the former king in his spendthrift ways, is
quickly robbed of the entire sum.
Naturally, the young king is deeply distressed; unable to sleep that night,
he tosses and turns in the royal bed (the bedstead and an old stool being the only
furniture left in the palace). On his hundredth turn, his hand accidentally strikes
a hidden spring in the old mahogany headboard; a panel opens to reveal a hidden
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paper. Following its instructions, the boy king calls forth the Slave of the Royal
Bedstead. Hearing the king's complaint, the Slave provides him with a magic
purse that yields an endless supply of money a single silver quarter at a time.
So furnished, the king is able to refuse Brodjinsky de la Porkus and refund
her money. The chief counselor sits down to count out the full sum, a quarter at
a time; the rejected bride receives her money, quarter by quarter. (The king
interrupts to borrow the purse whenever he needs funds for other purposes.)
Growing to maturity, his highness marries Nyana; they have two children.
Occasionally the family pauses to observe the counting between the counselor
and the old woman, which is still ongoing.
THE GIRL WHO OWNED A BEAR
Another story in the same volume, "The Girl Who Owned a Bear",
employs a very similar ending: the girl protagonist's difficulties are resolved by
a doorbell's ring.
Jane Gladys Brown is left by her mother in the care of Nora the maid and
goes shopping. While Nora polishes the silver in the pantry, Jane Gladys is left
to her own resources. Nestled in the sitting room's bay window, she works on
her embroidery, until she is interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious little man
with a bald head and a shabby suit. The strange man says he is a book agent. He
has a quarrel with Jane Gladys's father, who refused to buy a copy of the
Complete Works of Peter Smith, and even threw the book agent out of his office.
The book agent wants revenge; but since Mr. Brown is "big and strong and a
dangerous man," the agent chooses to exact his revenge from the man's little
daughter. He gives the girl the large book he is carrying, first inscribing her
name on its first page; then he leaves. Inevitably curious, Jane Gladys inspects
the book. It has a red and yellow cover, and is titled Thingamajigs. She opens it
to a picture of a clown, with a white painted face and a costume of green, red,
and yellow. She is astonished when the clown climbs out of the picture and into
the room beside her. The clown is glib at first, but his spirits are quickly crushed
when the girl notices that he is clownish only in front; his back side is a blank
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white, since the artist only drew the clown in a front view. Further inspection of
the volume liberates a monkey, a donkey, and a leopard from book to sitting
room. The animals complain of their state; the donkey grouses that the artist has
drawn him in poor perspective, and indeed the animal has an unfortunate
tendency to topple over. The monkey dislikes his unnaturally large ears; the
leopard snarls that he has no teeth or claws and cannot even open his mouth.
Jane Gladys drops the book to the floor, and in so doing exposes one more
picture at the back of the volume. She now confronts a full sized grizzly bear,
who is equipped with both teeth and claws, and a strong desire to eat little girls.
The child manages to save herself by cleverly claiming to be the bear's owner.
The book from which he came is her "private property," as shown by her name
on the front leaf. The bear is forced to concede that it would be wrong for him to
eat her. Suddenly the doorbell rings; Mamma is home from shopping. Even
before Jane Gladys can reprove the "stupid creatures," they leap back into the
book with "a swish and a whirr and a rustling of leaves...." And that is that.

THE LAUGHING HIPPOPOTAMUS

"The Laughing Hippopotamus" is a short story by L. Frank Baum, one of
his American Fairy Tales first published in 1901.
On an upper branch of the Congo River live an "ancient and aristocratic"
family

of

hippopotami

(or

as

Baum

consistently

refers

to

them,

"hippopotamuses"). The queen of this tribe has a son named Keo (which means,
in hippo language, "fat and lazy"); but the human residents of the area call him
"Ippi," meaning the jolly one, because his disposition is so merry. They know
the young hippo's characteristic laugh "Guk-uk-uk-uk!"
The black residents of the place long to eat hippo meat, harvest their
tusks, and ride the beasts but the hippos are so dangerous that the people
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rarely attain these goals. Gouie is one of the more "thoughtful" of these people;
he is the nephew of the chief and the grandson of the sorcerer. (The sorcerer is
famed as "the boneless wonder" for his amazing flexibility.) Gouie builds a
hippo trap, digging a deep pit and covering its opening with branches; and who
does he catch but Keo. Gouie is unhappy at this, because Keo does not yet have
his tusks. Man and hippo reach an agreement: Gouie will spare Keo if Keo
agrees to return to captivity in a year and a day.
The happy hippo has no problem with this; but his mother, uncles, and the
other members of his tribe are deeply distressed. Keo has sworn by the tusks of
his grandfather, and so must keep this sacred vow. A week before the term is up,
the Queen and Uncle Nep take Keo to meet the mysterious Glinkomok. This
strange magic being serves as the hippos' oracle. After hearing the story,
Glinkomok agrees that Keo must keep his vow but the oracle magically
endows Keo with amazing abilites and endurance.
When Keo meets Gouie, the beast is so enormous and fat that the human
decides to slaughter and eat him. But Gouie's knife will not penetrate Keo's hide.
So he uses the hippo for a beast of burden instead. Keo gives rides to the
villagers but uses his amazing speed to transport them to Glinkomok's cave,
from which they never return. Soon, Gouie is the last man left in his village; he
is surrounded by the hippo tribe, who threaten to trample him or tear him with
their tusks.
Keo offers Gouie the familiar bargain: return to servitude in a year and a
day. A year and a day later, though, Gouie does not appear. He took the wealth of
his village and set himself up as a great chief, in a place far away. He was proud
and swaggering by day, but tossed and turned through his sleepless nights. "For
he had sworn by the bones of his grandfather; and his grandfather had no
bones."

"The Laughing Hippopotamus" is one of the eight stories in the collection

illustrated by Ike Morgan.
The story treats its black African characters with a condescending humor
that was common in Baum's day but distasteful and unacceptable in ours. (The
hippos, on the other hand, are portrayed very affirmatively.)
A predator catches his prey, but allows a timed reprieve; the same plot
device can be found in Baum's story "The Troubles of Pop Wombat." Animals is
trouble consult their mysterious oracle; the same plot device appears in "The
Stuffed Alligator." Comical hippos can also be found in Baum's The WoggleBug Book and Ruth Plumly Thompson's Captain Salt in Oz.
Along with the queen hippo, other animal royalty figures in Baum's
works: the Queen of the Field Mice in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the King of
the Fairy Beavers in John Dough and the Cherub, the king of the beetles in "The
Wonderful Pump," and the title character in "The King of the Polar Bears,"
among others.

THE MANDARIN AND THE BUTTERFLY

"The Mandarin and the Butterfly" is a short story by L. Frank Baum, one
of his American Fairy Tales first published in 1901. "The Mandarin and the
Butterfly" is one of the eight stories in the collection illustrated by Ike Morgan.
Baum's treatment of the Chinese in this tale shows the condescending
humor that was common in his time, but which is found distasteful and
unacceptable today. In contrast, Baum's portrayal of the butterfly is sympathetic
and nuanced. It is noteworthy that the animals in the American Fairy Tales often
behave better, and are more sensible or sympathetic, than the people; like in
"The Laughing Hippopotamus" and "The Wonderful Pump" for examples.

One Chinese mandarin is noted for his bad disposition, his "cross and
disagreeable" personality. "He snarled and stormed at every person he met and
was never known to laugh or be merry under any circumstances." And he hated
children especially.
Eventually, no one will speak to him; and the Emperor exiles him to
America. Before leaving, the exile steals a great book of magic and takes it with
him to the New World. The mandarin settles in a Midwestern city and opens a
laundry. He retains his grumpy nature; the local children torment him by staring
into his laundry through the front window, every day after school.
One day, a large and beautifully-colored butterfly flutters into the
mandarin's shop. The mandarin captures it and pins its wings to the wall, leaving
it alive. Using his book of magic, the mandarin prepares a potion that allows him
to understand and speak the butterfly language. The mandarin makes a bargain
with the insect: he will spare its life if the bug obeys his commands. The
butterfly agrees: though it admits to being short-lived, it also concedes that more
life is preferable to death. (The insect has no soul, and therefore no afterlife; but
it notes that it has already enjoyed three existences, as caterpillar, chrysalis, and
butterfly.)
The mandarin prepares another potion, which will turn children into pigs.
He orders the butterfly to dip its front legs in the liquid, then land on the
foreheads of children to transform them. The butterfly agrees. It dips its legs,
then flies out the door...and promptly ignores its instructions. Though sometimes
chased by children, the butterfly has no malice against them. Later the insect
returns to the laundry (it fears that otherwise the mandarin will magically kill it),
and claims to have turned a golden-haired little girl into a pig. (Since the
butterfly has no soul, it has no conscience, and lies with equanimity.)
This continues for some days; the mandarin sends the butterfly out each
morning, and the butterfly returns to lie about its activities. The insect never
bothers children; but once its curiosity prompts it to try the potion on a pig. The
pig is transformed into a nasty little boy, who torments animals and slaps and
steals from other children. Disgusted, the butterfly turns him back into a pig.
(The butterfly has no soul...but it does have a heart.)
In their next interview, the butterfly claims to have turned a Chinese child
into a pig. The mandarin, forgetting his hatred of Chinese children, irrationally
and angrily slaps the bug, nearly breaking its wing. The next time the butterfly
10

dips its legs in the potion, it flies directly into the mandarin's face. People who
come to pick up their laundry are surprised to find a pig in the shop.

ANIMATION FILMS

Animation is the process of creating motion and shape change illusion by

means of the rapid display of a sequence of static images that minimally differ
from each other. The illusionas in motion pictures in generalis thought to
rely on the phi phenomenon. Animators are artists who specialize in the creation
of animation.
Animations can be recorded on either analogue media, such as a flip book,
motion picture film, video tape, or on digital media, including formats such as
animated GIF, Flash animation or digital video. To display animation, a digital
camera, computer, or projector are used along with new technologies that are
produced.
Animation creation methods include the traditional animation creation
method and those involving stop motion animation of two and three-dimensional
objects, such as paper cutouts, puppets and clay figures. Images are displayed in
a rapid succession, usually 24, 25, 30, or 60 frames per second.
Computer animation, or CGI animation, is the process used for generating
animated images by using computer graphics. The more general term computergenerated imagery encompasses both static scenes and dynamic images while
computer animation only refers to moving images.
Modern computer animation usually uses 3D computer graphics, although
2D computer graphics are still used for stylistic, low bandwidth, and faster realtime renderings. Sometimes, the target of the animation is the computer itself,
but sometimes the target is another medium, such as film.
Computer animation is essentially a digital successor to the stop motion
techniques used in traditional animation with 3D models and frame-by-frame
animation of 2D illustrations. Computer-generated animations are more
11

controllable than other more physically based processes, such as constructing

miniatures for effects shots or hiring extras for crowd scenes, and because it
allows the creation of images that would not be feasible using any other
technology. It can also allow a single graphic artist to produce such content
without the use of actors, expensive set pieces, or props.
DreamWorks Animation SKG, Inc. (DWA) is an American animation
studio based in Glendale, California that creates animated feature films,
television programs and online virtual worlds. The studio has released a total of
31 feature films, including the franchises of Shrek, Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda
and How to Train Your Dragon. As of November 2014, its feature films have
grossed $12.9 billion worldwide, with a $419 million average gross per film.
Shrek 2 and Shrek the Third are among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time,
and fifteen of the films are among the 50 highest-grossing animated films, with
Shrek 2 being the sixth all-time highest. Although the studio also made
traditionally animated films in the past, as well as a co-production with Aardman
Animations, all of their films now use computer animation. The studio has so far
received three Academy Awards, as well as 22 Emmy and numerous Annie
Awards, as well as multiple Golden Globe & BAFTA nominations. In recent
years, the animation studio has acquired and created new divisions in an effort to
diversify beyond the high-risk movie business.

SHREK

Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy-comedy film

produced by PDI/DreamWorks, released by DreamWorks Pictures, directed by
Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie
Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. It is loosely based on William
Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!, and somewhat serves as a parody
film, targeting other films adapted from numerous children's fantasies (mainly
animated Disney films). The film made notable use of popular music; the
soundtrack includes music by Smash Mouth, Eels, Joan Jett, The Proclaimers,
Jason Wade, Baha Men, and John Cale (covering Leonard Cohen).
The rights to the books were originally bought by Steven Spielberg in
1991, before the founding of DreamWorks, when he thought about making a
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traditionally animated film based on the book. However, John H. Williams

convinced him to bring the film to DreamWorks in 1994, the time the studio was
founded, and the film was put quickly into active development by Jeffrey
Katzenberg after the rights were bought by the studio in 1995. Shrek originally
cast Chris Farley to do the voice for the title character, recording about 80%
90% of his dialog. After Farley died in 1997 before he could finish, Mike Myers
was brought in to work for the character, who after his first recording decided to
record his voice in a Scottish accent. The film was also originally planned to be
motion-captured, but after poor results, the studio decided to get PDI to help
Shrek get its final computer-animated look.
Earning $484.4 million at the worldwide box office, the film was a critical
and commercial success. Shrek also received promotion from food chains such
as Baskin-Robbins (promoting the film's DVD release) and Burger King. It was
acclaimed as an animated film worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented
jokes and themes but a simple enough plot and humour to appeal to children.
Shrek won the first ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and was
nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film was
also nominated for six British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards,
including the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Eddie
Murphy for his voice-over performance as Donkey, and won the BAFTA Award
for Best Adapted Screenplay. The film's main (and title) character was awarded
his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May 2010.
Shrek established DreamWorks Animation as a prime competitor to Pixar
in feature film animation, particularly in computer animation. The film's success
prompted DreamWorks to create three sequels, Shrek 2, Shrek the Third, and
Shrek Forever After, two holiday specials, Shrek the Halls and Scared Shrekless,
and a spin-off film, Puss in Boots. A fifth film, planned as the last of the series,
was cancelled in 2009 with the announcement that the fourth film would
conclude the series. The film's success also inspired other merchandise, such as
video games, a stage musical and even a comic book by Dark Horse Comics.
Shrek, a green ogre who loves the solitude in his swamp, finds his life
interrupted when many fairytale characters are exiled there by order of the
fairytale-hating Lord Farquaad. Shrek tells them that he will go ask Farquaad to
send them back. He brings along a talking Donkey who is the only fairytale
creature who knows the way to Duloc.
13

Meanwhile, Farquaad tortures the Gingerbread Man into giving the

location of the remaining fairytale creatures until his guards rush in with
something he has been searching for: the Magic Mirror. He asks The Mirror if
his kingdom is the fairest of them all but is told that he is not even a king. To be
a king he must marry a princess and is given three options, from which he
chooses Princess Fiona, who is locked in a castle tower guarded by lava and a
dragon. The Mirror tries to mention "the little thing that happens at night" but is
unsuccessful.
Shrek and Donkey arrive at Farquaad's palace in Duloc, where they end
up in a tournament. The winner gets the "privilege" of rescuing Fiona so that
Farquaad may marry her. Shrek and Donkey easily defeat the other knights in
wrestling-match fashion, and Farquaad accepts his offer to move the fairytale
creatures from his swamp if Shrek rescues Fiona.
Shrek and Donkey travel to the castle and split up to find Fiona. Donkey
encounters the dragon and sweet-talks the beast before learning that it is female.
Dragon takes a liking to him and carries him to her chambers. Shrek finds Fiona,
who is appalled at his lack of romanticism. As they leave, Shrek saves Donkey,
caught in Dragon's tender clutches, and forces her to chase them out of the
castle. At first, Fiona is thrilled to be rescued, but is quickly disappointed when
Shrek reveals he is an ogre.
As the three journey to Duloc, Fiona urges the two to camp out for the
night while she sleeps in a cave. Shrek and Donkey stargaze while Shrek tells
stories about great ogres and says that he will build a wall around his swamp
when he returns. When Donkey persistently asks why, he says that everyone
judges him before knowing him; therefore, he feels he is better off alone, despite
Donkey's admission that he did not immediately judge him when they met.
Along the way, Shrek and Fiona find they have more in common and fall
in love. The trio is almost at Duloc, and that night Fiona shelters in a windmill.
When Donkey hears strange noises coming from it, he finds Fiona turned into an
ogre. She explains her childhood curse and transforms each night, which is why
she was locked away, and that only her true love's kiss will return her to her
"love's true form". Shrek, about to confess his feelings for Fiona with a
sunflower, partly overhears them, and is heartbroken as he mistakes her disgust
with her transformation to an "ugly beast" as disgust with him. Fiona makes
Donkey promise not to tell Shrek, vowing to do it herself. The next morning,
14

Shrek has brought Lord Farquaad to Fiona. The couple return to Duloc, while a
hurt Shrek angrily leaves his friendship with Donkey and returns to his nowvacated swamp, remembering what Fiona "said" about him.
Despite his privacy, Shrek is devastated and misses Fiona. Furious at
Shrek, Donkey comes to the swamp where Shrek says he overheard Donkey and
Fiona's conversation. Donkey keeps his promise to Fiona and tells Shrek that she
was talking about someone else. He accepts Shrek's apology and tells him that
Fiona will be getting married soon, urging Shrek into action to gain Fiona's love.
They travel to Duloc quickly, thanks to Dragon, who had escaped her confines
and followed Donkey.
Shrek interrupts the wedding before Farquaad can kiss Fiona. He tells her
that Farquaad is not her true love and only marrying her to become king. The
sun sets, which turns Fiona into an ogre in front of everyone in the church,
causing Shrek to fully understand what he overheard. Outraged by Fiona,
Farquaad orders Shrek killed and Fiona detained. Shrek whistles for Dragon
who bursts in along with Donkey and devours Farquaad. Shrek and Fiona
profess their love and share a kiss; Fiona is bathed in light as her curse is broken
but is surprised that she is still an ogre, as she thought she would become
beautiful, to which Shrek replies that she is beautiful. They marry in the swamp
and leave on their honeymoon while the rest celebrate by singing "I'm a
Believer".
At the time DreamWorks was founded, producer John H. Williams got
hold of the book from his children, and when he brought it to DreamWorks, it
caught Jeffrey Katzenberg's attention and the studio decided to make it into a
movie. Recounting the inspiration of making the film, Williams said:
"Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my
then kindergartner, in collaboration with his pre-school brother. Upon our
second reading of Shrek, the kindergartner started quoting large segments of the
book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was
outrageous, irreverent, iconoclastic, gross, and just a lot of fun. He was a great
movie character in search of a movie.''
Shrek is the third DreamWorks animated film (and the only film in the
Shrek series) to have Harry Gregson-Williams team up with John Powell to
composes the score (after Antz (1998) and Chicken Run (2000)). John Powell
was left out to compose scores for later Shrek films with Williams due to a
15

conflict. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios by Nick Wollage and
Slamm Andrews, with the latter mixing it at Media Ventures and Patricia
Sullivan-Fourstar handling mastering.
Shrek introduced a new element to give the film a unique feel. The film
used pop music and other Oldies to make the story more forward. Covers of
songs like "On the Road Again" and "Try a Little Tenderness" were integrated in
the film's score. As the film was about to be completed, Katzenberg suggested to
the filmmakers to redo the film's ending to "go out with a big laugh"; Instead of
ending film with just a storybook closing over Shrek and Fiona as they ride off
into the sunset, they decided to add a song "I'm a Believer" covered by Smash
Mouth and show all the fairytale creatures in the film.
Although Rufus Wainwright's version of the song "Hallelujah" appeared
in the soundtrack album, it was John Cale's version that appeared in the film; in
a radio interview, Rufus Wainwright suggested that his version of "Hallelujah"
did not appear in the film due to the "glass ceiling" he was hitting because of his
sexuality. An alternate explanation posits that because Wainwright was an artist
for DreamWorks and John Cale was not, thus licensing issues prohibited Cale's
version from appearing in the soundtrack album, despite having the filmmakers
wanting to have Cale's version appear in the film.
In many places the film references classic movies, predominantly those by
Disney. When Tinker Bell falls on Donkey and he says "I can fly" and people
around including the three little pigs say "He can fly, he can fly"; this is a
reference to Disney's Peter Pan. This scene is also a reference to the Disney film
Dumbo, where Donkey says, while flying, "You might have seen a house fly,
maybe even a super fly, but I bet you ain't never seen a Donkey fly" The scene
where Fiona is singing to the blue bird is a reference to Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs. The transformation scene at the end of the film strongly
references to Disney's Beauty and the Beast.
When Shrek crosses the bridge to the Castle and says, "That'll do,
Donkey, that'll do," this is a reference to the movie Babe. The scene where
Princess Fiona is fighting the Merry Men is a lengthy reference to the film The
Matrix. At the end of the film, the Gingerbread Man at the end with a crutch
(and one leg) says "God bless us, everyone" which is a reference to Tiny Tim in
A Christmas Carol.

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In the scene where the Magic Mirror gives Lord Farquaad the option to
marry three princesses, it parodies popular American television show The Dating
Game featuring: Cinderella and Snow White. In addition, Lord Farquaad's theme
park style kingdom Duloc heavily mimics Disneyland, even in so far as
parodying the famous 'It's A Small World Afterall' musical ride in the scene with
the singing puppets.
In 2000, IMAX released CyberWorld onto its branded large-screen
theaters. It was a compilation film that featured stereoscopic conversions of
various animated shorts and sequences, including the bar sequence in Antz.
DreamWorks was so impressed by the technology used for the sequence's
"stereoscopic translation", that the studio and IMAX decided to plan a bigscreen 3D version of Shrek. The film would have been re-released during the
Christmas season of 2001, or the following summer, after its conventional 2D
release. The re-release would have also included new sequences and an alternate
ending. Plans for this was dropped due to "creative changes" instituted by
DreamWorks and resulted in a loss of $1.18 million, down from IMAX's profit
of $3.24 million.
Radio Disney was told not to allow any ads for the film to air on the
station, stating, "Due to recent initiatives with The Walt Disney Company, we
are being asked not to align ourselves promotionally with this new release
Shrek. Stations may accept spot dollars only in individual markets." The
restriction was later relaxed to allow ads for the film's soundtrack album onto
the network.
On May 7, 2001, Burger King began promotions for the film, giving out a
selection of nine exclusive Candy Caddies based on the Shrek characters, in Big
Kids Meal and Kids Meal orders. Ice cream chain Baskin-Robbins also ran an 8week promotion of the film, selling products such as Shrek's Hot Sludge
Sundae, a combination of Oreo Cookies 'n Cream ice cream, hot fudge, crushed
chocolate cookies, whipped cream and squiggly gummy worms, and Shrek
Freeze Frame Cake, featuring an image of Shrek and Donkey framed by
sunflowers. This was to support the film's DVD/VHS release.
The film was released on VHS and DVD on November 2, 2001. Both
releases included Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party!, a 3-minute
musical short film, that takes up right after Shrek's ending, with film's characters
performing a medley of modern pop songs.
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Shrek was released to video on Friday, the same day that Pixar's Monsters,
Inc. hit theaters. Since videos were traditionally released on Tuesdays, Disney's
executives didn't receive this well, saying "that the move seemed like an
underhanded attempt to siphon off some of their film's steam". DreamWorks
responded that "it simply shifted the release to a Friday to make it more of an
event and predicted that it and other studios would do so more frequently with
important films." Monsters, Inc. earned that weekend more than $62 million,
breaking the record for an animated film, while the Shrek's video release made
more than $100 million, and eventually became the biggest selling DVD of all
time with over 5.5 million sales.
A 3D version of the film was released on Blu-ray 3D on December 1,
2010, along with its sequels. The films were sold separately in 2012.
Shrek was well-received, with critics praising Shrek as an animated film
worthy of adult interest, with many adult-oriented jokes and themes but a simple
enough plot and humor to appeal to children. Review aggregate Rotten
Tomatoes reports that 87% of critics have given the film a positive review based
on 190 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10. The critical consensus is:
"While simultaneously embracing and subverting fairy tales, the irreverent
Shrek also manages to tweak Disney's nose, provide a moral message to
children, and offer viewers a funny, fast-paced ride."
Roger Ebert praised the film, giving it four stars out of a possible four and
describing it as "jolly and wicked, filled with sly in-jokes and yet somehow
possessing a heart." USA Today's Susan Wloszczyna praised Eddie Murphy's
performance, stating it "gives the comic performance of his career, aided by
sensational digital artistry, as he brays for the slightly neurotic motormouth."
Richard Schickel of Time also enjoyed Murphy's role, stating, "No one has ever
made a funnier jackass of himself than Murphy." Peter Rainer of New York
magazine liked the script, also stating that "The animation, directed by Andrew
Adamson and Vicky Jenson, is often on the same wriggly, giggly level as the
script, although the more "human" characters, such as Princess Fiona and Lord
Farquaad, are less interesting than the animals and creatures -- a common pitfall
in animated films of all types." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone gave the film a
positive review, saying "Shrek is a world-class charmer that could even seduce
the Academy when it hands out the first official animation Oscar next year."
James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three and a half stars out of four,
saying "Shrek is not a guilty pleasure for sophisticated movie-goers; it is, purely
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and simply, a pleasure." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times gave the film
a positive review, saying "The witty, fractured fairy tale Shrek has a solid base
of clever writing." Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an
A-, saying "A kind of palace coup, a shout of defiance, and a coming of age for
DreamWorks." Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel gave the film a positive
review, saying "It's a pleasure to be able to report that the movie both captures
and expands upon the book's playful spirit of deconstruction."
Shrek was also nominated for 6 BAFTA Award, including the BAFTA
Award for Best Film. Eddie Murphy became the first actor to ever receive a
BAFTA nomination for a voice-over performance. The film was also nominated
for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound, Best Film Music, and won the BAFTA
Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Shrek was nominated for a dozen Annie
Awards from ASIFA-Hollywood, and won eight Annies including Best
Animated Feature and Outstanding Individual Achievement for Directing in an
Animated Feature Production.
In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its "Ten top Ten"; the
best ten films in ten "classic" American film genresafter polling over 1,500
people from the creative community Shrek was acknowledged as the eighth best
film in the animated genre, and the only non-DisneyPixar film in the Top 10.
Shrek was also ranked second in a Channel 4 poll of the "100 Greatest Family
Films", losing out on the top spot to E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In 2005, Shrek
came sixth in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons poll behind The Simpsons,
Tom and Jerry, South Park, Toy Story and Family Guy. In November 2009, the
character, Lord Farquaad, was listed #14 in IGN UK's "Top 15 Fantasy Villains".
In 2006, it was ranked third on Bravo's 100 funniest films list.

MADAGASCAR
Madagascar is a 2005 American computer-animated comedy film
produced by DreamWorks Animation, and released in movie theaters on May
27, 2005. The film tells the story of four Central Park Zoo animals who have
spent their lives in blissful captivity and are unexpectedly shipped back to
Africa, getting shipwrecked on the island of Madagascar. The voices of Ben
Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Chris Rock, and David Schwimmer are featured.
Other voices include Sacha Baron Cohen, Cedric the Entertainer, and Andy
Richter.
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Despite its mixed critical reception, it was a success at the box office. A
sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, was released on November 7, 2008. The
third film in the series, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted, was released on
June 8, 2012. A spin-off sequel titled Penguins of Madagascar was released on
November 26, 2014, and a direct sequel, Madagascar 4, was announced for
2018, but it was removed from its schedule due to the studio's restructuring.
At the Central Park Zoo, Marty the zebra is celebrating his tenth birthday,
but longs to see the rest of the world from outside his pampered life at the zoo,
believing that he can find wide-open spaces to run around in, like in
Connecticut. Marty's best friend, Alex the lion, attempts to cheer up his friend
by singing Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" with him. Still unsatisfied,
Marty gets some tips from the zoo's penguins: Skipper, Kowalski, Rico, and
Private. The penguins are similarly trying to escape the zoo. Marty's friends
Alex the lion, Melman the giraffe, and Gloria the hippopotamus realize
Marty's folly and try to follow him. The four, along with the penguins and the
chimpanzees Mason and his silent friend Phil, eventually find themselves at
Grand Central Station, but are quickly sedated by tranquilizer darts when Alex's
attempt to communicate with humans is mistaken for aggression. The zoo, under
pressure from animal-rights activists, is forced to ship the animals, by sea, to a
Kenyan wildlife preserve. During their travels, the penguins escape from their
enclosure and take over the ship, intent on taking it to Antarctica. Their antics on
the bridge cause the crates containing Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria to fall
off the boat and wash ashore on Madagascar.
The animals are soon able to regroup, initially believing themselves to be
in the zoo at San Diego, California. Upon exploring, however, they come across
a pack of lemurs, led by King Julien XIII, and quickly learn their true location.
Alex blames Marty for their predicament and attempts to signal for help to get
back to civilization. Marty, on the other hand, finds the wild to be exactly what
he was looking for, with Gloria and Melman soon joining him in enjoying the
island. Alex eventually comes around, though his hunting instincts begin to
show; he has been away from the pampered zoo life of prepacked steaks for too
long. The group is accepted by the lemurs, though King Julien's adviser,
Maurice, cautions them about Alex's predatory nature. King Julien ignores
Maurice's concerns and persuades the group to help the lemurs fend off the
fossa, who hunt the lemurs as prey. While initially Alex scares the fossa away
and is worshiped by the lemurs, compelled by hunger, he later enters a feeding
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frenzy and attacks Marty. Realizing that Alex is now a threat to them, King
Julien banishes Alex to the far side of the island, where the fossa live. Marty
begins to regret his decision to leave the zoo, seeing what Alex has turned into,
and realizing how hard it is to survive with so many predators around the island.
The penguins, having been to Antarctica and found that it "sucks", land
the boat on Madagascar. Seeing this as a chance to return Alex to New York,
Marty rushes after his friend against the wishes of the others. Marty attempts to
convince the now grizzled, starving Alex to return, but Alex refuses in fear of
attacking him again, despite Marty using the "New York, New York" song. The
penguins, Gloria, and Melman go to find Marty, but are trapped by the fossa. At
the last minute, Alex finally overcomes his predatory nature and scares the fossa
away from the lemur territory forever. The lemurs regain their respect for Alex
and the penguins help him satisfy his hunger through sushi instead of steak. As
the lemurs throw a bon voyage celebration for the foursome, the penguins
decide not to break the news that the ship has run out of fuel, and that they are
still stuck on the island.
Ben Stiller as Alex, a lion. Tom McGrath explained that "Ben Stiller was
the first actor we asked to perform, and we knew we wanted his character, Alex,
to be a big performing lion with a vulnerable side."
Chris Rock as Marty, a zebra. McGrath explained the character: "Marty is
a guy who thinks there might be more to life than what's in the zoo. We wanted
his character to be energetic, so we listened to Chris Rock."
David Schwimmer as Melman, a hypochondriac giraffe who is afraid of
germs. When they were looking for a voice actor for Melman, they listened to
Schwimmer's voice on Friends and, according to McGrath, thought that it
"sounded really neat."
Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria, a strong, confident, but sweet hippopotamus.
McGrath said that they found all these traits in Pinkett Smith's voice, when they
listened to her.
Sacha Baron Cohen as King Julien, a ring-tailed lemur and the king of the
lemurs. King Julien was initially only meant to be a "two-line" character until
auditioning Baron Cohen improvised eight minutes of dialogue in an Indian
accent.

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Cedric the Entertainer as Maurice, an aye-aye and King Julien's royal

advisor.
Andy Richter as Mort, an adorable Goodman's mouse lemur.
Tom McGrath as Skipper, the leader of penguins. McGrath, who was also
the film's co-director and co-writer, initially only lent his voice to the temporary
tracks. Growing up with films starring tough actors like John Wayne, Charlton
Heston and Robert Stack, McGrath wanted Stack for the voice of Skipper. Stack
was approached about voicing the character, but in 2003, two weeks before the
production on the animation started, he died. After that, DreamWorks Animation
CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg decided to keep the temporary voice, with McGrath
explaining: "People were used to me doing that voice. We knew it worked when
we screened it." Many character's traits were based off Stack's work. McGrath
especially emphasized The Untouchables, a 1959 television crime drama series,
starring Stack.
Chris Miller as Kowalski, a penguin and Skipper's right hand. Jeffrey
Katzenberg as Rico, a smart and silent penguin who is only expressed through
grunts and squeals. Mireille Soria, the film's producer, commented the
Katzenberg's uncredited role: "The irony for us is that he's the one who doesn't
talk. There's something very Dadaistic about that, isn't there?" Christopher
Knights as Private, an eager, lowly penguin. Knights was also an assistant editor
on the film. Conrad Vernon as Mason (Phil is unvoiced), Fred Tatasciore and
Tom McGrath as the Fossa, Elisa Gabrielli as Nana, Bob Saget as zoo animal
(animal unclear), David Cowgill as Police Horse, Stephen Apostolina as Police
Officer.
Madagascar was released to DVD and VHS on November 15, 2005. The
DVD included a short animated film The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas
Caper, and a music video I Like to Move It, featuring characters from the film
dancing to the song.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film received a 55% approval rating based on
178 reviews. On Metacritic, the film has 57% approval rating based on 36
reviews falling under the Mixed or Average category.

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HAPPY FEET

Happy Feet is a 2006 Australian-American computer-animated musical

family film, directed, produced and co-written by George Miller. It was
produced at Sydney-based visual effects and animation studio Animal Logic for
Warner Bros., Village Roadshow Pictures and Kingdom Feature Productions and
was released in North American theaters on November 17, 2006. It is the first
animated film produced by Kennedy Miller in association with visual
effects/design company Animal Logic.
Though primarily an animated film, Happy Feet does incorporate motion
capture of live action humans in certain scenes. The film was simultaneously
released in both conventional theatres and in IMAX 2D format. The studio had
hinted that a future IMAX 3D release was a possibility. However, Warner Bros.,
the films production company, was on too tight a budget to release Happy Feet
in IMAX digital 3D.
Happy Feet won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the
BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, and was nominated for the Annie Award
for Best Animated Feature and the Saturn Award for Best Animated Film. The
film was dedicated in memory of Nick Enright, Michael Jonson, Robby
McNeilly Green, and Steve Irwin. A sequel, Happy Feet Two, was released into
theatres November 18, 2011 and received mixed reviews.
Every emperor penguin sings a unique song called a "heartsong" to attract
a mate. If the male penguin's heartsong matches the female's song, the two
penguins mate. Norma Jean, a female penguin, falls for Memphis, a male
penguin and they become mates. They lay an egg, which is left in Memphis'
care, while Norma Jean leaves with the other females to fish. While the males
struggle through the harsh winter, Memphis briefly drops the egg. The resulting
chick, Mumble, is unable to sing but can tap dance. Nevertheless, he is
enamored with Gloria, a female penguin who is regarded as the most talented of
her age. One day, Mumble encounters a group of hostile skua, with a leader who
is tagged with a yellow band, which he says that it is from an alien abduction.
Mumble narrowly escapes the hungry birds by falling into a crevice.
23

Years later, an adult Mumble is ridiculed by the elders. After being

isolated during the graduates' song, he is attacked by a leopard seal. After
escaping, he befriends a group of Adelie penguins called "the Amigos", who
embrace Mumble's dance moves and assimilate him into their group. After
seeing a hidden human excavator in an avalanche, they opt to ask Lovelace, a
rockhopper penguin, about its origin. Lovelace has the plastic rings of a six pack
entangled around his neck, which he claims to have been bestowed upon him by
mystic beings.
For the emperor penguins, it is mating season and Gloria is the center of
attention. Ramon attempts to help Mumble win her affection by singing a
Spanish version of "My Way", with Mumble lip syncing, but the plan fails. In
desperation, Mumble begins tap dancing in synch with her song. She falls for
him and the youthful penguins join in for singing and dancing to "Boogie
Wonderland". The elders are appalled by Mumble's conduct, which they see as
the reason for their lean fishing season. Memphis begs Mumble to stop dancing,
for his own sake, but when Mumble refuses, he is exiled.
Mumble and the Amigos return to Lovelace, only to find him being
choked by the plastic rings. Lovelace confesses they were snagged on him while
swimming off the forbidden shores, beyond the land of the elephant seals. Not
long into their journey, they are met by Gloria, who wishes to join with Mumble
as his mate. Fearing for her safety, he ridicules Gloria, driving her away.
At the forbidden shore, the group finds a fishing boat. Mumble pursues it
solo to the brink of exhaustion. He is eventually washed up on the shore of
Australia, where he is rescued and kept at Marine World with Magellanic
penguins. After a long and secluded confinement in addition to fruitlessly trying
to communicate with the humans, he nearly succumbs to madness. When a girl
attempts to interact with Mumble by tapping the glass, he starts dancing, which
attracts a large crowd. He is released back into the wild, with a tracking device
attached to his back. He returns to his colony and challenges the will of the
elders. Memphis reconciles with him, just as a research team arrives, proving the
aliens to be true. The whole of the colony, even Noah, engages in dance.
The research team returns their expedition footage, prompting a
worldwide debate. The governments realize they are overfishing, leading to the
banning of all Antarctic fishing. At this, the emperor penguins and the Amigos

24

celebrate. In the final scene, a baby penguin is seen dancing next to Mumble and
Gloria, revealed to be their son Erik in Happy Feet Two.
Miller cites as an initial inspiration for the film an encounter with a
grizzled old camera-man, whose father was Frank Hurley of the Shackleton
expeditions, during the shooting of Mad Max 2: "We were sitting in this bar,
having a milkshake, and he looked across at me and said, Antarctica. Hed shot
a documentary there. He said, Youve got to make a film in Antarctica. Its just
like out here, in the wasteland. Its spectacular. And that always stuck in my
head. Happy Feet was also partially inspired by earlier documentaries such as
the BBC's Life in the Freezer. In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequiter
meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented Warner Bros., studio president
Alan Horn with an early rough draft of the film's screenplay, and asked them to
read it while he and Miller flew back to Australia. By the time they'd landed,
Warner Bros. had decided to provide funding on the film. Production was slated
to begin sometime after the completion of the fourth Mad Max film, Fury Road,
but geo-political complications pushed Happy Feet to the forefront in early
2003.
An earlier cut of the film seems to have included a large subplot regarding
aliens in the extraterrestrial sense, whose presence was made gradually more and
more known throughout, and who were planning to siphon off the planet's
resources gradually, placing the humans in the same light as the penguins. At the
end, through the plight of the main character, their hand is stayed and, instead,
first contact is made. This was chopped out during the last year of production,
and has yet to see the light of day in a finished form, although concept art from
these sequences were showcased at the Siggraph 2007 demonstration, and are
available online, as well.
The animation in Happy Feet invested heavily in motion capture
technology, with the dance scenes acted out by human dancers. The tap-dancing
for Mumble in particular was provided by Savion Glover who was also cochoreographer for the dance sequences. The dancers went through "Penguin
School" to learn how to move like a penguin, and also wore head apparatus to
mimic a penguin's beak.
Happy Feet needed an enormous group of computers, and Animal Logic
worked with IBM to build a server farm with sufficient processing potential. The
film took four years to make. Ben Gunsberger, Lighting Supervisor and VFX
25

Department Supervisor, says this was partly because they needed to build new
infrastructure and tools. The server farm used IBM BladeCenter framework and
BladeCenter HS20 blade servers, which are extremely dense separate computer
units each with two Intel Xeon processors. Rendering took up 17 million CPU
hours over a nine-month period.
As things progress, there is increasing emphasis on environmental
problems in the Antarctic. The film's denouement shows a group of researchers
taking video of the colony of dancing emperor penguins, and the footage is
broadcast globally. After many heated arguments this publicity generates
considerable pressure to stop commercial overfishing of the Antarctic.
According to the director, George Miller, the environmental message was
not a major part of the original script, but "In Australia, we're very, very aware
of the ozone hole," he said, "and Antarctica is literally the canary in the coal
mine for this stuff. So it sort of had to go in that direction." This influence led to
a film with a more environmental tone. Miller said, "You can't tell a story about
Antarctica and the penguins without giving that dimension."
Happy Feet is a jukebox musical, taking previously recorded songs and
working them into the film's soundtrack to fit with the mood of the scene or
character. Two soundtrack albums were released for the film; one containing
songs from and inspired by the film, and another featuring John Powell's
instrumental score. They were released on October 31, 2006 and December 19,
2006, respectively.
The film opened at #1 in the United States on its first weekend of release
(November 1719) grossing $41.6 million and beating Casino Royale for the top
spot. It remained #1 for the Thanksgiving weekend, making $51.6 million over
the five-day period. In total, the film was the top grosser for three weeks, a 2006
box office feat matched only by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. As
of June 8, 2008, Happy Feet has grossed $198.0 million in the U.S. and $186.3
million overseas, making about $384.3 million worldwide. Happy Feet was the
third highest grossing animated film in the U.S., behind Cars and Ice Age: The
Meltdown. The film has been released in about 35 international territories at the
close of 2006.
Happy Feet received generally positive reviews. Review aggregation site
Rotten Tomatoes reported that the film has a 75% fresh rating.
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The film has also garnered, since its release, quite a bit of analysis and
dissection from various places. Film critic Yar Habnegnal has written an essay,
published in Forum on Contemporary Art and Society, that examines the themes
of encroachment presented throughout the film, as well as various other subtexts
and themes, such as religious hierarchy and interracial tensions. And, Vadim
Rizov of the Independent Film Channel sees Mumble as just the latest in a long
line of cinematic religious mavericks.
On a technical or formal level, the film has also been lauded in some
corners for its innovative introduction of Miller's roving style of subjective
cinematography into contemporary animation, among other things.
Happy Feet was released on home media on March 27, 2007 in the United
States in three formats; DVD (in separate widescreen and pan and scan
editions), Blu-ray Disc, and an HD DVD/DVD combo disc.
Among the DVD's special features is a scene that was cut from the film
where Mumble meets a blue whale and an albatross. The albatross was Steve
Irwin's first voice role in the film before he voiced the elephant seal in the final
cut. The scene was finished and included on the DVD in memory of Steve Irwin.
This scene is done in Steve's classic documentary style, with the albatross telling
the viewer all about the other characters in the scene, and the impact people are
having on their environment.

ICE AGE

Ice Age is a 2002 American computer-animated comedy adventure film

directed by Carlos Saldanha and Chris Wedge from a story by Michael J.
Wilson. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th Century
Fox. The film features the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary
and Chris Wedge and was nominated at the 75th Academy Awards for best
animated feature. It shows the adventures of a sloth named Sid, a mammoth
named Manny and a few other animals when the Earth was being flooded with
glaciers.
This film was met with mostly positive reviews and was a box office
success by grossing over $383 million, starting the Ice Age franchise. It was
27

followed by three sequels, including Ice Age: The Meltdown in 2006, Ice Age:
Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 2009, and Ice Age: Continental Drift in 2012. A fifth
film, temporary called Ice Age 5, is scheduled for release on July 15, 2016.
The film begins with a saber-toothed squirrel (known as Scrat) who is
trying to find a place to store his prized acorn. Eventually, as he tries to stomp it
into the ground, he causes a large crack in the ground that extends for miles and
miles and sets off a large avalanche. He barely escapes, but finds himself
stepped on by a herd of prehistoric animals. The animals are trying to avoid the
ice age by migrating south. Sid, a clumsy ground sloth left behind by his family,
decides to move on by himself but is attacked by two Brontops whom he
angered. Sid is soon saved by Manfred ("Manny"), an agitated mammoth who
fights them off and is heading north. Not wanting to be alone and unprotected,
Sid follows Manny. Meanwhile, Soto, the leader of a Smilodon pride, wants
revenge on a group of humans by eating the chief's baby son, Roshan, alive.
Soto leads a raid on the human camp, during which Roshan's mother is separated
from the rest and jumps down a waterfall when cornered by Soto's lieutenant,
Diego. For his failure, Diego is sent to find and retrieve the baby.
Later, Sid and Manny spot Roshan and his mother near the lake, having
survived her plunge. The mother only has enough strength to trust her baby to
Manny before she disappears. After much persuasion by Sid, they decide to
return Roshan, but when they reach the human settlement, they find it deserted.
They meet up with Diego, who convinces the pair to let him help by tracking the
humans. The four travel on, with Diego secretly leading them to his pack for an
ambush.
While having small adventures on their way, they reach a cave with
several drawings made by humans. There Sid and Diego learn about Manny's
past and his previous interactions with the human hunters, in which his wife and
son were killed, leaving Manny a cynical loner. Later, Manny, Sid, Diego and
Roshan almost reach Half-Peak but encounter a river of lava. Manny and Sid,
along with Roshan, make it safely, but Diego struggles, about to fall into the
lava. Manny rescues him, narrowly missing a fall into the lava himself. The herd
takes a break for the night, and Roshan takes his first walking steps to Diego.
The next day, the herd approach the ambush, causing Diego to confess to
Manny and Sid about the ambush, and he tells them to trust him. The herd
battles Soto's pack, and a short fight ensues. As Soto closes in for the kill on
28

Manny, Diego leaps and stops Soto, who wounds Diego in the process. Manny
knocks Soto into a rock wall, causing several sharp icicles to fall on Soto, killing
him. The rest of the pack then retreats. The group then mourns for the injury
caused to Diego. Soon, Manny and Sid manage to return the baby to his tribe,
and Diego rejoins them, as the group begins to head off to warmer climates.
20,000 years later, Scrat, frozen in the ice, ends up on the shores of a
tropical island. When the ice slowly melts, the acorn is then washed away. He
mistakenly triggers a volcanic eruption, after stomping the coconut on the
ground, in frustration.
The characters are all prehistoric animals. The animals can talk to and
understand each other and are voiced by a variety of famous actors. Like many
films of prehistoric life, the rules of time periods apply very loosely, as many of
the species shown in the film never actually lived in the same time periods or the
same geographic regions.
Manfred "Manny", a woolly mammoth, is voiced by Ray Romano; Diego,
a Smilodon, is voiced by Denis Leary; Sid, a giant ground sloth, is voiced by
John Leguizamo; Scrat, a "saber-toothed" squirrel, is voiced by Chris Wedge;
Soto, a Smilodon, is voiced by Goran Vinji; Zeke, a Smilodon, is voiced by
Jack Black; Oscar, a Smilodon, is voiced by Diedrich Bader; Lenny, a
Homotherium, is voiced by Alan Tudyk; Carl, a Brontops, is voiced by Cedric
the Entertainer; Frank, a Brontops, is voiced by Stephen Root; Rachel, a female
giant ground sloth, is voiced by Jane Krakowski; Jennifer, a female giant ground
sloth, is voiced by Lorri Bagley.
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help
improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material
may be challenged and removed. (February 2015)
Ice Age was originally intended to be a dramatic, non-comedic handdrawn animated film directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman and produced by
Fox Animation Studios, However in 2000, Fox Animation Studios shut down
due to the financial failure of Titan A.E., Don Bluth and Gary Goldman turned
down the opportunity to direct the film. Blue Sky Studios got the opportunity
with the Ice Age script to turn it into a computer animated comedy, Chris Wedge
and Carlos Saldanha took over as the directors. Supposedly the reason Don
Bluth refused to make the film is when 20th Century Fox said they wanted it to
be CGI after the failure of 2D animation, Bluth refused due to his personal hate
29

for fully CG animation and angrily walked away from the project. The drama
was also dropped from the film because 20th Century Fox would only except it
as a comedy.
Writer Michael J. Wilson has stated on his blog that his daughter Flora
came up with the idea for an animal that was a mixture of both squirrel and rat,
naming it Scrat, and that the animal was obsessed with pursuing his acorn. Chris
Wedge, director, is the voice of Scrat, but has no intelligible dialogue; the plan
to have Scrat talk was quickly dropped, as he worked better as a silent character
for comedic effect. The name 'Scrat' is a combination of the words 'squirrel' and
'rat', as Scrat has characteristics of both species; Wedge has also called him
"saber-toothed squirrel." Scrat's opening adventure was inserted because,
without it, the first real snow and ice sequence wouldn't take place until about 37
minutes into the film. This was the only role intended for Scrat, but he proved to
be such a popular character with test audiences that he was given more scenes,
and has appeared in other movies.
According to an interview with Jay Leno on July 12, 2012, Denis Leary's
character Diego originally died near the end of the film, which caused a negative
reaction such as the test audience of children bursting into tears, so it was redone.
Originally, Sid was supposed to be a con-sloth and a hustler, and there
were even two finished scenes of the character conning some aardvark kids and
a very suggestive scene with two female sloths later in the movie. Sid was also
supposed to have a female sloth named Sylvia chasing after him, whom he
despised and kept ditching, however all of her scenes were removed. Some
scenes of her were removed, while many scenes, which were finished, were
retooled and re-animated for the final film. All the removed scenes of her can be
seen on the "Super Cool Edition" DVD.
For mammoth Manny, the studio was initially looking at people with big
voices. James Earl Jones and Ving Rhames were considered, but they sounded
too obvious and Wedge wanted more comedy. Instead, the role was given to Ray
Romano because they thought his voice sounded very elephant-like. Wedge
described Romano's voice as "deep and his delivery is kind of slow, but he's also
got a sarcastic wit behind it."
John Leguizamo was cast as Sid, he tried 30 different voices for Sid. After
viewing a documentary about sloths, he learned that they store food in their
30

mouths; this led to him wondering what he would sound like with food in his
mouth. After attempting to speak as if he had food in his mouth, he decided that
it was the perfect voice for Sid.
All the actors were encouraged to improvise as much as possible to help
keep the animation spontaneous.
Blue Sky Studios has engineers on its staff who understand the physics of
sound and light and how these elements will affect movement in characters.
[citation needed]
The responsibility for animating Sid's snowboard sequence was given to
animators who went snowboarding in real life.
Ice Age was released into theaters on March 15, 2002 and was met with
generally positive reviews from critics (making it the best reviewed film in its
later-existing franchise). Rotten Tomatoes gave the film 77% approval rating,
based on 164 reviews. The site's consensus reads: "Even though Ice Age is
treading over the same grounds as Monsters, Inc. and Shrek, it has enough wit
and laughs to stand on its own." Similar site Metacritic had a score of 60% out
of 31 reviews. The film was nominated an Academy Award for Best Animated
Feature, but lost to Spirited Away. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave
the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote "I came to scoff and stayed to smile".
CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema
audiences gave Ice Age an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
The film was nominated for AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Animation" genre.
Ice Age was released on DVD and VHS on November 26, 2002. Both
releases included a short film Gone Nutty, featuring Scrat from the film. The
film was released on Blu-ray on March 4, 2008, and beside Gone Nutty, it
included 9 minutes of deleted scenes.
Ice Age: The Meltdown (also known as Ice Age 2: The Meltdown or
simply as Ice Age 2) is a 2006 American computer-animated comedy adventure
film and a sequel to the 2002 computer-animated film Ice Age. It was produced
by Blue Sky Studios for 20th Century Fox, and premiered in Belgium on March
1, 2006. It was eventually released in 70 countries, with the last release being in
China, on June 9, 2006. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha, co-director of the
original Ice Age, and the music is composed by Robots composer, John Powell.
31

The film is the second installment of the Ice Age series. The Meltdown
received mixed critical reaction but was a box office success by earning over
$660 million. A second sequel was released in 2009, followed by a third sequel
in 2012.
In the opening scene, Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel climbs a glacier to
bury his acorn, but accidentally opens a hole in it, causing water to spurt out.
The world of ice is slowly melting. The creatures of the Ice Age are all shown
enjoying themselves on slides and pools made by the melting ice; among them
the three protagonists of the first film: Manny, Sid, and Diego. Sid opens a small
day camp, where none of the younger creatures take him seriously, nor do
Manny and Diego, which leaves Sid seeking a daring deed. Fast Tony, a local
con artist is claiming that the earth will flood and that the bark and reeds which
he sells are needed to stay alive. Manny dismisses the idea, but is distracted
when he sees that Sid will try to high dive from a giant waterfall; as Manny goes
with Diego to the top of the waterfall to save Sid from his act of daredevilry,
suddenly the ice under Diego's feet was breaking, causing him to bolt in fear,
this also made Sid figure that Diego is afraid of the water. The herd figure that
the pleasant weather has caused the ice shelves to melt, and it is kept from
destroying the valley only by the glaciers, which have formed a dam.
A lone vulture warns the animals that a giant tree can act as a boat and
save them if they make it to the end of the valley within three days time, and all
soon set out to find it. As the animals begin their journey, Sid sings three songs
to tease Manny about Mammoths being "extinct". During the evacuation, a
glacier which contains two sea reptiles from the Mesozoic era, Cretaceous and
Maelstrom, breaks off.
When Manny briefly is separated from them, Diego and Sid encounter
two mischievous opossums named Crash and Eddie who drive them nuts by
playing Whac-A-Mole with them. Manny is still depressed about being the last
mammoth alive and his family, which has been killed in by humans, but is
surprised when he encounters Ellie, a female mammoth who believes she is an
opossum and Crash and Eddie's adoptive sister. Sid invites her to tag along with
the group to escape the flood, and she brings her brothers. After a perilous ordeal
with Cretaceous and Maelstrom while crossing a pond, Sid prompts Diego to
encourage him to admit and face his fears - Diego insists that "fear is for prey",
so Sid points out that Diego is behaving as if he is the water's prey. They
discover an area which Ellie recalls as the place where she was adopted. She
32

finally realizes she is a mammoth and also expresses her suspicions about how
different she was from other opossums. Despite this bonding moment with
Manny, she distances herself from him when he suggests "saving their species".
Ellie and Manny ultimately make up when they must co-operate to save the
group when the ground cracks under their feet. Sid is kidnapped by a tribe of
mini-sloths who believe Sid to be a god. Sid lights a fire for them, and believes
that he has finally found respect, but they plan to sacrifice him by tossing him
into a volcano. Sid narrowly escapes. The next morning, Sid tells the others his
experience but none are convinced. They find a field of hot geysers, which
separate Manny, Sid, and Diego from Ellie and her brothers when they argue
about which way to go through it.
When the flood comes, Manny saves Ellie from drowning as she is caught
in a cave (due to falling rocks), while Diego overcomes his fear of water to save
Sid. Cretaceous and Maelstrom arrive, but due to Manny's quick thinking, they
are finished off by a rock which falls on them, killing them both. The other
animals are at the mercy of the water currents. Meanwhile, Scrat climbs up the
glacier and at the top sticks the acorn he has into the ice. This forms a crack in
the glacier, which widens into a fissure, diverting the flood and saving the
animals. Scrat is then washed away. In the final scene, a herd of mammoths
shows up, but Manny and Ellie decide to remain together anyway, taking Sid,
Diego, and the opossum brothers along. Sid encounters the mini-sloths again they believe Sid stopped the flood and invite him to be their leader. Diego,
surprised to see the mini-sloths are real, convinces Sid to stay with the others,
reluctantly admitting that Sid is a vital part of their 'herd'.
The epilogue shows Scrat having a near death experience after falling into
the fissure. He enters a heaven full of acorns. Suddenly, he finds himself torn
away. He unhappily wakes up, having been resuscitated by Sid, who he proceeds
to viciously attack.
After the release of Ice Age in March 2002, executive producer Chris
Meledandri commented on the potential Ice Age sequel: "The success of Ice Age
is something that gives us additional momentum. It's too early to say, but it's
certainly something we'll explore." By June 2002, Blue Sky Studios was already
working on the sequel. In 2003, Lori Forte, the producer of the first film, signed
a multi-year deal with Fox Feature Films to develop and produce animated
films, including a potential Ice Age sequel. During an interview with Denis
Leary in July 2003, he said that he had expressed hope to reprise his role as
33

Diego in the sequel: "I think there's a story the people at Fox are working on
one right now. I think they're talking about going back into the studios
something around late Fall." In that same year, 2006 was reported as the planned
release year, and by August 2004, its final release date, March 31, 2006, had
been set and was first titled Ice Age 2.
In June 2005, it was confirmed that the sequel would be called Ice Age 2:
The Meltdown, but for the film's final release in March 2006, the creators
decided to remove the number 2, calling it Ice Age: The Meltdown. However, in
the United Kingdom, Ireland, Mexico, and Australia, its title is promoted as Ice
Age 2: The Meltdown. Also, most of the sponsors of the film had the 2 in their
packaging after the name change (they however did edit the 2 out of their TV
ads).
Carlos Saldanha, the director of the film, strove to make the characters
eyes appear alive and not mechanical. You want the facial expressions to work.
I wanted it to be so that if you looked into their eyes, you would know what they
were thinking. in his own words. The characters, despite being from the last
movie, were remodeled for the sequel.
This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose.
You can help by converting this article to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is
available. (June 2009)
As an additional marketing ploy a special "anti-cell" spot was created with
Sid complaining to the audience about a ringing cellular phone. The same was
done for Brother Bear, I, Robot, Kung Fu Panda, and Robots.
On Family Guy's episode "Sibling Rivalry", Scrat is shown trying to take
three nuts out of the side of a glacier; Peter shows up and tries to stop him,
admonishing the squirrel for stealing, which drives Scrat to subsequently attack
Peter. Apart from Peter, the scene was rendered in 3D (Family Guy is normally
drawn in 2D), and Scrat was voiced by Chris Wedge who voices him in the
films. The episode originally aired the week before the film opened. Fox aired
promotions for the film throughout the evening. During the same evening of this
cameo, Sid was hosting the entire FOX line-up, showing up in intermittent times
between commercials.
Re-edited scenes of Ice Age: The Meltdown were shown in Airhead candy
commercials on several kids' channels and programs, such as the Disney
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Channel, Nickelodeon, ABC Kids on ABC, and more. It shows, in part, that after
Scrat defeats a school of piranha, he proudly displays an Airhead packet
(replaced by an acorn in the actual film), when suddenly an eagle comes over
and swipes it from him.
One of the posters for the film was a parody of an iPod advertisement,
with "iAge" replacing "iPod" and an acorn replacing an iPod.
The score is by John Powell; the soundtrack also features the song "Food
Glorious Food" from the musical and film Oliver!. Powell composed brand new
music for the film that replaced the theme songs from the previous film. Aram
Khachaturian's Adagio from Spartacus is featured during Scrat's Heavenly
vision.
Ice Age: The Meltdown
Ice Age: The Meltdown was composed by John Powell and was released
on March 28, 2006 by Varse Sarabande Records.
Ice Age: The Meltdown had its world premiere on March 19, 2006, at the
Mann's Grauman Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California. The film was rereleased in 3D on October 13, 2014 in China only.
The film exceeded expectations by opening with an $68,033,544 in its
first weekend. This was the second biggest opening for a non-summer, nonholiday release, after the $83,848,082 of the The Passion of the Christ. But the
record for highest grossing weekend for March only lasted a year, due to the
$70,885,301 weekend of 300. The film grossed a total of $195,330,621 at United
States and Canadian box offices, making it the first film in 2006 to pass the $100
million mark. The film has grossed $660,940,780 worldwide and it is the 66th
highest grossing film of all time. Ice Age: The Meltdown was the highest
grossing animated film worldwide of 2006, but lost to Cars for being the highest
grossing animated film in North America.
Ice Age: The Meltdown received mixed to average reviews, with Rotten
Tomatoes giving the film a "rotten" rating, with 57% of reviews positive. The
consensus statement reads: "Despite its impressive animation and the hilarious
antics of the saber-toothed squirrel Scrat, Ice Age 2: The Meltdown comes up
short on the storytelling front." Another review aggregator, Metacritic,
calculated a score of 58, placing it at the high end of the site's "mixed or average
reviews" category. Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four,
35

stating "the first Ice Age movie more or less exhausted these characters and their
world, and the meltdown doesn't add much."
CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema
audiences gave The Meltdown an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Ice Age 2: The Meltdown
A 2006 video and computer game based on the film was developed and
published by Vivendi Games, and the Wii version was released shortly after the
launch of the system. It was Fox Interactive's last title.
Game plot
In this game, Scrat is caught up in the events of the film, Ice Age: The
Meltdown and is trying to pursue acorns while interacting with some characters,
some of whom help him in his quest. The game starts off by showing the icy
areas where it began in the film and moving on to the woods, as well as
exploring regions in the games such as the bowels of the sea reptile, Maelstrom,
and swampy lands. In the game, Scrat occasionally allies himself with some of
the main characters, and the player sometimes can play as either Sid or Diego,
though not Manny. Characters which were shown as bit parts in the film are
shown usually as adversaries or (in the case of one, a songbird) a guide to the
next nut, though a select number of foes were not shown in the film at all.

The third film in the Ice Age series, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was
released on July 1, 2009. It was again directed by Carlos Saldanha, and it tells a
story of Sid being taken by a female Tyrannosaurus rex after stealing her eggs,
leading the rest of the protagonists to rescue him in a tropical world inhabited by
dinosaurs.
The fourth film, Ice Age: Continental Drift, was released in 3-D on July
13, 2012. It was directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier the first time
without Carlos Saldanha. The film takes place a few years after the events of the
third film, with Peaches in her teenage years. Scrat's never-ending pursuit of
acorns has world-changing consequences, separating Manny, Sid and Diego
from the rest, forcing them to stand up to a pirate gang, led by Captain Gutt.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (also known as Ice Age 3: Dawn of the
Dinosaurs or simply as Ice Age 3) is a 2009 American 3-D computer animated
36

comedy adventure film, produced by Blue Sky Studios and distributed by 20th
Century Fox. It was directed by Carlos Saldanha and co-directed by Mike
Thurmeier, and it features the voices of Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis
Leary, Queen Latifah, Seann William Scott, Josh Peck, Simon Pegg, and Chris
Wedge.
The film is the third installment of the Ice Age series and a sequel to the
2006 film Ice Age: The Meltdown. The story has Sid being taken by a female
Tyrannosaurus after stealing her eggs, leading the rest of the protagonists to
rescue him in a tropical lost world inhabited by dinosaurs beneath the ice.
Ellie (Queen Latifah) and Manny (Ray Romano) are expecting their first
child, and Manny is nervously obsessed with making life perfect and safe for
Ellie, until the baby's born, since his first experiences as a husband and father
went bad when his family was killed by hunters. At the same time, Diego (Denis
Leary) finds himself unable to catch a cocky gazelle (Bill Hader) he has been
stalking and decides to leave the herd, believing that he is losing his predatory
nature as a tiger. Sid (John Leguizamo) grows jealous of Manny and Ellie and
"adopts" three apparently abandoned eggs that he finds in an icy underground
cavern and call them Eggbert, Shelly, and Yoko. Manny tells him to put them
back saying he would never make a good parent, but Sid instead looks after the
eggs, which hatch into baby Tyrannosaurus triplets the next morning.
Although Sid tries his best to raise the three dinosaurs, their rambunctious
behavior scares away all the other animals' young and ruins a playground Manny
built for Ellie's baby, and well as the ice mobile Manny made. A female
Tyrannosaurus, Momma, whose eggs Sid stole, soon returns and carries both Sid
and her young underground, with Diego in pursuit. Manny, Ellie, Crash, and
Eddie (Seann William Scott, Josh Peck) follow as well and discover that the icy
cavern leads to a vast jungle populated by dinosaurs thought to be extinct. Here,
an Ankylosaurus threatens the herd despite Diego's efforts to fend it off; they are
saved from a further crowd of angry dinosaurs by an insane, one-eyed weasel
named Buck (Simon Pegg).
Buck has been living in this jungle for some time and is being hunted by
Rudy, an abnormally large albino Baryonyx, who bears a grudge against Buck
for an encounter that left marks on the two rivals; Buck lost an eye while Rudy
lost a tooth. Buck agrees to lead the herd through the jungle's perils to Lava
Falls, where Momma has taken Sid and her babies. At one point, they have to
37

cross the "Chasm of Death" which is filled with gas fumes (a mixture of helium
and laughing gas, causing anyone who breathes in it to laugh uncontrollably
while speaking in a high-pitched voice). Although the gas is not the actual cause
of death, victims usually cannot stop laughing and thus die while trying to cross
the chasm. Eventually the group manages to cross the chasm. In the meantime,
Sid and Momma try to outdo each other in feeding the offspring; he loses this
contest, but is soon welcomed into the family regardless. The next day, however,
Sid is separated from the family and attacked by Rudy. Sid is knocked onto a
loose rock slab that is floating on a river of lava and about to plummet over the
falls.
As the herd moves toward Lava Falls, Ellie goes into labor and a
Guanlong pack strikes, causing a rock slide that separates her from Manny and
Diego. Diego doubles back to protect her and Manny fends off further attacks,
while Buck takes Crash and Eddie ahead to rescue Sid. Just as he goes over the
falls, the trio swoops in on a commandeered Harpactognathus only to be chased
by a flock of Pterodactylus on the way. They manage to fend them off and save
Sid. Manny reaches Ellie and hears the cry of a newborn baby, and he sees that it
is a girl. He wants to name her Ellie, or Little Ellie, but Ellie instead names her
Peaches after the fruit (and the codeword they had chosen for Ellie to use if she
went into labor during the trip). Sid is saddened at the fact that he never had a
chance to say goodbye to "his" children as he returns to the herd and learns of
Peaches' birth.
As they venture back to the tunnel, they are shocked to discover Rudy
lurking inside of the entrance. Rudy exits the tunnel and attacks at full force;
Buck lures Rudy away from the group and is nearly eaten himself, before Diego
saves him at the last second. Manny, Sid, Diego, and Buck manage to ensnare
Rudy and knock him unconscious, but as they begin to leave, Sid trips over one
of the ropes and breaks it. Rudy quickly recovers and escapes, and is about to
attack Sid when Momma arrives on the scene, charging at Rudy and knocking
him off a cliff before roaring her victory. As she and her children wish Sid well,
Buck now without a purpose in life since Rudy is gone decides to join the
herd and live on the surface. However, a distant roar tells him that Rudy is still
alive; he changes his mind and sends the herd home, blocking off the path to the
underground jungle at the same time, so nobody else can go down there
anymore. Manny and Ellie welcome Peaches into their frozen world and admit
that Sid did a good job looking after Momma's children (though Manny tells
38

Diego that he will never let Sid babysit Peaches). Diego decides to remain with
the herd, while Buck stays where he wants to be: underground, battling it out
with Rudy.
Scrat and Scratte
Like the previous Ice Age films, the film opens with the saber-toothed
squirrel Scrat (Chris Wedge), who does everything he can to retrieve his
precious acorn. This time, he falls in love with his female counterpart Scratte
(Karen Disher), with the song "You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" by
Lou Rawls playing in the background, but an acorn appears instead after the
music stops. The two fight over the acorn with Scratte is flung off the ground.
As Scrat tries to save her, the two hold onto the acorn and the music starts back.
Suddenly, she demonstrates her ability to glide like a flying squirrel, leaving
Scrat falling to the ground. The two eventually fall in love after Scrat saves her
from falling to her death in the lava river while she is unconscious. He even
chooses to focus his attention on her instead of the acorn until the end of the
film, when he tires of her finicky nature and reverts to his old ways. The ensuing
fight between the couple leads to a volcanic explosion (caused by Scratte, due to
slamming the acorn into the ground like Scrat had done before, though he tried
to warn her of what would happen if she did) that hurls Scrat and the acorn back
to the surface, leaving Scratte trapped underground. However, as Scrat is about
to enjoy his acorn, a stray piece of ice falls on him and knocks the acorn back
into Scratte's hands. He screams in frustration, having lost both his acorn and
Scratte.
Blue Sky decided to do "more of a what-if adventure" in the third Ice Age
installment, titled Ice Age: A New Beginning, "like finding the giant ape in King
Kong or a Shangri-la in the middle of snow," and added the dinosaurs to the
story. Character designer Peter de Sve welcomed the new plot addition, since
he could not think of any other giant mammal to put into the story. The "lost
world" approach led to colorful dinosaurs, because "the dinosaurs didn't have to
be just brown, and you can take liberties because no one knows what color they
were", according to de Sve. Rudy's design was inspired by the Baryonyx
because of his crocodile-like look, which de Sve considered even more
menacing than the T. rex.
The film was released in RealD Cinema where available. The release
sparked some controversy when Fox announced that it would no longer pay to
39

supply 3D glasses to theaters, which led to a number of exhibitors threatening to

only show the film in standard 2D projection.
The film's original trailer debuted with the film Horton Hears a Who! on
March 14, 2008, then online on April 7, 2008. There are three others that have
been released, with the third and fourth (which shows Buck) being the most
closely resembling each other. Queen Latifah recorded a cover of the song
"Walk the Dinosaur".
The film received mixed reviews from critics. As of June 27, 2011, Rotten
Tomatoes reported that 45% of critics gave positive reviews based on 157
reviews with an average score of 5.4/10. Another review aggregator, Metacritic,
which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream
critics, gives the film an average score of 50 based on 25 reviews.
However, Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four
claiming that "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the best of the three films
about our friends in the inter-species herd of plucky prehistoric heroes. And it
involves some of the best use of 3-D I've seen in an animated feature." Lou
Lumenik of the New York Post awarded the film 3 stars stating that the film is
"much more of an emphasis on action in this nicely crafted, fast-paced sequel."
Keith Phipps of the A.V. Club graded the film a C+ claiming the sequel "throws
its commitment to the era away with movie number three, a ploy sure to anger
Ice Age purists everywhere." Carrie Rickey of the Philadelphia Inquirer enjoyed
the "film's animation art is Seuss-imaginative", but panned "the flatness of the
story and indifferent voicework all the more obvious."
CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema
audiences gave Dawn of the Dinosaurs an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F
scale.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was released on high-definition Blu-ray
Disc and standard DVD in North America on October 27, 2009 and in the
United Kingdom on November 23, 2009. Two versions of the DVD exist: a
single-disc DVD, and a "Scrat Pack" Double DVD Pack with three Scrat games.
The 3-disc Blu-ray combo pack includes a Blu-ray, the single-disc DVD,
and a Digital Copy, as well as an Ice Age digital story book maker, commentary
by director Carlos Saldanha, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, the two Scrat
shorts: Gone Nutty and No Time for Nuts (that each originally came on home
40

video for both the first and second films), and a how-to-draw Scrat tutorial with
the filmmakers.
On September 21, 2010, a 3D DVD was released as a two-disc set, with
the first disc being the TrioScopics 3D version and the second disc being the 2D
version.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - The 4-D Experience
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs - The 4-D Experience is a 14-minute 4D
film shown at various 4-D theatres over the world. It retells the condensed story
of Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs with the help of 3D projection and sensory
effects, including moving seats, wind, mist, snow and scents. Produced by
SimEx-Iwerks, The 4-D Experience premiered in May 2012, at the San Diego
Zoo 4-D Theater. Since June 2012, it is being shown at the Roxy Theatre, at the
Warner Bros. Movie World in Australia, and since July 2012, at the Shedd
Aquarium's Phelps Auditorium in Chicago.

Ice Age: Continental Drift

The fourth film, Ice Age: Continental Drift, was released in 3-D on July
13, 2012. It was directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier the first time
without Carlos Saldanha. The film takes place a few years after the events of the
third film, with Peaches in her teenage years. Scrat's never-ending pursuit of
acorns has world-changing consequences, separating Manny, Sid and Diego
from the rest, forcing them to stand up to a pirate gang, led by Captain Gutt.
Ice Age: Continental Drift is a 2012 American 3D computer-animated
comedy adventure film directed by Steve Martino and Mike Thurmeier. It was
written by Jason Fuchs and Michael Berg, and features the voices of Ray
Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Nicki Minaj, Drake, with Jennifer
Lopez, and Queen Latifah.
It is the fourth installment of the Ice Age series, produced by Blue Sky
Studios and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It is the first sequel in the series
not directed by Carlos Saldanha, and the second Ice Age installment that utilises
Digital 3D. It was released in the US on July 13, 2012, three years after its
predecessor Dawn of the Dinosaurs. This was the first Ice Age film to be
presented in the 2.39:1 aspect ratio.
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Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film became a box
office success, with a worldwide gross of over $877 million, marking it the
highest grossing animated film of 2012.
A fifth film, as of now titled Ice Age 5 is scheduled for release July 15,
2016.
While Scrat inadvertently causes the break up of Pangaea, Manny and
Ellie are forced to deal with the trials and tribulations of their teenage daughter
Peaches, who has trouble fitting in with her peers. Ellie tries to support her
daughter, but Manny becomes exceedingly over-protective. Peaches' friend
Louis, a molehog, tries to warn her as she tries to approach a mammoth named
Ethan on whom she has a crush. Meanwhile, Sid's family returns, but only long
enough to drop off the elderly Granny before abandoning them both. Manny
catches Peaches sneaking off to meet Ethan, and leading to an argument and
their estrangement. Shortly after, a continental break-up separates Manny from
the herd. Trapped on a moving chunk of ice with Sid, Granny, and Diego,
Manny has no choice but to ride out the current. Meanwhile, a giant land shift
encroaches on Ellie, Peaches, and those remaining on land, causing them to
make their way toward the land bridge.
Meanwhile, Scrat, in a subplot, finds an acorn that has a treasure map on it
that directs him towards an island. After violent weather pushes them further
away from land, Manny's group is captured by a band of pirates sailing on a
floating iceberg led by a Gigantopithecus, Captain Gutt, who attempts to press
them into his crew. When they refuse, Gutt tries to execute them, leading to their
escape, which inadvertently cause the ship to sink. Gutt's first mate, a female
sabretooth named Shira, joins them after she is left for dead.
The herd washes ashore on Switchback Cove, which Gutt's crew had
earlier mentioned had a current that could let them return home. However, Shira,
still loyal to Gutt, warns him of their presence, but is punished for not attacking
the herd. Manny coordinates a plan to steal Gutt's new ship to return home, and
enlists the aid of the hyrax inhabitants of the island. The plan works, and Diego
convinces Shira to leave with them, but she stays behind to ensure Gutt does not
catch the herd. Enraged that his enemies have stolen his ship, Gutt quickly
constructs a new ship, the Sweet Revenge, and sails after the herd, determined to
get revenge. Meanwhile, on the continent, Peaches finally begins to fit in with
the mammoths her age, but when she tells them that she is not friends with
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Louis, the molehog is estranged from her. When she realizes the other teens'
careless disregard for danger, she turns her back on them, warning that their
extinction will come sooner than they think.
After narrowly escaping a pack of sirens, Manny, Sid, Diego, and Granny
return home only to find the land bridge destroyed and that Gutt has beaten them
and taken Ellie, Peaches, and the rest of the herd hostage. Louis stands up for
Peaches and a battle ensues between the herd and the pirates. Shira frees Ellie
and helps fend off her former comrades, while Granny's "imaginary" pet whale,
Precious, appears and defeats the majority of Gutt's crew. Gutt then attempts to
kill Ellie but Peaches manages to save her mother. Manny defeats Gutt in a final
duel on an ice floe and reunites with his family and friends. Gutt subsequently
encounters a siren that appears the shape of a female Gigantopithecus, and is
eaten alive. With their home destroyed, Manny takes his expanded family and
the other animals to an island as a new home. Louis is now regarded as a hero
among the teenage mammoths, while Shira agrees to stay with Diego as a
member of the herd.
In the film's epilogue, Scrat discovers the island on the map, known as
Scratlantis (a mock up of Atlantis), but his uncontrollable urge to hunt acorns in
the acorn-rich city inadvertently causes the entire island to sink when he unplugs
an acorn drain holder; Scrat is then ejected into what is now known as Death
Valley, California.
The first details of the sequel were announced on January 10, 2010, when
The New York Times reported that Blue Sky was working on a fourth film and
was in negotiations with the voice cast. Fox later confirmed on May 5, 2010,
that Ice Age: Continental Drift would be released on July 13, 2012.
Ice Age: Continental Drift is the soundtrack of the film scored by John
Powell and was released on July 10, 2012.
Featured in the film was "Chasing the Sun", performed by The Wanted the
film's first theme song, and the second theme song "We are (Family)" written by
Ester Dean, performed by: Queen Latifah, Jennifer Lopez, Keke Palmer, Nicki
Minaj, Drake, Heather Morris, and Ester Dean, herself. Both songs play during
the credits and are not available on the soundtrack. "Chasing The Sun" can be
found on The Wanted's 2012 American debut extended play, The Wanted EP,
while an alternate version of "We are (Family)" sung only by Keke Palmer is
available for download.
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In addition to the original score by John Powell, the film also features
Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Powell explained his decision: "At the beginning of
the film, the creation of the geographical world as we know it seemed just such
an immense idea to musically convey, that I gave up entirely and used
Beethoven's Ninth Symphony instead. With a bit of obscenely crass reorchestration and blatantly cheap arranging tricks normally associated with
strippers, we got it to fit the action perfectly. But the cost that I must now bear is
having to live forever in hiding, since the "Beethoven Society" issued a "fatwa"
on me."
Ice Age: Continental Drift had its premiere on June 20, 2012, at the
CineEurope film distributors' trade fair in Barcelona. It publicly premiered on
June 27, 2012, in Belgium, Egypt, France, Switzerland, and Trinidad, and was
released on July 13, 2012, in the USA. The film is accompanied by the short
animated film The Longest Daycare featuring Maggie Simpson.
As a promotion for Ice Age: Continental Drift, Fox released two 3-minute
short segments from the film, titled Scrat's Continental Crack-up and Scrat's
Continental Crack-up: Part 2. The first part premiered as a theatrical release
attached to Gulliver's Travels in 2010, and it was released on-line on January 6,
2011, on iTunes Movie Trailers. The second part was released on November 16,
2011, on iTunes, and debuted in theatres with Alvin and the Chipmunks:
Chipwrecked. The first part shows how the Scrat's actions lead to split of the
continents, while in the second part, Scrat's underwater pursuit of acorns leads
him to a pirate ship.
The film was featured on Tommy Baldwin Racing's #10 car driven by
Tomy Drissi for the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Toyota/Save Mart 350
held on June 24, 2012.
Ice Age: Continental Drift was released on DVD, Blu-ray, and Blu-ray 3D
on December 11, 2012.
Ice Age: Continental Drift received generally mixed reviews from critics.
Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 37% of critics have given the
film positive reviews, with a rating average of 5.1/10 based on 131 reviews. The
consensus statement reads, "Ice Age: Continental Drift 3D has moments of
charm and witty slapstick, but it often seems content to recycle ideas from the
previous films." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a
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normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a
score of 49 based on 29 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews."
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four
and stated: "Watching this film was a cheerless exercise for me. The characters
are manic and idiotic, the dialogue is rat-a-tat chatter, the action is entirely at the
service of the 3-D, and the movie depends on bright colors, lots of noise and a
few songs in between the whiplash moments." Megan Lehmann of The
Hollywood Reporter said: "It's familiar, drawn-out shtick, and the humor lacks
the subtlety of the first and best Ice Age, but there are some visually inventive
high points." Simon Brew, writing for Den of Geek, gave a very positive fourstar review, saying that "not only is Ice Age 4 arguably the best in the franchise
yet, it's also, a little surprisingly perhaps (given that it's a fourth movie in a
franchise, turned around on a strict cycle), turned out to be thoroughly,
thoroughly entertaining family blockbuster."
Ice Age 5 (2016)
After the release of Continental Drift, John Leguizamo, the voice of Sid,
said of the fifth installment in the Ice Age franchise: "It sounds like theyre
working on something. So hopefully the answer is YES, but I cannot say for
sure."
On December 20, 2013, 20th Century Fox scheduled Ice Age 5 for July
15, 2016.

COCONUT, THE LITTLE DRAGON

Coconut , a tiny fire dragon is instructed to keep grass fire that gives his
people a unique gift , to blow fire , but someone stoles it from under his nose .
Therefore , Coconut decides to go in search of grass fire, and joins forces with
Oscar , dragon gluttonous , and Matilda , a spiky pig . Coconut is surprised to
find that other dragon races are unsympathetic to fire dragons. Their special gift
seems to make the fire dragons extremely unpopular. When Dragon Island's
dormant volcano "wakes up" and starts to spew molten lava, Coconut must
brave the heat and fumes to bring back the fire grass. Yet does not know if he
really wants the island to return to the way things were or he is not sure if he
could figure out a way to unite all the dragon races and save the island from
destruction.
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TYPES OF CHARACTERS IN FAIRY TALES AND IN ANIMATION

FILMS

The AarneThompson tale type index organizes folktales into broad

categories like Animal Tales, Fairy Tales, Religious Tales, etc. Within each
category, folktale types are further subdivided by motif patterns until individual
types are listed.
Also animal tales are classified after their animal characters into tales with
wild animals, wild animals and domestic animals, wild animals and humans,
domestic animals, other animals and objects. In fairy tales we have supernatural
opponents and supernatural enchanted relatives wife, husband, brother and
sister-, supernatural tasks, supernatural heroes, supernatural power or
knowledge, magic items.
In his Morphology of the folktale, Vladimir Propp concluded that all the
characters could be resolved into 7 broad character functions in the 100 tales he
analyzed:
The villain struggles against the hero.
The dispatcher character who makes the lack known and sends the
hero off.
The (magical) helper helps the hero in their quest.
The princess or prize and her father the hero deserves her throughout
the story but is unable to marry her because of an unfair evil, usually because of
the villain. The hero's journey is often ended when he marries the princess,
thereby beating the villain.
The donor prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
The hero or victim/seeker hero reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
The false hero takes credit for the heros actions or tries to marry the
princess.
These roles could sometimes be distributed among various characters, as
the hero kills the villain dragon, and the dragon's sisters take on the villainous
role of chasing him. Conversely, one character could engage in acts as more than
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one role, as a father could send his son on the quest and give him a sword, acting
as both dispatcher and donor.
WILD ANIMALS AND HUMANS we meet in ''The girl who owned a
bear''.
Jane Gladys faces the challenge of confronting the punishment, the
revenge of the wild animals from the book of her father -and a domestic one- for
not being drawn properly in the book. The girl is witty and makes the animal
believe that she owns them , therefore she orders them what to do. At the
beginning she is very amased that her father bused someone, after that she is
amused when seeing only the front of the characters (e.g. the clown), the back of
them being white, then she is puzzled to see all those animals brought to life by
her turning the pages of the book. Finally, frightened, she has the courage to
convince them that it is a mistake to eat her, that it is their fault for not staying in
the book where they belong, and that they must hurry to get back into the book
because mamma was coming.
In ''The laughing hippopotamus'', Gouie, the son of the chief's brother ,
lives in the village of black people near the Congo river. Being a child, he
catches Keo, the hippopotamus child of the queen of the tribe of the
hippopotamuses, and makes him promis that, after releaseing him, he will return
in a year and a day to serve him. Keo keeps his promise, being a matter of
honour and also because he sweared by the tusks of his grandfather. But after a
year and a day, the hippopotamus manage the get the aduld Gouie to be his slave
and makes the same bargain, the return after a year and a day. It seems that the
man does not keep his promise because he never returns, but his conscience does
not give him peace. The problem is about what is more important: being a
honourable living being with a clean conscience and a life of slavery, or
forgetting your priciples of honour, trying not to listen to your conscience and
living in liberty.
In The box of robbers, Martha is left home alone and she is too curious
to find a doll's house in the attic. Instead she finds her Uncle Walter's chest sent
from Italy years ago. Even if she remembers that she should not open it, she
cannot resist to the temptation and releases after opening three Italian bandits,
Lugui, Beni and Victor. They are polite, but they don't renounce to their abilities
of stealing, even if the litlle girl tries to convince them they have nothing to steal
in America. After they collected from the house everything they could bring
47

upstairs in the attic, the girl is saved by the doorbell. Even if she sees that it is
the postman, she tells them it is the police. Lying has a good purpose here to
get the bandits back into the chest. To get rid of them is not so easy because the
girl must convince them by her attitude that she is right, that they must do the
sacrifice of being pressed into the chest if they don't want to be captures by the
American police.
In The queen of Quok a ten years boy inherits not only the crown and
the poor kingdom, but also the duty of saving his kingdom by marrying, after the
auction for the coronet, with the very old and rich Mary Ann Brodjinsky de la
Porkus, even if he prefered the same age, but poor Nyana, the armorer's
daughter. The boy is lucky to find several leaves folded together inti the
mahogamy bedstead, with a poem on them. After burning the paper, the Slave of
the Royal Bedstead appears and gives him alternatives to his problems. He is
now able to pay Mary Ann Brodjinski the money back for the coronet, to marry
Nyana, to punish the counselor for loosing the money of the old lady. The boy
king is able to have a right judgement of the situation and even if he is adviced
to execute the very old buyer of the coronet, he says that it is not right and that
she must receive her money back. The punishment of the counselor is to give
and number the three million, nine hundred thousand, six hundred and twenty
four dollars and sixteen cents in twenty-five-cent pieces.
The glass dog offers the readers the experience of a wizard wanting to
escape from being disturbed by people, of a glassblower who makes the wizard
a glass dog barking with the help of the wizard and Miss Mydas, being on the
death bed and receiving a magic cure for her desease from the glassblower
instead of her agreement to marry him, the curer. The glassblower is patient
because he does not use the magic potion for his health, but to save Miss Mydas
from death. He also wants to get some advantage from this by asking her to
marry him instead. He will be punished for this

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