Line #31 WesternAnimation/HappyFeet


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/happy_feet_movie_poster.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: Get into the tap of things!]]
3
4	''Happy Feet'' is a [[AllCGICartoon CGI-animated]] film from 2006. It was the feature debut of animation studio Creator/AnimalLogic and the first animated film to be directed by Creator/GeorgeMiller.
5
6	Somewhere in Antarctica is a colony of musical emperor penguins with a long-standing tradition of singing a unique "heartsong" to find a partner for life. One of these penguins, Mumble (Creator/ElijahWood), can't sing very well due to his father Memphis (Creator/HughJackman) dropping him as an egg. Despite not being the greatest singer, he more than makes up for his shortcoming in his knack for dancing. After the elders exile him from the emperor penguin colony, Mumble meets the Adelie Amigos, who later join him on a quest to get the fish back from "[[HumansAreCthulhu aliens]]" and truly find his place in the world.
7
8	''Happy Feet'' is notable for being one of the darker animated family films of UsefulNotes/TheMillenniumAgeOfAnimation (not that [[NeverTrustATrailer the advertisements would have tipped you off]]) and is often compared favorably to ''Literature/WatershipDown'', both in its tone and the fact that it is shown entirely from an animal's point of view. It was also a groundbreaker in MotionCapture technology: while most of the character animation was done by animators, all of the dancing was mocapped from legendary tap dancer Savion Glover.
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10	A sequel was released on November 18th, 2011. For tropes relating to that movie, see ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeetTwo''.
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12	----
13	!!This film provides examples of:
14
15	* AbhorrentAdmirer: Gloria is less than pleased at Ramón after he flirts with her after singing "My Life".
16	* AbandonedArea: The Forbidden Shore is home to an abandoned whaling station.
17	* AgainstTheGrain: Singing is inherent to the penguins' culture, but Mumble has a terrible singing voice. When Mumble wishes to dance instead of sing, he disappoints the governing elders and his father (who feels he is to blame after dropping Mumble when he was an egg). By the end, however, the colony accepts Mumble's quirks. Dancing even becomes commonly practiced, especially as seen in the sequel.
18	* AgentMulder:
19	** Subverted. Mumble only believes in aliens (humans) outside the ice, nobody believes him until he gets proof (even then, some ''still'' refuse to believe him), and he's right. Played somewhat straighter with the Boss Skua.
20	** Lovelace pretends to disbelieve him, but he also knows they exist.
21	* AllInTheManual: Mumble's name is actually Mambo in early materials, but in the children's {{Novelization}} Gloria mispronounces it and his father just laughs SureLetsGoWithThat. It served as {{Foreshadowing}}, since one of the cheered lyrics in "Boogie Wonderland" is "MAMBO!", indicating that yes, Mumble was a part of Gloria's Heart Song.
22	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: Due to his singing abilities, Mumble is viewed as an outsider by his peers and the leaders of the penguin society, with his parents as the sole exception.
23	* AlternativeForeignThemeSong: The Japanese version uses [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9ggGdDrScg "Hoshi wo Mezashite"]] by NEWS as the theme song. One of the singers voiced Mumble in the dub.
24	* AnimalReligion: The Great Guin, whom the penguins believe provide them with fish in the sea. Thanks to overfishing, the penguins think the Great Guin is testing them. Mumble discovering it's humans, not the Great Guin, causes a temporary schism between penguin factions.
25	* ArtShift: Most of the humans are live-action. The one group that isn't is the group tracking Mumble back to the others.
26	* ArtisticLicenseBiology:
27	** Emperor penguins don't mate for life as implied in the film. They're monogamous -- but typically only for a year. Fidelity between years is about 15%.
28	** Penguin chicks cannot stand on the ice immediately after hatching nor do they hatch fluffy and dry.
29	** Memphis's egg should have frozen before he even got to it. Justified in the context of the story, because that's what Memphis feared happened, and that even a millisecond in the cold made Mumble disabled (in the sense that he can't sing like the other penguins naturally can, which is implied to being caused by being dropped as an egg).
30	** Elephant seals are dangerously territorial. Not even penguins would have been left alive by them. Then again, justified -- as the seals don't attack because they respect Lovelace.
31	*** Related to that, the elephant seals in the movie seem to live in a colony composed of only male individuals. Real life bull elephant seals are extremely aggressive towards other males and engage into brutal fights with each other, instead being surrounded by a harem of females they are really protective of.
32	* ArtistsAreAttractive: How penguin society seems to function. Emperor penguins sing to attract their mates, and even Mumble ends up winning over Gloria because of how skilled he is at dancing.
33	* AstronomicZoom: Twice.
34	* AustralianMovies: Directed by one of the larger directors in the country. The director of ''Film/MadMax'', in fact.
35	* BackingAwaySlowly: When the orcas temporarily beach themselves on the ice, Lovelace berates them for their failed attempt at killing him, Mumble, and the Amigos. The orcas then slowly back up into the water and swim away, but not because of Lovelace. All the penguins turn around to see a massive ship breaking through the ice and coming their way!
36	* BadassCreed: Noah and the elder penguins loudly declare "When all others leave..." "WE REMAIN!"
37	* BeYourself: One of the movie's {{Aesop}}s is that Mumble makes all the difference in the world by being himself.
38	* BilingualBonus: The Spanish portion of "Boogie Wonderland" Raul sings translates as "I am Raul, the coolest penguin, Latino of course, one hundred percent Spanish! My brothers! (What?), they call me crazy. A little lady lights me like flame. The party- dance, dance little girl! My heart has dynamite! BOOM! Let me be your penguin daddy!"
39	* BookEnds:
40	** The film begins and ends with Music/{{Pink}} singing the final songs from ''Music/AbbeyRoad'' ("Golden Slumbers" and "The End".)
41	** In the opening, Memphis crows, "I think I'm gonna dance now!" In the end, he tells Mumble, "I think you better dance now."
42	* BreakHerHeartToSaveHer: After Mumble's exile, Gloria follows him and admits her feelings for him, and it's implied that he sent her away because he knew she'd be better off with a penguin who could sing, and that he's about to go on a potentially dangerous journey to communicate with the "aliens" and didn't want to put Gloria in danger. She's aware of what he's doing, just disgusted by it.
43	* BrickJoke: Mrs. Astrakhan tells Mumble to be "spontan-you-us!" with a Russian accent. Every time he says it afterward, he pronounces it the same way.
44	* BriefAccentImitation: When Noah strikes one of his friends, Mumble threatens him with a Spanish accent.
45	* BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu: Taking on the "aliens" consuming all the fish is only going to end this way. [[spoiler:When Mumble finds a factory ship, he swims out to confront the aliens and clings on the rising net, but is easily dislodged, and the ship leaves without acknowledging him. He swims on to find the source - the narrator says he swam beyond all hope of return and became a legend. Eventually, he washes up on a distant shore to be recovered and put in a zoo. Finally face to face with "the aliens", he tries to communicate and, of course, fails. "After three days, he lost his voice. After three months, he all but lost his mind." Then things pick up again.]]
46	* BullyingADragon: The Adélie group take joy in taunting the leopard seal when he comes onto land, immediately losing all of the speed he has in water. They practice dancing and insult him inches from his face as he tries to snap at them before finally giving up.
47	* CarnivoreConfusion: The penguins, skuas, and humans in the film all eat fish. It's okay for the penguins to do so, but the skuas are shown as thieving bullies, and the humans are explicitly told that they shouldn't ''over''fish - the penguins' declining catch is a major plot point). The skuas also try to eat Mumble as a chick, but he manages to distract them and escape. The killer whales are portrayed as scar-covered, possibly unintelligent monsters that, unlike the other animals, never speak "penguin" (although since orcas are considered one of the smartest creatures on the planet, it's more likely they're not interested in talking to their food), the elephant seals are passed off as "vegetarians" ([[UnreliableNarrator though only according to Ramón]]) and they act rather thuggish and intimidating, and the leopard seal is basically the Antarctic equivalent of an evil dragon, though it does speak to the penguins threateningly. All in all, the predators are basically portrayed as the penguins would view them, rather than how humans would.
48	* CerebusSyndrome: The movie starts out as a lighthearted story about an awkward penguin who dances instead of singing. However after Mumble is banished, the story gets progressively darker and more dramatic, focusing on Mumble’s quest to find the ‘aliens’. In fact, after the Boogie Wonderland sequence, there isn’t another song until right at the end of the film.
49	* ChekhovsSkill: Humans can't hear penguin speech as anything but squawks. However, dancing is a ''visual'' medium...
50	* ChildhoodBrainDamage: Mumble's egg being dropped by his father is the main reason he's so odd among the other penguins. '''Maybe'''. Dancing may be InTheBlood, since Memphis does dance even during the march. (Not to mention it being the whole reason he drops the egg in the first place.)
51	* ChildhoodFriendRomance: Mumble and Gloria are close from childhood; Gloria saw Mumble come out of his egg (even being the one to encourage him to hatch as she tapped on his egg) and defended him when his classmates mocked his inability to sing. Eventually, they mate as adults.
52	* TheChosenOne: Mumble, since he can't sing. Singing is useless when communicating with aliens. Dancing, however...
53	* CopycatMockery: The skuas have heard their leader complain about being captured by aliens (in reality, humans who put a tracking collar on his foot), they mime and lip sync his entire story.
54	* TheCoverChangesTheGender: Gloria's rendition of "[[Music/{{Queen}} Somebody to Love]]" at the graduation concert changes the background chorus line "He works hard" to "She works hard" to fit the perspective change.
55	* The DVD cover depicts baby Mumble with the Adeile gang. In the movie, he doesn't meet them until he's an adult.
56	* CrowdSong: "Boogie Wonderland".
57	* CulturePolice: The Elders, particularly over dancing.
58	* DanceLine: Some of the penguins form one at the end.
59	* DancePartyEnding: Expected, seeing that the movie is about a dancing penguin.
60	* DancingIsSeriousBusiness: If It weren't for dancing, the entire colony of penguins would've starved to death.
61	* DelayedNarratorIntroduction: Lovelace. See LivingLegend below.
62	* {{Determinator}}: Nothing will stop Mumble from dancing, dammit. Also, his pursuit of the aliens. Keep in mind, he ends up in ''Florida'', which means Mumble ''crossed the equator''.
63	-->'''Lovelace:''' ''(narrating)'' Enraged by their indifference, he followed them long after they had gone from his sight. He swam further than any of us had before, past all hope of return. Swept up by the currents, he was carried endlessly, across vast oceans, to worlds unknown.
64	* DeviousDolphins: Two orcas come across Mumble, Lovelace, and the Amigos once they reach the Forbidden Shore. While they are somewhat playful by flinging Mumble and Lovelace back and forth to each other, they are indeed very dangerous to the penguins and come close to eating them.
65	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything:
66	** Just replace the word "penguin" with "normal" every time someone tells Mumble he's not being or acting like one. The entire first film portrays him like an autistic person (or someone with any other condition).
67	** The Tap Vs. Song moment in the film is treated like a religious schism. Unlike RealLife examples, both sides realize both viewpoints are not only not exclusive, but complementary.
68	* DreadfulMusician: Mumble. It doubles as [[Trivia/HappyFeet Ironic]] considering that Elijah Wood is actually a pretty decent singer.
69	-->'''Rinaldo''': ''(after hearing Mumble singing)'' Yeah, I heard an animal once do that, but then they rolled him over and he was dead.
70	* EarnYourHappyEnding: Mumble goes through a lot before his story is done.
71	* EasyEvangelism: [[spoiler:Mumble is returned to the colony by biologists, who follow him with a tracking device. Their studies of the penguins dancing make people care about them more; a frantic montage of political activity leads to international fishing fleets withdrawing from Antarctic waters.]]
72	* TheExile: Noah has Mumble exiled from the colony since the latter doesn't have a heartsong.
73	* FamilyUnfriendlyViolence: The seal and the whale scenes are often cited as just plain terrifying. And they are.
74	* FantasticRacism: The penguin elders call the Adélie penguins "filthy vermin."
75	* FeetFirstIntroduction: How adult Mumble is introduced.
76	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
77	** The film opens on a shot of the entire Earth. It seems at first to just emphasize how remote Antarctica is, but [[spoiler:it indicates just how large a scope the film encompasses, especially when Mumble swims to Florida.]]
78	** Notice how all the penguins hatch out of their eggs with their beaks first, except Mumble, who's first body parts we see are his feet. And dancing.
79	** Gloria's heartsong is "Boogie Wonderland", and she can't get past a certain point. Those who know the lyrics know she has to sing, "You say your prayers though you don't care; you sing[[note]]The original lyrics are "dance", but that would spoil the moment[[/note]] and shake the hurt and '''DANCE'''!"
80	** Memphis drops the egg because he cries out "I think I'm gonna dance now!" Dancing may be InTheBlood, and it hints that dancing is a natural-but-suppressed inclination of penguins.
81	* FreeRangeChildren : Subverted. A young Mumble tap-dancing all by himself, without any adult supervision on top of the cliffside away from the Emperor Penguin colony makes him an easy target for predators such as the Boss Skua and his goons.
82	* FunnyBackgroundEvent: The other skuas in the background start mimicking the Boss Skua ''perfectly'' while he tells Mumble his story.
83	** During the “Boogie Wonderland” scene, one of the elders can be seen dancing to the beat before another [[DopeSlap smacks him upside the head]].
84	* GetOut: Noah banishes Mumble not only for not having a heartsong because Memphis dropped him as an egg, but under the belief that his dancing (which they find abnormal) has caused their food shortage.
85	* GotMeDoingIt: Near the end when [[spoiler: the humans are recording all of the penguins dancing, they start to dance along with them.]]
86	* GreekChorus: Ramón and his friends often do this, such as narrating Mumble's efforts to get Gloria to leave, and at one point providing Mumble's singing voice.
87	* GreenAesop: A rare example of an environmental message being very prominent and yet nowhere near the major point of the film - the human-caused depletion of the Antarctic fish is mostly a device to drive the plot.
88	* GroinAttack: Baby Mumble pulls this on Memphis.
89	-->'''Memphis:''' Watch the beak, watch the beak, BEAK!
90	-->''(GroinAttack)''
91	-->'''Memphis:''' ''(audibly in pain)'' The beak.
92	* HollywoodToneDeaf: Mumble's problem throughout the film, as, while the other penguins can sing, his notes come out squeaky, harsh, and off-key. Adding to this, when he's a hatchling, we do see other hatchlings being taught to hone their singing, he tries but doesn't grasp it, implying that some of it is innate.
93	* HotForTeacher: Briefly, Seymour - although it's his last appearance, so just how brief is never mentioned. Later, it's revealed that they both have two separate chicks (Bo is Ms. Viola's and Attacus is Seymour's), so they did not have their songs become love.
94	* HumansAreCthulhu: The aliens are, of course, humanity. It's a very long time (at least three-quarters of the way through the movie) before any humans appear, and before that the penguins see only their strange artifacts (garbage) and huge structures (an abandoned Antarctic whaling base, a factory fishing ship), which are, to them, as incomprehensible and unknowable as the Jupiter Monolith in ''Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey''. The large predators, especially the killer whales, show scars from propellers.
95	-->'''Mumble:''' They don't even know we ''exist''.
96	* InkSuitActor: Mumble has his actor's blue eyes, and Gloria looks as much like Brittany Murphy as it's possible for a penguin to.
97	** The albatross in the deleted scene is basically just Steve Irwin as a bird.
98	* InnocentBlueEyes: Mumble's most striking characteristic.
99	* InstantSedation: Implied. A hawk mentions that after being caught by humans, one of them stuck a needle in him and he "was blackened".
100	* IShallReturn: After the Elders exile him from the colony, Mumble declares that he ''will'' return once he finds out what's actually happened to the fish. Sure enough, he does.
101	* ItCanThink: A rare ''[[InvertedTrope inverted]]'' version of this trope, where we see this play out from the perspective of the "it", in this case the penguins. When the human researchers witness the penguin colony's dance routine and the footage goes viral, it sparks global debate over realizations that the penguins are smart enough to not only organize the dance routine, but attempt ''direct communication'' with humans to let them know of the overfishing threatening their population, which ultimately results in new fishing laws enacted in the Antarctic to protect the penguin population.
102	* JukeboxMusical: A lot of the music is old R&B, funk, and rock songs.
103	* KnowWhenToFoldEm: When the humans show up at the colony by helicopter, even [[TheFundamentalist Noah]] turns to Mumble to decide what to do next.
104	* LanguageBarrier: Humans and penguins can't understand each other. Mumble eventually finds a way to break the barrier. ''Dancing'' is a ''visual'' medium, and the humans realize something is wrong when the penguins begin to ''dance'' like humans (and are led to believe that humans did it to them somehow.)
105	* LargeHam: Lovelace and Noah, especially the former.
106	* LivingLegend: When Mumble decides to go after the aliens (in the process becoming the "first flying flipper bird" by diving off a cliff after a fishing boat), Lovelace promises to honor his memory.
107	-->'''Lovelace:''' I'm gonna be tellin' your story, Mumble Happy Feet! Long after you dead and gone!
108	* LotusEaterMachine: The zoo to penguins. Mumble doesn't buy it.
109	* LoudGulp: Noah gulps when he sees a helicopter for the first time.
110	* LoveAtFirstNote: This is the "normal way" Emperor Penguins find their mates. This sort of makes sense as their society revolves around singing as their main way of expression, communication, and religious worship.
111	* MamaBear: Despite her calm, loving demeanor, Norma Jean is this. She is openly accepting of Mumble's differences and yells at her husband to ''not'' talk negatively about him during the film's climax; [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness the only time we see her truly angry with Memphis]]. She was also the first and only emperor penguin, in their extremely conformist and conservative society, to dare oppose the Elders, verbally lashing out at them (which alone was shocking to the colony) when they exile Mumble. She also expressed great disdain for them during the graduation ceremony when they refused to let Mumble graduate, mocking them as she says that her son had every right to graduate as the other students.
112	* MeaningfulName: Several.
113	** "Mumble" can't sing and has a name that denotes trouble speaking.
114	*** Original materials such as storybooks and press materials reveal that his name is "Mambo", but baby Gloria called him "Mumble" and it stuck. "Mambo" is a kind of dance.
115	** "Memphis" is famous for Elvis, who Memphis' singing style mirrors.
116	** Noah is trying to save the penguins, just as "Noah" saved the humans in genesis.
117	** [[invoked]] Gloria's heartsong is Boogie Wonderland, of course, she'd be attracted to someone who can dance. [[Fridge/HappyFeet You'll notice she can't say the keyword - "DANCE!!!" - her entire life until Mumble practically forces it out of her.]]
118	*** Adding on to this: Gloria’s father’s name is Maurice, a possible nod to [[Music/EarthWindAndFire Maurice White]].
119	** Mumble's mother is named "Norma Jean," which was Creator/MarilynMonroe's birth name. She even has a beauty mark on her chest, as a reference to Monroe's facial mark.
120	* MinorCrimeRevealsMajorPlot: What seems like a happy little singing-and-dancing penguin movie ends up having a ''lot'' more scope.
121	* MistakenForAfterlife: An inversion of the trope's usual form - [[spoiler:when Mumble wakes up in the zoo enclosure, the other penguins tell him he's now in heaven. (It's an environment tailored to their comfort, safe from predators, and with a guaranteed food supply - from their point of view, it couldn't be better. However, the film also implies they're somewhat brain fried due to living in this "heaven" for so long.)]]
122	* MistakesAreNotTheEndOfTheWorld: "The Song of the Heart" as performed by Music/{{Prince}} has this in its lyrics.
123	-->''Look, everybody makes mistakes- oh yeah, not one or two (Right!) / But that don't make the dirty little things they say about you true!''
124	* MonstrousSeal: A leopard seal is a recurring antagonist of the penguin heroes.
125	* MoodWhiplash: Happy dancing to "Boogie Wonderland", and then Mumble's banishment! Then a hard journey across the ice to find Creator/RobinWilliams, so wacky fun comes into play again. Then it gets serious again, and so on.
126	* MotionCapture: Used for the dancing scenes with a team of dancers headed by Savion Glover.
127	* NeverTrustATrailer: Watch the trailers and there's no sign of the (often heavy-handed) environmental message in the film, just happy dancing. This was actually one of director George Miller's big points of content after the film was released. He has a rant about it on the Scene/Unseen podcast, where he compares the studio advertising machines to ubiquitous soda bottling companies, always pushing everything down to the norm.
128	* NoCartoonFish: See Carnivore Confusion, above.
129	* NonMammalMammaries: The female penguins don't have breasts in the mammalian sense, but they do have feminine shading on their chests.
130	* NonStandardCharacterDesign: Mumble's adult form stands out the most among the other emperors because he looks like his young self in adult form.
131	* NotSoAboveItAll: When confronted by aliens, every penguin realizes they always had the power to dance -- including and especially the Elder.
132	* NoSocialSkills: Mumble has a slightly awkward sense of humor and doesn't always appear to grasp social nuances.
133	* OhCrap: All the penguins react this way when [[spoiler: the aliens arrive at their home in a helicopter]].
134	-->'''Memphis:''' ... I think you better dance now.
135	* OhMyGods: The penguins' god is "the great Guin".
136	* PerpetualMolt: Subverted. Mumble never finishes his molting. And he's never shown shedding feathers, even near the climax. The creator said Mumble was designed this way so you could tell him apart from all the other penguins.
137	* PluckyComicRelief: The Adelie penguins provide nearly all of the comic fodder in a movie about social exclusion and environmental aesops.
138	* RogerRabbitEffect: Reversed, as its human actors superimposed in the CG film. You know it's good when it's hard to tell.
139	* RuggedScar: One of the orcas encountered at the Forbidden Shore has several scars across its back. It’s possible it got these cuts from a boat’s propellers.
140	* SanitySlippage: Mumble at the Florida aquarium. The Village Voice stated that it was a perfectly realized envisioning of penguin insanity.
141	* ScarsAreForever:
142	** Mumble's bitten tail remains with him forever.
143	** The physical deformations caused by Memphis dropping him as an egg also seem to be life-lasting.
144	** The killer whales are seriously scarred by propellers, which is true of many whales in the wild.
145	* ShooTheDog: Mumble does this to Gloria when she insists on following him to find the aliens. Ramón and company don't help by singing, "Baby Please Don't Go" afterward.
146	* ShoutOut:
147	** Mumble's delirious hallucinations call him "[[Film/TwoThousandOneASpaceOdyssey Dave]]".
148	** The scene in which the penguins dance for humans is a direct reference to ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''. The humans are even standing atop a hill that resembles Devil's Tower, while the penguins use dance to communicate like the humans communicated with aliens with music. The track on the soundtrack album is called "Communication".
149	* ShoutoutMusic: Tons of popular songs from various genres of music make short cameos throughout the film.
150	* ShownTheirWork: The film actually depicts several behaviors of Antarctic animals quite accurately, such as the way male Emperor penguins spend the winter huddling together for warmth while incubating their eggs, the mating rituals of Adélie penguins and the habit of killer whales to play with their food[[note]]This is done to essentially break the bones of their prey to make them easier to swallow[[/note]].
151	* SicklyGreenGlow: The "really real" water in the aquarium is this, a FiveSecondForeshadowing for Mumble that alls not right there.
152	* SlidingScaleOfAnthropomorphism: Quite far on the TalkingAnimal side. All the animals look more realistically designed, but most of them are capable of speech. All the penguins are capable of speaking to other animals like skuas, elephant seals, and leopard seals. Oddly enough, the orcas don’t seem to be capable of speech despite being predatory mammals that eat penguins like the leopard seal.
153	* TheSongRemainsTheSame: Most dubs, except for the Portuguese one.
154	* {{Spexico}}: With Penguins no less. The Adélie group with Ramon have Spanish/Mexican accents, and the [[{{Pun}} chicks]] they try to impress have Colombian accents.
155	* StealthPun: The penguins use the term "backsliding" several times. This is a real term used to refer to relapse into sinful behavior and was probably used because penguins are known for sliding on their bellies, therefore "back-sliding" would be a defiance of the natural way of things.
156	* TertiarySexualCharacteristics: The females all have pink spots on their beaks instead of orange like the males', their white undersides are hourglass-shaped while the males' are straighter, and they have more pronounced chests than the males, with the yellow markings on top of their chests in V-shapes rather than on their necks. But a male penguin sporting a pink beak can be seen when Mumble is catching up with the newly-graduated young penguins. No one in the colony mentions this so it likely was just a detail mistake, or to show that RealMenWearPink.
157	* ThisIsGonnaSuck:
158	-->'''Rinaldo:''' They're making us appetizers!
159	-->'''Ramón:''' They're appe-teasing us! Ha, ha, ha! ''({{beat}})'' We're gonna die.
160	* TitleDrop: Lovelace dubs Mumble "Happy Feet". It becomes his surname.
161	* TranslationConvention: Emperor Penguins tell their mates in colonies by their vocalizations, which humans can't readily distinguish differences in but the penguins can. How to translate these subtle vocal variations into human terms? Have them each sing a different song! It becomes a PlotPoint, because all the humans hear when Mumble tries to speak to them is squawking.
162	-->'''Mumble:''' ''(desperately)'' '''YOU'RE STEALING OUR F-I-''' ''(squawk!) (squawk!)''
163	* {{Troll}}: Seriously, the adelies singing "Baby Don't Go" after Gloria storms off isn't appreciated by Mumble.
164	* UndyingLoyalty: A subtle example, but there was no reason for Ramon and the rest to remain in the Emperor penguin colony.
165	* WhamLine: An in-universe example, since the audience already knew this from the beginning.
166	-->'''Memphis:''' I was a backslider myself, I was careless. And now we're paying the price.\
167	'''Norma Jean:''' What's this got to do with Mumble?\
168	'''Memphis:''' It's why he is the way he is.\
169	'''Norma Jean:''' But there's nothing wrong with him!\
170	'''Memphis:''' Face it, Norma Jean, our son's all messed up!\
171	'''Norma Jean:''' He’s ''not'' messed up, you hear me?\
172	'''Memphis:''' Believe me, I ''know'' he is!\
173	'''Norma Jean:''' How can you say that?!\
174	'''Memphis:''' [[MyGreatestFailure 'Cause— ‘CAUSE WHEN HE WAS JUST AN EGG,]] ''[[MyGreatestFailure I DROPPED HIM!]]''
175	* WhatWereYouThinking: Gloria asks a version of this after she discovers that Mumble singing to her at the mating season is really him lip-syncing to Ramon's singing. Possibly doubles as a stronger WhatTheHellHero because Mumble was effectively lying about his ''heartsong''.
176	-->'''Gloria:''' Mumble, what could you possibly be thinking?
177	-->'''Mumble:''' I...I don't know what else to do.
178	* VictoriousChildhoodFriend: Mumble ultimately gets the girl.

Context WesternAnimation / HappyFeet