History Main / PolarBearsAndPenguins

* ''Film/CoolRunnings'': "You mean winter, as in Eskimos and igloos and penguins and ICE?".

* The EarlyFilm pioneer Creator/GeorgesMelies has a rejoicing crowd of Arctic penguins wave to our heroes in his ''The Conquest of the Pole''.

* In the 1970's, TV adverts for Cresta soft drinks in the UK featured a polar bear with a retinue of penguins. (''It's frothy, man!'')

* This trope is avoided in one of the MagicSchoolBus computer games, ''The Magic School Bus: Animals''. One of the minigames involves a penguin who got very, very lost and ended up at the North Pole rather than the South Pole (though one does have to think where the penguin even ''was'' to have to go ''back'' to the South Pole anyway...) You take control of the penguin and guide him across the world and back to the South Pole in Frogger-style levels.

* Another ''BugsBunny'' cartoon, ''8 Ball Bunny'', has Bugs trying to return a lost penguin to the South Pole, only to get there and find out that this penguin is a native of [[{{Joisey}} Hoboken, New Jersey]].

* Averted in ''TheKAMics''... well, [[http://www.drunkduck.com/The_KAMics/4771260/ except for that time]] [[http://www.drunkduck.com/The_KAMics/4771259/ when Drunk Aliens returned a penguin to the wrong hemisphere]].

* ''Literature/MrPoppersPenguins''; of course there ''is'' a good reason for this happening

* Jez Alborough's delightful children's picture book ''Cuddly Dudley'' may not have any Polar Bears but it does manage to include an Eskimo -- and even ''trees'' -- in tne story of the titular penguin, who is just too cuddly for his own goon.

* The first ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'' plays this to the hilt. Then again, [[MisplacedWildlife about half the wildlife is misplaced]] anyway due to the RuleOfFun, so it's not quite as noticeable. ''Endless Ocean Blue World'' averts the trope as part of getting to see marine life in more reasonable locations, and even acknowledges the difference between diving in a frozen sea and next to a frozen continent.

* Tyler Martin's ''[[http://wallyandosborne.com/ Wally and Osborne]]'' (originally titled ''On the Rocks'') deliberately plays with this trope by placing Wally the polar bear in Antarctica, where he forms a Laurel and Hardy style partnership with Osborne the penguin. How Wally got to Antarctica or why is never explained, although Osborne once suggested that Wally might be (literally) bipolar.

* In the ChristmasSpecial ''Santa Claus Is Coming To Town'', the young Kris Kringle literally runs into a penguin who is lost trying to find the South Pole. Kringle makes a point of noting that ''that'' pole is on the opposite end of the planet and "you're about as lost as you can get."

* In one episode in ''LupinTheThird'', Lupin tries to bring polar bears to the South Pole and the penguins to the North. Just to find some hidden treasure.

* In ''WorldOfWarcraft'', the northern continent of Northrend--setting of the ''Wrath of the Lich King'' expansion--has both polar bears as common beasts and a couple penguin colonies. However, this ''is'' a fantasy world and not Earth.

For the record, the North Pole is a frozen sea and the South Pole is an actual frozen continent, but that doesn't come up much either. If it did, we might [[FridgeLogic start wondering]][[hottip:*:[[AccidentalPun Heh, fridge...]] why Santa built his house not on a rock, but on a floating mass of ice.[[note]]The north magnetic pole however is mostly located in northern Canada however (it's been drifting back to the geographical north over time), which can be used as a handwave. Afterall when you send mail to Santa Claus, you send it to Canada, postal code [=H0H 0H0=].[[/note]]

For the record, the North Pole is a frozen sea and the South Pole is an actual frozen continent, but that doesn't come up much either. If it did, we might [[FridgeLogic start wondering]][[hottip:*:[[AccidentalPun Heh, fridge...]] why Santa built his house not on a rock, but on a floating mass of ice.[[note]]The north magnetic pole however is mostly located in northern Canada however (it's been drifting back to the geographical north over time), which can be used as a handwave. Afterall when you send mail to Santa Claus, you send it to Canada, postal code H0H 0H0.[[/note]]

For the record, the North Pole is a frozen sea and the South Pole is an actual frozen continent, but that doesn't come up much either. If it did, we might [[FridgeLogic start wondering]][[hottip:*:[[AccidentalPun Heh, fridge...]] why Santa built his house not on a rock, but on a floating mass of ice.

* On an expedition to the North Pole, the great BrianBlessed refused to carry a gun. He scared away a polar bear that tried to get into his tent by shouting '''VERY LOUDLY''' into its face. The bear turned and ran.

!!Examples

* ''Film/{{Elf}}'', which portrays the North Pole as a magical land populated by clay-animation creatures and talking snowmen, supposedly would be able to get away with this. Instead, it averts it brilliantly by having polar bears and ''puffins'' instead, which ''are'' arctic animals.

* Norway technically has both polar bears and penguins, though neither are on the Scandinavian peninsula (which is what most people think of when they mention Norway). There are polar bears on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard Svalbard]], and penguins in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dronning_Mauds_Land#Fauna_and_flora Queen Maud Land]], a dependent territory of Norway.

* WalterLantz's cartoon penguin ChillyWilly is often paired up with a polar bear.

** Considering how beloved a story ''SwissFamilyRobinson'' is, I think we can chalk this one up to BellisariosMaxim.
* There's a book about Santa Claus which actually subverts this -- Santa's workshop has a penguin population nearby, but they're noted as emigrating from the South Pole somehow (maybe stowing away at Santa's vacation spot). This particular breed has developed [[HappyFeet a bowtie-like spot on their chests]].

* TruthInTelevision: The word "penguin" originally designated a fish-eating, flightless, black and white dweller of the Northern Hemisphere: The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Auk Great Auk]]. It's been extinct since around 1850, though.

* An infamous French cartoon from around 1908 commented on the controversy over whether explorer Robert Peary had truly been the first man to reach the North Pole. He is shown surrounded by penguins.
* A Soviet artist once drew a caricature about [[DwightDEisenhower Eisenhower]] looking all over the Arctic for the [[RedScare Communist threat]]. Everyone laughed at him for making the trope mistake ... until they learned JosefStalin approved of the picture.
* May or may not count, but many zoos have both polar bears and penguins.

* Albino bears of other varieties are far more commonly seen with penguins.
* Norway actually has both polar bears and penguins, though neither are on the Scandinavian peninsula (which is what most people think of when they mention Norway). There are polar bears on [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard Svalbard]], and penguins in [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dronning_Mauds_Land#Fauna_and_flora Queen Maud Land]], a dependent territory of Norway.

* ''MrPoppersPenguins''; of course there ''is'' a good reason for this happening

* In the Series/KenanAndKel episode "Natural Born Kenan", Kenan dreams about his "real" parents as snow people (Eskimos), they have a pet penguin which Kenan has to walk.

->-- '''Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds''', ''Supernaturally''

* A much-derided scene in ''Comicbook/{{AvengersVsX-Men}}'' showed Wolverine hiking through the snow of Antarctica wearing the skin of a polar bear he'd killed.

* ''{{Elf}}'', which portrays the North Pole as a magical land populated by clay-animation creatures and talking snowmen, supposedly would be able to get away with this. Instead, it averts it brilliantly by having polar bears and ''puffins'' instead, which ''are'' arctic animals.

--> [[YouWouldntLikeMeWhenImAngry "You wanna know how hard I can punch?"]]

* A Soviet artist once drew a caricature about [[DwightDEisenhower Eisenhower]] looking all over the Arctic for the [[RedScare Communist threat]]. Everyone laughed at him for making the trope mistake ... until they learned JosephStalin approved of the picture.

* It's not penguins and polar bears specifically, but there are certain animals that can be found both in the Arctic and Antarctic such as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_tern Arctic Tern]].

* Related: when Pittsburgh won a NationalHockeyLeague team, its owner was thinking some names. Once the owner's wife heard their arena was nicknamed "The Big Igloo", she suggested Penguins, and he thought it was a good name. Considering the Pittsburgh Penguins are one of the most successful teams ever since, it's easy to forgive igloos and penguins are in opposite hemisphere (the inuits live on the Northern hemisphere; not only Antarctica is unhabited except for the occasional research team, it's too cold for an ice-with-a-bonfire house to help).