History Main / PolarBearsAndPenguins

* The fact that penguins and polar bears aren't found in the same place provides the vital clue in one Literature/EncyclopediaBrown mystery. It was later used to spoof Encyclopedia Brown in this [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/idaville-detective-encyclopedia-brown-found-dead-i,753/ article]] of ''Website/TheOnion''.

* You can find Cubchoo and Beartic, the polar bear Pokémon, and Piplup, the penguin Pokémon, together in the Shivering Snowfields area of ''VideoGame/NewPokemonSnap''

* In one issue of the [[Creator/DCComics DC]] ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' comic, Wile E. Coyote gets blasted to the South Pole and starts chasing the little top-hatted penguin.[[note]]Said penguin first appeared in the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon "Frigid Hare."[[/note]] One of the coyote's misfired schemes results in him being attacked by a polar bear, which he protests (via sign of course) due to this very trope. It turns out the bear was on vacation.
* ''ComicBook/TheTransformers'': In the UK exclusive "Earthforce" continuity, many establishing shots of the Autobot base have polar bears, because Simon Furman really likes polar bears. This might also explain why, in IDW's Beast Wars comics, Polar Claw gets a memorable introduction.

[[folder:Fanfiction]]
* In ''Creator/PeterChimaera'''s [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing Final Battle]], Zechs [[RougeAnglesOfSatin ''Detonatationed'']] his Gundam and blew up the North Pole, and "Heero was mad at all the penguins die". Considering [[TrollFic who wrote it]], though, this was probably intentional.

* Polar bears and penguins appear in the Tundra area of the Tree of Life during Season Three of ''WesternAnimation/TheLionGuard''.

[[caption-width-right:300:He just wants to wake him up so [[WhatAnIdiot he can]] [[TooDumbToLive ask for directions.]]]]

* The ''AudioPlay/BigFinishDoctorWho'', ''The Skies of New Earth'' has Solar Bears and Sky Penguins living together on the ice clouds of New Earth''.

[[caption-width-right:300:He just wants to wake him up so he can ask for directions.]]

In {{Christmas Special}}s, children's cartoons and comics, there will literally be a South or North Pole that [[IncrediblyLamePun looks just like the striped poles outside barbers' shops]][[note]]Actually, a short walk from the real South Pole is a "ceremonial" South Pole that really does look like a barber's pole[[/note]]. ChristmasElves, reindeer and SantaClaus will no doubt be somewhere nearby, at least in the case of the ''North'' Pole. In these cases, the cannibalism rule can be waived, although, in a comedy, the word "venison" is a guarantee.

Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease [[note]]While the extinct Great Auk, another flightless black-and-white seabird, ''did'' live in the arctic, it was not related to penguins, and therefore does not count as a real-life example of this trope. [[/note]]

* Subverted in the German kid’s film ''The Little Polar Bear''. There is a penguin in the North Pole, but none of the animals recognize him or know what species he is, with the implication being that he’s from the South Pole and ended up north somehow.

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

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* The board game ''Polar Dare'', where the object is to move your three penguins across a river of ice floes to the North Pole and keep them from getting sent back to the starting point by the polar bear.
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* One Geico commercial shows realistic Antarctic explorers reaching the South Pole, only to find that Dora the Explorer had beaten them to it. In a double subversion, she's accompanied by penguins which are in the correct polar region, yet ''still'' out of place because they're hundreds of miles from the seacoast and any source of food.[[note]]The only non-microscopic animal that has ever been sighted at the South Pole that wasn't a human, or brought there by humans, is the skua, a far-ranging bird related to the seagull.[[/note]]
** Actually, the penguin species shown is the African penguin. Pretty far from Antarctica and wouldn't be able to survive there even if they were near a coast.

* In one episode of the ''Anime/LupinIIIRedJacket'' series, Lupin tries to bring polar bears to the South Pole and the penguins to the North. Just to find some hidden treasure.

Justified in Roleplay/EmbersInTheDusk, since it's another planet. The penguins are high level psykers, the bears are [[AntiMagic blanks]].

'''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease''' [[note]]While the extinct Great Auk, another flightless black-and-white seabird, ''did'' live in the arctic, it was not related to penguins, and therefore does not count as a real-life example of this trope. [[/note]]

* Some emperor penguins turn up on an ice floe in the ''Arctic'' Ocean in the second ''VideoGame/{{Syberia}}'' game. [[spoiler: Granted, this happens in a game where [[SpeciesLostAndFound woolly mammoths]] turn out to be alive, so a mere case of MisplacedWildlife seems minor by comparison.]]

'''Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease'''

%%NOTE: "Real Life" folder was deleted purposely, all were general examples filled with natter and trivia. Please DO NOT reinstate this folder.

[[/folder]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* 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. Penguin comes form the Welsh "''pen gwyn''", or "white head". There have been at least two serious attempts to introduce penguins into the Northern Hemisphere to fill the biological niche left by the great auk.[[note]]One in 1936 by the Norwegian Nature Protection Society and another in 1938 by the National Federation for the Protection of Nature.[[/note]] Both failed miserably, mainly due to the penguins being killed through contact (hunting, fishing etc.) with the local human populace -- pretty much why the great auk became extinct in the first place and why penguins are increasingly at risk in the Southern Hemisphere.
** While the great auk is extinct, however, there are more species of auks surviving to this day, many not even endangered, some look enough like the great auk that someone who has never encountered one may mistake it for a penguin. Most notably the lesser auk, the little auk, and the puffin.
* While polar bears themselves are absent from the southern hemisphere, some other Arctic species have been introduced there. One notable case is the reindeer, which occurs now in sub-Antarctic islands, and they can be [[http://ibc.lynxeds.com/video/king-penguin-aptenodytes-patagonicus/colony-reindeers seen next to penguin colonies.]]
* 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.]]
* 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 the Arctic islands of [[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 in Antarctica.
** The Norwegian military's domestically-produced anti-ship missile is known as "the Penguin", possibly in reference to the presence of Great Auks (''Pinguinus impennis'') in Norway prior to their extinction.
** The mascot and Colonel-in-Chief of the [[BritishRoyalGuards Norwegian Royal Guard]] is a King Penguin named Sir Nils Olav. He lives in the Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland.
* Related: when UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}} won a UsefulNotes/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 in the Northern hemisphere; not only is Antarctica uninhabited except for the occasional research team, but it's too cold for an ice-with-a-bonfire house to help).
* Penguins (at least in Antarctica) have no land predators and therefore don't fear land animals and move very slowly and awkwardly on land. If polar bears and penguins were ever in the same place, [[DeconstructedTrope it wouldn't stay that way for very long]].
* Creationists have been known to ask why, if evolution is real, penguins have not evolved a way to defend themselves from polar bears.
* There are penguins in Patagonia. Until the late Pleistocene, there were also bears and wolves there, though not of the same species (or genera) as in the northern hemisphere. One species of wolf survived in the Falklands, feeding solely on penguins, until it was exterminated by British settlers in the 19th century.
** In Southern Africa during prehistory, it was possible that the bear, Agriotherium co-existed with penguin species.
* Penguin biscuits are a popular British chocolate biscuit, and they come individually wrapped. Hence a popular joke in Britain is that the real reason why polar bears never eat penguins is that they can't get the wrappers off.
* The most northerly species of penguin is the Galápagos penguin, which is found on all the main islands of the archipelago. The two most northerly islands in the group lie just north of the equator. In other words wild penguins really are found in the northern hemisphere, but only just. Of course, by living on the equator, they completely defy this trope in the sense of living somewhere hot and sunny.
* While this doesn't occur in nature, you are likely to see both polar bears and penguins at a major zoo (although not in the same exhibit, for obvious reasons).

* In ''Creator/PeterChimaera'''s [[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing Final Battle]], Zechs [[RougeAnglesOfSatin ''Detonatationed'']] his Gundam and blew up the North Pole, and "Heero was mad at all the penguins die". Considering [[TrollFic Who wrote it]], though, this was probably intentional.

* In ''Film/{{Zombieland}}'', Tallahassee compares the rumors of which region of America is still zombie-free to penguins in the North Pole thinking that the South Pole would be warmer. Columbus immediately calls him out on his CriticalResearchFailure. His response?

* Creator/DingoPictures' [[TheMockbuster version of ''Balto'']] features not only a polar bear, but also penguins in Alaska.

* Wonderfully averted in ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeet''. Despite being a movie about adorable dancing emperor penguins, not a single polar bear can be seen.

* The Muppet ChristmasSpecial ''Film/AMuppetsChristmasLettersToSanta'' plays with the trope. At the airport, Kermit, Gonzo, and Pepe discover that they can get to the North Pole via North Pole Airline, and wonder who exactly would want to fly to the North Pole. The question is immediately answered by a pair of penguins, who enter the scene loudly declaring to each other that they can't wait to visit the North Pole because they're sick of the South Pole, and maybe they'll see some polar bears.

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* ''Manga/KOn'': While enduring an extreme summer heat, Yui and Ritsu have an ImagineSpot about being in an arctic environment which includes a penguin, a polar bear ''and'' [[MammothsMeanIceAge a woolly mammoth]].

* In one issue of the [[Creator/DCComics DC]] ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' comic, Wile E. Coyote gets blasted to the South Pole and starts chasing the little top-hatted penguin.[[note]]Who first appeared in the WesternAnimation/BugsBunny cartoon "Frigid Hare."[[/note]] One of the coyote's misfired schemes results in him being attacked by a polar bear, which he protests (via sign of course) due to this very trope. It turns out the bear was on vacation.

* In the ChristmasSpecial ''WesternAnimation/SantaClausIsCominToTown'', the young Kris Kringle 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."

* Creator/TerryPratchett makes a joke of this (like everything else) in Literature/{{Discworld}}, describing in ''Literature/ThiefOfTime'' a south-drifting iceberg populated by polar bears and seals, seeking a better life in the southern hemisphere where the ice floes are lined with crunchy penguins.[[note]] Even better because in the UK ''Penguins'' are a brand of crunchy biscuit.[[/note]] Too bad that darned ''Titanic'' was in the way....

* One of Margery Sharpe's ''Literature/TheRescuers'' books (not the Disney films) manages to invoke and invert this at the same time: The titular characters, while on a mission to Antarctica, do run into polar bears, who admit that this isn't their home, they are on an exchange program with the Arctic Ocean.

* The fact that penguins and polar bears aren't found in the same place provides the vital clue in one Literature/EncyclopediaBrown mystery. Which is used to spoof Encyclopedia Brown in this [[http://www.theonion.com/articles/idaville-detective-encyclopedia-brown-found-dead-i,753/ article]] of ''Website/TheOnion''.

* This trope is avoided in one of the Literature/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 [[labelnote:FridgeLogic]]though one does have to think where the penguin even ''was'' to have to go ''back'' to the South Pole anyway...[[/labelnote]] You take control of the penguin and guide him across the world and back to the South Pole in Frogger-style levels.

* On ''WesternAnimation/WildKratts'', the brothers debunk Jimmy's belief in this trope ... only to be called to the Arctic because penguins have been sighted there. Turns out Donita'd dumped them off at the wrong Pole after deciding they weren't good fashion accessories. Deconstructed as they find out the reason penguins don't live at the North Pole is because they are not built to deal with land predators like polar bears.

* 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. Penguin comes form the Welsh "''pen gwyn''", or "white head". There have been at least two serious attempts to introduce penguins into the Northern Hemisphere to fill the biological niche left by the great auk.[[note]]One in 1936 by the Norwegian Nature Protection Society and another in 1938 by the National Federation for the Protection of Nature.[[/note]] Both failed miserably, mainly due to the penguins being killed through contact (hunting, fishing etc) with the local human populace -- pretty much why the great auk became extinct in the first place and why penguins are increasingly at risk in the Southern Hemisphere.

* While polar bears themselves are absent from the southern hemisphere, some other Arctic species have been introduced there. One notable case is the reindeer, which occurs now in sub-antarctic islands, and they can be [[http://ibc.lynxeds.com/video/king-penguin-aptenodytes-patagonicus/colony-reindeers seen next to penguin colonies.]]

* Related: when UsefulNotes/{{Pittsburgh}} won a UsefulNotes/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 is Antarctica uninhabited except for the occasional research team, but it's too cold for an ice-with-a-bonfire house to help).

[[/folder]]

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