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Mumble is the main protagonist in Happy Feet and the deuteragonist in its sequel, Happy Feet Two. He is Memphis and Norma Jean's son, Gloria's husband, Erik's father and Lovelace's best friend. He is voiced by Elijah Wood as an adult and E.G. Daily as a chick.
Mumble is an emperor penguin who can't sing. He can only Tap dance. He is known as tap dancer, and eventually becomes Gloria's husband.
At the graduation party, Mumble's friend Gloria sings for everyone, but when Mumble tries to join in, he gets chucked out. A leopard seal chases him far away to where the Adele Penguins live, where he befriends a misfit club call the Amigo's, who are led by Ramón. The Amigos can sing songs well, but they Lovestone's, instead of singing, which they fail at. Mumble encounters the humans, and the Amigos advise him to talk to Lovelace, a guru penguin. Lovelace has plastic rings from a six pack around his neck, which he claims the mystic beings gave to him. Mumble then returns home, but after embarrassing himself in front of Gloria leaves. Mumble tries to find the humans, but gets put in a zoo, where his tap dancing attracts world wide attention, when he is released into the wild, with the humans stopping over fishing. He then mates with Gloria and in Happy Feet Two, has a son named Erik.
Biography
Happy Feet
Mumble is first seen as an egg, which is handed off to his father, Memphis, by his mother, Norma Jean. During his incubation, he is dropped and briefly exposed to the environment's sub-zero temperatures, before being picked back up. This event may contribute to his different mannerisms later on in the film.
Memphis worries when his Egg does not hatch when the other penguins' do. A friend of Memphis, Maurice, comes by with his dsughter Gloria, to see what happened. Gloria spots the egg, taps on it and hears a response from inside. Two feet break from the egg and as they begin to walk off down a snow bank, Gloria playfully addresses the egg as "Mr. Mumble" thus naming him when he hatches.
Mumble is shown to be an excellent dancer from the moment he hatches, though everyone fails to see this and assume that there is something wrong with his feet. While Mumble attends to school, he is discovered to be lacking a Heartsong, which is said by his teacher, Miss Viola, to be very important for being a truly penguin. In fact, he has a terrible singing voice, which does not improve despite Miss Viola sending him to Mrs. Astrakhan, the best singing teacher. As a result, Mumble is teased, and Norma Jean, worries that he will never find a mate and spend his life alone. But Memphis objects, saying that their son will grow up to be normal after strengthening his "singing muscles".
Having his dancing being looked down upon, Mumble finds a place to dance where no one can see him. He is discovered by a group of hungry skuas that tries to eat him. Mumble manages to escape by distracting the skuas by asking what was the thing around their leader's leg. Their leader explains to Mumble (before he escapes) that he has been abducted by aliens (which was actually the humans). Intrigued by the thought of aliens and worlds beyond his own, Mumble becomes lost in his imagination instead of paying attention in school.
At the graduation party (after Mumble becomes adult), Mumble's friend and secret love interest Gloria sings "Somebody to Love" for everyone, but Mumble gets so caught up with the music, that he himself tries to sing. His out-of-tune singing, causes the other penguins to chuck him old.
The next day, Mumble is sleeping on an ice float, initially, he thought it was his colleagues, until he started being chased by a leopard seal. The leopard seal chases him, and he eventually ends up where the adélie penguins live. He them meets Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul. They taunted the leopard seal until he gave up and flopped away.
They also take interest at Mumble's dance, which makes them to immediately take a liking towards Mumble. They soon invites Mumble to meet their land, and they become fast and true friends of him. At their home, everyone was singing and dancing, and they use some of their newly learned tap dancing to impress some female penguins, to no avail. Mumble notices that some of the penguins there were carrying around rocks. He mistakenly assumed that the male penguin was going to eat it, until Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul explains him that it was a lovestone, for getting a mate.
Mumble, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul are walking and dancing when the piece of ice Mumble was dancing on breaks, and he fails down to a steep mountain. Nestor notes that Mumble is "so accidentally cool" and the five jumps after him. After sliding down the icy mountain, Mumble, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul fall into the ocean, where a piece of ice breaks off and releases a bull-dozer, which intrigues Mumble. Ramón advice him to talk to Lovelace, a "wise and all-knowing" rockhopper penguin. They later takes Mumble to meet Lovelace, then Mumble could have his answers. Lovelace has plastic rings from a six-pack-soda-can around his neck (which was said to be his "sacred talisman"), which he claims the mystic beings (which was actually the humans as well) gave to him. After asking many questions, and not having answered, Lovelace decides to stop answering questions for the day.
Mumble, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul head to Emperor Land where it is mating season. Mumble tries to impress Gloria, but he knows he can't sing, só Ramón hides behind Mumble and sings to Gloria. She doesn't fall for it and at first, rejects him, but when he dances to her heartsong, she ends up falling in love with him, and many other penguins dance with them. Unfortunately, Noah, the leader of the emperor penguins, see their antics and banishes Mumble for not changing his ways. Mumble accepts, but threads to return after he discover why the fishes were disappearing. Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul goes with him on his journey. They returns to Lovelace with Mumble now determined to find out information about the fish shortage and wants to speak to the aliens.
After finding Lovelace, they discovers that Lovelace is chooking because the thing around his neck is too tight. Lovelace confess that it was never gives by the mystic beings (nor anyone else either) and that it actually caught around his neck while he was swimming. However, Mumble offers to help Lovelace, and asks him to take them to the Forbiden Shore (where Lovelace found his "talisman"), and then they could find the aliens to discover what happened to fishes and how to take the thing out of Lovelace's neck. Mumble and Lovelace soon begins their journey, along with Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul.
Mumble, Lovelace, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul later discovers that Gloria has chased them, as she wanted to go with Mumble. However, Mumble did not wanted Gloria to go with him on his journey, as he knew it would be dangerous, and Gloria could that. In order to protect her, Mumble jokingly insults her singing voice in order to drive her away, and then she leaves to home. They also meet a land of elephant seals along their way, who warn them of the "aliens annihilators" (which was actually a boat or a ship the humans used to go fishing).
The next day, Mumble, Lovelace, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul arrive at the Forbiden Shore. There, they are attacked by orcas, and Lovelace gets his talisman off his neck in the proccess. They all manages to escape the orcas, and Mumble saves Lovelace's life during the proccess, which makes Lovelace begins to look up to Mumble as his savior and best friend.
Mumble, Lovelace, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul later finds fishing ships come to the Forbiden Shore and the penguins watch them plunder fish. Mumble follows the ship leaving the others behind. Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo and Raul backs to Emperor Land to tell Norma Jean about Mumble's heroic acts and that he is fine, while Lovelace (graceful towards Mumble for saving his life) decides to count everyone about Mumble's journey of heroism and search to find who he was. He eventually washes up on a beach and gets put into a zoo where's he surrounded by humans (which he still thought it was aliens) who can't understand what he is saying and his cries about the fish, that they were accidentally stealing from the penguins. After three months, a little girls communicates with Mumble by tapping on the aquarium glass and Mumble responds by dancing where his trap dancing attracts a worldwide attention. The humans decides to figure out where Mumble is from, and discover what he was trying to say. They then return Mumble to Emperor Land, where he reunites with Gloria, Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo, Raul and his parents, Memphis and Norma Jean. He convinces all the penguins (except Noah and the Elders) to dance for the humans so the human will give their fishes back. They starts training Mumble's dance, when the humans arrives in a helicopter. Soon all the penguins (even Noah and the Elders) dance for the humans, who take footage of them and the United Nations decide to protect the penguins' food supply.
In the end, all is well. Mumble gets married with Gloria and becomes a hero. All the emperor penguins dance with Mumble, alongside Ramón, Nestor, Lombardo, Rinaldo, Raul and Lovelace.
Gallery
Trivia
- Ironically, Mumble's VAs Elijah Wood and E.G. Daily are actually very talented singers.
- Originally when becoming an adult, Mumble was meant to have full plumage. However, late in production, it was decided for Mumble to keep some of his chick plumage to make him unique among the other adult penguins. Though some Happy Feet books feature Mumble with full adult plumage.
- Mumble is similar to Rudolph
- Both have a trait that the other members of their species don't have (Mumble dances instead of singing whilst Rudolph has a red nose).
- Both are treated as outcasts because of this trait.
- Both have a love interest, who don't treat them like an outcast (Gloria and Zoey).
- Both are eventually accepted by the other members of their species.