40 Fun Facts About Mr. Popper's Penguins

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which polar explorer answers a fan letter by sending Mr. Popper a live penguin?

Admiral Drake had promised a surprise, and it arrived from Antarctica in a box with air holes. The bird jumped out and set about inspecting the house.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what work does Mr. Popper do each year from spring until the end of September?

House painter is his trade, though a dreamy one: he once did a kitchen in two colors by mistake, and local housewives liked it so much they ordered the same.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, how many penguins share the Popper home once every egg has hatched?

All 12 penguins share the house: the original pair plus chicks from ten eggs, laid one every third day. Mr. Popper is astonished, since he knows penguins lay only two eggs a season.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, where does the explorer who bails Mr. Popper out of jail want to start a penguin colony?

The North Pole has no penguins, so the government has asked him to found a colony there. Mr. Popper agrees because touring in warm weather is making his birds ill.

Which comedy star plays Tom Popper in the 2011 film loosely based on Mr. Popper's Penguins?

Jim Carrey landed the lead after Ben Stiller, who considered it first, never fully committed. Owen Wilson and Jack Black were considered for the part too.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does an expert suspect is the real trouble with Mr. Popper's ailing first penguin?

Loneliness is his guess, because a female penguin in his own care is pining in just the same way. He sends her to the Poppers, and both birds soon recover.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, where does the first penguin sleep once a serviceman has drilled air holes in its door?

The icebox becomes a bedroom, and Mr. Popper spends his last five-dollar bill on a handle fitted inside the door so the bird can let itself out.

Which husband-and-wife writing team from Chicago created the children's classic Mr. Popper's Penguins?

Richard and Florence Atwater share the credit because she rewrote his draft after two publishers turned the original down. Her revised version was the one that sold.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Popper use as a leash when he first walks his penguin around town?

A clothesline borrowed from Mrs. Popper ties the bird to his wrist. He also dresses in black and white for the outing, so that man and penguin match.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what name does Mr. Popper give his first penguin, in honor of an English explorer?

Captain Cook honors James Cook, the navigator whose crews became the first Europeans on record to cross the Antarctic Circle, back in 1773.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what is the name of the second penguin, who arrives while the first lies gravely ill?

Greta moves in with the first penguin and both recover, but the pair look so alike that Mr. Popper has to mark each bird's name on its back.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which hometown has Mr. Popper never once left before the penguins arrive?

Stillwater is all he knows, yet he dreams of India, the South Seas and the polar ice, tracing explorers' routes on a small globe his children gave him.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, how does the faraway explorer reply to the admiring letter Mr. Popper sent him?

In a radio broadcast from Antarctica, picked up at home one September night, he thanks Mr. Popper by name and hints that a surprise is on its way.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which food does Mrs. Popper warn the children they will eat every day all winter?

Beans are the plan because Mr. Popper earns nothing between September and spring, so the savings have to stretch. Sunday roasts are off the menu too.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what kind of place, run by a curator, sends Mr. Popper his second penguin?

An aquarium has a female penguin wasting away just like Mr. Popper's bird, so its curator ships her to him. Mr. Popper had written there begging for advice.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which instrument does Mrs. Popper play with gloves on while the penguins rehearse?

The piano had been carried down to the freezing cellar, so her hands needed gloves. Each tune she plays is a cue that tells the birds which trick comes next.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what mistake by a sleepy Mr. Popper gets him arrested in New York?

Going to the wrong theater was an easy slip: after a night spent cooling the birds he asked for the Regal when the act was booked at the Royal, and the manager had him arrested.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which performing animals share a dressing room with the penguins at the Regal Theater?

Seals, six of them, were expected to make a meal of the penguins. Instead firemen found the birds parading around them, and put their helmets on the penguins' heads.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Klein offer the penguins that Mr. Popper turns down for their sake?

Hollywood movie roles would have made the Poppers rich, but Mr. Popper felt that life would not suit the birds. He did let Mr. Klein make one film of their stage tricks.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what are the names of the two Popper children, who go along on the stage tour?

Janie and Bill assure a visiting officer that the strange bird is simply the family pet. The 2011 film kept their names almost unchanged, as Janie and Billy.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Popper make by running a hose over the snow-covered floors of the house?

A skating rink forms once the water freezes, and the penguins toboggan down the snowdrifts onto the ice. The drifts had blown indoors during a November blizzard.

How does Mr. Popper's Penguins end for Mr. Popper himself, once the penguins' stage career is over?

He sails away with them, invited aboard at the last minute to care for the birds. From the gangplank he asks his wife whether she minds him being gone a year or two.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, a penguin drags Mr. Popper down three flights of stairs behind what kind of shop?

A barbershop is where the walk falls apart: the bird leans toward a customer's lathered face, the man bolts, and the pair are sent out the back way to the stairs.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, polar pictures cut from which magazine cover the walls of the Poppers' living room?

National Geographic photographs paper the room because Mr. Popper, who has never traveled, spends every free winter hour reading about the Arctic and Antarctic.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does Mr. Popper call the heap of household odds and ends his first penguin gathers?

A rookery, he explains, is a penguin's nesting ground. In Antarctica it would be built of stones, so the bird makes do with whatever it finds under the furniture.

Mr. Popper's Penguins was named an Honor Book, a runner-up, for which American children's literature prize?

The Newbery Medal itself went to Thimble Summer that year. Schoolchildren in the Pacific Northwest later voted the penguin story their Young Reader's Choice winner.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which theater owner signs the penguins for a ten-week tour of the country?

Mr. Greenbaum hires them on the spot after the birds rescue his show, filling in for a closing act that never turned up. The pay is $5,000 a week.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what is moved up to the living room when a freezing plant is fitted in the cellar?

The furnace goes upstairs so the cellar can stay icy all year, giving the birds a home that outlasts the winter. The engineer's bill then helps drain the family savings.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which performer's act do the penguins ruin in Minneapolis by hiding under her skirts?

An opera singer had refused to go on unless the penguins were shut away, but they slipped up another staircase into the orchestra pit and then onto the stage.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which composer's Military March do the penguins parade to like soldiers?

Franz Schubert wrote the Military March that opens the act. A flipper fight to the Merry Widow Waltz comes next, then a scramble up ladders and a toboggan slide back down.

A documentary on which explorer's Antarctic expedition, seen by its author in 1932, inspired Mr. Popper's Penguins?

Richard E. Byrd was the American naval officer who led the first flight over the South Pole in 1929. The author saw the film with his wife and daughters, and its penguins gave him the idea for the story.

Which illustrator of The Story of Ferdinand also drew the pictures for Mr. Popper's Penguins?

Robert Lawson later wrote and illustrated books of his own, among them Ben and Me, in which a mouse named Amos tells the life of Benjamin Franklin.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, on which street does the Popper family live, at number 432?

Proudfoot Avenue is the home Mrs. Popper would rather keep than be rich: when a film producer promises the family a fortune, she whispers that she wants to go back there.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, in which West Coast city do the penguins give the first show of their tour?

Seattle hosts the opening night on the Thursday after the contract is signed. The family buys new clothes for the trip, helped by a first week's salary paid in advance.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, what does the first penguin lay at Mr. Popper's feet as a thank-you once it is well again?

A checker, one of the game pieces from its nest, is the gift. The bird had built that nest from anything small and loose it could find around the house.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which bureau ends Mr. Popper's phone hunt for a permit to walk his penguin?

Automobile licenses were the last straw: passed from one clerk to another, Mr. Popper found he had been switched to the County Building and decided to hang up. Nobody could tell him the rule for a penguin.

In the 2011 film of Mr. Popper's Penguins, which Central Park restaurant is Tom Popper sent to buy?

Tavern on the Green belongs to Mrs. Van Gundy, played by Angela Lansbury, who will sell only to a person of true worth. Tom's penguin troubles keep spoiling their meetings.

Which director of Mean Girls and Freaky Friday made the 2011 film version of Mr. Popper's Penguins?

Mark Waters was chosen in June 2010, after Noah Baumbach had considered the job. Shooting ran from that October to January, mixing real penguins with computer-made ones.

In Mr. Popper's Penguins, which closing act fails to turn up, handing the penguins their first audience?

The Marvelous Marcos never arrived and the crowd wanted its money back, so the birds rehearsed in front of it instead. The manager then bought them all ice cream cones.

In the 2011 film of Mr. Popper's Penguins, whose will brings a crated penguin to Tom Popper's door?

His father's will leaves Tom a souvenir of a life spent traveling the world. The old adventurer had died on a trip to Antarctica, and the keepsake turns out to be alive.