secluded confinement in addition to fruitlessly trying to communicate with the humans, he nearly succumbs to madness. When a girl attempts to interact with Mumble by tapping the glass, he starts dancing, which attracts a large crowd. He is released back into the wild, with a tracking device attached to his back. He returns to his colony and challenges the will of the elders. Memphis reconciles with him, just as a research team arrives in a helicopter, verifying Mumble's statements of "aliens" existing. The entire colony engages in dance in front of the research team, whose expedition footage prompts a worldwide debate, which eventually leads to the banning of all Antarctic overfishing, satisfying both the emperor penguins and the Amigos. Cast Elijah Wood as Mumble E. G. Daily as baby Mumble Robin Williams as Ramón, Cletus, Lovelace, and the narrator Brittany Murphy as Gloria Alyssa Shafer as baby Gloria Hugh Jackman as Memphis Nicole Kidman as Norma Jean Hugo Weaving as Noah the Elder Fat Joe as Seymour Cesar Flores as baby Seymour Anthony LaPaglia as Skua Boss Magda Szubanski as Miss Viola Miriam Margolyes as Mrs. Astrakhan Steve Irwin as Trev Carlos Alazraqui as Nestor Lombardo Boyar as Raul Jeffrey Garcia as Rinaldo Johnny Sanchez as Lombardo Roger Rose as Leopard Seal Production George Miller cites as an initial inspiration for the film an encounter with a grizzled old cameraman, whose father was Frank Hurley of the Shackleton expeditions, during the shooting of Mad Max 2: "We were sitting in this bar, having a milkshake, and he looked across at me and said, ‘Antarctica.’ He'd shot a documentary there. He said, ‘You’ve got to make a film in Antarctica. It’s just like out here, in the wasteland. It’s spectacular.’ And that always stuck in my head." Happy Feet was also partially inspired by earlier documentaries such as the BBC's Life in the Freezer. In 2001, during an otherwise non-sequitur meeting, Doug Mitchell impulsively presented Warner Bros., studio president Alan Horn with an early rough draft of the film's screenplay, and asked them to read it while he and Miller flew back to Australia. By the time they'd landed, Warner had decided to provide funding on the film. Production was slated to begin sometime after the completion of the fourth Mad Max film, Fury Road, but geo-political complications pushed Happy Feet to the forefront in early 2003. The animation is