More on Nat'l Penguin Awareness Day

Happy National Penguin Awareness Day!

January 20, 2010 |  

It's time once again to celebrate everyone's favorite holiday: National Penguin Awareness Day. (All right, so we didn't know this "holiday" existed until today, and we suspect you probably didn't, either. But we love to celebrate, and we love penguins, so what's not to love about this made-up penguin-related holiday?)

In honor of the humble flightless (or are they?) birds, we'll be taking some time out today to reflect on our favorite penguins past and present.  Among them: Nils Olav, a king penguin resident of the Edinburgh Zoo who's an honorary member of the Norwegian King's Guard and received Norwegian knighthood in 2008; Lala, the king penguin who goes shopping for his family at a Japanese fish market, all the while wearing a tiny penguin-shaped backpack; and the talented cartoon penguins who dance right along with Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins." When we're done with all that reminiscing, of course we'll have to watch "March of the Penguins."

But we'll have to make sure not to wear ourselves out with all of this penguin-related tomfoolery; after all, we have to conserve our strength for Squirrel Appreciation Day tomorrow!
-- Lindsay Barnett
Photo: A penguin swims at the Epson Shinagawa Aqua Stadium in Tokyo.  Credit: Toshifumi Kitamura / AFP/Getty Images

Source