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Hubie
Voiced by: Martin Short
The main character, who finds the titular pebble, before Drake threw him out to sea. He is on a journey to get back to Marina and face Drake- Combat Pragmatist: Having been physically overpowered in a headbutt charge from Drake, the only way for him to defeat Drake and save Marina was to fight dirty. He even bite's Drake in the leg to make him let go of Marina.
- Determinator: Once he grows some serious backbone from being trained by Rocko in how to fight, Hubie utterly refuses to give up in his final confrontation against Drake. And even before then, he proves willing to do whatever it takes to make it back to Antarctica in time for the full moon ceremony to prevent Drake from taking Marina for himself.
- Hell Is That Noise: Gives off a funny strangled squawk when Rocko strangles Hubie for lying to him. This causes Rocko to laugh, and let him go.
- Meaningful Name: Consider the following - "hubby" is a diminutive for "husband".
- Mineral MacGuffin: The titular pebble looks more like a dodecahedron shaped emerald than an ordinary pebble, and it is what Hubie hopes to use as an engagement pebble for asking Marina to be his mate.
- Nice Guy: Hubie is a kind, lovable sweetheart, hence Marina's preference for him over Drake.
- Sarcasm Mode: He briefly goes into this when Rocko describes just how nasty the killer whales are compared to the leopard seal when he finally sees one.
- Speech Impediment: Hubie has a stutter. It's portrayed rather realistically, becoming more pronounced he's nervous or self-conscious and disappearing when he sings.
- Took a Level in Badass: Hubie, who at the start of the movie is afraid of leopard seals, can easily defeat one later on.
- Toothy Bird: All of the penguins have eerily humanlike prominent teeth, and Hubie uses these chompers to bite Drake in the leg, making it hurt enough that Drake lets Marina go.
- Weak, but Skilled: He uses the fighting skills he picked up from Rocko to fight off Drake. Unfortunately he cannot take on Drake in a straight up fight, so he has to resort to wearing him down, getting good shots.
Rocko
Voiced by: James Belushi
A rockhopper penguin who helps Hubie escape from the ship, Misery.
- A Lizard Named "Liz": He's a Rockhopper Penguin and his name is Rocko.
- Berserk Button: Lying to him will get him to try to kill you, though somewhat played for laughs.
- Call of the Wild Blue Yonder: Rocko wishes to fly. At the end of the film, in a way that is both incredibly cliché and against all laws of physics and biology, he achieves it. Still, despite its illogical nature, it's kind of touching, even if it would have been equally touching for him to realize he doesn't need to fly to be happy when he's got such a great friend in Hubie.
- Flying Flightless Bird: On his introduction, Rocko tells Hubie that his wish in life is to fly, despite the fact that he is a penguin. Near the end of the film, he actually does and teaches other penguins how to fly.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Notably Rocko. He is grumpy, hot-tempered, and occasionally rude but he is good-hearted and cares deeply about Hubie.
- The Lancer: Reluctantly fills this role for Hubie, teaching him how to fight, and bailing him out of trouble once Hubie helps him escape.
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Is the smallest adult penguin in the film, but he is capable of overpowering sailors, and nearly chokes the much larger Hubie to death for lying to him.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: He has some intimidating red eyes, even more than the main villain Drake, and is a very tough little penguin that you do not want to piss off. He is a heroic example however.
- Tsundere: Rocko is a platonic version towards Hubie. He actually likes him, but is too proud to admit it until the very end of "Looks Like I've Got Me A Friend."
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: The brave penguin is absolutely terrified of Killer Whales, with very good reason, as they are the apex predator of the entire ocean.
Marina
Voiced by: Annie Golden
The love interest for Hubie. When she and Hubie meets for the first time, she does hold out for him, even against the main villain, Drake.- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted with Marina, who very clearly prefers Hubie. However, in one scene, when Drake rises out of the water in view of Marina and some female penguins she's with, all the female penguins sans Marina swoon.
- Badass Adorable: She firmly stands up against Drake, even when he starts threatening her, without fear or hesitation.
- Death Glare: She gives a defiant glare to Drake when he threatens to beat her and feed her and her boyfriend to sharks.
- Determinator: Resists Drake at every opportunity he gets. It gets to the point where he outright kidnaps her and drags her to his lair.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Marina has noticeable breasts despite being a bird.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Marina returns Hubie's feelings for her, and isn't interested in Drake whatsoever.
Drake
Voiced by: Tim Curry
A massive, muscular penguin who wants Marina to be his mate, and kicks off the plot by tossing his only obstacle, Hubie, off a cliff. As the film goes on, he reveals more of his abusive personality, until he eventually goes after Marina himself.- And Now You Must Marry Me: Drake's motive for the movie is to make Marina marry him, whether she wants to or not.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Implied as he orders around and abuses Skuas, who are normally a penguin's predator. He also puts up a much better fight on land than the leopard seal.
- Berserk Button: Laughter, or apparently others laughing is one of the things that ticks him off.
- Big Bad: The main villain of the film, who kickstarts the plot by throwing Hubie off. Hubie must come back to face Drake to save Marina.
- David vs. Goliath: The final battle of the film involves the comparatively weak and flabby Hubie against the taller, stronger, and ridiculously more muscular Drake.
- Disney Villain Death: Subverted, while Hubie does send Drake falling a good ways, he turns out to still be alive and comes back for one last attack. Which causes his lair to collapse and kill him.
- Domestic Abuse: Drake reeks of this in all his interactions with Marina, especially during his Villain Song, which is peppered with threats of physical violence whilst also demanding her hand in marriage.Drake: Don't make me laugh so hard that you begin to ache!
- Evil Is Bigger: By far the biggest penguin in the film, with humongous muscles. He is even larger than some penguin predators like the Skuas.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Drake gets squashed by a falling rock. If you freeze-frame, you can see his cape and some of his crushed body still sticking to the rock as it rolls away.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Even the slightest form of resistance or rejection is enough to set his mood from smarmy jock, to a more ferocious and murderous rage. He angrily tries to kill Hubie when the smaller penguin won't give up the pebble. He initially tried to swoon Marina, but her rejections lead him to threaten her and eventually kidnap her.
- The Hyena: Simply can't resist the urge to give off an evil chortle at every turn. Ironic as he sings the song number, "Don't make me laugh," and mentions he's no hyena.
- If I Can't Have You…: Drake's Villain Song includes him threatening to have Marina killed along with Hubie if she doesn't marry him.
- Jerk Jock: Drake. In fact, his characterization can be summed up as "Gaston as a penguin... but a bit more competent and vicious". He gets nastier if he gets denied of what he wants.
- Large Ham: Drake is not at all subtle in his dialogue or actions, and is unashamedly open and over the top in his behavior. One gets the feeling that Tim Curry was having a lot of fun with the role
- Made of Iron: His muscles makes him really hard to hurt. Hubie kicking him in the face at first, knocking him down the steps only made him laugh it off. And he survived his first balcony fall, seemingly uninjured. It takes his entire fortress collapsing, and a very large rock, to squish him, and even then, it might not have killed him immediately as he screams even when he falls with the rock.
- Mood-Swinger: Drake can go from a smarmy jock, to a far more vicious and angry monster in a second, and easily switches back to a proud, narcissistic penguin.
- Muscles Are Meaningful: He is by far the most jacked up penguin in the film, and it is not just for show. He effortlessly plows through Hubie, and can destroy bigger rocks than him with his massive arms.
- Not Quite Dead: After Drake falls from a spiral staircase in what appears to be a Disney Villain Death, he later appears prepared to throw a huge boulder at the heroes. He's quickly pancaked by his tower coming down on top of him.
- Ominous Opera Cape: Drake is the bad guy and wears a long red cape. Visible in the image.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: As he gets more enraged, his American accent vanishes, revealing more of a vicious monster.
- Supervillain Lair: He has a huge mountain tower with some resemblance to him, with a balcony shaped like a grimacing skeletor face.
- Toothy Bird: Drake could probably bite through a coconut with his ridiculous looking chompers. All of the penguins have eerily humanlike prominent teeth, but Drake's the toothiest of them all.
- Top-Heavy Guy: Drake has some truly impressive man tits and arms, but his legs are ridiculously tiny.
- Unskilled, but Strong: He is strong enough that he puts up a better fight than the last leopard seal, being more adept on land, but the most he does is try to body slam Hubie. He is strong enough to crush rocks with his fists, and tear a huge chunk of floor underneath Marina, but accidentally destroys his fortress in the process, killing him.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: He is a much more personal threat to the heroes than the obstacles Hubie faces, and underneath his smarmy jock personality, lies an abusive, murderous, and unhinged monster of a penguin. He stops being hammy and funny once he gets really angry.
- Villainous Breakdown: Drake has a one after Hubie bites him, as he is no longer laughing. He gets even worse after Hubie kicks his ass. He re-emerges and tries to kill everyone with a giant rock... which accidentally destroys his lair
- Villainous Crush: Drake has a massive one on Marina. His goal is to marry her, even though his feelings are completely unrequited. He's willing to threaten to kill her and Hubie if she doesn't comply.
Drake's Penguins
A trio of penguins who follows Drake around, assisting him in various ways.
- Dirty Coward: They are not particularly helpful minions, and are nowhere to be seen in Drake's lair. It wouldn't be surprising that they ran off then.
- Sycophantic Servant: They spend most of their time, holding up Drake's mirror, and laughing on cue in support of Drake's dance and song number.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The three penguins who appeared with Drake in every other scene are nowhere to be seen during the final battle.
Leopard Seal
A large, vicious predator of penguins. There are several instances where various leopard seals attempt to eat Hubie. The first time, Hubie narrowly escaping the predator after a chunk of ice gets lodged in its mouth. Later, Hubie and his friend Rocko end up waking up another seal and again, narrowly escaping with their lives. There's one final encounter the duo with a leopard seal atop a submarine, only this time, Hubie has mastered martial arts from Rocko, allowing him to fight back.
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Has really unnerving grins when trying to eat Hubie, looking rather catlike with the teeth and large whiskers. They are Leopard seals after all.
- The Dreaded: All of the penguins are afraid of going into the water, where this monster feeds on them.
- Dumb Muscle: As large and as vicious as the leopard seal is, it really isn't that bright, being surprisingly incompetent at catching Hubie, and only chomping down on ice blocks. Downplayed for the seal that just woke up from its sleep, as it is not in the right state of mind, however the seal on the submarine was taken down by Hubie, as a punching bag.
- Graceful in Their Element: The penguins are generally good swimmers, but the leopard seals are incredibly fast swimmers, posing a massive threat to the penguins on the water, and on the surface. The penguins don't dare jump in the water when they suspect a leopard seal is lurking by. Outside the water, like on a submarine, they are rather clumsy.
- Monstrous Seal: The page image no less. A huge, vicious Leopard seal, that wants to eat cute penguins like Hubie. The penguins are comparable in size to people, with Rocko giving the shipmates trouble, highlighting just how these seals look like abnormally large freaks of nature. They are strong enough to break through ice, and pretty darn fast in the water, but slow and lumbering outside.
- Predators Are Mean: Rocko thinks they are mean enough. One looking at the pebble that slipped out of Hubie's hand takes its sweet time, waiting for Hubie to grab it, before slowly trying to eat Hubie.
- Starter Villain: It is one of the earliest threats Hubie has to evade throughout the film.
- Villain Decay: It starts off as a massive, frightening, and vicious predator. Hubie barely escapes from being eaten. Later on, with Rocko, they escape the seal, even when it has them in it's mouth, though Rocko calls Hubie crazy for seeking the pebble with that thing's presence. Eventually, Rocko teaches Hubie some fighting skills, and uses the leopard seal on a submarine as a training dummy.
Sailors
- Humans Are Bastards: The narrator calls humans a greater threat to the penguins than the leopard seals. They do capture and lock up penguins rather than hunt and eat them.
- Informed Attribute: Slightly downplayed in that they are the least threatning obstacles to Hubie and Rocko.
- Violent Glaswegian: One of the rough sailors has a glasgow accent, and manhandles Rocko, and mocks the rockhopper.
Skuas
A pair of Skuas enlisted by Drake to hunt down Hubie. However, they don't appear anywhere else in the film.
- Vile Vulture: Well, vile stylized skuas or giant petrels, but Drake keeps about carnivorous seabirds that very much look and behave the part.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: They only appear in one scene, where Drake orders them to find Hubie and kill him. They never show up again at any other point in the film.
- Drake yells at them for laughing too much (even though he’s also laughing), and then they fly off. They might have abandoned him for good because he yelled at them, rather than following his orders to track down Hubie.
Killer Whales
The final antagonists in the film. Three orcas encounter the two penguins, and try to kill them. Notably they are the only predators that Rocko fears.
- Climax Boss: The final obstacle for Hubie and Rocko before challenging Drake. They are by far the scariest and most dangerous obstacles for the two penguins, with the skies turning red when they show up. While Hubie survives the encounter, they do succeed in separating Hubie from the titular pebble for good, and Rocko.
- Creepy High-Pitched Voice: Their orca cries are practically identical to Free Willy's cries, but they are anything but friendly.
- Death Glare: The orca that chases after Hubie specifically gives a terrifying leer at the penguin, and looks perpetually angry throughout the whole encounter when he barely missed chomping Hubie. The sheer malice in their eyes makes them look villainous.
- Devious Dolphins: The orcas are portrayed as extremely dangerous, monstrous predators. One in particular has it out for Hubie.
- The Dreaded: Rocko is able to stand up to humans, and even a leopard seal at one point, and teaches Hubie to fight back Drake, and proves to be unafraid of anything EXCEPT Killer Whales. When these guys show up, Rocko's fear is completely justified.
- Evil Is Bigger: Twice as big as a leopard seal, and twice as mean. When one of them leaps after Hubie, the colossal scale between Hubie and one particularly aggressive orca is highlighted. In real life, they are one of the few animals that do kill and play with their prey for fun, rather than food.
- Genius Bruiser: In addition to being the largest predators seen in the film, they are intelligent enough to gang up and sneak on the penguins, coordinating their attacks. They are orcas after all. One in particular doesn't let Rocko distract him, and guns straight for Hubie.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Drake may be the main antagonist of the film, but they ultimately turn out to be the biggest threats in the movie. Most of the film is spent traveling and Rocko teaching Hubie how to fight back, but the Killer Whales that show up demonstrate how terrifying they were built up to be, and Hubie never even attempts to fight them for too long, unlike the Leopard Seal, and barely escapes them. Considering how Killer Whales are in real life, they are the most dangerous threats to Hubie and Rocko ever.
- Hero Killer: Fittingly for Killer Whales, they pose the largest threat to Hubie and Rocko, coming the closest to killing Hubie, and may have even killed Rocko. Rocko survives the encounter.
- In a Single Bound: Similar in some respects to Sharptooth, they can breach really high into the air, and sustain their airtime pretty well, despite being gigantic orcas.
- The Juggernaut: Being 'Twice as big, and twice as fast, and twice as mean' as the rather large, terrifying leopard seal, the Killer Whales prove to be unstoppable threats by plowing through ice floes, and a freaking harpoon. When Rocko tries to distract the orcas by tackling it, the much smaller penguin bounces off them.
- Lightning Bruiser: Being twice as fast as a leopard seal, they cruise at frightening speeds, and breach really high. Notably the penguins can't outswim them, so Rocko has to risk his life to distract them head on. Even then, Hubie barely escapes literally by the skin of the orca's teeth when one Orca decides Hubie has to die.
- Tranquil Fury: One particular Orca looks outright murderous when hunting Hubie, possibly triggered by Hubie pointing a harpoon in it's direction.
- Nightmare Face: The orca's last lunge attack on Hubie has a close up on its wide mouth open, eyes flaring with rage.
- Nonstandard Character Design: They are the least cartoony of the characters, looking and behaving like realistic orcas most of the time, apart from their malicious eyes. This helps them stand out from other obstacles, making them look much more terrifying.
- Non-Malicious Monster: Averted. Rocko notes they are twice as mean as Leopard seals, the ones seen are already pretty sadistic predators. The orca chasing after Hubie is particularly angry, and Hubie can see in its eyes the sheer malice.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: They do not play around with their target prey, compared to the Leapord Seal, and will gang up on tiny penguins, despite being large, fast, and powerful enough to plow through a harpoon. It is only with quick reflexes and a sacrificial distraction from Rocko, that Hubie got out alive from that encounter.
- Predators Are Mean: Twice as mean as leopard seals according to Rocko. Being quite nasty in real life is an understatment, and one in particular seems to have it out for Hubie.
- Red Sky, Take Warning: When they show up in the climax, the very sky, even underwater, turns an ominous blood red color.
- Stealthy Colossus: Enormous predators that are more than capable of sneaking up on the two penguins. Hubie and Rocko are often caught off guard by their sudden lunge attacks out of nowhere.
- Super-Persistent Predator: All of them are the top predators of the ocean. In particular, the Orca going after Hubie seems very intent on killing him and eating him.
- Tail Slap: One of their coordinated attacks was to slam their massive tail fluke at the penguins, to crush them.
- Unstoppable Rage: Subtly implied by the orca that chases after Hubie, as soon as it spots Hubie aiming a harpoon at him, he goes all out in trying to kill Hubie specifically, glaring at him all the way, and obliterating the weapon.
- Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: In a different flavor than Drake. While Drake is rather intimidating, with hints of domestic abuse and a more feral nature, he is rather enjoyable, with Tim Curry being over the top with his evil, and ends up handled relatively easily once Hubie gets his bearings. The Killer Whales on the other hand, are portrayed as ferocious, highly intelligent, and completely unstoppable threats far more deadly than any other obstacle encountered. Hubie outright abandons the pebble that he would risk his neck for against a Leopard Seal, just to barely escape from being eaten after one plows through a harpoon. These antagonists are also the only ones to truly terrify Rocko.
- Vocal Dissonance: Their soft squeals really don't change the fact that they are massive, terrifying, and ruthless predators.
- Wolfpack Boss: Rocko notes with terror that the worst part is killer whales always travel in groups. This is proven true, as there always seems to be two orcas chasing after the heroes, and all three pursue and hunt the penguins.
- Yellow Eyes of Sneakiness: Hubie can see the sheer malice in their yellow eyes, and they are very stealthy hunters too.
