(Scott) 'Happy Feet Two' (PG, 1 40) All dancing, all singing, all wisecracking, the animated penguins from down under (way under) return in George Miller's amiable sequel, which doesn't have much on its mind beyond jokes and understated beauty.
For example, directly addressing the audience would look very out of place in a sitcom, but turning their head and making an understated smile after a joke would not.
The show is made in a partly improvised, single-camera, no-laugh-track style that registers to an American viewer as HBO-Showtime, but the humor is closer to that of a standard family sitcom — except that the jokes are so understated and the performances so reserved (by our standards, anyway) that it can seem as if not much were going on.
Emma Chichester Clark's gloriously coloured illustrations and understated text play out the joke lightly, making No More Kissing! a refreshingly robust tale.
Cotter - up first - sat bolt upright and tried to remain expressionless, just occasionally letting his guard slip to crack a joke in the understated manner beloved of New Zealand rugby coaches.
All dancing, all singing, all wisecracking, the animated penguins from down under (way under) return in "Happy Feet Two," an amiable sequel with not much on its mind other than funny and creaky jokes, and waves of understated beauty.
His nickname — reportedly bestowed by wrestler Jesse Ventura — was a joking homage to his understated personality on camera.
Zuel felt that with this album, the band "have outgrown the jokes, predictions and their own understated teenage ambitions to find they have become (gasp!) career musicians".
His wit can be so dry and understated as to go undetected, as when he joked to an audience at last fall's Paris climate talks that greenhouse gas is the natural world's "turd in the punch bowl".
He has been able to smile and joke about his low average, though his ruminations seem to have become more understated of late.
