Madagascar / The Penguins Of Madagascar / All Hail King Julien Thread

Hi everyone, new troper here and this my ninth thread on This Very Wiki.

In the wake of recently launched new DLC for Planet Zoo (Barnyard Animal Pack), I decided to create thread that focuses on a certain series starring zoo animals as main characters. This series also happens to be my second favourite (next to Kung Fu Panda and Shrek) series made by Dreamworks. This series is... Madagascar!!! I wanted to create this thread for ages, especially after I created thread for Ice Age series, which is another animated series about animals from my childhood that I adore. In fact, I could had created this thread in March, immediately after creating thread for Ice Age, thanks to a certain troper who's been massively editing The Penguins of Madagascar YMMV page, which lead to me rewatching this amazing show and deciding that I should make thread for it, but I unfortunately didn't have time to do it. However, now (taking into account the release of the new DLC for Planet Zoo) I decided to pull myself together and complete this task, and here we have this thread where we can speak about everything related to the Madagascar series, whether these are the films that started it all, The Penguins Of Madagascar or All Hail King Julien.

And since we are speaking about Madagascar, you all probably know that when you think about this series, you have one particular song in mind... I like to move it, move it, I like to move it, move it, I like to move it, move it, Ya like to, Move it!!! Yeah, you probably saw that coming. And since I am Pole, and we Poles love this series (especially Penguins Of Madagascar), I add here Polish version of "I Like to Move It", because I think our Polish dub makes this song more awesome than the original English version.

Edited by Filip04 on May 15th 2024 at 2:34:27 PM

While "I like to move it, move it" is the Signature Song of the franchise, "Big and chunky" is almost as memorable, thanks to all the Moto Moto memes.

Considering you mentioned this song...

Our Polish language version always cracks me up (although English version is close)

Man the opening gag of 3 still gets to me.

Given that I created this thread, I will also start a first discussion on it.

Do you guys think that The Penguins of Madagascar is canon to the movies? Because here in Poland, most of the Madagascar fans believe that show is taking place after the Penguins solo film, but I don't know if fans from the other countries think the same.

There's no way the show can be in continuity with the films; as a kid before 3 released I did think this was what happened after the penguins left at the end of 2, that they just went back to the zoo and took the lemurs and chimps with them while the Zoosters stayed behind in Africa. I seemingly forgot that the lemurs also stayed in Africa at the end of the movie, and by the time 3 released and showed the penguins didn't go home I realized that it couldn't be canon. Makes sense; they were the first ones who wanted to leave the zoo. The show does mention that the events of the first movie happened in some form, and the lemurs are in Alex's old enclosure, so it's in a continuity where I guess everyone but the main four came back to the zoo.

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I personally think that the movies and show are indeed in the same continuity: the penguins may had realised that the circus life isn't for them and had returned to the zoo to help local animals. As for lemurs, the Zoosters and the circus animals may had send Julien to the zoo because he was annoying them with his ego. As for penguins leaving the zoo, I have the theory that the whole "escape into Antarctica because they don't fit in New York" was just the cover-up for the real reason why they're leaving the zoo: the beginning of first movie happened after penguins fight with Dr. Blowhole that we see in flashback at the beginning of the "Revenge of the Dr. Blowhole" and Skipper (being Properly Paranoid) concluded that Blowhole may find out where they live and decided that he and his team will hide from him in Antarctica until Skipper decides it is safe and they can return back to the zoo. Also, small correction: the lemurs don't live in Alex's old habitat, they live in what was originally bird cages that had been replaced with proper habitat for small animals. Look at the zoo layout in both movies and the show, and you will notice that Mason's and Phil's old cage was transformed into proper habitat for chimpanzees, similar to those that we see in real life zoos.

The creators outright said the series are their own thing and there's nothing wrong with that. And even A Little Wild (forgot the title didn't mention that) outright ignores the movie's continuity.

There are tropes about this phenomenon. Accept that fans sometimes don't care what the creators say.

Edited by Filip04 on May 19th 2024 at 2:06:31 PM

Skipper hallucinates Alex the Lion in one of the specials, so I assumed some version of Madagascar happened, even if it's not the one we see.

Remember, the show was conceived before the sequels (it premiered the same year as Back 2 Africa) so the writers are only working off the events of the first movie and the Christmas Caper short.

Just saying, it's a battle of frustration. Like I said the recent show outright contradicts everything the movie did.

I'm bringing here this question that I wrote on the second movie headscratchers page in hopes that someone will answer it.

• Why all zebras look and have the same voice like Marty? Does this mean they're no female zebras living in preserve? The concept arts show that other zebras all had individual personalities and there was even one female zebra. So why creators of the movie decided to make army of Marty's clones?

Rule of Funny. The joke required all other zebras to look, sound and act like Marty, and this is a franchise where comedy is more important than logic. But maybe there are female zebras and they also sound like Chris Rock?

When writing the previous post I considered wroting there that those female zebras you mentioned could be transgendered (due to looking like males and having a male voice). And when looking at it from the other perspective, this could make this come off as... rather ugly.

The driving theme of the second movie is that the Zoo Crew reunite with their respective species but find that it's not all it's cracked up to be. In Marty's case, all the other zebras are just like him, so he no longer feels special.