The Penguins of Madagascar

The Penguins of Madagascar
File:Penguin of Madagascar.jpg Title image with old Nickelodeon "splat" logo.
Genre	Animated comedy
Created by	Tom McGrath Eric Darnell
Directed by	Bret Haaland Nick Filippi
Starring	Tom McGrath Jeff Glen Bennett Danny Jacobs John DiMaggio James Patrick Stuart Kevin Michael Richardson Andy Richter Nicole Sullivan Conrad Vernon Mary Scheer Tara Strong
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	50 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers	Mark McCorkle Bob Schooley
Production locations	Nicktoons Network Burbank, California
Running time	11 minutes
Original release
Network	Nickelodeon
Release	November 29, 2008 (2008-11-29) – present

The Penguins of Madagascar is an American CGI animated television series airing on Nickelodeon, starring Tom McGrath, Jeff Glen Bennett, John DiMaggio, James Patrick Stuart, and Danny Jacobs. A pilot episode, Gone in a Flash, aired as part of Superstuffed Nicktoons Weekend on November 29, 2008 before a new episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, and The Penguins of Madagascar became a regular series on March 28, 2009. The series takes place after the events of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. Nickelodeon ordered 26 episodes for season 1 and in January 2009 ordered a second season of 26 episodes, bringing the total to 52. This is the first Nicktoon produced with DreamWorks Animation. The series premiere drew 6.1 million viewers.

Plot

The Penguins of Madagascar is a spin-off of the Madagascar films, which takes place after the second movie. The series follows the adventures of four penguins: Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico, who perform various paramilitary missions to protect their home in the Central Park Zoo. The penguins are constantly opposed by a trio of lemurs, Julien, Mort and Maurice, who believe that Julien is the rightful ruler of the zoo.

While it is not known how the penguins and lemurs arrived at the zoo after their adventures in both Madagascar films, the show's opening features the penguins opening a crate which reads “Madagascar” and contains the three lemur characters. DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg has stated that "there is at least one more chapter. We ultimately want to see the characters make it back to New York."

Characters

See also: List of characters in Madagascar

The Penguins of Madagascar features the four penguin characters from the Madagascar franchise, as well as the chimpanzees and the three lemurs. New to the series is Marlene, a female otter, and Alice, a zookeeper.

Penguins

• Skipper (voiced by Tom McGrath) is the leader of the penguins, who forms tactics and gives orders. He is usually cool-headed, calculating with exaggerated bravado. He usually views everything as some type of covert military operation. He is shown to have a secret fear of needles. He can't step foot in Denmark for unknown reasons. Sometimes in the series, we see Skipper have a coffee cup with a fish in it. He has a nemesis named Dr. Blowhole.
• Kowalski (voiced by Jeff Bennett) acts as the group strategist and gadgeteer. Kowalski is highly intelligent, but tends to over-analyze situations.
• Rico (voiced by John DiMaggio) is the team's weapons and explosives specialist, who mainly communicates through grunts and squeals. Rico swallows useful tools, such as dynamite, and regurgitates them when needed. He has a scar on his left cheek, and he is also shown in love with a Barbie-like doll.
• Private (voiced by James Patrick Stuart) is the emotionally sensitive rookie of the group, who has a knack for cracking codes. Though less experienced than the other penguins, he is shown to be the most down-to-earth. He has a British accent and is sometimes prone to accidents.

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Secondary characters

• Marlene (voiced by Nicole Sullivan) is a female otter who was transferred to the Central Park Zoo from an aquarium in California. She is close friends with Skipper and sometimes tags along on his missions, but she is often a neutral character who does not take sides between the penguins and the lemurs. By being a levelheaded, feminine voice of reason, she is a counterpoint to Skipper's masculine, covert ops character. She is the most often seen secondary character on the show.
• Mason (voiced by Conrad Vernon) and Phil are two intelligent chimpanzees. Mason can speak but cannot read; Phil is mute but is an avid reader. Phil communicates through sign language which is interpreted by Mason.
• Alice (voiced by Mary Scheer) is a surly zookeeper. Though another worker can be heard on her walkie-talkie (voiced by John DiMaggio), she is the only one ever seen.
• The Rat King (voiced by Diedrich Bader) is a genetically enhanced, muscular lab rat who resides in the sewer. He is a common antagonist of the penguins. He constantly torments the penguins and never learns his lesson when he's defeated each time. He even tries to take over their home, but he is defeated by King Julien.
• Roger the Alligator (voiced by Richard Kind) is the penguins' alligator friend who lives in the sewer. They meet him in the episode "Haunted Habitat" when Skipper and Marlene go to investigate in the sewer under Marlene's habitat because of a strange sound. Roger tells the penguins that he is from Florida. He appears again in "Roger Dodger" when the sewer rats terrorize him.
• Max the Cat (voiced by Wayne Knight) is the penguins' stray cat friend. He first meets the four penguins in the episode "Launchtime" when the penguins end up on a rooftop across the street from the zoo instead of on the moon. At first, the penguins thought he was a "mooncat," but at the end they figure out he was just a stray cat. Max is skinny and hopes to catch a bird in his life. He at first wanted to eat the penguins, but was so touched that he was given a can of fish by them that he became their friend instead.
• Joey The Kangaroo (voiced by James Patrick Stuart) is a bad attitude kangaroo with an Australian accent. His favorite food is shrub and loves beating people up even wanting to take on a human named Officer X as seen in "Cat's Cradle. He even beat up Julien when Julien was cleaning out his pouch.
• Bada and Bing the Gorillas (voiced by John DiMaggio and Kevin Michael Richardson) are two giant gorillas who just like Joey like beating up people but they are nicer more often. They once beat up Mort which led to Mort growing and they then got beat up by Mort to get a mango. Julien once gave them lots of bananas but it is possible that they beat him up due to him giving too much to them.
• Fred the Squirrel (voiced by Fred Stoller) is a squirrel that takes everything said literally and has a slow monotone speech pattern. Fred lives in a park near the zoo. He dated Marlene in "Otter Things Have Happened," but she broke up with him because he's 'dumb as a sack of hammers'.
• Officer X (voiced by Cedric Yarbrough) is a man part of animal control. He is obsessed with catching stray animals. He has a stronger grudge against the penguins than Alice and is shown to be a good match-up. His first appearance is when he is searching for Max and the second appearance is when he was tracking down the penguins when they escaped the zoo. He is a very strong human and can take down even the strongest of animals, like Joey the Kangaroo. Officer X is very cocky and seems to have hunted many other animals before. It his second appearance he got arrested for going on a rampage after losing the penguins. It is unknown if he'll come back. He is one of the two secondary antagonists of the series. The other is the Rat King. The prime antagonist, however, is Dr. Blowhole.
• Dr. Blowhole (voiced by Neil Patrick Harris) is Skipper's sworn arch-nemisis and serves as the series' prime antagonist. He is a bottlenose dolphin who has red crabs as servants. He was first mentioned in the episode "Eclipsed", but he makes a full appearence in the special "Operation: Blowhole", where he captures Julien. According to Skipper, he has the power to make the weather strange. He rides on a Segway-type vehicle as his means of transportation on land while out of water.
• Burt the Elephant was just one of the extra animals during the beginning of the series, but then he evolved into a character later on and even got a central episode in Elephants Never Forget. He is shown to be obsessed with peanuts and when he doesn't eat them he goes insane shown in Jungle Law. He nearly eats Julien when he mistakes him for a peanut. He hates kazoo sounds and steals it from the kid who used it to torment him. Out of guilt he gave it back years later.

Episodes

Main article: List of The Penguins of Madagascar episodes

Seasons		Episodes	First airdate	Last airdate
	1	48	November 29, 2008	February 15, 2010
	2	2	February 20, 2010	TBA

Production

In mid 2006, Nickelodeon and Dreamworks Animation announced that they would collaborate to create a Nicktoon based on the Madagascar films. The new series would star the Penguins from the film series. Nothing had been confirmed on what the series is about, until November 2007.

At first, in November 2007, Nickelodeon advertised a sneak peek of three new Nicktoons coming to Nickelodeon, The Mighty B!, Making Fiends, and The Penguins of Madagascar all on November 25, 2007 part of Superstuffed Nicktoons Weekend. Then, in December 2007, Nickelodeon had advertised many events that were going to premiere on Nickelodeon in 2008 (The Mighty B!, Fairly OddBaby, The Penguins of Madagascar, KCA 2008, Sidekicks, and "Pest of the West"). Since then, The Penguins of Madagascar had been delayed at least twice in 2008, and saw a debut in March 2009, most likely due to Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa being delayed to November 7, 2008. On November 28, 2008, Nickelodeon aired an episode from the series as a sneak peek. The Double DVD Pack of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa includes an early DVD of the show.

Casting

Some of the actors who voiced characters in the films were not available to reprise their roles for the series. Chris Miller, who had voiced Kowalski, was replaced by Jeff Bennett, Christopher Knights was replaced by James Patrick Stuart for the voice of Private, Danny Jacobs took over from Sacha Baron Cohen as the voice of King Julien and Cedric the Entertainer's character, Maurice, is voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson. Other characters are voiced by the same actors who voiced them in the films, or in the case of Marlene and Alice the Zookeeper, are new characters created especially for the series.

Nickelodeon debut

After some delays of the series to air, The Penguins of Madagascar debuted on Nickelodeon in 2009. The series is produced at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California, with animation carried out in India and Taiwan. Both Nickelodeon and DreamWorks Animation are planning on a 26 episode season. The Penguins of Madagascar aired after the 2009 Kids' Choice Awards on March 28, 2009 at 9:30 p.m. ET/PT.

International release

Country / Region	Series premiere	Network	Episodes aired
Australia	April 18, 2009	Nickelodeon Australia	Popcorn Panic, Gone in a Flash
Belgium The Netherlands	April 12, 2009	Nickelodeon Netherlands	Gone in a Flash
Austria Germany Switzerland	April 10, 2009 (Preview) September 12, 2009 (Official launch)	Nickelodeon Germany	Popcorn Panic, Gone in a Flash, Launchtime, Haunted Habitat, Tangled in the Web, Crown Fools
Argentina Brazil Chile Paraguay Colombia Costa Rica Mexico Peru Uruguay Venezuela	March 2, 2009 (preview) June 5, 2009 (official launch)	Nickelodeon Latin America	Popcorn Panic, Gone in a Flash
Ireland United Kingdom	April 12, 2009	Nickelodeon UK Nickelodeon Ireland CITV	Episodes mainly aired on Nickelodeon. Most episodes in series 1 have aired in the UK.
United States	November 29, 2008 ("Sneak Peek") March 28, 2009 (Official launch)	Nickelodeon	Gone in a Flash Launchtime, Haunted Habitat
Canada	September 12, 2009	YTV/ Nickelodeon Canada	Episodes 1-22, 24-28, 30 (As of Jan 22/10)
Malaysia Singapore	September 10, 2009	Nickelodeon Southeast Asia	Launchtime, Haunted Habitat
Serbia	September 14, 2009	B92	Popcorn Panic, Gone in a Flash, Launch Time, Hauntet Habitat, Happy King Julien Day, Paternal Egg-Stinct, Mort Unbound
Italy	November 2009	Italia 1/Nickelodeon Italy
France	November 2009	TF1
Turkey	February-May 2010	CNBC-E Nickelodeon Turkey
Spain	October 2009	Nickelodeon Spain
Portugal	October 2009	Nickelodeon Portugal

Critical reception

The Penguins of Madagascar has been given mixed to positive critical reviews. Mary McNamara of the Los Angeles Times gave the show a favorable review. She said that the show had strong comedic timing and action scenes, saying that it recalled both Wile E. Coyote cartoons and 1940s gangster movies. McNamara also noted that the replacements for the celebrity voice actors did their jobs well. Tim Goodman's review in the San Francisco Chronicle is also favorable. He said that he considered the penguins and Julien as having the most comedic potential from the movies, with his review focusing on the voice actors' comedic timing, and said that the show also contained several jokes which would make it appealing to adults.

After admitting that Madagascar "...is hardly my favorite recent animated movie," Brian Lowry of Variety, said that although he thought the show was "loud, exuberant and colorful", he did not think that it was funny and said that the show seemed more like a "merchandising bonanza". He did, however, say that the show's CGI animation was high in quality.

Awards and recognition

In November 2009, The Penguins of Madagascar won a BAFTA award in the category for international children’s programming.

On February 6, 2010, the series won the Best Animated Television Production for Children award at the 37th annual Annie Awards ceremony in Los Angeles, California.

Toys

DreamWorks licensed to a number of manufacturers, including Hooga Loo Toys, who had a successful run creating a line of plush toys associated with the second Madagascar movie. Based on its success, Hooga Loo was granted a license to create an entire new toy line for the new series. Hooga Loo recruited the creative development team, PANGEA, the company who assisted Playmates Toys in the development of the phenomenally successful "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," to work systemically with DreamWorks and develop toys inspired by and for the series. Fast food restaurants have been courting DreamWorks to glean the rights for a QSR deal. McDonald's produced a collector's dream line based on the second film.

Licensed merchandise based on the show began debuting in January 2010. In February 2010, McDonald’s began their “Mission: Play” Happy Meal toy campaign, which features eight toys based on the penguins in the series.

NBC holiday special

A primetime TV special which featured the penguins, as well as the other main characters from the “Madagascar” franchise, “Merry Madagascar,” aired on November 17, 2009 on NBC stations in the United States. It was re-aired November 28.

DVD release

The Penguins of Madagascar: Operation: DVD Premiere, a two-hour-long, direct-to-DVD feature featuring both all-new missions and favorite TV adventures, was released on February 9, 2010.

External links

• The Penguins of Madagascar at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com