wait remember the Penguins of Madagascar it was an animated series follow-up to the Madagascar movie
franchise that fixated its lens on everyone's favorite penguin quartet developed by animated
spy television veterans Rob scooley and Mark McCorkle of the Kim Possible franchise The
Penguins of Madagascar does not disappoint while the original Madagascar movies were
important informative in my younger years now looking back maybe a bit less important other
than three specific things the I like to move it move it song sugar honey iced tea and the
four penguin super spies Skipper Kowalski Rico and private and I feel like this is
mutual for a lot of people the penguins are funny they're serious but also silly they're thematic
they love each other their character Dynamics already have a lot there to work with just in
general revisiting this series was such a joy and I hope you find just as much joy in it as
I did if you enjoyed this video your mission is to subscribe follow along as I Kowalski
analicize everything The Penguins of Madagascar has to offer foreign thing I have ever it's true
The Penguins of Madagascar which is not to be confused with the following movie called just
Penguins of Madagascar dropping the the Just like Facebook did drop the just Facebook fixates on our
team of four Skipper Kowalski Rico in private the series places our band of main characters
in New York City baby and the Central Park Zoo along with the troublemaking Lemur gang of King
Julian Maurice and more the penguins at the time of the movies were already experiencing a lot of
displacement but by the time the series came around they had already dug their Roots into
New York city so a lot of the series is just them trying to protect their home and habitat
from harmful forces or at least what they've convinced themselves are horrible harmful forces
due to their inherent super serious spy nature everything and I mean everything they do needs to
involve military-grade strategy and stealth there had been a lot of confusion about when the series
would have taken place due to the very adventurous nature of the previous movies no one really knew
how the Penguins ended up in New York City but in an interview with Madagascar co-creator and
voice of Skipper Thomas McGrath he states that he doesn't even know himself at the time of early
development not even the second movie had come out yet so he and the team didn't really know how all
the movies would end they just wrote it imagining that all these characters would at the end of the
franchise somehow end up back there and the Lemurs just sort of tagged along it's not written to be
placed into the timeline of any specific Canon he just wanted these characters in this specific
setting he even states that it may make more sense to just view it as an alternate timeline
or universe and I don't know I kind of like how upfront and honest he is about that with all
that goes into fandoms trying to make everything make some sort of sense within multiverses and
universes and cinematic whatevers I literally get headaches when I try to think about how all
the different content fits into various timelines so sometimes a super simple answer like mcgrass
is really appreciated I found this kind of a fun and rare moment in the animation World heck just
in general the whole plan hinges on the element of surprise up next it's the Penguins of Madagascar
now here's more Penguins of Madagascar so the characters are in New York we don't know how but
that's okay the leader of the group is Skipper voiced by Tom McGrath who I mentioned earlier
co-created the franchise Skipper has very intense characteristics making him prone to over-analyzing
literally everything and searching for conspiracies in everything that he encounters but
even though everything may seem like a threat to him he has the confidence in his team to balance
out his paranoia and I want to emphasize that he has confidence in his team not just himself he's
not an arrogant character when it comes to his own abilities he views his team as one unit and cares
about all of them which allows him to kind of let loose sometimes and let his team have fun it's
a nice found family aspect to the series and to these characters in general that I just thoroughly
enjoy Kowalski is voiced by Jeff Bennett who is replacing Chris Miller from the original movies
next to Skipper he is also extremely serious about their missions often performing his
Kowalski analysis and inventing stuff to Aid them in whatever they're planning but his inventions
speak for his comprehension when they usually don't work like he has planned this shows that
despite acting like he knows what's going on he's really just playing along to Skipper's Antics and
in an interview McCorkle shares that in developing the Penguins for their own show they had to stick
to their original characterizations but at the same time get deeper into some of them one of
them being Kowalski because he really didn't have much of a definable character in the movies so in
rethinking how they could have made his character more interesting they came up with science he
became the Science Guy minus the Bill Nye Rico is voiced by the one and only John DiMaggio and
he's the literal violence loving wild card or as McCorkle calls him an insane penguin with
Psychopathic Tendencies God I love him so much Rico's character faced the same challenges as
Kowalski so they decided to make him more unique they would Embrace his Wild Side giving him the
ability to hock up any prop the Penguins needed examples including dynamite and flamethrowers
just to name two so if you're ever faced with the question who gave the penguin a gun your answer
will most definitely be Rico lastly private he is the most emotionally open and vulnerable of the
quartet as characterized in the nick production notes he is voiced by James Patrick Stewart in
the series who replaces Christopher Knight from the movies private is the youngest out of all of
them and acts like it in a very Wholesome Way he is more prone to fandom related things such
as his love for the TV show The lunacorns and his favorite purple unicorn toy the developers didn't
really have to do much to private's character because he was already pretty well characterized
in the movies and he visually looked the most different already with wider eyes and a rounder
smoother look there is not a single thought behind those eyes I love him other characters like King
Julian needed new voice actors as well replacing beloved Sasha Baron Cohen Danny Jacobs took up
the crown but this wasn't a crazy change to make as Jacobs had already provided the voice of King
Julian in the Madagascar 2 escape to Africa video game Kowalski Skipper and Rico however needed more
visually to differentiate them they kept a lot of what Skipper looked like in the movies being short
and Barrel chested and instead gave more defining traits to Kowalski and Rico Kowalski became much
more tall and Rico gained a scar and a furry feathery Mohawk in trying to further flesh out
these characters skooly and McCorkle did turn to McGrath and other co-creator Eric Darnell
from there they learned that there was actually a screenplay already written for a penguin's movie
that did explore the characters further which was absolutely helpful in fleshing out these
characters it also speaks to How the Penguins of Madagascar series came to be according to
Dreamworks Animation CEO Jeffrey katzenberg it seemed natural for them to take on their own
television show he says that the Penguins in the original movie were so popular on the big screen
and that the Penguins were just plain hysterical so it seems that it was not a hard decision to
make Nickelodeon and DreamWorks partnered on a project in katzenberg is optimistic in saying that
it will be the first of many future projects that would really solidify the relationship
between Nick and DreamWorks Rob skooley and Mark McCorkle say that they had joined on the project
right out of working on impossible like literally just two days later they joined on to the Penguins
team when the pilot was already in development the two of them really did lend their incredible
talent to the series and coming up with ideas for the episodes they turned to conflict King
Julian offered a lot of plot for the Penguins both groups have a lot of Lifestyle differences
the penguins being orderly and almost military in the way of their living and King Julian living the
Glorious party hard Unbound by rules lifestyle they contrast pretty starkly other conflicts
came in the form of the setting specifically of the Penguins living in a zoo where they will come
into contact with humans in the form of guests security guards and unruly children we also get to
meet new characters ones that are specific to the series that we haven't met before we meet a Sandy
Cheeks inspired otter named Marlene Max who is an alley cat and Roger who was an alligator just
to name a few the series started development pretty early on on the Madagascar franchise
the idea for a Madagascar spin-off series was being thrown around in 2006 following the first
movie's success the pilots sneak peek was shown in November of 2008 during showings of the Mighty B
as well as new SpongeBob episodes which was all a part of Nickelodeon's super stuffed Nicktoons
weekend the official Premiere however was March 28 2009 following the 22nd annual Kids Choice Awards
this series was so promising that the network ordered a season 2 before the premiere and
their confidence was appropriate as it seems the March Premiere was incredibly well received making
Nickelodeon history as the highest rated series introduction in the Channel's history at the time
okay let's take another shot at the penguin Bridge The Penguins of Madagascar everybody
I like it oh Nick it has been a long time since I've seen the original Madagascar trilogy but I
remember enjoying the Penguins in those films and in the show as well as their own movie but we'll
get to that in a second the series was decently funny and Charming the Penguin's Antics were
interesting and way more engaging than I thought they would have been I found myself genuinely
laughing a few times throughout the series for numerous different reasons whether it be throw
away one-liners the physical comedy or just the inflection from some of the voice actors and how
they deliver their lines although sometimes King Julian's plot lines can pretty much get tiring
the show gave me a surprising amount of patience when dealing with his more annoying behaviors the
animation as well is pretty good especially for a TV series with 3D animation this is something
that I think DreamWorks did great at transitioning from the big screen to the small screen especially
in terms of continuity when talking about changing budget and time restraints the
Penguins do offer a nice easy form to animate because their main texture is just like sleek
and shiny this series also had to basically start from scratch they had the past designs
for the characters from the previous two movies but because of animation software differences
they were in an unusable form for the series they also had to sacrifice a lot of resolution
or detail in the recreation or redesign this was both helpful for the sanity of the animators as
well as the general overall aesthetic look of the characters in the movies they had a
lot of time and budget to dedicate to details like fur and hair but this had to be rethought
for a television series instead of detailing the hair they opted for a more sculpted and stylized
look that would be indicative of furiness but wouldn't require all the work that would go
into a fur coat especially in the Lemur designs the lines are much more simple and geometric but
McCorkle dismisses the concern emphasizing that when watching the series The Audience would be
doing something wrong if they were looking closely to compare the movie to the series instead they
should really be focusing on the content of the story they're telling and the jokes that they're
cracking and this is true across all of our the style within mediums doesn't have to blow you
away specifically as long as the story is good or has your interest I've seen interesting and
engaging stories told with stick figures schooly and McCorkle had nothing but good things to say
about the art style as well having come straight from their visually opposite Kim Possible series
they said that both have a lot to offer in terms of Storytelling while traditional animation like
in KP offers more artistic style CG has a great feel of spatial reality and it can lend itself
greatly to the type of Comedy or show that takes advantage of it overall the general opinion of
the series is really positive the series has been nominated for an insane amount of Emmys and has
won an impressive percentage of them it also had a pretty hefty run time of 149 episodes across
three packed Seasons airing mainly on Nickelodeon and then on Nicktoons for the last little bit of
the third season John DiMaggio pretty firmly tweeted a reply that the series was over it's
done he writes with finality but although fans were sad that the series had ended the Penguins
of Madagascar ran from 2008 to 2015 yet we still still have more content following the series the
2014 movie that was coming out towards the end of the series was just titled Penguins of Madagascar
and it features Benedict Cumberbatch it's a story that details the origins of the Penguins
themselves as well as events that take place after the third Madagascar film The Following
television series was titled all hail King Julien and despite the negative aspects of The Penguins
of Madagascar series being attributed to Julian's annoyingness that series ended up being received
pretty positively as well there are also talks of a fourth Madagascar film but that was pushed
back away from the Forefront of our minds and will happen whenever it's ready I guess but as
of right now the Madagascar franchise lies with Madagascar a little wild a current series that
serves as a prequel to The 2005 movie The Original main characters from the movies are back in their
habitats at the Central Park Zoo but because of timing and being a more juvenile show it does
not and would not feature the Penguins in any way unfortunately where is Tom McGrath when you need
him to say screw the timeline I I honestly didn't even know about this series until diving back into
the Madagascar Cinematic Universe the Penguins seemed to have been this through-line heart of
the Madagascar franchise being the most popular characters getting their own long-lasting show
and full theatrical film it's a pretty cool feat to hit for what they did produce from it the show
was genuinely a lot better than it may have had any right to have been it was enjoyable and the
shtick of the Penguins and how they interact with in the world and with others surprisingly doesn't
get old honestly I wouldn't mind at minimum aside from appearing in another future Madagascar film
their own sequel film to the 2014 movie I think with stuff like Puss in Boots showcasing how
DreamWorks can handle side characters and really let the art of making something special speak for
itself rather than just cashing in proves that we can do the same thing here with something
like the Penguins let them have the freedom to make a movie that feels special like the new
Puss in Boots film play with the art style take the story in a New Direction have fun with it
I wouldn't count this out as a possibility because of how their proof proving they're
capable of this with the new Puss and Boots film would you like to see the penguins come back let
me know in the comments as well as your thoughts on the Penguins of Madagascar show in general also
who is your favorite penguin my chaotic side is telling me Rico but my wholesome side is telling
me private I I can't choose anyway thanks so much for watching like And subscribe later
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