DVD Review: The Penguins of Madagascar
Nickelodeon Adaptation of DreamWorks Animation Series
Feb 17, 2009
(Writer's note: this DVD came in a 2-pack with Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa but, for reasons of space, has been reviewed separately)
Context is everything. For instance, breastfeeding is beneficial for most infants but, for an elderly cardiac patient, it can be fatal.
Another example of this is the new Nickelodeon animated series The Penguins of Madagascar. While those paramilitary penguins stole the show in both Madagascar and its 2008 sequel, they don't do as well when carried over onto the small screen.
So what went wrong?
The Penguins of Madagascar Stars Tom McGrath, Danny Jacobs
The plot somehow transplants those penguins back into the Central Park Zoo, where they've decided to take over the zoo and run to their liking. However, instead of bringing back Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman (the central characters in the movies), the show's producers decided to use King Julien as the penguins' foil and nemesis.
There are two major problems with this. First off, the show never really explains how King Julien followed the penguins to the Zoo, let alone became a major attraction there. Not good, people.
Secondly, the producers of The Penguins of Madagascar replaced Sacha Baron Cohen with Danny Jacobs (who also imitated Cohen as Borat in the spoof Epic Movie) as the voice of King Julien. Jacobs tries hard, but his more scripted hijinks come off as forced next to Cohen's off-the-wall improvisations. Considering those improvs pretty much brought the character to life, that's a serious drawback.
Cohen's not the only one to get replaced. While Tom McGrath and John DiMaggio return as Skipper and Rico respectively, Jeff Bennett and James Patrick Stuart replace Chris Miller and Christopher Knights as Kowalski and Private. Andy Richter and Conrad Vernon return as Mort and Mason the Chimpanzee, but Kevin Michael Richardson replaces Cedric the Entertainer as Maurice. Most of the actors (other than Jacobs) do well in their roles, and the changeovers are seamless.
But sing King Julien as an onscreen foil/nemesis also violates one of the basic rules of comedy. Successful comedy duos usually pair the jokester with a "straight man" whose job it is to ground and contrast the jokester's antics. Abbot and Costello, George Burns and Gracie Allen, the Smothers Brothers . . . you get the idea.
In Madagascar, the penguins' schtick worked because it played opposite the more "normal" characters (well, as normal as talking animals get) like Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman. Opposite Julien, the penguins aren't quite as unusual, since everyone is trying to out-wacky everyone else. All the bizarre behaviour isn't funny; it's tedious.
As for the animation, Nickelodeon's CGI work is glossier and colder than DreamWorks Animation's style. The characters also move a lot more stiffly than in the movies. Little kids might not mind, but they'll certainly notice a difference.
DVD Extras
"The Heart of a Lion" is a live-action featurette on lions in the wild while "The Bronx Zoo: Madagascar" walks the viewer through the titular exhibit. There are also some games (you'll need to pop the disc in your CD-ROM drive to access those) while "Alex's Dance Off" invites you to dance along with Ben Stiller's character from the movie. Be warned that Alex violates a few fundamental rules of gravity during his dancing, so there is a risk of injury.
The Final Analysis
Spin-offs featuring minor characters sometimes work, but often they fail because it removes those characters from the context that made them special. This is especially true for The Penguins of Madagascar: in the feature films, those penguins are hilarious. But when asked to headline their own show, they lose that special something.
The Penguins of Madagascar gets a 3/10.
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