History Headscratchers / Madagascar

* Marty eats a birthday cake that is seemingly chocolate. Isn't chocolate toxic to nearly all animals?
** It is also possible that the cake is carob, which is actually safe for dogs to consume.
** Also, chocolate may not be toxic to animals in this universe. It's not unusual for animals in fiction to be shown eating foods that would be bad for them in real life.
* How come it takes Alex days to figure out he's going to be a danger to his friends, where the heck does he think meat comes from, magically out of the sky?
** From a Silver platter, every day, in copious amounts.
*** Exactly. Early in the movie, Alex calls steak "[[BuffySpeak Food...Things]]" and specifically states that they can't be found in the wild. As a zoo animal, he's never seen steak produced and thus has no idea that he's been eating other animals his whole life. After all, steak doesn't exactly look like his friends.
*** It is only later that he makes the connection between meat and other animals, as shown by his [[MeatOVision steak-o-vision]].
** If we want to be accurate, steak isn't made from zebras, giraffes, or hippos. It's made from cows. Maurice is right that Alex eats other animals, but Marty isn't "made of steak".
* How do the penguins manage to tunnel through what is presumably solid concrete to escape their enclosure?
** They're that badass.
** Incredibly strong sporks.
** That's classified.
** They might not be digging directly through concrete; at least, not entirely. The ''A Christmas Caper'' short establishes that their underground lair from the TV show does exist in the movie continuity, and as that short clearly takes place before the movie, they likely found a place to dig into something softer in the tunnel behind the fish trophy that they tend to use to sneak out.
* How on earth do they build those things with no access to tools?
** First off, BambooTechnology applies a lot here. Also, Kowalski got an intelligence upgrade in the second movie, and in the third created the nuclear drive for the car.
*** ''NUKE''-ular.

** Alex does seem to be at least close to the same age as Marty, given that Marty is shown as a foal at the same time Alex is a cub.
* Why ship the penguins to Africa on the same ship as the others? That's not their natural habitat. They likely wouldn't even survive there, with the heat and the lack of water/fish.
** Maybe they were going to drop African animals at Africa and then to go to Antarctica.
** The penguins' crate is specifically labeled to say they're being dropped off in Kenya with everybody else.
** Maybe just a big mess-up...
** The penguins probably assaulted and hid whatever animal was supposed to go in the crate and took it's place, assuming that somewhere down the line they would be able to make a break for Antarctica.
*** They might be Galapagos Penguins if you think about it. They turned tail after five minutes on Antartica and seem perfectly comfortable in both New York and Madagascar.
*** The spin-off movie about the penguins from 2014 shows the penguins as chicks in Antarctica, so that's been Jossed. Unless, of course, they are indeed Galapagos Penguins and their eggs just ended up in Antarctica somehow...
* Is it me or are the Fossa less like Fossa, and more like weird Lionesses?
** Look them up on Website/ThatOtherWiki. Yes, they do look kinda like lionesses. That's because they're distantly related to cats.

* I have one that just occurred to me after watching it again yesterday. How exactly did Marty make fire?
** Isn't he stated as having used wildfire?
*** Yeah, but it seems like Alex just made it up (or was being metaphorical) so that his emergency beacon wasn't lit witht he help of a guy who didn't want to leave. Poor excuse, but,

* What exactly WAS Melman sick with? In the first movie his scenes up until they got stranded were of him being tended to by various doctors. He magically got better for the rest of the film and showed no signs of sickness in the first place, such as fatigue or breathing difficulty, so he probably didn't have cancer, but he certainly didn't act like it was just a fever. Not to mention that, with the extensive care Melman was put through, I can see him having to be euthanized in real life.
** The joke in the first movie is that he's a hypochondriac - he's always scared that he's going to get sick.
* In the first movie, would four animals on the loose really warrant such a massive police response? Surely just a few animal control officers would suffice.
** Such a police response doesn't seem unusual at Grand Central, especially after 9/11.
** A FreezeFrameBonus in the second movie actually shows that the movies take place in the 1980s... [[AnachronismStew not that that explains Julien's fondness for 90s pop music]].
** The aforementioned FreezeFrameBonus appears to be a mistake. The flashback in the second movie certainly appears to take place before 9/11 given that the twin towers of the World Trade Center are visible, yet IIRC the towers are absent in shots from the present, which seems to suggest that the series as a whole takes place post-9/11. Also, in the second movie, Alex mentions that he broke Marty's iPod, which didn't exist before 2000.
* When Alex catches Marty at Conneticut, Melman runs over chanting 'he's got him!' During this point, Nana hits him with her purse, and can be heard saying 'I've got something for you!' So... can she understand what animals are saying?
** its probably supposed to laughed off as a humorous coincidence.
* What would be the realistic outcome if a fully grown lion, hippo, zebra or giraffe were to wash up on the island of Madagascar?
** [[WebVideo/GameTheory MatPat]] answers your question in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTs62QGYDEE this video]]
* So when the crates all fell into the ocean, none of the seawater managed to get through the airholes despite a scene clearly showing the boxes submerging?

** Look them up on Wiki/ThatOtherWiki. Yes, they do look kinda like lionesses. That's because they're distantly related to cats.

** Maurice seems to be a devout Royalist. Besides, he's not THAT much better than Julien. He notices that Alex has huge teeth, but that's the limits of his sanity. In the second he even comments "I'm sure this whole democracy thing is a fad" and helps Julien chew. He backs him up on a lot of things. Besides, from the behaviour of the Lemur community, it's more important on how well you can party than if you're a smarty. It's not until the Penguins TV series (not canon with the movies) that he shows any problems with Julien, which cranked everything in everybody's personality UpToEleven. Not all Royal Advisers are evil!

** It is also possible that the cake is carob, which is safe for dogs to consume.

** [[WebVideo/GameTheory MatPat]] answers your question in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTs62QGYDEE this video]]

** Maurice can't rule the matriarchal lemurs because he's a guy. WildMassGuessing has pegged Julien as {{Transgender}}; he's just still taking advantage of the perks of being born with a uterus.

* What would be the realistic outcome if a fully grown lion, hippo, zebra and giraffe were to wash up on the island of Madagascar? Presumably the lion would instantly be at the top of the food chain but would the herbivores be able to survive on the local vegetation and would the ecosystem even be able to support four animals of this size?

** its probably supposed to laughed off as a humorous coincidence, otherwise the much less humorous implication is that this woman actively assaults animals despite being able to understand them and knew they weren’t actually aggressive.

* What would be the realistic outcome if a fully grown lion, hippo, zebra and giraffe were to wash up on the island of Madagascar? Presumably the lion would instantly be at the top of the food chain but would the herbivores be able to survive on the local vegetation and Would the ecosystem even be able to support four animals of this size?

** ''[[WebVideo/GameTheory MatPat]]'' answers your question in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTs62QGYDEE this video]]

* What would be the realistic outcome if a fully grown lion, hippo, zebra and giraffe were to wash up on the island of Madagascar? Presumably the lion would instantly be at the top of the food chain but would the herbivores be able to survive on the local vegetation and Would the ecosystem even be able to support four animals of this size?

* What would be the realistic outcome if a fully grown lion, hippo, zebra and giraffe were to wash up on the island of Madagascar? Presumably the lion would instantly be at the top of the food chain but would the herbivores be able to survive on the local vegetation and Would the ecosystem even be able to support four animals?

* When Alex catches Marty at Conneticut, Melman runs over chanting 'he's got him!' During this point, Nana hits him with her purse, and can be heard saying 'I've got something for you!' So... can she understand what animals are saying?

** Such a police response doesn't seem unusual at Grand Central, especially after 9/11.

*

* Where did Julien's "throw someone into the volcano as a sacrifice" plan come from? He had nothing to gain from it and he didn't even believe it'd really work (when someone asks whether it'd work, he casually answers "no" before correcting himself) so... why?
** I guess, he is just such an AttentionWhore. He needs no other benefit apart being constantly in the limelight. He just remembered one possible way to gain the water and used it to attract everyone's attention. Those little things, like whether this plan would work, or that someone has to sacrifice himself, are out of Julien's concern.
** Also note that he never forced anyone to be sacrificed. He asked for volunteers. And got one, too.

* How come in the third film, Sonya can't talk when literally every other animal in the Madagascar franchise can? Does she choose not to, or does she have something that prevents her from being able to talk? It can't be a bear thing, as in the Penguins' Christmas special, Ted the Polar Bear can talk. Granted, it makes her relationship with King Julien funnier, but it just feels so jarring...
** Rico and Phil can't talk neither, even through Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Mason can. Considering that animals in this series can have some mental problems ( Melman's hypochondria and Alex's descent to madness in first movie ), these three characters may just be mute, even to other animals. To us, it just may appear that they aren't emitting any noises or that they cannot physically communicate with other animals in correct way for whatever reason.
* How did Captain Chantel break through walls?
** Because it's freaking Capitaine Chantel [=DuBois=].
* How did the animals get from Africa to Monte Carlo in Europe without being trapped by people or something?
** How did they reach Monte Carlo in the first place?
*** The penguins and chimps by airplane, the Zooers and lemurs swimming.
*** Still, they would've had to travel thousands of miles across the continent of Africa before they could get anywhere close to Monte Carlo. Sure, it's not as far as New York, but it's still a long way and it would take weeks (maybe even months) to get that far on foot or by swimming. How did they get there so fast?

** Such a police response doesn't seem unusual at Grand Central, especially after 9/11.
* In the third movie, why didn't Alex's mane stick to his head when he emerged from underwater? I know wet fur is not that easy to animate, but it looks a bit distrating.
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* Did the writers of the sequel even see the first movie? The intro of the sequel with them at the zoo made no real connection for the "Marty's depressed on his birthday" reason for going to Connecticut.
** It seemed to be just a CallBack working under RuleOfFunny. But hey maybe he always wanted to go to Connecticut and his birthday gave him an excuse to talk about it again.
* Exactly ''why'' in Escape 2 Africa are all the animals in the preserve, predator ''and'' prey, seen ''coexisting'' with one another?! This especially jarring considering that a major plot point in the first movie was Alex [[CarnivoreConfusion dealing with his closest friends also being his prey in the wild]].
** TruthInTelevision on this one. In Africa during droughts, predator and prey will often be seen coexisting peacefully around the only available water source in the area. Dehydration will kill before starvation, so the water is the priority, not getting food.

* A thing that really intrigues me in Escape 2 Africa is the scene in which Alex has to choose an opponent for his Rite of Passage, whom he has to fight to earn his mane. Given that the Rite of Passage is a coming-of-age ceremony, three young lions accompany Alex to fight their opponents after him, who is the only grown up in the group because he wasn't able to do his rite when he was from their age as he was kidnapped back when he's a cub. Of course, due Makunga's trick, Alex chooses Tetsi and gets his ass kicked, but the thing is that all lions present there are all grown up, so who the heck the three young lions are going to choose as opponent if all of them are older than them and thus they don't have any chance against them?
** Maybe there were lions from their age available there and were just not seen onscreen. Most likely, only Alex had to chose an adult lion as his opponent because he was already an adult, as it would have been really unfair if Alex was able to chose one of the three young lions as his opponent, having a great advantage on him. Not to say that none of the trio would have had a chance against Tetsi...
** I thought this was obvious; they were gonna fight each other. The lions choose who they fight, they're not forced to pick from the crowd, they just have to fight another lion. So they were just gonna fight each other; 2 would be forced to leave the tribe and 1 would be ''the only'' lion to join it.
* I don't get it why circus animals threw such a fit when they discovered that Alex&Co were, in fact, from a zoo. Okay, they did lie to get onto your train. And they did pull stunts that could've led to serious injury. But hey, you know, ''you've just made a performance that blew your audience's mind away like a typhoon'', and these zoo animals, ''while untrained'', helped to make this exact performance, and worked just as hard as everyone else. But once the cat is out of the bag, they're suddenly treated like dirty dirty traitors. Why. Is. That.
** I had the same issue until I thought about Military families. In some places you bond over those shared experiences, sometimes even around the world there's at least something connecting you. If the Circus animals see it in a similar way then the Zoo Crew lying is a huge insult. At least at first.
** Doesn't seem like that hard of a stretch as far as lying though, couldn't they have lived in a zoo before joining the circus?
** There's always an overreaction like that in movies, there's always that everything's pink but you lied to us or something even if minor and we can't forgive you until near the end the movie.
** Keep in mind the circus animals felt not only lied to, but used as well. They have to wonder if they were anything more than the Zoosters' ticket home.
** To be fair to the circus animals, they didn't actually "throw a fit", they merely felt hurt, betrayed, and used. Which makes sense after having been lied to and put in danger for the sole reason, it seemed to them, of getting the Zoosters back home. Stefano's line about his tears being real but they are not, and not even knowing if Alex was his real name, simply underscores that after having been lied to as they were, they didn't know if they could believe or trust anything the Zoosters told them. Yes, they made an amazing show, but they also put them in great danger to do it. It worked out fine in the end, but it just as easily could have literally blown up in their faces, because the Zoosters (from their POV) didn't know what they were doing and were willing to take any risk as long as it got them back home. That was irresponsible as well as deceptive. Anyway, ThirdActMisunderstanding aside, it was cleared up very quickly since the minute they learned the Zoosters were in danger, they went to their aid--which suggests that once the hurt of being lied to passed, they remembered the bonds they formed and the amazing show they created and decided yes, that mattered more than who the Zoosters really were.
** In real life, Circus and Carnival groups tend to be very tight knit and distrustful of outsiders. They extend their trust to others in the same line of work as there's a feeling of camaraderie for those who know what it's like, but they aren't fans of those who lie to try and get their way into it.
* Why exactly did Julien decide to go to the zoo with the Zoosters at first when the Zoosters were disowned by the circus, and why didn't Maurice and Mort accompany him?
** Julien wanted to be "king of New York", hence his fight with Sonya. He probably stormed off afterwards without collecting his followers.
* How on earth did the penguins and monkeys get a plane that fast after their van fell over the building?
** The plane was waiting for them. That's why they were driving all over Monaco, to get to it.
* How'd the other animals bake a cake for Alex in Africa?
** Rule of Funny. How did the fossa obtain salt and pepper shakers?
* Isn't it illegal to have animals in a circus in the UK?
** They weren't in the UK. They went through mainland Europe.
** Except the successful show with "Firework" was in London...
* Was Gloria literally going to "sign up" for a breeding program? Could Marty really operate an iPod? Just how human were the animals by the second movie?
* Were the chimpanzees invisible from the capture at Grand Central Terminal to after the plane crash?
* Were the other zebras really striped differently from Marty?
** Yes. It's pretty subtle; you can tell Marty has thicker stripes than the other zebras (specifically on his mane).