It was at this moment that Marty knew: he Fajita Umeboshi Chimichanga Kale'd up.
- The penguins in general.
- The penguins' Catch Phrases:
- When SWAT bursts in Grand Central Station:Skipper: We've been ratted out, boys! (all four raise their flippers to surrender)
- The penguins taking control of the freighter. It's pure awesomeness done by four small, flightless, waddling ninja-birds.
- They reach Antarctica, a complete frozen wasteland:Private: [Beat] Well, this sucks!
- Alex thinks they have a few bolts loose:Alex: The penguins are psychotic!
- They don't think too highly of him, either:Skipper: Where's that psychotic lion (...)
- They don't think too highly of him, either:
- The Penguins are well aware of this and use it for a quick gag themselves.Gloria: Where are the people?
Skipper: We killed 'em and ate their livers. (Beat while we see Gloria's and Melman's looks of horror. Skipper just grins) Gotcha, didn't I? - Skipper casually mentioning that Private probably won't survive the mission, and Private's shocked reaction.
- After the animals chastise Marty for his wish, this priceless moment happens.Alex: [Holding the steak to Marty's face] There's certainly none of this in the wild. This is a highly refined type of food thing that you do not find in the wild.Marty: You ever thought there might be more to life than steak, Alex?Alex: [Holding the steak up to his own face] He didn't mean that, baby. No, no, no.
- At one point after the animals enter the subway, Alex asks where the train is, and Melman comments that he hears it arriving. The animals then look down the tunnel, towards the direction opposite to the approaching train. The train horn blows, and then we have Melman's priceless reaction.
- Before that, it's both hilariously disgusting and ironic that germaphobe Melman sucks on a urinal cake thinking it's a mint. And when Alex and Gloria continue to argue, he gingerly licks it back into his mouth from the floor after Alex threw it down.
- When the animals arrived at Grand Central, Alex forces the door open allowing him, Gloria, and Melman to rush into the waiting room. Melman briefly gets his head stuck when the train is departing and managed to free him while slipping nonstop on the floor crashing into a nearby man's drums and cymbals.
- Marty shows Alex his impressive zebra-made shed and he scowls.Alex: Shut up, Spalding! (pan to a basketball with a smiley face)
- While Alex is working on the Lady Liberty signal beacon, Melman is rubbing two planks of wood strapped to his hooves.
Alex: How's the liberty fire goin', Melman?
Melman: Great! Idiot...
Alex: I heard that!
Melman: Why can't we just borrow some of Marty's fire?
Alex: That's wildfire! We're not using wildfire on Lady Liberty! NOW RUB, MELMAN!
Melman: (groans in frustration) I've been doing... I can't, I can't, I can't do it! I Ju— I CAN'T DO IT! (slams the planks down...and they suddenly ignite) Fire! Fire! (Alex and Gloria were surprised by this) FIRE! FIIIIIIRE!!! (laughs...then notices the burning planks are still attached to his hooves) Ah, oh my... Ow! Ooh, FIRE! AAAAAAAAH!
Alex: NOT YET! NO, NO! NO!
Melman: FIRE! AAAAH!!
(Melman panics and accidentally lights Alex's beacon on fire; then trips and the planks extinguish in the sand)
Gloria: JUMP! Alex, jump! [Alex does so] Don't worry! Cats always land on their— [Alex lands flat on his face] FACE?! Man, what kinda cat are you?- Then when Alex sees his burned down beacon:
Melman: [Not caring in the slightest] Can we go to the fun side now?- He then tries to create the word "HELP" with bamboo poles, only the P falls apart, leaving the word "HELL".
- King Julien XIII supplies nearly ALL the moments of funny. The Penguins supply most of the rest.
- When Julien reassures Alex that there are people on the island, Alex is relieved... until this happens:
Julien: They're up there.
(Answer Cut to a skeleton hanging from a tree)
Julien: (nonchalantly, while the group looks horrified) Don't you love the people? Not a very lively bunch, though.
Alex: (still unnerved) Oh, wow. So, do you have any live people?
Julien: Uh, no. Uh, only dead ones.- He uses a skeletal human arm as a scepter. While he's waving it around during the argument on the crashed plane, it constantly makes the appropriate positions as if it were his own hand.
- This exchange:Alex: I feel like a king again!Julien: (throws a pineapple at Maurice, who goes rolling with it) King?!
- Later, during Alex's performance, Julien asks Maurice if his crown is on his head. And while everyone is reacting in surprise to Alex's lion roar, Julien simply looks on with a deadpan, unimpressed look.
- A lemur holds up a book titled "To Serve Lemur" screaming, '"IT'S A COOKBOOK! IT'S A COOKBOOK!"
- The fact that Julien merely mentioning the Fossa causes mass panic.
- Maurice using the FASTEN SEATBELT sign to get everyone's attention.
- The scene with the spider.Spider: [cheerfully] Well, howdy-do!
[Alex starts screaming his head off]
[the fossa run away in terror, thinking he's about to attack them]- Gloria starts whacking Alex with a stick, trying to get the spider... which is a way from Alex and yelling to "Get him!" Note that Gloria does this for a good while, somehow not seeing the spider is off of Alex and requiring him to take the stick off of her hands to make her stop.
- "I hear Tom Wolfe's speaking at Lincoln Center. [Phil signs frantically] Well, of course we're going to throw poo at him!"
- The animals wash up on the titular country and are reunited.
- When Alex finds Melman, Melman is stuck in his crate, so Alex then grabs a log to use as a battering ram to get Melman out and tells him he's getting him out of the box, before he smiles maniacally and says, "Relax... Giraffe, CORNER POCKET!"
- Alex then stops inches from Melman's crotch when the giraffe points Gloria's crate to him.
Melman: Oh, hey. It is Gloria. [faints after realizing how close the log is to him]- Alex then goes up to the crate and knocks on it a couple times... Before Gloria bursting out sends him flying into Melman's crate, destroying it. Alex then gets whacked in the crotch by a stick as he tries to re-approach Gloria who has some sealife stuck to her.
- As Alex and Marty are reunited (pictured above), in slow motion, with the theme of Chariots of Fire as BGM, there's this exchange:
Alex: Marty!Marty: Alex!Alex: Marty!Marty: Al!Alex: [grows angry] Marty!Marty: [grows concerned] Alex?Alex: [goes into full sprint, angry] MARTY!Marty: [Oh, Crap! eyes, turns to run away] Oh, Sugar Honey Ice Tea!- Soon afterwards, Alex threatens to kill Marty, bury him, dig him up, clone him, kill his clones and then never speak to him again.
- Alex's Meat-O-Vision, with the circle bones forming as mouths. Then, when Alex snaps:Marty: Excuse me... You're biting my butt!(Beat)Alex: [muffled, through his teeth on Marty's butt] No, I'm not.
- Maurice then states that it's proof that Alex is a predator. King Julien disagrees:Julian: What is a simple bite on the butt among friends? (offers his backside to Maurice) Come on, give me a nibble.
- As Maurice explains Alex being a predator, the lion spots a butterfly and tries to chomp at it.
- This is then followed by Black Comedy when Alex gets Meat-O-Vision and Marty asks him if he looks like a steak to Alex. Alex responds "Yeah!", and Marty is about to tell everyone they were wrong about Alex wanting to eat them when he suddenly does a Double Take with a "wait, what?".
- During the party, Marty says that Alex can sometimes be a "real pain in the butt - and believe me, I know!", and shoves his rear in the camera, showing a double band aid.
- Maurice then states that it's proof that Alex is a predator. King Julien disagrees:
- Alex introducing himself to Mort (from his perspective).Alex: Hi theeeeeEEEEEEERE.
- In a bit of Gallows Humor, when Alex is attacking Marty with the intent of eating him, National Geographic's classic theme from 1964 to 1987
plays. - A bit of Mood Whiplash during the Sad-Times Montage, Alex gets his claws stuck in the trunk of a tree. In his stuggle to free himself, he pulls so hard that he is sent tumbling down a grassy hill and down a jagged, rocky cliff. Suddenly, he lands on a field of flowers...and then he falls into a field of cacti. The fall finishes with him landing into a river...which promptly leads him to a waterfall. All while he has a cacti stuck to his back.
- A great bit of Black Comedy: When Marty, Gloria and Melman are trekking through the jungles, they see some pretty scary creatures. They suddenly come across a cute little duckling, and after seeing two other small critters eaten horribly, quickly grab it and rush it over to a pond. They sigh with relief knowing they saved the duckling... only for it to be eaten by a large crocodile a second later. All three are visibly traumatized.
- And what song plays over the sequence? "What a Wonderful World."
- A great bit of Black Comedy: When Marty, Gloria and Melman are trekking through the jungles, they see some pretty scary creatures. They suddenly come across a cute little duckling, and after seeing two other small critters eaten horribly, quickly grab it and rush it over to a pond. They sigh with relief knowing they saved the duckling... only for it to be eaten by a large crocodile a second later. All three are visibly traumatized.
- When the animals are riding the subway, a frightened man is sitting next to Alex on the seat, hiding behind his newspaper. What he hears is an angry roar, what we hear is "Aw, Knicks lost again!".
- Another instance of what humans hear is when Alex calls an operator and asks him to get him Missing Animals. The operator only hears roars on the other end. Then Alex realizes that they can't call the people and hangs up. After a second, he then breaks the pay phone and tosses it aside. Gloria and Melman's reaction to this is just plain hilarious.
- While out in town, Marty asks directions from a horse. More precisely, a police horse being rode by an officer. An officer patrolling the night on a horse is funny enough, but then there’s the fact that said horse spends a quarter of a minute giving Marty directions to Grand Central and he implicitly just sat there and watched before then deciding to call and ask if he should shoot the zebra.
- Then after Marty says his thanks and heads off onto the road, the police horse tells him to wait for the light to change. The horse then mutters "Freak" under his breath like a human officer would after dealing with an absentminded tourist. Even the animals of New York's Police Force know to uphold the law.
- Alex's first fight with Nana. While everyone else is running in terror, Nana whacks him with her purse, kicks him in the crotch, sprays his eyes with pepper spray, and flings him to the ground. Mind you, she was just walking normally up until he got too close and even then, didn’t touch her.Alex: Lady! What is wrong with you?! (gets whacked again) Ow! Get a grip on yourselves, people!
Nana: You're a bad kitty!- Then, when the animals are surrounded by the police and animal control, Nana somehow walks right past the officers and kicks Alex in the crotch again, before being promptly dragged away by the police. Again, he wasn’t doing anything, at the moment besides trying to shush Marty while saying he would handle this. On top of that, she slowly walked up to him for a good few seconds and waited until he turned around to then mail the poor lion in the groin.Alex: (highest pitched voice imaginable) Oh! Would you give a guy a break?!
- Before that happened, Alex tries to explain the situation and said that his friend, Marty, went a little crazy and went cuckoo in the head. Marty's face says it all.
- Then, when the animals are surrounded by the police and animal control, Nana somehow walks right past the officers and kicks Alex in the crotch again, before being promptly dragged away by the police. Again, he wasn’t doing anything, at the moment besides trying to shush Marty while saying he would handle this. On top of that, she slowly walked up to him for a good few seconds and waited until he turned around to then mail the poor lion in the groin.
- Alex must have some really bad luck in the wild. First a tree branch smacks him in the face, and he holds his nose in pain. Then he stubs his right foot on a rock, and as he hops in pain, he hops right on a thorn patch! Then he gets tangled in a cobweb. Finally, a coconut tree falls on him.
- After the gang finds out they're in the wild, much to Alex, Melman, and Gloria's horror and Marty's delight:Alex: (calmly) Could you excuse me for a moment? (Cut to Alex sprinting back to the beach, sobbing hysterically, with Gloria close behind) GET ME OUTTA HERE! WE GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE! HELP! (leaps towards the sea, only to be stopped by Gloria)
Gloria: What are you doing?!
Alex: I'm swimming back to New York! I know my chances are slim! But I've gotta try!
Gloria: But you can't swim!
Alex: I said, "my chances are slim!"
Melman: (with a bound of vines and leaves around his head) AAAH! NATURE! IT'S ALL OVER ME! GET IT OFF! I can't see! I can't see! (Gloria steps on the vine Melman's dragging, and the bush on his head falls apart) I can see! (Shrieks and promptly buries his head in the sand)- Gloria's demeanor throughout the scene is as hilarious as it is adorable.
- Though even then, she's clear near her limits, brushing Alex's mane with a thousand yard stare as she tries telling them things will be okay, not knowing she's choking Alex, who gasps for air once let go.
- During this part, Marty can be seen dancing like a cheerleader.
- Gloria's demeanor throughout the scene is as hilarious as it is adorable.
- When Mort finally starts to try Julien's patience, we get this:
- Made even funnier with Mort looking like he's about to tear up again, only to suddenly switch to a smug "Did I do that?~" look.
- Alex taking a drink and doing a Spit Take. Why? It's seawater. And then when it shows up again at the end...Marty: Oh, you don't swallow it. It's just temporary till the plumbing's done.
- Alex dealing with an uncomfortable moment after Marty catches him licking him:Alex: 27, 28, 29, 30. Hmm, 30 black and only 29 white, looks like you're black with white stripes after all. Dilemma solved. Good night!
- King Julien waiting to put his welcome for the Zoosters in action: "All we need to do is wait until they are deep in their sleep..." (roughly five seconds of silence) "HOW LONG IS THIS GOING TO TAKE?!"
- Alex is hit with a tranquilizer dart early in the movie and starts hallucinating a psychedelic music video set to a cover of "The Candy Man" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It comes to an end and he wakes up in the zoo during a press conference, weakly trying to get up as a zoo representative explains to the crowd that he and the rest of the main cast are going to be released into the wild. The crowd panics as they see the "dangerous" lion getting up and he gets tranked again. Then the entire Candy Man sequence plays again, but in fast-forward.
- Special mention goes to the absolute storm of darts that are fired at Alex to put him back to sleep. Only one of them hits him. Made even better by his lax "Ah maaaan," clearly knowing what's about to happen.
- When the cargo ship returns, the Zoosters somehow manage to flag it down, at which point it turns toward the island. After being offscreen for less than a minute, it is shown charging toward the beach at full speed, stopping mere feet from flattening Melman. Immediately after stopping, the ship sounds its horn, then drops one of its anchors onto the sand.
- Of note: When it sounds its horn, the force from it visibly pushes the trees in front of it.
- How the Zoosters flag down the ship bears mention as well; with Gloria standing on top of Melman's head while Marty hangs off his neck, Artistic License – Biology be damned.
- This little bit after Alex saves his friends' lives:
