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 "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 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".
    • If we actually want to be accurate: "steak" refers only to a piece of meat cut perpendicular to the muscle fibers. We most commonly see beef steaks, but a steak can be made from any animal, including a zebra, giraffe, or hippo.
  • How can Alex be a danger to Gloria, since hippos are actually too dangerous for lions to hunt? And to some extent Melman? ^note  Given that giraffes can kill lions via kicking them with their long legs.
    • To be fair, Gloria isn't experienced at being in the wild either so she wouldn't know how effective she can be against Alex, and given Melman's concerns about his health he's not likely to believe himself capable of holding his own against Alex anyway.
• 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, Bamboo Technology 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.
• 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 Antarctica 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...
  • I have a theory that the reason why Penguins were sent to Africa is actually Dr. Blowhole's scheming: after learning about what happened at Grand Central, he get a idea to get rid of his archenemies so no one would be able to stop his psychopathic plans and had send one of his lobsters to add Penguins into list of animals that were supposed to be transferred to the Africa.
• Is it me or are the Fossa less like Fossa, and more like weird Lionesses?
  • Look them up on That Other Wiki. 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 with the help of a guy who didn't want to leave.
• 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 Freeze-Frame Bonus in the second movie actually shows that the movies take place in the 1980s... not that that explains Julien's fondness for 90s pop music.
  • The aforementioned Freeze-Frame Bonus 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 Grand Central Station, 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?
  • It's 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?
  • MatPat answers your question in 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?
• Does this only occurred to me, but does to anyone Maurice in first movie felt like a racist? Even though he was right that the lemurs must be cautious about Alex, but in a What If? scenario where Alex hadn't gone savage, does he still would distrust him just because he's a carnivore?
• Why higher-ups of the zoo decided to sent Alex, Marty, Melman, Gloria, Mason, Phil and penguins to the wild? Yes, in one scene the reporter said that environmentalists protested that animals should belong to the wild, but there were some cases in real life where escaped zoo animals still lived in their zoos after escaping. Plus, given how New York populace were afraid of Alex, does this mean they only loved him when he was "behind the bars"?
• Related to the above guess, why they decided to send penguins? Sure, in their minds the rest of the zoo crew could pose danger to humans, but penguins could have stayed in zoo.
• If you notice, the chimps Mason and Phil are still in their cages and on the boat at the end of the movie. And since they didn't get washed off with Alex and the other three, were they just hanging out on the boat the entire movie? What were they doing while the penguins were carrying out their escape to Antarctica?

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