The Penguins of Madagascar

This article is about the television series. For the related feature film, see Penguins of Madagascar.
"Penguins!" redirects here. For other uses, see Penguin (disambiguation).

The Penguins of Madagascar
Genre
Based onCharacters
by Tom McGrath
Eric Darnell
Developed by
Directed by
Voices of
ComposerAdam Berry
Country of originUnited States
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes80 (149 segments) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
  • Mark McCorkle
  • Bob Schooley[2]
Producers
  • Dina Buteyn (S2)
  • Dean Hoff (S2)
  • Andrew Hubner (S3)
Running time
  • 11 minutes
  • 22 minutes (long-length specials: episodes 48, 55, 79, 98, 110, 122, 146 and 147)
  • 44 minutes ("The Return of the Revenge of Dr. Blowhole", episode 99)
Production companies
Original release
NetworkNickelodeon (2008–12)
Nicktoons (2013–15)
ReleaseNovember 28, 2008 (2008-11-28)[3] –
December 19, 2015 (2015-12-19)
Infobox instructions (only shown in preview)

The Penguins of Madagascar is an American animated television series produced by DreamWorks Animation and co-produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio.[4] It stars nine characters from DreamWorks' animated film Madagascar: the penguins Skipper (Tom McGrath), Rico (John DiMaggio), Kowalski (Jeff Bennett), and Private (James Patrick Stuart); the lemurs King Julien (Danny Jacobs), Maurice (Kevin Michael Richardson), and Mort (Andy Richter); and the chimpanzees Mason (Conrad Vernon) and Phil. Characters new to the series include the otter Marlene (Nicole Sullivan) and a zookeeper named Alice (Mary Scheer). It is the first Nicktoon co-produced with DreamWorks Animation. The series was executive-produced by Bob Schooley and Mark McCorkle, who were the creators of the animated series Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (a spin-off of Pixar's Toy Story franchise) and Disney Channel's Kim Possible.

The pilot episode, "Gone in a Flash", aired as part of "Superstuffed Nicktoons Weekend" on Friday, November 28,[5] 2008, and The Penguins of Madagascar became a regular series on March 28, 2009. The series premiere drew 6.1 million viewers, setting a new record as the most-watched premiere.[6][7]

Although the series occasionally alludes to the rest of the franchise, The Penguins of Madagascar does not take place at a precise time within it.[8] McGrath, who is also the co-creator of the film characters, has said that the series takes place "not specifically before or after the movie, I just wanted them all back at the zoo. I think of it as taking place in a parallel universe".[8]

At the end of 2010, the show was the number two animated program on television among kids age 2–11 and in basic cable total viewers.[9] The show received praise for its animation quality, regarded as very good for the time.[10]

In December 2014, DiMaggio stated that the show ended production.[11] The show's executive producers, Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley, later served as executive consultants for DreamWorks' next Madagascar spin-off series (All Hail King Julien).

  1. ^ Tom McGrath, John DiMaggio, Jeff Bennett, James Patrick Stuart, Danny Jacobs, Kevin Michael Richardson, Andy Richter, Conrad Vernon, Tara Strong (November 28, 2008). "Gone in a Flash". The Penguins of Madagascar. Season 1. Episode 1. 11:28 minutes in. Nickelodeon.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference comingsoon.net was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Nickelodeon's Thanksgiving Menu Offers Non-Stop Animation".
  4. ^ "'Penguins of Madagascar' Move It, Move It to Nickelodeon". Chicago Tribune. January 9, 2009. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
  5. ^ "Nick Serves Toons for Thanksgiving". November 3, 2008.
  6. ^ "Nickelodeon Nabs Ratings Records With Kids' Choice, 'Penguins'". TVWeek. Archived from the original on October 29, 2013. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
  7. ^ "Nick's Penguins is Basic Cable's # 1 Kids' Show with Total Viewers for the Week". Animation World Network (AWN). June 16, 2009. Retrieved June 10, 2010.
  8. ^ a b Strike, Joe (May 20, 2009). "Penguins of Madagascar Strike Back". Animation World Network. Retrieved August 30, 2017.
  9. ^ "Nickelodeon is 2010's Top-Ranked Cable Network, Marks 16 Years as Number One". PR Newswire. December 15, 2010. Retrieved December 20, 2010.
  10. ^ Kirkland, Karen (August 2009). "The Penguins of Madagascar "gone in a flash"". ACM SIGGRAPH 2009 Computer Animation Festival. Siggraph '09. pp. 109–111. doi:10.1145/1596685.1596786. ISBN 9781450379274. S2CID 28425600. Retrieved March 3, 2021.
  11. ^ John DiMaggio [@TheJohnDiMaggio] (December 1, 2014). "@MrDanielJKing it's done" (Tweet) – via Twitter.