Madagascar & Penguins Series Characters: Good to Evil 🦁🦓🦛🦒🐧

It started with four animal friends from New York, released back into the wild for rehabilitation, only to be shipwrecked on a tropical paradise. From that concept, Dreamworks Animation was able to squeeze out three films, a theatrical spinoff, and several animated series. I’m Brad with WickedBinge and today, we’re talking on the world of Madagascar and counting down its beloved characters and ranking them on the morality spectrum. This is The Madagascar Franchise: Good to Evil. Now, the Madagascar series has, over the course of fifteen years, introduced us to a litany of furry faces - today, however, we’re sticking to the theatrical films. With that out of the way, let’s “move it, move it” down to our first entrant. As usual, we’ll be starting with the most pure and working our way down. These characters are The Good. Our Gold Standard Good comes in the form of a penguin-protege named Private, Skipper’s young cadet and resident ray of sunshine. Contrasting the analytical and coarse demeanors of his teammates, Private maintains an upbeat, pleasant, and caring disposition in his every appearance. He certainly followed orders to the best of his abilities, and never begrudged the treatment he received if he fell short of his brothers’ expectations of him. In fact, Private has proven himself emblematic of the series’ core philosophy: as scary as change is, having a family to help you adapt, makes everything easier. For that, we’re pleased to award him our Gold Metal. Coming in at a close second we have Marty. He spends the bulk of the movie not knowing if he has white stripes or black stripes, but regardless, he has a heart made of solid gold. In fact, for his motivation, Marty is probably the most sympathetic we have to offer. We can certainly relate to him in that all he really wants is a sense of belonging - originally this translates to wanting to find a new home. Later it becomes a matter of melding with a herd of like-minded zebras. In every instance, though, it comes from a place of unashamed vulnerability and ultimately he allows his own struggles to take the back-burner so he can help his friends. In fact it’s Marty’s loyalty to his friends that saves Alex from a lifetime in isolation, and then from certain death by drowning. Up next is Mort, an adorable little mouse lemur and frequently disgraced member of King Julien’s court. Now, if you’ve seen any of the spin-off series, you know that Mort has undergone some… minor deviations in character sync his debut. But for the sake of our discussion today, we’d do best to remember Mort as an innocent, childish, and somewhat unfortunate member of the cast, who’s arguably not smart enough to ever intend any harm. In fact Mort’s a bit of an Iron Idiot, and can usually shrug off whatever catastrophic damage he lands himself in. He lands where he does because, as far as the animals of Africa are concerned, he’s responsible for saving their source of life for having sent a particularly persistent shark to its death in an active volcano. It… makes more sense in context. Next we have Gloria. Gloria is the only female member of the main troupe and is known for the maternal role she fills. She certainly the most empathetic of the group, and she can be counted on to know when her friends need a pick-me-up. She’s also demonstrated her ability to get done what she needs to - she was able to cow Alex physically into comforting a disparate Marty, made sure they had a cake ready to celebrate Alex’s birthday, and coached Melman through his fears as a trapeze artist. In most cases, she’s the one to hold her friends together when tempers are flaring, though she herself isn’t immune to being temperamental at times. A romantic at heart, she wholeheartedly believes in taking care of herself in a relationship, and breaks off a budding relationship with her suitor Moto-Moto when he conveys he only likes her for her looks. For all her good will, she knows she deserves to be respected. She eventually gets this with Melman, whom she eventually builds a mutually-edifying romantic partnership. Speaking of our resident sickly giraffe, Melman comes next. Now, he’s definitely the least relatable of our main cast; he’s a raging hypochondriac who comes across as rather neurotic. Be that as it may, Melman is certainly inoffensive and loyal to his friends in the face of his many medical conditions. He really gets his chance to shine in the second movie: after he learns that the giraffes of Africa have no medical aid and simply “pick out a dying hole” when sick or injured, he becomes their new witch doctor. This demonstrates that he’s remarkably self-aware, being motivated by his own medical concerns to alleviate those of others. He also shows that he isn’t afraid to stand up for himself, or for someone he loves, in this same movie. Melman’s tendencies can certainly be extensive and inconvenient, but he’s far from a bad giraffe. In fact, as far as anxious giraffes go, he might just be the best. Following him is the answer-man (answer-bird?) Kowalski. Kowalski is the brains of the penguins’ outfit and has a tendency to be cynical. But he’s no stoic genius, he’s actually very emotional, specifically where his brothers are concerned. His plans can (usually) be counted on to prioritize their safety, and while perhaps not as unquestioning as Rico or Private, he does trust Skipper’s judgement and respects him as a commanding officer. Kowalski even manages to rustle up a few romantic inclinations for certain snow owls. He can be arrogant, and even ostentatious, but Kowalski is definitely someone who sees the bigger picture, and that’s definitely more than we can say for… certain others on our list. But Kowalski, like the other older members of his brood, are pretty far from perfect. In fact, Kowalski can usually be counted on to cause just as much damage as his siblings with his malfunctioning inventions and occasional ‘mad-scientist’ urges. But equally like the rest of his team, they can be counted on to get the job done. Speaking of pragmatists, King Julien’s royal advisor, Maurice, is up next. Besides Alex going feral, Maurice is the closest the first film has to a main antagonist in that he naysays Julien’s plan to foster and weaponize the main quartet. He tows the line between ‘practical’ and ‘prejudiced’, but he’s far from a malicious primate. Despite yielding to Julien’s authority on principle, however, Maurice is easily the brains of their operation. Obviously, he cares for his kingdom, as its his discernment that keeps Julien in line. Maurice is also the only member of Julien’s court to treat Mort with any consideration. His only real crime is aiding in the efforts to religiously sacrifice Melman in an effort to bring about rain. Believe it or not, there’s worse things a guy can do. Alex the Lion ranks below. Our master dramatist and showman extraordinaire, Alex is truly Dreamworks’ middle finger at the concept of subtlety. Perhaps owing to his lightning-fast dialogue and movement pattern, its evident at a glance that Alex is far from Dreamworks’ most subtle protagonist. In fact, even his best friends know him to be a “show-off” and even a bit lacking in empathy. But underneath all the glamor and vainglory, Alex isn’t a bad guy. Of the main quartet, Alex is the most acclimated to his life as a zoo animal and the most detached from his new, nomadic existence. Even when he begins to accept his current circumstances, it then becomes a matter of comparing them with his memories of New York. Predictably, he arc is usually to with identity, and who he is without a crowd to cheer him. But Alex also has values: his love for his friends is never questionable and he’s capable of putting his own problems on pause to help someone when he feels that’s due. And even his “the old ways were better” mindset and desire to return to New York aren’t totally selfish motives. He’s a benevolent king of the concrete jungle and he loved his subjects, and his public loved him. For Alex, it’s less that he misses being a king and more that he knows people miss him, but even that isn’t enough to ultimately pull him away from his friends. When he gets his chance to go back at the end of the trilogy, he doesn’t take it for the lonely implications he comes to see in his old life. Honestly, that’s growth. Then we have our ‘cute-and-cuddly’ master of espionage, Skipper. As the leader of the penguins, Skipper can usually be counted on to maintain control over a situation. He holds his teammates and himself to a high set of standards, but also has a soft spot for each of them as his brothers, particularly Private, who he has a marked tendency to baby. However, Skipper is also the most pragmatic of the penguins and the happiest to make tough sacrifices, at least when the sacrifice is being made by someone else. He’s also apparently a war criminal in every continuity so, all things considered, he places pretty well in the lower tiers of the Good Guys. Next is Skipper’s weapons expert and one-man demolition crew, Rico. Arguably, Rico makes the most sacrifices for the team in carrying their arsenal around in his digestive system. But Rico never once utters a complaint - or anything else, ever. But equally, Rico’s rudimentary vocalizations and coarse mannerisms imply that he rather enjoys the chaotic demands of his rank. He’s a firecracker to be sure, but not an unfeeling one. Just as Skipper’s authoritative personality ultimately comes across as parental, Rico’s explosive nature come across as quirky and cuddly, particularly in the penguins’ spin-off and in Europe’s Most Wanted. He doesn’t place lower because he’s undeniably a good brother and quartermaster, but he doesn’t place as high as, say, Private for his violent tendencies. Plus, I feel like if we gave him a Medal, he’d just swallow it. Coming in like a flaming tiger, next we have Vitali. Vitali is first introduced to us as a traumatized performer who once flew too close to the sun and got burned for it. For most of the first act of the third film, he’s surly, unhelpful, and disgraced. Vitali is guilty of sloth in that in his sadness, he does give up on the animals who need him. He also resists the efforts to revive the circus on grounds of sticking to traditionalism. When the zoo animals reignite his spirit, however, he remains grateful enough to them that he’s the first to join in their rescue effort, even after it appeared they had betrayed him. Stubborn though he might be, Vitali is just a tiger who cares about his art; there are things you can fault him for, but that isn’t really one of them. Our next entrant should be remembered solely for being Bernie Mac’s final performance before his death, Alex’s father Zuba. Zuba only appears in one film and much of his character development is rooted in being Alex’s long-lost father, but he does leave a lasting impression as both a husband and a leader as well. He’s a dedicated and popular public servant to the reserve he presides over, so much so that his people demand him at the first sign of crisis. But he isn’t taking home any trophies for Father of the Year; at least, not at first. For all the shame the incident caused him, Zuba’s own pride was a factor in his son’s abduction when he was an infant. This pride resurfaces with along with many other emotions when he discovers Alex alive years later. We mentioned earlier that Alex’s happiness is tied to his unconventional identity as a performer. Zuba, as his father, has to work to be okay with that. And in fairness, it does take an extensive set of extenuating circumstances for Zuba to validate Alex’s worldview. However he was willing to relinquish his throne rather than banish his son as custom dictated, and eventually, he does come around to appreciating his unique talents. He even joins in with them at the end of the movie before dancing off into the sunset. We miss you, Bernie. With that said, we now enter The Grey Area. Phil and Mason are next. Certainly the most human out of the animal cast, these learned primates are specifically out for themselves. In their every appearance, the Chimps are not the most intelligent duo, but they are certainly the most acclimated with human cultural structures like language and communication. Phil and Mason can always be counted on using their skills as leverage to get what they want, even at the expense of others. To be fair, much of their self-servitude was present in a debate environment, so you can’t really fault them for knowing their worth in a time of crisis. And honestly, their negotiations over workers’ rights with Skipper might be the single funniest part of the second movie. Next is Moto Moto, the head honcho-hippo of the watering hole with a… really disconcerting fat fetish. Yeah, this is one of those memes that just aged really weirdly. He places where he does because he sort of exists to further romantic tension between Melman and Gloria, and Melman is the overlooked-friendzoned guy and Moto is just the desirable airhead who only values Gloria for her appearance… it isn’t his fault, it’s just that he’s only really there to make one of the tiredest tropes in entertainment happen, and that’s not really something we can forgive. Regardless, for all his superficiality, he never demonstrates himself as a bad guy. He leads the charge to dig for water when the reserve dries out, which is actually a pretty viable solution, and he doesn’t even take umbrage to Gloria choosing Melman. He could probably be worth all the memes years later if he weren’t so one-note, but that’s not really something you can be mad at him about. Nearing the bottom of our neutrals is King Julien, lord of the lemurs. To say nothing of the primate he is in the spin-off material, King Julien is certainly the most hedonistic ruler of recent memory, though he wasn’t a bad lord of lemurs nor a particularly unpopular one. In fact, he is beloved enough by his subjects to be celebrated regularly, which in turn has left him with… a bit of an ego. After the first movie, when he begins a tour of the world, he treats the whole affair like a conquest, and appropriately styles himself as the leader of whatever land or group he happens upon. His love of music and lack of intelligence hold him back somewhat, but otherwise, he’s a good ally for the main quartet. But he’s also only in it for himself, and his treatment of his underlings (Mort especially) doesn’t do win any favors. He also manages rally the animals of the reserve using only his charisma, then convince them to throw one of their own into an active volcano. If nothing else, he just wants everyone around him to have as a good time as he’s having. Teetsi is next on the list. He’s another character who doesn’t commit any egregious sins. In fact, he doesn’t actually seem to bear any ill will towards our protagonists. Teetsi is named for the tetzi fly, an insect vector for the sleeping sickness, appropriately, he himself is perpetually drowsy and lethargic unless he’s been properly awoken for a physical challenge. In his anger over being woken up, Teetsi is a merciless fighter and a physical behemoth. Arguably, he does unwittingly aid Mukunga’s scheme to take over the watering hole, but this is done more or less unknowingly and - ignorant as he was - Alex did challenge him first. He’s a bit of a circumstantial villain, but certainly on the darker side of morally grey. Finally, we arrive at The Dark Side. These characters are The Bad and The Evil. The Fossa as an aggregate, come next. The Fossa are a loose confederation of lemur-eating weasels who frequently terrorize Julien’s kingdom. They arguably aren’t the main antagonist of the first movie for their general ineptness and cowardice. Regardless they do have a voracious appetite and serve as a catalyst to Alex’s mental decline in the first movie. But the Fossa are also the only characters in the first movie to get royally screwed over. They’re not particularly malicious, just hungry, and they get mauled pretty brutally by animals much bigger than them in the film climax. This all culminates in the Fossa effectively being scared out of their own territory and left to starve to death, so… there’s that. Nana takes our penultimate spot, before the Big Bads, but she doesn’t place where she does for lack of trying. Now Nana isn’t someone who throws her own under the bus: it should at least be said of her that she’s a natural survivor and that (in the second movie) she showed genuine care in helping her fellow stranded New-Yorkers survive the African wilderness. However she wasn’t benevolent enough to pass up a meal, something that Alex had to learn the hard way. She also effectively defeats the movie’s primary antagonist. But she’s not a sweet old lady: that much is obvious. Nana is incredibly hostile and dangerous, even more so in the accessory material, but perhaps nothing quite demonstrates this better than the brutal beatdown she merits on Alex during the first movie, later mentioning that Alex deserved for being a “bad kitty”. Dave the Octopus takes home our Bronze Medal. Nana has Dave beat in terms of blatant hostility, but the cephalopod lands here for the scope of his grand design, which is the only villainous aspiration in the series. He’s not the most complex villain in the world - he was rejected by the humans for favor of cuter animals so now he wants to take his abandonment issues out on the cuter penguins instead of the humans who rejected him (because… that somehow makes sense). Dave is perhaps somewhat sympathetic in that he’s the only villain motivated by pan rather than pride, but they never really do anything with that; and that’s fine, because the core theme of the movie is supposed to be the brothers’ relationship anyway, but it does make Dave a pretty weak villain. So he takes Bronze for favor of other characters, something he should be used to by now. Our Silver Medal Villain is DuBois, who is perhaps the most formidable villain of the series. DuBois is the series’ take on the classic animal-catcher bad-guy. She has an established body count and a deep seated hatred for animals, and is a literal force of nature when tailing her prey. She was a positively ruthless woman with a pronounced set of vicious tendencies, like keeping trophies from her past victims in her office and scrapping with the Vatican police. She’s at least principled enough though to care about her men, if only for their potential as her soldiers. She even rallies them by appealing to their patriotism, rather than by coercion. But Chantel DuBois is an unmistakably bad person, easily the worst human we have to show. The worst character, however, is M’kunga, Alec Baldwin as a selfish rival for Zuba’s throne, the guy is actually low enough to use Zuba’s long-lost son returning as a catalyst for his coup d’etat, and then he runs the watering hole into the ground (literally) once he assumes power. It’s definitely a Lion King-esque feel that comes with this guy, but unlike Scar, he’s not even enough of a ruler to stand by his crumbling kingdom. He schemes for years, dethrones and nearly destroys a family, all in the name of a throne he only wants for his own vanity. In the face of certain drought, he even commands that the little water remaining will have to be fought over, a fight he would certainly win. M’kunga is just about the worst: he cheat, lies, and destroys to get what the power he wants to slake his massive ego, and then allows the people who consequentially count on him to suffer. Just about the only thing he’s good at is being terrible. So that’s our list for the good, and not-so-good folks of Madagascar. But who do you think is the best and worst? Let us know in the comment section below. Don’t forget to hit that notification bell and binge our Good-to-Evil playlist. Where we break down the morality of the characters in your favorite cartoons, shows and movies. But most importantly, stay wicked!

Channel: WickedBinge

Views: 127,654

Keywords: madagascar, madagascar country, madagascar wildlife, dreamworks, dreamworks madagascar, madagascar 2, madagascar 3, penguins, madagascar penguins, alex madagascar, alex the lion, madagascar king julian, king julian, madagascar song, m'kunga, dave the octopus, wickedbinge, good to evil, melman, madagascar gloria, marty, alex and marty, marty madagascar, the lion king, dreamworks animation, move it move it, penguins private, penguins kowalski, penguins skipper, penguins rico

Id: 2REg0J2L9oU

Length: 20min 42sec (1242 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 29 2020