Madagascar

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Madagascar Trivia

The look of the jungles in Madagascar is based on the paintings of Henri Rousseau.
The shot of Times Square after Marty asks the police horse for directions prominently features a Hewlett-Packard logo. Hewlett-Packard is the official computer provider for Dreamworks Animation.
The only time Rico did not have a voice; he was later voiced in spin-offs and sequels by John Di Maggio.
The penguins originated from a film director Eric Darnell was developing, called "Rockumentary", about a Beatles-like rock quartet. When that project was canceled and Darnell was moved to this movie, he incorporated the penguins into the script, changing them from musicians to military commandos.
Early on, the plot was based on a group of activists who liberate the animals from their cages.
Melman the giraffe wears tissue boxes on his feet. This is a reference to Howard Hughes who was also a hypochondriac and suffered OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). In his later years, Hughes wore tissue boxes on his feet believing this would keep away germs.
According to the patch the captain is wearing, the name of the boat is the "S.S. Act II."
The airplane that the Lemurs hold court in is a Lockheed Electra, the same airplane as Amelia Earhart disappeared in on July 2, 1937.
During the scene where Private is attempting to gain access to the oil tanker controls, "WHATApiece OFworkIsPenGuin" can been seen on the computer screen behind him. This is a reference to the Shakespeare quote, "What a piece of work is man!" from "Hamlet".
Sacha Baron Cohen improvised the line "It's got a gecko on it", and all of the following dialog related to the gecko. The filmmakers found it so funny that they went to the extra work of creating a CG gecko for the shot.
At one point, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani were considered for the voice of Gloria the Hippo before Jada Pinkett Smith signed on.
Director Tom McGrath based his voice of one of the penguins on the voice of friend and composer Shawn Patterson; known for his Charlton Heston impressions and frequent failed use of the "Jedi mind trick".
When the camera pans backward from Alex's crate in the ocean, the sea foam around him creates the head of a lion. Foam makes the face, and the absence of foam around that makes the mane. Alex is in the left eye of the face.
Jeffrey Katzenberg admitted that he was disappointed with the film's third act.
When Alex and Marty find each other on the beach and Alex remembers that he is mad at Marty, Marty swears by assigning words to the letters of an acronym. They are "O"h "S"ugar "H"oney "I"ce "T"ea.
WILHELM SCREAM: as the large crowd of people come charging up the stairs at Grand Central Station, thinking that Alex is chasing them.
The German actor Gerald Schaale is the usual dubbing voice of David Schwimmer, but in the German version of Madagascar he didn't dub Schwimmer's character Melman, but the sweet lemur Mort instead.
The lead quartet were originally to be a lion, a zebra, a hippo, and an okapi. Melman was changed to a giraffe to make him a more familiar animal.
Harry Gregson-Williams was originally attached as the film's composer, but was replaced by Hans Zimmer. A few weeks earlier, the opposite had occurred for another film: Gregson-Williams replaced Zimmer for the scoring duties of Kingdom of Heaven.
None of the main character animals (lion, zebra, giraffe or hippo) are actually housed at the Central Park Zoo. There are penguins.