Madagascar (2005 Film) - Characters

Characters

Alex the Lion is the most popular animal at the Central Park Zoo. Nicknamed The King of New York, he is very happy with life in the zoo. When the characters first arrive in Madagascar, he is the loudest proponent of trying to return to the zoo. He is extremely fond of eating steaks but has no idea that they come from animals until he goes into withdrawal after 2 days of not eating after reaching Madagascar.

Marty the Zebra is the instigator behind escaping from the zoo. He constantly dreams about the wild (which he, due to Melman's misinformation, interprets as Connecticut) and wonders what life would be like beyond the zoo. One night, following the successful escape of the penguins, he leaves the zoo too, causing his friends to attempt a rescue at Grand Central Station. After they are recaptured from the train station, animal rights activists hold a rally, leading the zoo to have them and the rest of the animals shipped to a wildlife preserve in Kenya. However, the penguins hijack the ship and accidentally cause the crates containing Marty and his friends to fall off. The crates float on the ocean until they reach Madagascar.

Melman the Giraffe is a hypochondriac who was transferred to the Central Park Zoo as a young adult. Because of his previous stay in the Bronx Zoo, Melman believes that he's a real worldly guy, the most experienced in his circle of friends. He's also on a lot of medication and has lots of experience in MRI machines.

Gloria the Hippopotamus serves as the mediator and the nurturer of the group who takes care of the others and tends to take charge when needed and loves to eat and live the good life.

The Penguins, a group of four consisting of Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, and Private, spend their days planning an escape that will take them back to Antarctica. When the penguins do make it to Antarctica, they are surprised to see a cold, barren land that they do not like and so, decide to take the ship to what they consider "paradise": Florida. However, having run out of fuel, they beach the ship in Madagascar. Skipper is the leader of the group. Kowalski, the smartest and tallest of the penguins, thinks of plans and takes notes for Skipper. Private is distinguishable by his googly eyes and soft English accent; he is the youngest of the group. Rico is good with knives, has a fondness for explosives, and is the only one of the four seen swimming. He also regurgitates useful objects (a variation of the "magic satchel") such as a piece of wire for picking locks with. Alex describes the penguins as psychotic (while they say the same of him). Skipper calls Marty their "monochromatic friend", amusing since both kinds of animals are "black and white".

King Julien XIII the Ring-tailed Lemur is the self-proclaimed King of the Madagascar lemurs. Julien speaks with an Indian accent and loves to sing, dance, and be the center of attention. Julien is annoyed by the lemur Mort and even suggests feeding him to Alex in order to help him get over his addiction to steak. He wears a crown made out of leaves, and later a larger one that features a gecko. The other lemurs hang on his every word. He is slightly deranged and overly impressed by his modest intellect. Julien is also very weird and dramatic. He contrives a plan to use Alex to protect the lemurs from their natural enemies, the fossa, as long as Alex doesn't overshadow his own glory. Also, according to the song "I Like to Move It" King Julien XIII is about 68 (or six to eight?) years old. According to a May 26, 2005 interview with Director Tom McGrath in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, "We had this two-line character, Julian, and we got a tape of the show 'Ali G' with Sacha Baron Cohen. He came in and he invented this Indian accent. We gave him a couple of lines and he turned them into eight minutes of dialogue. We were just in tears on the floor and thought, 'This guy has to be the king.' So that was just a two-line part that he invented and it turned into that role."

Maurice the Aye-aye is Julien's assistant and second in command of the lemurs. He is in charge of announcing Julien to his court, though he finds this task tedious. He is generally less impressed by Julien than the other lemurs. Maurice shows the most intelligence in Julien's court, and is the only one to recognize Alex as a potentially greater threat than the fossa.

Mort is a Mouse lemur that most animals find adorable, but King Julien is highly annoyed by him, eventually shouting "Oh, shut up, you're so annoying!" in response to his inane chatter. Mort responds to this by giggling and looking flattered. He has an obsession with feet; to be precise, King Julien's feet. In the commentary for the film, the director mentioned that Mort was actually 35, despite his childish behavior.

The Fossas are predators native to Madagascar, who resemble hyenas or half-cat half-dog creatures. Known as the top predators in the island of Madagascar, the fossa are the villains of the movie, constantly trying to kill and eat the lemurs. According to Julien, "they're always annoying us by trespassing, interrupting our parties, and ripping our limbs off". They are cowards, however, and always flee when confronted by a bigger predator, such as Alex. They also use foreign objects such as salt and pepper shakers.

Despite appearances, the pronunciation in the film ("foo-sah") is accurate, however the spelling (Foosa or Fousa) is not, as shown in one of the signs on the island.

Mason and Phil are the sophisticated chimpanzees at the Central Park Zoo, preferring to "read" the newspaper and enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning; for them, freedom means attending a Tom Wolfe lecture to "fling poo at him." Mason speaks with a RP accent and plans the daily affairs for Phil and himself, but is unable to read. He is named for James Mason, whose voice inspired the character's portrayal. Phil doesn't speak, making him initially seem less intelligent and more primitive than his comrade, but can read English and "speaks" American Sign Language (which he uses to communicate with Mason), which instills the idea that Phil is perhaps the more cerebral of the two. Both escape from the zoo in the beginning of the movie after Alex, Gloria, and Melman leave for Grand Central Station; they are later caught at Grand Central trying to rob a teller. They are also sent to the wildlife reserve along with the main characters. Unlike the main characters, they don't wash up on the shores of Madagascar, however they do appear in the background of the final scene in their crate on the ship. In their first scene in the movie, they raid a waste basket for leftover coffee, a bagel, and a newspaper. Their crate on the ship is full of aluminum cans (in the DVD, it is indicated that they contain root beer, not beer, likely implemented in order to make the film more family-friendly). According to a May 26, 2005 interview with Director Tom McGrath in the Seattle Post Intelligencer the chimp's "first scene was just deciphering the code on the shipping label. We got this girl who knew American Sign Language. We wanted (the gestures) to be really frenetic so she signed out, 'Tell the tiny pea-brained birds that the sign reads: Ship to ...' and it gave us enough hand gestures. Then we went back to 'I see that Tom Wolfe is speaking at Lincoln Center,' and she gestured, 'Can we throw our poo at his stupid white suit?'".