Merry Madagascar

Merry Madagascar is a 2009 short film by Dreamworks. It is a midquel that takes place between the 2005 film Madagascar and its 2008 sequel Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa. It was released as a television special in the USA on November 17. In the UK, it was released direct-to-DVD on November 22.

Almost all of the original movie cast reprised their roles for this film, with the exception of Sacha Baron Cohen, due to work committments, who was substituted by Danny Jacobs (who filled Cohen's role as King Julien on The Penguins of Madagascar).

Plot
The film opens on Madagascar, where the four main characters are still trapped on the island. Using material from their crates as well as other items salvaged from the beach, they have created a hot-air balloon, and launch it in the hope of returning to New York City.

The moment they are airborne, however, they are shot down by flaming rocks, and land back on the Madagascan shore, where King Julien and Maurice apologise for their mistake, and explain that, every Julianuary (a variant of Christmas celebrated by the lemurs purely to Julien) the island is attacked by the "Big Red Night Goblin", who hails them with black stones.

On cue, the "Goblin" arrives, and Alex helps the lemurs to shoot it down. The goblin crash-lands on the island, leaving a trail of candy-canes and presents in its wake. The animals are shocked to realise that they have just shot down Santa Claus, and worse still, Santa has amnesia.

Hoping to right the wrong he has committed, Alex decides to deliver the remaining presents on Santa's behalf, and tries to enlist the help of Santa's Russian-accented reindeer. However, the penguins arrive, declaring hostility to the reindeer, due to a long-standing "cold war" between the residents of the North Pole and the South Pole. Amidst this argument, a romance quickly blooms between Private and Cupid, one of the reindeer, but Skipper attempts to intervene, highlighting hostilities between the two species.

With the aid of the penguins, Alex and the others set off, first to Canada, where a hyperactive girl named Abby helps them overcome the stress of delivering so many presents, and then in a quick montage, onto Texas, Alaska, Paris, Egypt, Moscow, London, and then onto New York City and finally to Greenland, before returning to Madagascar.

Meanwhile, Santa rediscovers his gift of creating wooden toys from practically nothing, and gives these toys to all of the lemurs. King Julien, however, is outraged, and confiscates all presents for himself until Santa teaches him the gift of giving rather than taking. The others then return, and in their crash-landing, Santa regains his memory. Amidst the commotion, the others realise they forgot to deliver the presents to Liechtenstein, so Santa and the reindeer set off to do just that, with Private and Cupid sharing a tearful farewell.

The film then ends with the four heroes enjoying Christmas on Madagascar, with Mort wishing the audience a "merry Julianuary".

Cast

 * Ben Stiller - Alex


 * Chris Rock - Marty


 * Jada Pinkett Smith - Gloria


 * David Schwimmer - Melman


 * Carl Reiner - Santa Claus


 * Danny Jacobs - King Julien


 * Cedric the Entertainer - Maurice


 * Andy Richter - Mort


 * Tom McGrath - Skipper


 * Christopher Knights - Private


 * Nina Dobrev - Cupid


 * Jim Cummings - Donner


 * Willow Smith - Abby