Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
part of Madagascar

At the Central Park Zoo, Marty the zebra (Chris Rock) is celebrating his tenth birthday, but longs to see the rest of the world from outside his pampered life at the zoo. Believing that he can find wide-open spaces to run around in, in Connecticut, he gets some tips from the zoo's penguins Skipper (Tom McGrath), Kowalski (Chris Miller), Rico (John DiMaggio), and Private (Christopher Knights). The penguins are similarly trying to escape the zoo. Marty's friends, Alex the lion (Ben Stiller), Melman the giraffe (David Schwimmer), and Gloria the hippopotamus (Jada Pinkett Smith), realize Marty's folly and try to follow him. The four, along with the penguins and the chimpanzees Mason (Conrad Vernon) and his silent friend Phil eventually find themselves at Grand Central Station, but are quickly sedated by tranquilizer darts when Alex's attempt to communicate is mistaken for aggression. The zoo (under pressure from animal-rights activists) is forced to ship the animals, by sea, to Kenya. During their travels, the penguins escape from their enclosure and take over the ship, intent on taking it to Antarctica. Their antics on the bridge cause the crates containing Alex, Marty, Melmen, and Gloria to fall off the boat and wash ashore on Madagascar.

The film starts as prequel, showing a small part of Alex's early life, including his capture by hunters. It soon moves to shortly after the point where the original left off, with the animals deciding to return to New York. They board an airplane on Madagascar, but crash-land in Africa, where each of the central characters meets others of the same species; Alex is reunited with his parents. Problems arise, and their resolution occupies much of the remainder of the film.

Merry Madagascar is a Christmas special first broadcast on the NBC network on November 17, 2009, which starred the characters from the Madagascar film series. The story appears to take place sometime between the first and second film. It features many of the same voices from the film (except Sacha Baron Cohen, who was replaced by Danny Jacobs, who voices Julien in The Penguins of Madagascar TV series), including Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, and Jada Pinkett Smith. Carl Reiner provided the voice of Santa Claus.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted is a 2012 computer-animated comedy film, produced by DreamWorks Animation, and distributed by Paramount Pictures. It is the third installment of the series, following Madagascar and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, and it is the first 3-D film in the series. The film is directed by Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon.