Buon Natale, Madagascar!

Merry Madagascar is a made for television special that sees the zoo animals trying to escape Madagascar and get back to their zoo in New York before Christmas.

They try to escape by a hot air balloon which is shot down by King Julius and his band of lemurs who mistake them for the Red night goblin.

This is because every year on December 24th someone flies through the sky showering coals at Julius. Alex the lion shoots down this villain and discover that its is Santa Claus and he now has amnesia.

Alex and the gang have to save Christmas by delivering the presents and reindeer's and penguins need to put their old rivalry aside.

The animation short, it is only about 20 minutes long and is a festive cash in but their is enough pizazz in the story to keep the young ones interested with a dash of Romeo and Juliet thrown in as the penguins with the help of magic dust help the animals deliver the presents.

The animation is rather vanilla but good enough for a television special and DVD extra.

I enjoyed the Madagascar movies and I love The Penguins of Madagascar, so I naturally wanted to see this festive special. And overall, I enjoyed it very much and even preferred it marginally over the movies. I admit I wasn't keen on the animation of Santa and one or two characters are a little bland, but overall it was very enjoyable, with a nice heart warming story and some very funny writing from especially the Penguins and King Julien(who almost steals the show throughout).

The animation is nice, vibrant and colourful and the music is great, I especially liked King Julien's take on Santa Claus is Coming to Town, that was funny. The characters in general are fine, Melman isn't given much to do, same with some of the reindeer, but I loved the Penguins and King Julien and Alex and Gloria were nice to watch. And the voice acting is top notch. Merry Madagascar also moves quickly so it never feels boring. Overall, thoroughly enjoyable and kept me amused constantly. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This animated short is about the Madagascar creatures wanting to go back to New York for Christmas, but things get complicated when they meet the amnesic Santa Claus.

I find the story quite festive, given the fact that the setting is mostly in Madagascar. I enjoyed watching "Merry Madagascar" more than the regular "Madagascar", because I find the animals less annoying and more fun. The story is squeaky clean, and can be enjoyed by people of all ages. There are even a few one liners for adults, and it did make me laugh. "Julianuary" is a great invention, I hope they will capitalise on this in future "Madagascar"!

I'm not a big fan of Dreamworks movies (the poor man's Pixar) but nevertheless I love the Madagascar work. I bought this from my local supermarket (exclusively they claimed) expecting it to be a poor quality version of the movies, probably with bad animation and replacement voice talent. Hey, I thought, my 12 year old will still like it. I was wrong: this is beautifully animated to the quality of the movies, has all the original actors and is FUNNIER than the movies too. There's a joke involving penguins and reindeer that had we three in hysterics, perfect! This is only 26 minutes long but well worth it and a valid addition to the Madagascar movies. It could in fact be Madagascar 3 such is the quality.

Merry Madagascar is a mini short film that follows the same characters we know , Alex , melman, Gloria , Marty

The story here is good even though I do Not celebrate Christmas that was a fun story for the whole short

Overall a pretty good voice acting and AMAZING character design especially Alex! And more stuff here and there that makes this short a pretty good short from a beloved movie by dreamworks animation studios ( which is such a good animation company )

I liked every bit when king Julian was there he is funny and a pretty good character and overall a pretty comedic short

I definitely recommend this short to people who like the Madagascar movie series! ( btw this is my 99th rating on IMDb)