Merry Madagascar is a Christmas special first broadcast on the NBC network on November 17, 2009, which starred the characters from the film series Madagascar, and takes place sometime between the first and second film. It is the second DreamWorks Animation Christmas special, after Shrek the Halls.

It features many of the same voices from the film (except Sacha Baron Cohen, who was replaced by Danny Jacobs, the voice of Julien in both The Penguins of Madagascar and All Hail King Julien television series), including Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, and Jada Pinkett Smith. Carl Reiner provided the voice of Santa Claus.

Plot

Taking a few months after the events of the first film and before the events of the second film, Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria attempt to return to New York City in a hot air balloon. However, the lemur population inadvertently thwarts their escape by mistaking them for the Marauding Red Night Goblin that visits annually. The Goblin then showers the island with coals. Alex shoots it down, discovering it was actually Santa Claus throwing coal at Julien for being naughty.

The crash leaves Santa with amnesia, unaware of his responsibilities. The group resolve to deliver the presents and use the sleigh to get back home, but Santa s reindeer won t take orders from anyone other than Santa, so the penguins use Santa s magic dust to fly.

Their initial attempts to make deliveries go awry so they decide to dump the gifts at the relevant post offices. However, after crashing into an apartment and unintentionally bringing joy to a little girl, they continue with the deliveries despite the adverse conditions.

Back on Madagascar, while the lemurs are presenting gifts to Julien for Julianuary , Santa rediscovers his ability to make toys. He crafts gifts for them all, angering Julien as he feels the focus should be on him. Julien decrees that the lemurs gifts belong to him. Sifting through the presents alone depresses him; Santa s suggestion of giving a gift lifts his mood.

As the night nears its end, the animals have only enough magic dust for one last trip. Putting aside their desire to go home, they return to Madagascar to rescue Santa. They run out of dust and crash into him, restoring his memory. He thanks the animals for making his deliveries and takes Julien off the naughty list. However, the animals have overlooked a bag for Liechtenstein, so Santa switches to a reserve tank to make the trip before the animals can ask for a ride. The animals resolve to enjoy their Christmas in Madagascar, but Julien throws a coconut at Alex to get back on the naughty list, causing a lump on his head and amnesia, like Santa before him.

Cast

• Ben Stiller as Alex the lion.
• Chris Rock as Marty the zebra.
• David Schwimmer as Melman the giraffe.
• Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria the hippopotamus.
• Danny Jacobs as King Julien XIII the ring-tailed lemur.
• Tom McGrath as Skipper the penguin.
• Chris Miller as Kowalski the penguin.
• Christopher Knights as Private the penguin.
• Carl Reiner as Santa Claus.
• Cedric the Entertainer as Maurice the aye-aye.
• Andy Richter as Mort the mouse lemur.
• Nina Dobrev as Cupid the reindeer.
• Willow Smith as Abby.
• Jim Cummings as Donner, the lead reindeer.

Note: Rico appears, but has no dialogue.

Awards

Merry Madagascar was nominated for six Annie Awards, and won one award for Storyboarding in a Television Production.

Award !	Recipient(s)	Result
Best Animated Television Production	DreamWorks Animation	Nominated
Character Animation in a Television Production	Kevan Shorey	Nominated
Character Design in a Television Production	Craig Kellman	Nominated
Storyboarding in a Television Production	Robert Koo	Won
Voice Acting in a Television Production	Danny Jacobs (Voice of King Julien)	Nominated
	Willow Smith (Voice of Abby)	Nominated

Home media

Merry Madagascar was released on DVD in the United States on November 18, 2009, exclusively at stores of Walmart, and it was widely released on October 11, 2011. The special was released on Blu ray and DVD on October 30, 2012, as part of compilation titled Dreamworks Holiday Classics. It was re released on DVD on October 1, 2013 along with Shrek the Halls, Kung Fu Panda Holiday, Dragons: Gift of the Night Fury, and The Croods.

Partnership

In July 2011, as part of a strategic partnership between DreamWorks Animation and Gaylord Hotels, Merry Madagascar was presented as the theme of the ICE! exhibit at Gaylord s hotels in Nashville and Maryland. In this presentation, the plot of the film is told through a series of ice sculptures that visitors walk past.

Year	2009
ReleaseDate	2009-11-17
RuntimeMins	28
RuntimeStr	28min
Plot	When Santa and his reindeer crash onto Madagascar it’s up to Alex, Marty, Gloria, Melvin, and the penguins to save Christmas.
Awards	Awards, 1 win & 5 nominations
Directors	David Soren
Writers	Mark Burton, Eric Darnell, Billy Frolick
Stars	Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer
Produced by	Joe M. Aguilar, Chad Hammes, Tom Jacomb, Mireille Soria
Music by	Heitor Pereira
Film Editing by	James Ryan
Casting By	Leslee Feldman
Art Direction by	James Wood Wilson
Production Management	Kate Crossley, Jennifer Dahlman, Tracey Dispensa, Jenne Guerra, Lori Korngiebel, Chris Leahy, Robyn Mesher, Rachnatp, Christian Roedel, Erik Vignau
Art Department	Benjamin Balistreri, Andy Bialk, Jason Courtney, Jackson Dryden, Sean Eckols, Goro Fujita, Tim Heitz, Raman Hui, Patrick Jensen, Craig Kellman, Robert Koo, Todd Kurosawa, Bryan Gregg LaShelle, Claire Morrissey, Brett Nystul, Kenard Pak, Ruben Perez, Joshua Pruett, Andy Schuhler, Ennio Torresan, Catherine Yuh Rader
Sound Department	Christopher Barron, David Chrastka, Luke Dunn Gielmuda, Sean England, Will Files, Ellen Heuer, Lora Hirschberg, David C. Hughes, Dennis Leonard, Scott R. Lewis, Douglas Murray, Jason Oliver, Troy Porter, Richard Quinn, Carlos Sotolongo, Luke Dunn Gielmuda, Will Files, Charlotte Moore, Carlos Sotolongo
Special Effects by	Stanley Joseph Aghori, Nishant Khanna
Visual Effects by	Gianni Aliotti, Sagar Alodiya, Benjamin Andersen, Ben Anderson, Prasad Narahari Apte, Jason Arold, Prashant Arora, Jasper M. Baltzersen, Madhavaro Bheesetti, David Juan Bianchi, Silviu Borac, Vijay Bundela, Sophie Burie, Markus Burki, Joshua Caez, Craig Cannon, Mark T. Carlson, Kevin Carney, Gregg Carrier, Vikas Chandel, Chloe Chao, David S. Cheng, Woojin Choi, Michael Collery, Simon Corbaux, Vincent Courbis-Poncet, Gilbert Davoud, Alain De Hoe, Praveen Ushus Dev, Kirsten Drummond, Monika Erande, Cassandra Fanning, Michael Farley, John Fuetsch, Jennifer Fung, Akash Garg, Philippe Gluckman, Lee Graft, Laura Grieve, Bill Gumina, Anisha Gupta, Greg Hart, Pamela Hobbs, Milana Huang, Masato Ikura, Gregory Jennings, Brijesh Johar, Amy Rae Jones, Tanuj Kalra, Mayank Kanyal, Carl Kaphan, Jeff Kasunic, Michelle Kater, Laurent Kermel, Cara Khan, Nishant Khanna, Saket Khare, Oth Khotsimeuang, Jennifer Leigh King, Robert Kopinsky, Sumesh Kumar, Erin Lehmkühl, Greg Lev, Fabio Lissi, Nathan Loofbourrow, Nick Lupinetti, Jayanti Mahapatra, Helena Masand, Mark J. Matthews, Melissa D. Moss, Ken Museth, Rahul Nair, Brian Newlin, Phiyen Nguyen, Arun P.A., Anand Palaniswamy, Ashok Pallati, Abhishek Pandey, Sachin Paranjpe, Alex Patanjo, Ranjan Kurian Periakottil, Scott B. Peterson, Jerome Platteaux, Dagan Potter, Abhik Pramanik, Andrew Pungprakearti, Vikram Puttanna, Samy Ben Rabah, Gene Ragan, Vanitha Rangaraju, Jagdishwar Renkuntla, Jason Rickwald, Eli Rod, Max Rodriguez, Milton E. Rodriguez-Rios, Allen Ruilova, Bharat Sachdev, Saswat Sahoo, Sheldon Serrao, Aayush Sharma, Gaurav Shenai, Hannah Sherman, Jon Shih, Stephanie Siebert, Scott Singer, Rahul Singh, Jung Jin Song, Jessi Stumpfel, Vimal Subramaniam, Frederic Tarabout, Britton Taylor, Matthew Territo, Joanne Thiel, Priscilla Chiu Yee Tsang, Pete Upson, Baptiste Van Opstal, Loren Van Wiel, Kaye Vassey, Venu Victor, Brent Villalobos, Sharanya Viswamani, Sriram Viswanathan, David D. Wilson, Emily Yi, Alon Zaslavsky, Guido Zimmermann, Todd Zullo
Animation Department	Prasad Narahari Apte, Mira Arte, Anand Baid, Benjamin Balistreri, Chris Bancroft, David Juan Bianchi, Reshma Bijam, James Bird, Julien Bocabeille, Theophile Bondoux, Linda Bork, Ludovic Bouancheau, Sophie Bruce, Riyad C.M., Jacob Chacko, Nicolas A. Chauvelot, Umesh Chandrakant Chirmure, Renjith Chundakkad, Paul Chung, Katrina Conwright, Simon Corbaux, Denis Couchon, Lou Dellarosa, Amrit Raj Derhgawen, Pramod Deshpande, Christopher Dias, Jon Farrell, Matt Gleadhill, Sue Gleadhill, Soumitra Gokhale, Ron Griswold, Tomoyuki Harashima, Jeff Hayes, Tim Heitz, Pamela Hu, Raman Hui, Katya Isichenko, Rohit Jain, Jeffrey Joe, Shajo John, Ewan Johnson, Fadi Basem Kandah, Robert Koo, Manish Kumar, George Meppadath Kurian, Todd Kurosawa, Jeremy Labrador, Jennifer Lasrado, Philip K. Livingston Jr., Conan Low, Sean Mahoney, Thierry Marchand, Rodriguez Mathias, Aparna Mepani, Pia Miniati, Claire Morrissey, Prasanjib Nag, Devika V. Nagarkar, Devika Vinayak Nagarkar, Rajesh P.K., Kenard Pak, Anand Palaniswamy, Prashant Pawar, Joshua Pruett, Ron Pucherelli, Vikram Puttanna, David Rader, Prudhui Raju, Vivek Ram, Shreeharsha Rao, Keith Reicher, Max Rodriguez, Mark Roennigke, Cory Rogers, Andy Schuhler, Kapi Sharma, Kevan Shorey, Colin T. Smith, Steven Sorensen, Jason Spencer Galsworthy, Eunjin Suh, Alio Thomas, Aljo Thomas, Pete Upson, Kaye Vassey, Heather Davis Wang, David I. White, Benjamin Williams, Catherine Yuh Rader
Casting Department	Adrienne Belai, Ben Roy, Christi Soper
Editorial Department	Sheri Galloway, Gina Kowerko, Paul Neal, Jeff Olm, Timothy Peeler, Lauren Flasher
Music Department	Mark Babbitt, Kirk Bennett, Julie Butchko, Charlene Ann Huang, Kory Kruckenberg, Tom MacDougall, Judson McDowell, Chris Montan, Sunny Park, Heitor Pereira, Robert Puff, David Sabee, Aaron Symonds, Roger Tang, John Winters, Sebastian Zuleta
Additional Crew	Newell Alexander, Steve Alterman, Rain Angeles, Steve Baker, Nicholas Bencriscutto, Will Bilton, Shawn Bohonos, Liza Breuninger, Alana Bubis, Gregg Carrier, Mitch Carter, Cate Celso, Robert Clotworthy, David Cowgill, Natalia Cronembold, Margaret A. Decker, Dj Downey, Sean Ellis, Alireza Estakhrian, Elisa Gabrielli, Benoit Gagnon, David Hail, Adam Hall, Daniel Hashimoto, Wayne Hellinger, Guthrie S. Hennessey, Jorge Heredia, Bridget Hoffman, Will Humphries, Mark Jackels, Sean Kamath, Jason Kankiewicz, Mark Kauffman, Caroline Kermel, Ben H. Kwa, Deven LeTendre, Gustav Lindquist, Nicholas Long, Jim Mainard, Rich Marco, Todd Maugh, Megan McDonald, Eric McKinley, Victor S. Mercieca, David Moore, Stacey Moreno, Adria Munnerlyn, Anna Newman, Emily Nordwind, John O Sullivan, Shelley Page, Blake Penido, Shaun Potts, Daniel Rich, Ian Richter, Matt Robertson, Gemma Ross, Stephen E. Ross, Michelle Ruff, Sajmun Sachdev, Alex Schwartz, Cathy Sitzes, Marty Sixkiller, Shobhna Sriram, Morgan J. Steele, Casey Sword, Julio C. Talavera, Mark M. Tokunaga, Karen L. Whitaker, Jon Young, Carl Bahor
Thanks	Kendal Cronkhite, Rex Grignon, Shannon Jeffries, Patty Kaku, Debbie L. O Keeffe, Mark Swift
Genres	Animation, Short, Adventure
Companies	DreamWorks Animation
Countries	USA
Languages	English
ContentRating	TV-PG
ImDbRating	6.6
ImDbRatingVotes	5839
Keywords	christmas,madagascar,sleigh,magical dust,trying to return home