SnoopyStyle The gang is leaving Madagascar on their home-made balloon when Julien and his lemur subjects shoot them down. They're actually shooting for the red night goblin. When coal starts raining down, Alex fires the shot that takes down the goblin who turns out to be Santa Claus. The reindeers leave after fighting with the penguins over the cold war between north and south poles. The concussed Santa decides to stay with the lemurs. The gang decides to deliver the gifts themselves pulled by the penguins flying with magic dust.This is a Christmas TV special. The great thing is that the characters are what they are supposed to be. Julien would definitely shoot down Santa Claus. This has all the main Madagascar characters. The penguins have a lot of fun. This is solid work from the family friendly franchise.

Michael_Elliott Merry Madagascar (2009) *** (out of 4) Fun short has Santa Claus being shot down on an island and is struck with amnesia. Not being able to deliver the presents, the Madagascar gang offers to do it for him because not only do they want to save Christmas but they too want to get back home. This isn't the greatest film ever made but if you enjoyed the features then it's probably a safe bet that you're going to enjoy this. I think the producers made a very good choice in making this a short because there's no way the story could have supported a feature of its own. I think there are some very interesting ideas and jokes scattered throughout the film, although at the same time I will admit that not all of the jokes work. I think the highlight of the film is when Santa's reindeer get ready to do battle with the penguins because originally Santa was doing his business from the South Pole. This was a smart and funny joke that's clearly the best moment of the film. Other highlights include the gang trying to deliver gifts and the first house and its accident is certainly funny. At just around 20-minutes the film moves along well enough and is worth watching during the holidays.

Robert Dreamworks usually sucks at making movies, but now they seem to fail at making Christmas specials.I mean, Christmas time is the perfect time to make a Christmas short, but this one just sucked. It was the typical Santa Claus with give not get messages in it. Plus the jokes weren't that great, there was a lot of side distractions (really? Penguin and Cupid?) as well as just plain old inappropriate "take advantage of Santa" moments.I know that you cannot mention Christ in anything these days, for fear of offending people, but if you don't mention Christ, then it really isn't a Christmas special, rather it's a holiday special.But I give them a 5 for effort.

Phil White 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.