Four animal friends get a taste of the wild life when they break out of captivity at the Central Park Zoo and wash ashore on the island of Madagascar.
A botched rescue strands Alex the lion and his companions in Africa. Sadly, Alex discovers he has little in common with the locals.
Next stop: New York! But to get back home, Alex and friends must hitch a ride with a traveling European circus and evade an evil animal-control officer.
In Antarctica, three young penguin brothers—Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico—defy the laws of nature to save an egg the other penguins believe to be doomed. After saving it from a pack of leopard seals and accidentally setting themselves adrift on an iceberg, the egg hatches into their new member, Private, (before the events of the Madagascar (2005 film)).