You've seen the headlines, the mugshots, and the posters. Search parties have been mobilized. Now, the movie that tells the story is here. From Dreamworks Animation Studios, the company who brought you the brilliance of Shrek and Shark Tale, comes this sensational tale of friendship, awareness, and survival. Madagascar is a hit!

A quadruple of quadrupeds escapes from New York's Central Park Zoo, causing havoc and raising alarms from 5th Avenue to Grand Central Station. Even animals that act like humans should know better than to "bite the hand that feeds them". So Alex the lion, Marty the zebra, Gloria the hippo, and Melman the giraffe are tranquilized and shipped across the ocean in crates to Africa. Will the hardy New Yorkers adapt to their new environment or will they be "fish out of water"? All goes well until some commando penguins give their friends a real ride on the wild side. The four foreign species wash up on the exotic island of Madagascar where they must survive in the wild, putting the castaways' friendships to the test.

The movie is fantastic, but meeting the directors/writers was even more exciting! Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath are the foundations of the brand new Dreamworks computer animated movie Madagascar. The terrific twosome have been working together for four years, planning, writing, and directing this movie. Mr. Darnell explains, "It's hard to say what my favorite part is. I've seen it over fifty times and so many scenes still bring a smile." Mr. McGrath's artistic ability surfaced as he sketched some doodles from Madagascar for me.

Although the directors haven't been to Madagascar, they just couldn't resist the urge to trek the "Big Apple". Eric and Tom took a business trip to New York to plot the escape route of Marty and the other animals. They used their video recording to recreate the breakout on the computer for Madagascar. So if a vacation is work, what do animators and directors do for fun? Even more creativity! Eric and Tom sketch and make music using both guitar and piano in their free time.

Zoos are fun places to be, but does that mean that the animals are happy? The setting for the movie takes place in the 1960s. Back then, zoo animals were kept in very confined cages rather than the more modern, native habitats. Also in a previous time period, Madagascar is shown in its "golden days" as a heavily forested tropical jungle and home to many unique species like baobab trees, lemurs, chameleons, and fossas. Creating the scenery for both the concrete jungle of Manhattan and the lush jungle of Madagascar was challenging for the animators. Animation controls had to be added to build realistic effects.

Movement of animation had been limited up to a certain point until the animators added new computer controls. These controls determined how animation responded. A huge hurdle in the film's production was creating realistic moving crowd scenes. Crowd controls were mainly used for the lemurs, when the "party animals" were dancing to the tune of "I like to move it, move it". The animators also had a "hairiffic" time with Alex's mane. It is made up of over 50,000 strands of hair that need to be precisely bent the correct way whenever he moves or leans on something.

So how do you "direct" an animated character? To make a character look real, facial expressions and body language were recorded as the actor was rehearsing. Then, Madagascar's army of animators could transfer those behaviors into the characters' actions. Craig Kellman fabricated the four "zoosters" in whacked-out cartoonism solely for this movie. The difference between Madagascar and other animated movies made by Dreamworks is the squash and stretch technique. This technique had only been used for old fashioned hand drawn cartoons before. As the name implies, squash and stretch means that the computer can pull or bend a body part out of proportion and snap it back without breaking to create the cartoon effect.

But writers, directors, and animators aren't the only people who created Madagascar. Many actors were used in the film. Here are some of the mane voices. Ben Stiller plays Alex the lion. At the other end of the food chain stars Chris Rock as Marty the zebra. Jada Pinkett Smith plays Gloria the hippo and David Schwimmer lends his voice to Melman the giraffe. Director Tom McGrath brings the personality of Skipper, the lead penguin, to life using a very unlikely voice.

This movie is rated PG, so I initially thought it was only for kids, but as we watched it, my Mom was on the floor laughing with me. Experience comedy, state-of-the-art animation, and great music in a family movie for kids of all ages. If you get the chance, "move it, move it" to a theatre to see the movie Madagascar! (May, 2005)