This weekend I took two of my boys to see Madagascar. Overall, I’d say it was okay. Probably a ‘B’ in my grading scale. There were plenty of things that were buried in it or that were rather subtle, so a second viewing could conceivably change the grade.

One example is when the lemurs were all gathering in the wrecked airplane (which was stuck in a tree as all good wrecked planes are). While they were struggling with what to do, there were a few gratuitous other-movie references. Like when one of them was talking to a Spaulding basketball that had a bloody handprint on it. He called it Spaulding. (Yes, like Wilson in Cast Away.)

In the same scene, another lemur was holding book that had the title To Serve Lemur and he was raving, “It’s a cookbook! A COOKBOOK!!” (Yes, just like the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man.”) I actually laughed out loud at that one. It was short but clear, and many people probably didn’t catch the reference. Unless they, too, are Twilight Zone aficionados. :-D