Kids love watching crap and parents love showing their kids crap; it’s how the idiots of today train the idiots of tomorrow. And this is how we end up with three Madagascar films (and counting), the TV series The Penguins of Madagascar and All Hail King Julien, and the touring shows Madagascar Live!, Madagascar Live! Operation: Vacation, Madagascar Live! Prepare to Party, and, of course—as if we could ever forget—Madagascar Live! It’s Circus Time. Also there’s a Penguins of Madagascar movie coming out next month, so that’s something you will probably be forcibly exposed to at some point if you’re ever within a half-mile radius of someone’s child.
That said, any commercial enterprise large enough to devour entire worlds will, every once in a while, accidentally consume something (or someone) worthwhile; in this case, that would be one Werner Herzog, who narrates this clip from the Penguins of Madagascar and shows up for a minute, too. Whenever Herzog shows up in this, it almost feels like a real movie!
And now, from Herzog’s fantastic Encounters at the End of the World, A STRIKINGLY SIMILAR SCENE:
What can we learn from all of this? Well, it’s pretty clear: Parents, show your children Encounters at the End of the World instead of Penguins of Madagascar; it will better prepare them for life’s cold and brutal futility.
