"The Penguins of Madagascar" is an animated show currently airing on the Nickelodeon network. The series is based on the military-esque adventures of 4 penguins living in the Central Park Zoo in New York. The Penguins had their first appearance in the movies "Madagascar" in 2005 where they were part of a subplot to try to make it back to their homeland of Antarctica by hijacking a ship. They find Antarctica too cold and eventually end up on the warm island of Madagascar. "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" was the 2008 sequel to "Madagascar" and once again featured the penguins antics as they tried to reconstruct an old airplane in order to leave Africa.

The penguins had their first separate adventure in an animated short called "The Madagascar Penguins in a Christmas Caper" which aired in theaters on October 7, 2005 with the stop-motion film, "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit". This short was included on later editions of of the "Madagascar" and "Shrek" DVDs which were both released on November 15, 2005. This was also the unofficial pilot episode of the TV show.

It was decided in 2006 that there should be a Nicktoon based on the "Madagascar" movie. No details about anything having to do with the show or its characters were confirmed until November 2007, when Nickelodeon advertised a sneak peak of three new shows that were coming to Nickelodeon for the 2008 year.

Due to a delay of the release of the movie "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" to November 7, 2008, the Nickelodeon show was also delayed. Season one was confirmed for 26 episodes and in January 2009, even before the shows actual television premier, a second season was confirmed for another 26 episodes, bringing the total to 52.On February 6, 2009, the double DVD Pack of "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" was released and came with a preview DVD of the show, featuring the episodes “Popcorn Panic” and “Gone in a Flash". The "Popcorn Panic" episode was shown in many other countries around the world before airing on Nickelodeon on May 9, 2009.

On November 28, 2008, the first two episodes, "Popcorn Panic" and "Gone in a Flash" aired as part of a "Super Stuffed Nicktoons Weekend" along with two other contenders for new shows, "The Mighty B!" and "Making Fiends". They aired right before 7 brand new episodes of the sixth season of "SpongeBob Squarepants".

The actual series premier happened on March 28, 2009 with the episodes "Launchtime" and "Haunted Habitat". The premier occurred right after the Nickelodeon 2009 Kids' Choice Awards and drew 6.1 million viewers making it Nickelodeon's most watched series premier of all time.

Each half hour show consists of two 11 minute episodes and are not permanently paired, meaning the two episodes shown together in the half-hour time slot might not be the same pair as a future airing of the show. The show is co-produced by DreamWorks Animation and Nickelodeon Animation Studios (both in California), and the animation is done by DK Ent. and Paprikaas studios in India. For voice casting, the series used many original voice actors from the "Madagascar" movies. However, a few of the original movie voice talents were not able to do work for the show due to other involvements so other actors had to be found. The final cast ended up being perfect and unless noted, one cannot tell the difference between the film and show voices!

There are other small differences between the movies and the show such as the zoo grounds/habitats and certain features of some the animals. The 4 Penguins were given different silhouettes than their movie counterparts in order to better tell them apart. Many new animals now live at the zoo as well, most likely in order to form new stories for episodes around.