Upstream - Episode 23.25: Penguins of Madagascar

Episode Date: December 25, 2021

Alright frankly I consider this to be payback for the Casino Royale fakeout, and I think we should agree to call it even on this.   A few days ago, we reached a million downloads on Podbean. This is only really one app out of a few possible ones that listeners could use, but we decided to call this milestone and let you, the noble and loyal hogs, pick a movie, any movie, and we would review it. After over 400 replies, I picked the 12 highest voted and put them in 4 polls, the winners of which faced off in a final poll to determine that the winner would be.... the 2014 animated movie Penguins of Madagascar. Yeah alright. Find bonus episodes at our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Find us at https://killjamesbond.com and https://twitter.com/killjamesbond

I was drunk when I recorded this. I'm drunk now while I'm editing this. And with God as my fucking witness, I will be drunk when you are listening to this. If it is at any point on the day it's released or the week afterwards. Ding dong merrily on fucking high, boys. Merry crim. It's been a beautiful year you there bond what day is this

why sir it's bondmas why sir it's christmas day been visited by been visited by the ghosts of three james bonds who have come to us

to make us realize that we have been cruel i am the ghost of bonds present to the ghost of bonds past and ah we have grouchy daniel craig as bond's future and the lesson for us is that we've been cruel to you, the viewer. You've given us so much for this Christmas, and we've given you so little. You've given us a million downloads, an absurd number. And in return, we offered you the chance.

Yeah, for real, thank you. On what our next episode could be and it could be anything and and what you did with our trust with the the sacred trust that we place with you is you fucking wasted it you stupid hogs penguins fools you fools Zardoz was right there! Christmas! So that's it. You know, I find a relationship of mutual contempt essential to any good podcast, and that's the route that we're going forward now like Daniel Craig we've had our hearts hardened by this betrayal

and honestly Penguins of Madagascar Sardars was right there that was your choice legally bond legally bond legally bond

for full benefit of the listeners, we've been recording for a bit. Am I six like it's hard? Legally Bond. We've been recording for a little bit today, and I, as it is nearly Christmas, and indeed is Christmas when you listen to this, maybe, have been day drinking heavily.

I've got a hot toddy right here. The thing is, Legally Bond already exists. It's a little movie I like to call Miss Congeniality. We've all got in-character drinks, but we've all got drinks that are suited to us. Like, Dev has a hot toddy. I have a glass of rosé champagne.

Go on then. What do I have? Manhattan. Yeah. I'm thinking Brandy Alexander would be my Christmas drink, actually. Oh, that is good. I do like an eggnog. I haven't had any nog at all this year, actually.

Egg? Due to living with a vegan, so eggs and milk in the house is probably not that high on that list. Difficult to buy a single egg. It's kind of not. Yeah, I've got to get a couple. Not impossible. You can't knock alone! I'm saying this constantly.

So, with our Christmas drinks in hand, we proceed to Penguins of Madagascar. And again, in keeping with our rules for franchises, have not seen Madagascar, have not seen any previous Penguin-related movies in this franchise. Don't know if there are any. Don't care. But this movie begins with fucking Werner Herzog. Yeah, the first voice that you hear in this movie hits you directly in the kneecaps of a fucking bat. Because it's Werner Herzog.

Yeah. Penguins. Penguins. Penguins. He's a nature documentary narrator. Also, if anyone needs a drop of Werner Herzog saying the word bottom, I have... He's Werner Herzog. Bottom. Yeah. Bottom? Werner Herzog. Werner Herzog. So, we see the grand march of the penguins, but the penguins are like- I have a total of seven full notes on this movie. I have two pages, and they're closely spaced, so like-

My third note is I'm not watching this movie anymore. Spast, yeah. I think there was about 45 full minutes between that and the next one. Give up and do Stardust instead, mid-episode. Do you wanna watch it now? We could do a, like, live commentary. No, no, it's a secret one. The penguins are marching across the landscape, but there's three little baby penguins

who do not conform with their, like, march. Skipper, who is, like, much like me, has a delusion that he's in the military. Kowalski, who's the smart one. And Rico, who's the, like, monstrous one. Yeah, just like us three. Exactly, exactly. And so... Yeah, exactly. Every friendship group has this.

An egg rolls past them, a penguin egg. And they go, should we get that egg? 009's dead body is rolling down after it. And the adult penguins are like, yeah, no, we don't really do that. Yeah, that egg is definitely dead. There's a reason that the penguins keep them off the ice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the grown penguins are like, no, we just lose some penguin babies every year, that's nature. and Skipper, the one who is me, goes

I reject nature which, you know, I just needed that drop to be honest we all do absolutely, me too especially, yeah that's us that's what we do, we are the three penguins of Madagascar

and I know what the episode art for this is gonna be and i fucking hate it it's just you just i don't yeah you're just gonna do the like regular uh podcast art but with us as penguins i do not think i will have the time to do that so you might be safe on this one oh thank god considering that i have to get this edited and then ready to go by the end of today because I'm shipping off back home tomorrow so probably not. You might be safe. So they attempt

and also much like us much like us and like the podcast they adopt an egg which is you, the listener. Our child. Our mascot. Because they save the egg right from some some hungry sea leopards and this this also sets off a pattern in the movie whether the animals that they intend to be evil are significantly cuter than the weird ass looking penguins uh yeah the

sea leopards are cute i want to pet one my first my first note re this movie is um here i am once again a grown adult renting a kid's movie and being asked by amazon if i want to set up a kid's account it's like no no this is for work no no no this actually i'm gonna write this off if anything i i i told i told min i was watching this uh and he was like well what is penguins of madagascar is that like a nature documentary and i had to painstakingly explain, no, no, it's a spinoff from the children's movie Madagascar. You're aware of Madagascar, right? And it's two sequels.

Was there four even? Madagascar 2, Escape to Africa, and Europe's Most Wanted. Now, you remember the comedy relief penguin characters, of which there are four uh skipper kowalski rico and additional penguin appearing in this movie because they ran out of ideas um well what happened was that was spun off to private series yeah private he's also present he has no character this was spun off to a series called the penguins of madagascar which ran for one season and then this fucking movie which is called penguins of madagascar no

the um which sucks complete shit so that's the storyline of this i think a lot about all of the talented people that i know and that i'm familiar with who can't get their shit made, right? They write great things. Screenplays, for instance, called John Talabant. I was going to say John Talabant, too. Talented people like Noah Suarez. Noah and Abby, the two talented people that I know. Yeah, no, but like- And you also wrote some of the-

These fucking- Oh, Sally Jo and Art Devon. I'm not talented I know this I can lift a heavy weight these fucking penguins have had so much time and expertise and money wasted on them and the thing about them the sole thing about these

fucking penguins within the text of this movie is they're cute and they're not! They're not cute! They look like shit. They're not... One of the penguins, private, which is the egg that they adopt, is, his whole thing

is that he is cute, but he looks horrendous. That's cute, isn't it? Yeah. Atrocious. Shitty penguins. Also, they rescue this egg, right? And in the process, they kill a shitload of sea leopards. Just, like, with explosives.

I don't know why they... But they hatch the egg, and the egg is this allegedly adorable penguin child called Private. It is. But we may as well at this point explain the penguins' deal, which is that whenever they try and do a madcap scheme, they're not particularly competent or well thought through, but they're just insanely lucky.

So, like, if they, like, jump off a cliff, they can, like, they'll perfectly bounce off the thing at the right angle. It all works out for them just because they're, like, insanely lucky, basically. That insanely lucky basically that's it that's it yeah which is which is a prophecy of cuteness um and so when private is like born he instinctively salutes skipper who is like okay i shall raise him as my own child in this four-penguin military unit I've formed as a sort of, like, ANCAP warlord.

Yes. And I mean, listen, I get it. I would love anyone saluting me, right? I would note that the penguins at this point, the three penguins that are already extant before Private pops out of his egg, are themselves children. That's why we always do that whenever we start the podcast that's right are quite small and young and they spend the entire movie imagining that

like private is like a fucking infant compared to them when i i think they might have been born like a day or two apart at best yeah also where did skipper get this idea that he was in like he was in the military when like we see him doing it as a child as a child he's doing he's doing the same bit where he thinks he's like an army officer but for penguins um uh this this movie has a great joke um and they do it 150 times where kowalski who is the brains of the operation, will be asked for his analysis of the situation, and what he'll give them instead is sort of just a general vibe of what's going on at the moment. And they're like, Kowalski analysis, and he'll be like, I'm quite hungry, sir.

And they're like, very good. It's like, God, God, I wish they'd get a second joke. Hit them with the Kowalski analysis about five or six times. So many times. So we cut back to the events of, like, Madagascar, I guess, and the penguins are grown. And the first thing that we see them do as adults is... Ah, yeah, it's after the events

of the third film. Oh, fuck off. Wherein they form a circus. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Okay, the three penguins, the four penguins even, they all still have their same characteristics, which were assigned at birth, even though they reject nature. One of them is smart, one of them is like, the fucking planner with the egotist, one of them is like, monstrous, and the other one is like cute right and the thing that

they want to do most in the world is operation grand slam they want to break into fort knox in order to detonate a nuclear device and devalue the currency of the united states now the reason they're doing this is because it's skipper's 10th birthday now i've looked up the penguin's average lifespan which is about 15 to 20 years so this penguin is not that's quite long actually but this this this is not an infant this is not a child man imagine being a 20 year old-old penguin. Jesus Christ. It would be perfect. This penguin is so old it remembers the strokes.

I mean... This penguin was born in the year of 2001. He's 20 years old. You know, the scariest thing, no penguin alive today remembers 9-11, which is... I don't know how I feel about that.

They don't understand that we're living in a post 9-11 world. No! And this is just normal to them. Every penguin that's ever been born has been, like, born into a state of permanent war. The penguins, my god, they're just like, yeah, there's just war, you can't go on a plane anymore, on account

of being a penguin. That's why Skipper's like this. Oh my God, that's right. Jesus Christ. That's right. Fuck. Okay. Yeah. No, Skipper is like the only one old enough to remember 9-11.

And so he's like, yeah. Okay. Fuck. Yeah, he's traumatized. That's why he's like this. That's why he thinks he's in the army is because he was rejected. And he tried to serve his country following the events of 9-11. I mean, big thing.

But, so, the gang breaks into Fort Knox. His country, Antarctica. Yes. Yes. That's right. The gang break into Fort Knox, and we see that their real quarry is not, in fact, the gold, which they don't care about, but the last remaining vending machine stocking cheesy nibbles, which are like fucking like Cheesos or Wotsits, if you're British.

Yeah. They're like a sort of like an orange. Such a fucking British name for a snack. Oh, I should mention, Private is inexplicably British. He sounds a bit like Stephen Merchant, but he's not. Private speaks like this. Alright, sir. Oh, what day is this? It's Bond

mistake. And that's the closest I've got to voice training is Earthen voice. He's Tiny Tim. He speaks like you, the listener. Oh, I hope they do Casino Royale for real this week. No, never. Fuck off.

And the thing about Private is that they don't treat him seriously because he's British, which is correct. Yeah, that's right. How have we given some what's-its? Fuck off. He's a valuable member of the team, except for Private, who is, like, along for the ride. But they care about him, but like you would a child

yeah like I said also appearing in this movie fourth penguin yeah fourth penguin but what they want to do for his birthday is to get him these fucking what's its or whatever anglo snack he wants but they've mistaken the vending machine

it is actually a mimic from Dungeons and Dragons and immediately all of them are grabbed by tentacles and stuffed inside the vending machine sure fine

they're then flown to Venice and let me tell you at this point I was like whoa this movie's taking a turn because I'm watching a vending machine go away on tentacles and then get on a helicopter and fly to Venice I was like alright give it points I wasn't expecting that

to happen the Venice scene just hits different when you watch this movie immediately after watching Casino Royale let me tell you fucking Vespaline just drowning to death. Wildest was happening. If only the penguins could have saved her.

They're fucking like, Grayson Walser. Where the fuck were they? The penguins could have saved Vesper Lind but they didn't. Kowalski, yeah. That's why James Bond hates penguins. He's on a mission of revenge. Absolutely. A roaring rampage of revenge.

Skipper, just like it was me all along, James, the author of all your misfortunes. He hates penguins. He's on a mission of revenge. Absolutely. A roaring rampage of revenge. Skipper, just like it was me all along, James. The author of all your misfortunes. Felix Leiter was lowered into a big vat of penguins. Question mark. Fuck, we figured out what happened to the guy in Octopussy when he just goes under the water and just disappears. Fucking penguins.

Penguins got him. Penguins of Madagascar got him. Those bastards. Those fucking bastards. disappears fucking penguins penguins gone penguins of madagascar got him absolutely the fucking penguins of madagascar the author of all of james bond's misfortunes uh you know they try to do an author of all your misfortunes line actually even in the yes yes it's just so good so so the the penguins are transported into, like, a submarine lair where an evil scientist reveals himself, Dr. Octavius Brine. Sure.

Except he's a fucking octopus in disguise. Dave. I love the way that he moves when he is in disguise as Dr. Octavius Bryant. The way his arms and stuff flop around him and the way he walks on the ceiling. It's one of the best bits of the film is how he's animated when he's disguised as a human.

I genuinely really do love that, yeah. And this is voiced by... voiced by John Malkovich. Yes. He expects them to remember him. John malkovich yes he expects them to remember him malkovich and and they don't remember him right um like skipper tries to like extend the fucking like thing by going oh how's the wife and dave just goes i've never been married which is just such a perfect line read in like perfect John Malkovich voice

not even acting yeah just like I've never been married he's a confirmed bachelor so here's Dave the octopus's backstory is that he was the star of the fucking show at a zoo

a central park zoo and then the penguins of Madagascar the titular penguins from the movie Madagascar are at the zoo and they're cuter than him so he got chucked out of the zoo yeah it's like fucking all about Eve

he gets sidelined through a series of zoos he gets chucked out of so many zoos. Yeah, the penguins steal his limelight and eventually he's crammed into this tiny tank, and nobody cares about him anymore and he can't amuse children. It's fucked up, because to me, a penguin and an octopus have a very different appeal. Yeah, there's always gonna be weird octopus kids. Absolutely. Oh, I don't know about that.

I mean, there's gonna be. Yeah, me! So, he shows them a weird vial of green goop that he has, and Rico the penguin just eats it, as is his want.

He eats a lot of things and can regurgitate them at will. Yeah, it's quite impressive actually. He's got a bag of holding in his guts. It's quite impressive. The penguins then escape easily. And as they escape onto a rooftop before a chase through Venice from some like octopus minions, Skipper has this line, right? All right, boys, it's just like Cuba.

What did they do in Cuba? What the fuck happened in Cuba? They blew up a clinic with James Bond inside. That's not the line that I thought you meant. What's the line you thought I meant? I thought the other line, because Skipper keeps saying things that in universe would be curses, but obviously they can't what's the line you thought i meant i thought the other line because skipper keeps like saying

things that in universe would be curses but obviously they can't like animate this penguin for children saying cunt so he says things like george crooney or like by the beard of zeus he does like anchorman curses and as they are running away uh he says very unfortunately he says parker posey as a curse word, which is extremely unfortunate if you know who Posey Parker is. Yeah. Dave also has this

ongoing joke that he's doing where he's just inadvertently saying the names of celebrities. That's the sort of thing that he has throughout this. And he... Not that. Dave the Octopus, he has throughout this uh and he not that dave the octopus he's talking to one of his like subordinate octopi or octopodes which are yeah they look great i love the way they're animated i love the way they move they have

such a very expressive face yeah it's really good a lot like octodad actually yeah um but he he's talking he he goes nicholas cage them um and he does this four or five more times and it doesn't really get funny no no and like the thing is right like who is this for right would you go and pass me the yeah no kid watching this knows

who fucking Hugh Jackman is right so it's a joke for the parents but it's not funny if you're doing a joke for adults in a kid's movie, you want to sneak something in under the radar, like fucking Shrek did all the time. Yeah. Like, maybe he's compensating for something, or whatever. A joke which I didn't understand when I saw that movie.

But like, yeah, no, instead it's just like, oh, that's the guy's name. Helen Lewis. And it's like, what? So, there's a fucking... They do the fucking Venice chase scene from the Bond movie with Roger Moore, with the fucking gondola that goes on land. At this point I wrote down god this is fucking dire a bunch of a bunch of

octopuses like pilots huge day for furries huge day for the furry community so they're trapped in an alley when coming to the rescue is an elite

interspecies espionage squad formed of Classified, who is a wolf, Benedict Cumberbatch is a wolf sonar, Corporal who is a polar bear, there's a seal or something, and there's an owl who's like, sexy. Why? Yeah, again again it's the same fucking thing where they're like all right we've got the leader we've got a weapons guy we've got why do we do so many films with interspecies additional character in this movie i don't use the seal who just is also there i i don't know why we do, but we do. Because, like, that's the thing, is that... This is the two things we do behind the paywall, is

pedophilia and interspecies romance. I don't know why this keeps happening. We've got to stop doing this. We're going to have to cut that, because this is going out on the free one, too. Oh, oh shit. Okay, sorry. This is going out on the free feed. Also, I have this drop for me here. I don't know why it is that whenever we're behind the paywall, we always do accidental pedophilia.

Um... The useful little... Kowalski, right, I don't know why it is that whenever we're behind the paywall, we always do accidental pedophilia. The useful little. Kowalski, right. His first fucking instinct when he sees this owl is like, yo, I want to fuck that owl. That becomes his mission in life. Okay, okay, sure. But like, how?

Like, oh, I want some fucking cloaca, you know? I don't know how a fucking cloaca works. I'm not prepared to criticize this. If I just mash those bastards together, I don't fucking know. But the thing about Benedict Cumberbatch, as we know, is that he cannot fucking pronounce the word penguins. However, in this first scene, he does give it his best old college try which is remain calm penguins you can tell he was really trying to get penguins right on that one he still gets another G in there penguins

penguins he can't do it it's so cruel of them to cast him in this movie I cannot stress enough that he is a wolf that's his deal he's like an anthropomorphic wolf, it's... someone's getting real horny about thinking about fucking Benedict Cumberbatch's Algerian love knot.

Also, you've stopped making references to a movie that won't come out for two weeks. It's not gonna come out for two weeks. I'm not gonna stop making references about the Algerian love knot this is unintelligible for half of the people no no listen it's not unintelligible for the people who watched Casino Royale in preparation

it's such a deep cut because they have to know not just about the thing that hasn't come out for two weeks but also they need to know about the Omegaverse I mean who doesn't know about the Omega verse the omega verse is pronounced shut up yeah no we just did two hours of casino royale brackets real okay we we like i have brain damage and this is there's nothing to this movie nothing casino royale drop to sort of like whet their appetites it's an hour and a bit long like it's not there's not a lot

tight fucking 85 minutes oh i think it's insanely short yeah okay fine fine here's here's a casino royale drop i didn't get to use you want to do what to me there you you go. Enjoy that. Okay. So in regards to Benedict Cumberbatch's character, Classified, his name isn't actually classified, he just says that his name is classified. Did you get it? But you will have seen the render of Benedict Cumberbatch

with this wolf character, and if you haven't, do yourself a favor and Google Benedict Cumberbatch wolf. It is the image yeah just google that turn safe search off um just go ahead and like yeah google omega verse turn a safe search off it's the one of him standing sort of back to back with his character we can make it the episode it's it's not the right ratio i don't think uh well in any case... Yes! Yeah, so... The part of a fucking interspecies force called North Wind, right, which is...

They're the spies, right? They protect helpless creatures who can't help themselves, which to them includes penguins. And although the penguins believe themselves to be quite capable, the penguins are also massive idiots, and are poking around inside the spy plane, right? So the penguins tell Classified everything that they know about Dave the Octopus. And then he immediately has them all tranquilizer-darted. Which is good, because they're very annoying and he's like, okay

send these to our most far away safe house, which is of course We also learn that David the octopus is kidnapping penguins Yeah He's kidnapping penguins from around the world Yes He's kidnapping a shitload of penguins

I don't have one here. Well, I suppose we can't all be penguins, can we? Penguins! Penguins. Penguins. I got four of these. I'll space them out. Insane delivery. I can't fucking say it. You can't do it. He's so good. Yeah, no, great.

Just torturing. They really had Benedict Cumberbatch's family with fucking, like, lasers. Oh, fully. They were like, you have to be in our animated movie and you have to say penguins 40 to 50 times, and he's like, please don't. This is like a sort of Saw type challenge for him. So yeah, the safe house that he tries to send them to is of course in Madagascar, but they break out. And then immediately, they immediately- He's just fresh off playing Smaug, and he's gone to Penguins of Madagascar. Yeah, absolutely.

Sick, actually, I think it's good. They immediately jettison themselves out of the back of a cargo plane in flight, crashing that plane. Second thing, they then fall, hit another plane, which wipes them off the windshield as a bird strike, crashing a second, this time passenger airliner. Third, they bust through the roof of a third passenger airplane, decompressing it and presumably killing everyone then exit through the fucking emergency door

those people are dead yep that's a lot of people dead it's honestly quite a nice little vignette it's a fun little segment of the movie it's animated really competently is the thing about this we're talking about it as if it's a fun little segment of the movie like you it's animated really competently is the

thing about this like we're talking about it as if it's dog shit there is some merit to the animation because people have to work on this talented people but um oh boy why aren't why aren't the penguins cute why couldn't they make them cute why not that it's an easy animal to make adorable and they don't do it i mean when did Madagascar come out? Oh, that's a problem, isn't it? Because that was when the character design was done. I just Googled the word Madagascar and would you believe it, I've got the country. Go ahead and write.

Madagascar, the country. Yeah. Just go ahead and write. 2005. Yeah. The year before Casino Royale. Yeah, they hadn't invented making good movies by that point, so. No, no, no.

So we can pin down the date at which making good movies was invented, and it was like, late 2005. It was 2006, somewhere between Stormbreaker and Casino Royale. Yes! In that moment. Yes, we can put a fucking day to it, Jesus. You can carry on riffing if you'd like, I'm just gonna fucking day to it. Jesus. You can carry on riffing if you'd like.

I'm just going to be doing the math. Oh, please. I think we've lost Abigail, but I'm just going to have her keep trying to rejoin. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I'm back! Your local will be good this time. Just as I sent you a text saying,

just keep trying to rejoin. If not, you are free of this hell. You've been harrowed out of this podcast. So, they fucking... I'm sorry, I'm on a 10 second delay, but I am back. I'm sorry, the internet here is real bad.

It's really, it's fine. We'll work around it. Stormbreaker came out 21st of July. Casino Royale came out the 16th of November. So at some point in late summer, we figured out how to make movies. August of 2006, good movies were invented. If only we'd rediscovered that technology.

Anyway. Nah. Dave is abducting penguins. Yeah, he's abducting penguins. Anyway. No. Ha ha ha ha ha. Dave is abducting penguins. Yeah, he's abducting penguins. At this point I'm lighting up the big Brazil mentioned meme format, cause he just steals a bunch of penguins from Brazil. They're of course playing football, because, you know, Brasil numero uno, campeão do mundo.

7-2. Etc. Mhm. And the fucking, our penguins, the gang, end up in Shanghai. But there's a little comedy of errors where they think they're in Dublin. They do a little bit of a what do we know about Dublin collection of things, where they just say things that are about Ireland. Riverdarts, potatoes, things of this nature.

And then they figure out, right that he Dave is kidnapping the penguins from all of the zoos that he was kicked out of which he keeps track of with a set of snow globes all of which were eaten of course by Rico who now

regurgitates all of them and they figure the next one he's going to hit is in Shanghai so they package themselves uh off to shanghai which is um a fun little shot where they get put in the back of a car the car leaves and then returns to the scene and yeah this is this is the first joke in the movie and in fact the only joke in the movie that i laughed at which is uh that i wrote this was funny yeah they get out in shanghaiiffer looks around and goes, ah, Shanghai's little Dublin district.

That was the first joke that actually made me laugh, and it did get me. Pretty good. There we go. He also then tries to extract information from a squid that's on ice, like, is about to be eaten, presumably. And like, the way he tries to extract information is by grabbing it and slapping the shit out of it. And at some point somebody goes, hey Skipper, you know that's a baby squid, right?

And it starts crying. And he goes, oh no, and tosses it back into the fucking butcher shop. Having a rough day presumably to be eaten fully just to kill this infant just slapped the absolute shit out of an infant and then left it for dead

um yeah um private keeps trying to do things and they're like he's like please let me do something please sir I'd love it if I could be a member

of the team and he's like no yeah and at this point much like we're going to you the listener Skipper goes listen I need you to dress up in women's clothing um ask any questions just just try it out see how it feels hey it's christmas you're probably at

home what you need to do is go in your sister's room absolutely absolutely you know just try it out see what it's like it's it's it's perfectly normal to like everyone's Everyone's buying clothes off the internet these days. So just order yourself. Yeah, it's just a good lesson. You can just do the mermaid outfit. Do it as a bit. As a joke. Who knows?

Oh, sir, please don't make me wear the women's clothing. But they make him go undercover as a mermaid because that's what the penguins in Shanghai don't call me sir I work for a living that's what the penguins in Shanghai oh sorry sergeant that's what the penguins in Shanghai are forced

to do they're like forced labor I guess the analogy here would be showgirls? Right? And they don't get a line, they don't really do anything, they just go, oh, it's Shanghai's famous mermaid penguins, and that's said four times in quick succession. They have to wear mermaid tails, but also, like, bikini tops.

Of course! Which is like, pengu- penguin tits? What the fuck are they doing in Shanghai? Penguin tits. What are these freaks up to? Penguin tits? What the fuck are they doing in Shanghai? Penguin tits. What are these freaks up to? Penguin tits. Penguins don't have tits. They're a bird. Well, clearly these ones do,

because they have to wear the fucking bras. And when... What's his face? When the fucking English one goes undercover, he has to wear the fucking coconut bra. So what do you want from me? Penguin tits. Now... I guess I can't argue. Yeah, penguin tits, want from me penguin tits now i guess i can't argue yeah penguin tits penguin tits now the other penguins try to prevent uh dave the octopus from stealing from kidnapping

all of the the mermaids but so do the north They also show up, and they get on each other's way. To the point where Dave kidnaps the mermaid penguins, kidnaps Private, the English urchin penguin, and fucking leaves. Just books it. Remain calm, penguins. Sorry, this might be on random. I changed that. Yeah, just hit it a bunch.

Yeah, okay, here you go. Those helpless penguins. Remain calm, penguins. Like penguins. All right, tiny penguins. Can't do it. He can't fucking say penguins. That's the worst one.

That's the way this one is. I got this one too. This is difficult for me to say. Yeah, it is. It is difficult for him to say. It's tough. he's struggling. That happens to most of us, man. Uh-huh, uh-huh, absolutely.

So the penguins try to, like, they steal the Northwind's jet thing, and crash it pretty much immediately. And then what happens is they do like a sort of floating adrift thing. The penguins are stuck floating on this pot lid, and one of them is trying to eat the other. But also, Skipper has stubble at this point? He does have stubble. To signify that he's dehydrated and dying of exposure and stuff, and it's

like... I mean, sometimes you miss a couple of laser treatments and it happens, you know? It's nothing you can do about it. He's the only one it's happening to, so I guess he really does define nature. So, mmm, mmm. Meanwhile, the fucking Northwind guys were on like a luxury raft, drinking like champagne and dining on caviar, it's fine, whatever. Yeah, they got an absolutely Riley mode. Yeah. Like, all good year, etc.

Dave shows his captive penguins what the deal is with his fucking goop his green goop yeah he's got a lot of green goop and the deal is if he shoots you with the green goop you turn into a monster which he shows by shooting a stand up comedian cricket it's the ooze from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

yeah or alternatively it's the goop from Who Framed Roger Rabbit it's the ooop from who framed roger rabbit um the the ooze from uh power rangers various various goops um yeah yeah there's um you're right there is a fucking hang on what the fuck is that yeah stand stand-up comedian um but i can't find his fucking name so i don't care. He shoots cricket. The cricket looks weird.

And so the point of this, right, is that he's going to use the Medusa serum to turn penguins into ugly, horrible monsters so the public will hate them because the public thinks penguins are too cute. Throughout this, the public are shown every so often in shots,

and I love them. I love the way the public are portrayed in this movie, because it's fucking deranged. But we'll get more into that in a bit. Fools! Clowns! Morons.

Disgraceful. So Skipper and Classified both lead their respective units to the fucking jungle island off of which Dave has parked his submarine. And they argue about who's gonna be in charge, and they have to like, the way they resolve this is a plan-off, where they try and show whose plan is better in order to argue about who's gonna be the diversion. I only mention this, right, because it's a very boring scene, I only mention this because the way Skipper presents his plan is to represent

Dave as an octopus, and then Dave as an octopus as a pineapple, and then kick the absolute shit out of the pineapple. Which does lead Benedict Cumberbatch to say, Slap the fruit! Oh, that's so perfectly enunciated. Fuck yes, man.

Genuinely, that took me the fuck out of it. It's funny in the movie, not intentionally, but when you listen to it just as a drop, just slap the fruit. That's all of us when you post the cute shit in the group chat. We're like, oh, slap the fruit. Yeah. So they have this plan off.

Yes. And fucking- Skipipper has a crisis of confidence. ...the Northwind's plan is simply better. Because he's not a hot wolf or whatever. He does, for like two to three seconds. Yeah, he allows the penguins to be used as a diversion while the Northwind do like zero Darkthirty shit. Which we see them do, we see them breach the compound, they like, crush an octopus under a door, they like, melt one with a blowtorch, and then they immediately get captured because

they're fucking morons. Very predictably, they get captured, yeah. Oh no, the penguins are gonna have to do it. The penguins' distraction, by the way, is to do like, lederhosen shit. Oh, fine, whatever. Oh no. the penguins are gonna have to do it. The penguins' distraction, by the way, is to do lederhosen shit. Oh, fine. Whatever. Which does work. I love the design of the octopi in this, it's so good.

They're fucking great, I love them, they're very expressive. My notes here say, I like Dave, and I want him to win. Yeah, absolutely. The thing about Dave is that he's gay, and trans, somehow. Not gonna explain this. Also, when they're doing the distraction with the lederhosen and the accordion, one of the octopuses just starts nodding along while all of the others are mad, and then it kind of spreads.

That's also, that was charming. Yeah, that's a fun other thing. Yeah. So the penguins also get captured. And Dave explains his plan for the second time, because it's really inefficient that he has to keep doing it, and he points the fucking monsterfication ray at Private, their adorable allegedly friend, right? And he's gonna turn him into a monster for being English. Private has, in imitation of Rico at Fort Knox, swallowed a paperclip, right?

So he can escape, unbeknownst to the others. They all think he's been vaporized, including Dave, because he turns the power up too high. But actually, he's just like, escaped. So Private on his own essentially does the plot of Die Hard, which makes this a Christmas movie, so you're welcome. Fuck off. Now I know how TV dinner feels. He's like, crawling through the fucking day.

Kindly. Shut up. It's like, now I have a machine gun. Much like you, the listeners, Private has to save the podcast. Yes. By liking, sharing, and subscribing. You, the listeners, Private has to save the podcast. Yes. By liking, sharing, and subscribing. We three all got captured by an octopus. You have to save us this.

By sending us... We can escape, but all we need is those funny numbers on your mother's credit card. Yeah, make sure we have the numbers on the back. Yeah, both sides. Just shoot us a photo of that to the account and we can probably get ourselves out of this mess, but thank you. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Thank you so much. So he rescues Northwind, but their immediate thing is, oh, we're just gonna leave. Which is smart, right? They're like, gonna regroup or whatever. They're like, we're gonna go back, we're gonna fuckin', like, get some more equipment, come up with another plan and come back in. Maybe a second bear or something. And Skipper saysipper no wait private yes private goes private goes oh you

fuck it were you gay oh you're a pussy you can't retreat and they're like we're not retreating we're just tactically leaving and we'll be back in a minute he's like skipper would never leave a man behind um and he says well i suppose we can't all be penguins can we it's very funny to hear I love hearing like respected British actors on this podcast say stupid shit and hearing Benedict Cumberbatch say

I suppose we can't all be penguins can we in the most deathly serious voice it's so funny I mean it's not only not only respected British actors funny I mean it's not only not only respected British actors so I mean I can list I can read off a list of the

cast of this movie if you'd like me to oh please well we got of course as the penguins these are some British guys that we might not have heard of we got Tom McGrath Chris Miller Christopher Knight Conrad Vernon but then we got Benedict Cumberbatch as classified that we might not have heard of. We've got Tom McGrath, Chris Miller, Christopher Knight, Conrad Vernon. No, no.

But then we've got Benedict Cumberbatch, as age classified. We've got Ken Jeong. Sure. We've got Peter Stormare, who you may recall. If you've ever played Until Dawn, you'll recognize him. You've got John Malkovich,

Werner Herzog. Great, sure. you'll recognize him uh you've got john malkovich verna great sure howdy billy eichner as well if you'd like um andy rick so so so as so okay so dave is setting up to transify all of the penguins right yes and um private is private Private is trying to yell at them, but he's doing the thing from the end of The Graduate where they can't hear him. And we get just a fantastic fucking line because they mishear him and they go, Moo!

Why would he moo? Yeah, me listening to 10,000 posts absolutely i mean moo moo uh um moo moo so yeah so so he transifies all the penguins into into horrifying uh monstrosities or so they're seen as by the public because yeah you get so so fucking dave in the guise of course of dr octavius brian uh approaches he's he's announced that he's found all of the penguins question mark uh and he's bringing them back so he battery park to new york city and he's like rolling up and there is a fucking crowd there like who are just like baying for these fucking penguins and i genuinely respect like what's happened here is the people who made this movie have

realized how insane you would have to be to like form a crowd for a bunch of penguins being where are you where are you going today babe i'm just going to the penguin finding so they've just gone like yeah they would have to be insane. And they've dialed it to 11. So it's just a crowd of guys just going ape shit over the concept of a penguin. It's so good. He says something like, Dave says some shit like. I want to see these fucking birds, man.

They love it. He's up there and he's like, oh, it was very difficult. They love it. He's up there and he's like, it was very difficult, but seeing these penguins get what they deserve will be all the payments I need. And the guy who's reporting on it goes, that's a weird thing to say.

I don't care. Some penguins are here, boys. Again, this is writing such a check that the design of the penguins cannot cash. They look fine. They look ultimately all right. Because the way that they chose to make them fucked up is just like turn them green make them a bit

larger some of them have weird shit one of them has to like be not afraid angel eyes which is cool like skipper has a big lobster claw rico is a bat now kowowalski, I don't remember what his deal is, not important. And he releases the fucking...

Kowalski's got two tentacles, I think. He has an afro. Tongue. Oh yeah, he does have an afro, which is a kind of, like, deformity in this movie? Yes. Interesting. So he releases the penguins, and the people are of course horrified. I mean, I guess if you're a penguin.

The people are of course horrified, and, uh, you know, repulsed by the penguins. This does not seem to bother the penguins at all, because they've been monstified, right? So like, I'm not even sure who this revenge is for, but, Dave then sort of like summons the small army of exterminators, who are going around sucking all of the penguins off. Just gonna let me leave that one there, are you? Yeah, I thought I would let you have that one. Meant to say up. Yeah, that's right.

Happens to the best of us. But you just left me out on the end of this... Yeah, I thought I would let you have that one. Meant to say up. Yeah, that's right. But you just left me out on the end of this. Yeah, they dome off all the penguins. It was genuinely extremely rude of me to not step in there on that one. Yeah, you just fucking left me on the edge of this fucking wing-walking exercise where I just said, oh yeah, he just goes around

and sucks up a bunch of penguins. Yeah, and I decided that I thought that one needed to stand alone. That's exactly what happens. That's the plot of the movie. That's canon. He does it. That's text. He goes around and he sucks off all of the penguins.

As the penguins are getting sucked off, Private, who is, like, unmonstified still, comes up with a plan. I hate this. The plan is, okay, first of all he has to get his friends back, which he does, he gets Skipper back by saluting him, which again, yeah, that's just me, that would work. He gets, um... Yeah, Skipper snaps completely out of it.

Every single one of his friends just snap out of it when they see Private. He's like, oh, hello guys! Well, except single one of his friends just snap out of it when they see Private. He's like, oh, hello guys! Except for one thing! Kowalski has to become horny in order to become normal again. Well. Literally, Private has to go, oh, that owl said she wanted to suck your dick and balls off!

And that's enough to get him back to normal. He doesn't even notice that Private is back for a few seconds, because he's like, oh, what'd you say? Getting sucked off by an owl! That's what they want these days! Getting sucked off by an owl. That's what they want these days! I mean, the thing about having sex with an owl, is that if she's doing a reverse

cowgirl, she can just, like, turn all the way around. God, fuck. I hate it when they look me in the eye during reverse cowgirl. Could you not? I'm sorry, this is not... Freak me out a little bit there, man. When you get head from an owl, you're getting head all the way around oh oh crazy on that shit christmas by the way yeah merry christmas by the way thank you this is our

way of thanking you call that head wig for one million you made us you gave us a movie with nothing to talk about you cannot now be upset that we're talking about dog shit. No, absolutely. Absolutely. We're just cashing the check that you handed us, I don't know. And also, this is what's there, right? There's nothing to this movie except me writing down, yo, this penguin wants to fuck an owl. Which he does! That's true! He successfully does it. Yes! They show it! No, they don't. That's true. He successfully does it. Yes. They show

it. No, they don't. They should've. A kid's not gonna know what a fucking cloaca is. Just show it. Show me that owl pussy. What are kids gonna be like? Oh, no, a cloaca. They don't know what the fuck's going on. Yo, who need the owluciate?

Ha ha ha ha! Oh, and that's the true meaning of Christmas, as far as I'm aware. Yeah, it's whatever a penguin dick looks like. I... I don't know, I'm gonna Google it. Yeah, Google that. Let's bring it home, let's bring it home, Luxitz.

Private's plan is, he is the cutest being in the universe. He's not, but he is, right? Therefore, if we reverse the polarity of the transification ray, we can make everyone cis again by simply, like, sticking me in the middle right um but the the cost of this is that it's going to mutate him hideously um and it's like the fucking like reactor chamber scene in fallout 3 you know this is this is his destiny and he has to do it alone um okay i haven't found um a penguin's dick but what I have immediately found is a subreddit called r slash birds with human penises, which is basically exactly what you might think.

We're talking about that for the next 15 minutes. Should I link that to you? I'm just gonna put it in the Zencastr chat, you can feel free to... Uh-huh, uh-huh, sure. Wow, okay. Jesus, I don't know what I was expecting. If I drop out of the recording because my internet cuts out, you're gonna know why. Ooh, that's araganda!

I don't know what I was expecting, but that really is like a little parakeet with a massive cock and ball. Oh, oh, okay. Yeah, so this is what's happening here. Someone's got a tattoo of it? What the fuck is wrong with these people? I think it's nice that people have found art that is their passion, you know?

Anyway, he does it, and he gets mutated, Northwind arrive to help, but they get owned, everybody wins, Private has antlers, Dave is tiny, and the Penguins get some jetpacks, and that's the fuckin' film. Yeah, and then Kowalski kisses the owl. Yeah, he's not even like, that fucked up, he just has antlers. He just has antlers. He just has antlers. Kowalski, like, says the plot of like every James Bond film to him, because he just goes, You're hideously disfigured and will probably be hunted for sport.

Which is a cold ass line to put in a children's movie, as far as I'm concerned. Um, and the moral of this movie is... Weird pronunciation this man has. The moral of this movie, it claims, is looks don't matter. But they clearly do. The moral of this movie is instead, defy nature to make yourself cute, which is something I can get behind. Like, yeah, if fucking looks don't matter, why do you have to transform anyone back?

Yeah, we've all done it! Yeah, no, absolutely. But we've all defied nature, that's just a manner of podcast. Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, as a consequence of this, everybody's happy, fuckin' Dave gets to live cutely but smallly in a sort of like, snow globe prison where he's tormented by a child, and then a pitbull song plays.

Slap the fruit! then a pitbull song plays well well I suppose we can't all be penguins can we literally nothing to this movie you squandered your votes we gave you an opportunity we'll do it again at 2 million I mean we might just do Zardoz

Zardoz was right there man just like stop the count you know this election I would just like stop the count you know this election I would have said stop the count but there genuinely wasn't a single moment where Penguins of Madagascar wasn't winning what? why did you inflict this on us?

I monitored it so closely first of all I specifically left the Matrix off the list because I figured we didn't have anything new or interesting to say about the matrix well we will do when we do it for amab but not for this yeah um we could have had legally blonde like if you were thinking right as the audience you would have gone for legally blonde because that's the one that there's absolutely no way we could have

justified doing yeah it's also like a movie that I like, so. And everything else was something that we, like, conceivably could have done. Honestly, when I saw the exit poll, and saw that people had voted for Penguins of Madagascar instead of Jeremy Corbyn, like, I just went and had another drink. I put Jeremy Corbyn on that list. I canvassed Posados in Kensington South, and these fuckers. Only Penguins of Madagascar can win here. Jesus Christ.

Honestly. Oh, that's actually very upsetting to me. As someone who did campaign quite hard in Kensington. Ah well. Pain. Pain. Anyway, Christmas is a time of giving. pain pain anyway Christmas is a time of giving

so if you'd like to head on over to our fucking Patreon you can give us £5 of goddamn money yeah we deserve it you get Stormbreaker next week you do also when the owl kisses Kowalski

for real though thank you for a million diamonds, that's fucking crazy. She wears lipstick on her beak? Yeah, weird. How? Do you wanna do a moment where we're sincere, or do you wanna just like, fucking end this one? Um, yeah, I'll do a thing. Okay, so, like... Let's be a little sincere for a second, just... I... yeah, this is one of the things that, like like one of many things in my life that have been

like successful in a way that i could never have predicted purely on accident i refuse to attribute it to anything other than the genius of my co-hosts and the patience of the listener um and you know i'm i'm tremendously grateful that i get somehow to you know have an independent living i think that for a lot of my life, especially being a trans woman, I never thought I would have by virtue of doing jokes about what a penguin's dick and balls look like. And that's entirely down to you, the listener.

I lost my job at the start of the pandemic. I used to be a teacher, as I mentioned a few times. You used to be a penguin dick inspector. I used to be a penguin dick inspector, but I lost my job at the zoo because it turns out that wasn't my job and I was just doing that freelance. Free lance? Free that fucking lance. I'm telling you, I'm saying that to the penguins.

No, I used to be... How dare you? I did not undercut your sincerity at all. Come at me, Swiggy. Alright, alright. You know what? Fine. Fine. Slap the fruit. Just fucking go off. Do the thing.

No, it's fine. Don't worry. I was going to joke about how I lost my job because I sucked at it rather than because of the pandemic. But all of the rest of my plans fell through and I was like I could do a podcast with my two friends. That could be quite fun. And you've made my life

livable and exciting in a way that I never thought was conceivable. So genuinely to the audience, thank you so much for this. Absolutely. Abigail, Miss America, let's go. Big bouquet of red roses and a sash mode thank you i just want world peace um no for real when i when i came out as trans um a lot of the people that i thought were gonna be there for me um actually weren't um and uh

just kind of fucking up and left my life, which was really hard. But two people who really were there for me, even though they didn't really know me all that well at the time and didn't really owe me anything, two people who were there for me were Alice and Dev. And not just there for me, but there for me in a way that I kind of need in my life. I need people to just be fucking fucking real with me and a hundred

percent honest and to tell me sometimes when I'm full of shit. Um, because the nature of what I do and the level at which I do it is that a lot of people will just blow smoke up my ass, which Alice and Deb never do. Um, so the fact that I get to do a podcast with these, these two crazy people and that it's, and that people listen to it and enjoy it and that it's fun. And then I get to do it every week is like genuinely one of the highlights of my life and I love it and it's because of you the listeners that I get to do it so

thank you, thank you so much and a Merry Christmas to you for real yeah it doesn't it doesn't feel like work is the thing even fucking an hour deep into the penguins of Madagascar

it feels like recreation to me and I'm so so grateful for it so with that in mind we continue onwards hopefully to 2 million downloads if not more and all that remains for me to say

is that this has been an episode of kill james bond benedict cumberbatch cannot pronounce the word penguin verna herzog has been grievously wronged i i've been grievously wounded through the course of this movie yes yes i have been al Alice Caldwell Kelly. They have been Abigail Thorne and Devin. And this has been Kill James Bond, and long may it continue in whatever form that takes. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Absolutely.

Do the little theme song here. Those helpless penguins. Slap the fruit. Remain calm, penguins. This is difficult for me to say. It was the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there. The children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. And Mama in

her chief and I in my cap. When Hitler appeared on the screen I stood up and clapped. On Dasher, on Dancer, now Prancer and Vixen, on Comet, on Cupid, on Donna and Blitzen, Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night.