When an escape attempt from the Central Park Zoo fails, a lion, hippo, giraffe and zebra find that they are being shipped back to Africa. Scheming penguins highjack the ship with the intent of taking it to Antartica and cause the crates of the four zoo animals to go overboard. Eventually, the animals are marooned on the beach of Madagascar where they find out quickly that after spending their whole lives relying on humans to survive, they are not quite ready to take care of themselves.