...ahh to be a kid again!

so don't ask why but, over the weekend i went to the movie Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa with a friend and was amazed at how much adult material was actually in the film. now when i say adult material i don't mean nudity, swearing or violence like you would typically think but adult related humor that the general child audience would not get. i always knew that children movies contained adult jokes but i was amazed at how much material from this movie was directed to the adult audience that accompanies the small children.

first of all there were a number of stereotypical racial references throughout the movie. one of such was a presumably Jewish character that was on one of the safari's that everytime she was portrayed on screen was accompanied by traditional Jewish accordion type music. this same character also had the stereotypical New York Jewish accent.

another time in the film that this racial stereotypes comes up is when the zebra played by Chris Tucker is in Africa and is hanging out with the other zebras and one of the other main characters tells him that he can't tell the difference between him and all the rest of the zebras that also happen to look exactly like the Chris Tucker zebra and they also all have Chris Tuckers voice.

the other thing that surprised me about the film was the references to other films throughout the movie. one seen in particular where this happens is a scene in which the animals are in an airplane trying to fly back to new york and there are a bunch of penguins in the cockpit and all the jokes in this part are Airplane! related jokes that no one under the age of 15 would probably get.

it was interesting to go to a childrens movie and see what kids think is funny because it has been some time since i was a kid and i had kinda forgotten what was funny as a kid. i discovered that most of the small children in the theater weren't laughing at the jokes and the dialogue of the film but at the funny sound effects that would accompany the action of the characters on screen and the goofy behavior of the characters. alot of the younger children were also very susceptable to the empathetic music of the film. some of the children would get kind of upset when loud dramatic buiding music was being played.

overall it was a very interesting experience to go to a kids movie; since i havent seen one in quite a long time, to see how movie makers are aiming their humor at multiple audiences and not just the kids that are the primary target of their film.