The Penguins of Madagascar is a spin-off of the Madagascar films, which takes place after the second movie. The series follows the adventures of four penguins: Skipper, Kowalski, Private and Rico, who perform various missions to protect their home in the Central Park Zoo. The penguins are constantly opposed by a trio of lemurs, Julien, Mort and Maurice, who believe that Julien is the rightful ruler of the zoo.
The penguins perform and display their cuteness to zoo visitors in order to prompt them to feed them with fish purchased from Alice. Julien observes this from his habitat, stating his resentment of the fish odor to the other lemurs. When the zoo visitors feed the penguins, the penguins soon notice that they are not being fed their regular fish, but rather fish-shaped cake imitations. While Julien revels in not having to smell the fish, the penguins find the new cakes to be terrible in taste and hope that the substitution is just a one-time trial.