No discussion of Madagascar is complete without the I Like to Move It sequence. While King Julien’s original song features Sacha Baron Cohen’s off-key wailing, the features a completely re-recorded track by a local session singer.
This is the crown jewel of the dub. Afdlin Shauki (director and comedian) is arguably the reason the Malay dub is better than the English original for local audiences. While Sacha Baron Cohen played Julien as a manic surrealist, Afdlin’s Julien is a Makcik (auntie) stuck in a lemur’s body. He ad-libs pantun (Malay poetic rhymes), scolds Mort in a heavy northern dialect, and his rendition of "I Like to Move It" is less Europop and more Kampung dance-off. It is a masterclass in comedic dubbing. madagascar malay dub
Today, the Madagascar Malay dub enjoys a second life as a source of memes. Short clips of the penguins speaking in rapid-fire Malay or Alex the Lion having an existential crisis in formal Bahasa Melayu are shared across TikTok and Twitter (X). No discussion of Madagascar is complete without the
That is the 2018 re-dub, which replaces Awie with a generic voice actor. Afdlin Shauki (director and comedian) is arguably the
However, it is not as widely distributed as the English or Indonesian versions.