Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

Thomas "Tom" McGrath is an American voice actor and animator who co-directed the 2005 feature Madagascar and its sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa in 2008. He has also worked as a voice actor on other DreamWorks animated features like Flushed Away in 2006 and Shrek the Third in 2007. He also... stepped in on Flushed Away to help make improvements prior to its release. McGrath's experience in both television and feature animation includes work as an animator on Ralph Bakshi's film Cool World , storyboard artist and director for the popular series The Ren and Stimpy Show, animator on the Joe Pytka-directed Space Jam , and storyboard artist on the live-action film Cats & Dogs and worked as storyboard artist and concept artist/prop and set designer for How the Grinch Stole Christmas . McGrath made his film directing debut as the co-director and co-writer of Madagascar where he also created the memorable squad of penguin characters and voiced their leader, Skipper. He also reprised his role as Skipper and co-directed and co-wrote the sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.
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Eric Darnell is an American director, writer, voice actor, songwriter and animator. He is best known for co-directing Antz with Tim Johnson, as well as co-directing Madagascar and Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa with Tom McGrath. Darnell attended Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village,... Kansas, where he was a writer for the school newspaper the Harbinger. He studied broadcast journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After graduating in 1983, he spent four years working on experimental films, which helped him get accepted into the Experimental Animation program study at the California Institute of the Arts. He directed the music video for the 1989 R.E.M. song "Get Up". When Darnell graduated, he joined Pacific Data Images, where he worked as a character animator on the 1991 Hanna-Barbera Halloween special The Last Halloween. He also directed the short film Gas Planet. In 1998, he made his directorial debut for the movie Antz for PDI/DreamWorks. He worked on research and development for PDI in The Prince of Egypt. He then worked as the writer for the song "Welcome to Duloc" on the 2001 film Shrek, for which he also worked as story artist.
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