The Penguins of Madagascar (season 3)

Accidentally bounced out of the zoo from his bounce house, Julien is carried away by a bus he lands on top of. After jumping off, he is soon picked off the street by a woman named Gladys, who thinks he is a cat and brings him to her home. As the penguins, Maurice, and Mort begin a rescue mission, Julien is introduced to Gladys' other "cat," a ferret named Zoe who plays to Gladys' misconception in order to receive free meals and avoid returning to life on the streets. Though she shows no interest in him, Julien repetitively seeks Zoe's affection, which only serves to annoy her to the point of rigging a scratching post to eject Julien out the window. She winds up accidentally ejecting herself while demonstrating scratching post use to Julien, but is casually rescued as the penguins, Maurice, and Mort arrive. Julien then tells them that he is now domesticated and wishes to remain with his love, but Private convinces Julien to return to the zoo lest Mort take over as king.

Clemson arrives to inform Julien that he cannot have inherited the crown because he was born outside of Madagascar, and plans to take over as king himself. Lemur law, however, would still allow Julien to earn kingship by winning a competition, but he is too distraught to be much of a competitor. So to help Julien win, Kowalski uses his mind-switching machine to switch Julien's and Rico's minds to allow Rico to compete for the lemur. The plan succeeds for the first round of competition, but after Clemson discovers what the penguins had done, he makes it so that subsequent rounds are disadvantageous to the other penguins when they switch minds with Julien. But during Clemson's coronation after he wins the competition, Kowalski switches Julien's and Clemson's minds and Julien, in Clemson's body, decrees "Julien" king before the two are then switched back. While doing that, "Clemson" insults the gorillas and they angrily chase the real Clemson back to Hoboken.

Kowalski invents a machine which combines fish and churros together to form a new food, the "furro." The process, however, produces a toxic byproduct, which is released in the form of blue bubbles through the vent of the lemurs' plastic volcano. Over the course of several days, the bubbles collect into an ever-increasing ball above the earth, and it begins to alter the weather inside the zoo and the Central Park area, with variable conditions occurring concurrently or in quick succession. Based on Private's observations after being sent into the atmosphere to investigate and a TV weather report, Kowalski concludes that the weather conditions are a result of the furro-creating machine's use and says that it should no longer be used. Skipper, however, does not believe Kowalski's conclusion and remains at the HQ while the others set off inside airplanes to destroy the bubble. When the mission runs afoul, however, Skipper suddenly appears to save them inside the penguins' rocket, only for them all to soon be shot into the bubble when Julien, who is there alongside Maurice and Mort, presses a button. Trapped inside without fuel, Skipper states that he now believes Kowalski's theory. All are then saved after the lemurs eat furros and their burp gasses are collected to be used as a fuel source, with the ignited rocket also causing the bubble to explode in the process.

After the penguins fake starvation, Commissioner McSlade instructs Alice to increase the penguins' fish rations and says that he will secure the money for the increase during his upcoming lunch with the mayor. McSlade's toupee then blows off without his knowledge and Alice begins repetitively trying to inform him of such discreetly and indirectly. The hairpiece ends up in the lemur habitat where Julien, believing it is a hairy creature, commands Maurice to beat it; in the process, a sticky fruit adheres it to Maurice's head. Julien and Mort then begin to attack the "monster" with sticks as Maurice flees; Maurice's rear is covered in red paint and some of his tail fur ripped off in the chase until it reaches the baboon habitat and the three female baboons mistake Maurice for a male of their species. The baboons begin to pamper him, which makes Julien jealous. Meanwhile, after searching for the toupee, when the penguins learn its whereabouts from Julien, they rip it from Maurice in time to place it back on the commissioner's head before he leaves the zoo.

After Shelly the ostrich gets her head stuck in drying cement, Rico frees her by breaking the cement apart with dynamite. She immediately becomes smitten with him and, after Marlene advises her, seeks to win his affection by building a chewing gum sculpture of him and singing him a song. Her actions are only seen as awkward, however, and she soon learns by overhearing Skipper and Marlene conversing that Rico is instead in love with a plastic doll. To eliminate the competition for Rico's heart, Shelly disposes of Miss Perky in a recycling dumpster and continues to try to get Rico to notice her, but Rico focuses only on trying to find his missing doll. She then sees that Rico is happy and confesses to taking the doll, and helps the penguins recover it from the recycling truck after the dumpster is emptied. Shelly then procures her own doll partner from a toy store, which Rico sees as crazy.

After Hans attempts to blast the penguins with a defective freeze ray, Rico launches a missile at him which takes out a possum's tree home by accident. The possum faints, as if in fright, and is taken by the penguins back to the HQ to be revived. There, after suddenly regaining consciousness, the possum introduces herself as "Ma" and begins to treat the penguins in a loving, motherly manner, which Skipper initially fears will turn his team soft before allowing it after Ma has another episode. Later, while hunting for Hans, the penguins learn from Marlene that whenever Ma seemed like she was dying, she was actually "playing possum." After Skipper confronts Ma and sends her away, Hans captures her. Hans successfully freezes the penguins as they attempt to free Ma, but Ma is then able to play on Hans' sympathies by playing possum on him and then grabbing his freeze ray to unfreeze the penguins. Skipper then says that Ma is free to mollycoddle his team further, but she leaves to instead show Hans "tough love": making him eat his peas lest she "die" on him.

Marlene comes to the penguins sad that her inability to leave the zoo without going wild will prevent her from seeing Enrico Guitaro's performance in the park. But after Kowalski uses his Persona Disentanglizer on her, Marlene's violent impulses are removed from the rest of her, which allows her to then leave the zoo without going wild. However, being apart from her other side renders Marlene excessively afraid, and when she and the penguins leave the concert soon after arrival, they discover that the other half of Marlene had escaped from the Persona Disentanglizer after taking physical form and is now terrorizing the city. As the penguins set out to find what the news has dubbed "Littlefoot," Officer X believes that capturing the creature will get him his job back and manages to capture it as the penguins observe. He is subsequently rehired. When nervous Marlene is brought to the animal control facility so that Kowalski can rejoin her with her violent half, Littlefoot does not attack Marlene and is instead befuddled by her. X then loses his job again when Rico waddles out just as Littlefoot was to be shown on TV. On the way back to the zoo, Skipper then suggests to Marlene, who is not turning feral, that the whole Littlefoot situation was a ruse to convince Marlene that she had the power to control herself all along.

The Amarillo Kid returns to the zoo seeking help after losing his shell in a mini golf game to a pair of gophers, who are now after it. Feeling the Amarillo Kid did nothing wrong this time, Private wishes to help, but the other penguins see the situation as a way to rid themselves of an enemy. Private later meets up with the Amarillo Kid, who tells him about a legendary putter which he wishes to borrow from a nearby country club to use in another game against the gophers because it renders its wielder unbeatable. As Private and the Amarillo Kid attempt to retrieve the putter, the gophers arrive at the zoo and inform the other penguins that they are not after the Amarillo Kid's shell, but rather that he swindled them by making them bet and lose their valuables. Meanwhile, after obtaining the putter, the Amarillo Kid admits to Private that he is actually stealing the putter for the gophers instead of borrowing it, as it was the only way he could save his shell. The gophers and other penguins then arrive at the country club, where the gophers trap the penguins and run off with the putter. After they are freed by the Amarillo Kid, all five chase after the gophers. The Amarillo Kid is able to get the putter back, but has to be reminded to give it back himself after nearly walking off with it.

When a stray dog in the park mistakes the lemurs for cats and chases after them, Julien throws Mort at him so he and Maurice can escape. Julien then seeks to have Private become the replacement "cute guy" in his kingdom while the other penguins set out to rescue Mort. The penguins quickly locate Mort and the dog, with Mort in no danger and playing with the dog, Elmer, instead. Elmer explains that he had thought Mort was a cat, but now believes him to be more or less of a toy, which he refers to as "Squeaky." He and Mort wish to play with each other again and arrange a playdate for the following day, but Elmer then refuses to give Mort up and runs off with him. When the penguins happen upon Max, he helps them with dog-locating techniques and later distracts Elmer while the penguins rescue Mort from a dumpster and again so they can manage an escape. The penguins then presume "Moon Cat" to be dead, but later discover that he and Elmer became friends, Elmer believing Max to be a lemur.

After the penguins catch the gorillas acting suspiciously at night and then attempting to grab a chicken, Bada and Bing inform them that the chicken possesses psychic abilities that have so far resulted in 122 consecutive accurate sports predictions. Unable to talk, two bowls of food representing the competitors are placed before her, with the hen pecking at the one which represents the future winner. While the other penguins are intrigued, Kowalski immediately dismisses the ability as "pseudoscience bunk." He repeatedly attempts to disprove the hen's talent, but fails each time until he accidentally discovers a collection of the hen's notebooks, each one filled with various data and statistics used to logically predict winners scientifically. The hen, who was only faking silence as part of her act, then explains how she was able to con her way from her farm to the children's zoo and how she intends to continue her psychic act to launch a TV career and then attain the presidency. To put an end to her scheming, Kowalski seductively sings and dances for her as a distraction while Rico switches bowls before she can make a pick on live TV prior to a boxing match. The plan works, but the hen still finds an attraction to Kowalski.

While the other penguins head out to a monster truck show, Private stays at the zoo to watch over Eggy and his siblings, Romana, Bradley, and Samuel, for Mother Duck. Overcautious about the ducklings' wellbeing, Private does not allow them to engage in any activities he considers unsafe or inappropriate for their age. When Julien learns from them that Private is not allowing them to have fun, he organizes a pool party for them, which several zoo animals attend. Soon after, noise from the party begins to disturb the sewer rats while the smell of grilling fruit attracts hornets from outside the zoo, with both groups demanding the food for themselves after it falls into the penguins' HQ. Trapped with the ducklings, Private places the HQ in lockdown and tries to keep the hornets and rats from gaining access, but soon concludes that they will eventually. He then decides to let both groups gain access simultaneously so that the hornets and rats will fight each other over the food, which results in both groups tiring themselves out and retreating. Throughout Private's adventure, the other penguins repeatedly fail to gain access to see the King Crush monster truck, and accidentally blow it up in the process.

Chuck Charles loses his job as a news anchor and gets a new one at the zoo, but tries to get his old one back by exposing the penguins' operation to the world.

When a massive sneeze from Rico causes the tunnel system beneath the zoo to rupture Skipper calls in four beavers to fix the situation. The beavers become distracted by two girl badgers. Can Skipper fix this teenage love entanglement before the whole zoo collapses into a sink hole?

Private accidentally frees an ancient spirit from its urn, allowing it to wreak havoc on planet Earth in an attempt to destroy it. But much to the spirit's misfortune, instead of possessing Private, it possesses his Lunacorn doll.

Note: This episode is a double length special.[30]

Kowalski is recruited by his love interest Doris the dolphin and her new boyfriend Parker the platypus to rescue her brother Francis from an aqua fun park. But Francis turns out to be none other than Dr. Blowhole, whom the penguins must stop from regaining his old memory and resuming his evil plans.