Marlene

Marlene is a female otter character created exclusively for the Penguins of Madagascar show and a new character in the Madagascar franchise. She was most likely created to give the TV Series an important female character, since all the penguins and lemurs (and most of the other animals) are male.

Marlene lives in the Asian Otter Habitat. She is friendly with the penguins, but she is mostly neutral and does not take sides between the penguins and the lemurs. Marlene is usually the first one the penguins go to when a five man team is needed. When a six man team is needed, she and Maurice are usually called. Marlene mostly visits the Penguin Habitat. Her level-headed attitude always seems to clash with Skipper's paranoia, yet that doesn't stop the two from being good friends.

Life in the Aquarium
It's said that Marlene was transferred to the Central Park Zoo from an aquarium in northern California (which also had penguins, as stated in Paternal Egg-Stinct). In Otter Gone Wild, Marlene reveals to the penguins and King Julien that she was born in captivity, and it's shown that if she leaves the zoo property, she goes feral. She won three trophies in a zoo contest, as revealed in "Tangled in the Web" before being kicked out of the competition due to some sort of 'scandal'.

Series

 * Otter Things Have Happened -- Kowalski tested his Lovulator 3000 that made Marlene date Fred, but at the end, there was a boy otter named Antonio, who played Spanish guitar. He was Marlene's perfect match, not Fred (Kowalski was upset, thinking that science said that Fred was perfect and shouts, "SCIENCE! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!").


 * Otter Gone Wild -- Marlene fell in love with Julien when she turned wild. At the end, Julien accepted to be with Marlene, but she didn't remember anything outside the zoo.

Personality
Marlene is super smart, beautiful, funny, level-headed, and acts as a voice of reason, but she can also be extremely sarcastic (which is usually taken by Skipper as her being serious). She's frequently irritated by Skipper's blatant sexism that women are weak and no good at anything aggressive. She believes that Skipper's far too paranoid. Sometimes, she's proven right and other times, she's proven wrong. On the other hand, sometimes, Marlene is the one who prompts the penguins to take action.

Whenever new animals arrive at the Central Park Zoo, she, like Private, welcomes them with open arms, encouraging friendly behavior.

Despite Marlene usually being sensible, she dreams of having somebody play Spanish guitar music to her (in "Monkey Love," "The Lost Treasure of the Golden Squirrel," "Wishful Thinking," and "Otter Things Have Happened") and she can also be rather vain and attention-seeking of humans, as in "Tangled in the Web" and "The Penguin Stays In the Picture," but they don't notice her. She can be a little bit gabby and can usually babble the unthinkable, and in a result, getting her mouth covered. As of that, she got her mouth covered by Skipper in "Paternal Egg-Stinct" when he sensed something and silenced her and in "Work Order" when Skipper quickly covered her mouth before she said anymore of the penguins' HQ. In "Truth Ache," she was shown to secretly want to be a pop sensation, that she performed imaginary concerts.

Marlene always becomes wild and feral as soon as she's outside the zoo walls (but she seems fine inside the sewers). However, on occasion, this has been forgotten.

She also seems to have a major love for candy, as evidenced in "Happy King Julien Day!" and "King Julien for a Day." She also craves popcorn, as shown in "Popcorn Panic."

When her pool had too much chlorine, she jumped in and came back up with her fur bleached. This leaves her friends to think that she's a rare arctic mink named Arlene. Her personality hasn't changed, but she was a little mad when no one listened her. King Julien says that she's a gabby one (as explained above). Later, Marlene was brought to the vet and her fur was dyed back to its original color.

Skipper
Despite fan speculation, while Skipper and Marlene get on well most of the time, they are almost complete opposites in personalities. Skipper is highly paranoid, while Marlene is open and willing to look for the best in anybody. They also have a tendency to rub it in each other's faces when one of them is proven right. Skipper doesn't hide the fact that he looks down on non-avians.

Kowalski
Kowalski and Marlene have a pretty good relationship. At one point, Kowalski valued her opinions to help get people back to the zoo to prevent it from being shut down completely.

Private
Marlene and Private are good friends. In "Badger Pride", she  helped Private get over his fear of badgers. However, this later backfires when Marlene inadvertently insulted the badger girls, Becky and Stacy. Private later saves her from from the two badgers and sends all three of them on the other side. However, Private never intended to hit Marlene.

Rico
Ironically, Rico seems to be the penguin Marlene has the most in common with. She seems eager to try new things with him, like in Jungle Law she rode on Shelly and he used her as a boomerang - to which she admitted was rather fun. In The All Nighter Before Christmas, she was paired with him (and Phil) and they constructed half of the zoo's decorations. And in Littlefoot, she found petting him strangely comforting. In Love Takes Flightless, Marlene actually convinces Rico to give a relationship with Shelly a shot, which really suggests he has more trust in her than in Shelly, who he seems to find rather intimidating.

Fred
Marlene dated Fred for a brief time when Kowalski's latest invention suggested he was her one true love. However they didn't click and it was shown that the Love-U-Lator did work - but was pointing at Fred's roomie.

Taken from NICK
An otter originally from Northern California, Marlene is still adjusting to her new life in Manhattan. Fiercely independent, Marlene has decided not to choose sides between the Penguins and the Lemurs. In fact, she finds herself agreeing with Skipper as often as she agrees with King Julien. Marlene's playful spirit often clashes with Skipper's organization and discipline but that doesn't hurt their friendship.

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Marlenka