Earlier this year we had our first interview with Samantha, a prominent member of the fandom where we discussed the 14th anniversary of the Madagascar film franchise. Also on its fourteenth year, is the 5th anniversary of All Hail King Julien, an award-winning spin-off series that tells the story of how King Julien’s Kingdom of Madagascar grew into its glory.
All Hail King Julien Week.
For this issue of Madagascar Wiki Interviews, we have a very important person running a special event celebrating the 5 years of legacy that is All Hail King Julien. Megan, or more frequently known as Purple Walskurco, is a dedicated fan of Madagascar who shall be coordinating All Hail King Julien Week, a week-long project to bring the fandom alive in this very special occasion, with daily themes such as Party, Family, Villains, Weirdness, Romance, Memories, and the last being a free day.
To further know about this event, let’s ask the coordinator herself to explain this to us.
All Hail King Julien Week is a fandom event that celebrates the 5th anniversary of the show, running from December 13th to December 19th 2019, that is the anniversary date. There are themes for each day, and fans are encouraged to interpret these themes however they want and create any form of fan content to celebrate, with the final day being open for everyone to create their own unique content to celebrate the day itself.
All Hail King Julien Week's official Tumblr page.
Megan is running a Tumblr page for the event (allhailkingjulienweek.tumblr.com) which shall be reblogging all contents created for the event as it goes on, and shall also be compiling any video contributions in a playlist. She also explains her passion for event coordinating, which led to her idea for this event.
I came up with the idea to do this because I knew I wanted to do something special for the 5th anniversary of this show I love so much. I have seen other fandom events that have worked out really well and thought that it would be really fun to have one for All Hail King Julien. I’ve also always liked to make events even though they used to be just for myself, for example during the first week of summer break in 2017, when I did a thing I called “Cartoon Week” where I watched one of my favorite animated shows or movies, read fanfiction, watched videos and so on. Now that I’m interacting with other fans and creating my own content, it seemed like a good idea to do something like this. I’m really excited to be coordinating this event and I hope lots of people participate and have a great time!
The event is organised by the Madagascar Fandom, a group of over 30 dedicated people around the world stretching from Canada all the way to Australia, and is made in partnership with Madagascar Wiki. However, for this event, there are a few prominent people from the fandom who play a big role in managing it.
I am coordinating this project with Brendan who is promoting the event here on the Madagascar Wiki, and also with Samantha (@holymangos) who is promoting and running the event on Twitter.
Megan has been a fan of Madagascar for a whole decade, and her love for All Hail King Julien began since its first day.
I actually began watching All Hail King Julien the day it came out. I had been watching The Penguins of Madagascar from when I was very young and got extremely into it in 6th grade when The Return of the Revenge of Dr. Blowhole came out, and so I was already a huge fan of King Julien. In November 2014, I came across a promotional video for AHKJ on YouTube, and I was surprised and excited to find out it was from a new show that was coming out. My family has Netflix so the day the first five episodes were released, I watched them as soon as I got home from school. I didn’t get directly involved in the fandom until August 2017 when I made my YouTube channel. I was very shy growing up, so I was nervous about participating in online fandom communities. I would mostly just look at things made by other fans and keep the things I made to myself until I decided that I wanted to be involved, and I’m so glad that I did.
With her past in the fandom explained, we also asked her on her thoughts and opinions on the future of the franchise, as well as the fandom.
I am excited to find out what “A Little Wild” ends up being. But regardless of that, I think people will continue to discover or rediscover the movies and TV shows, and keep this fandom going strong. Being on Netflix allows All Hail King Julien to continue producing new fans who didn’t watch the show during its initial release, but are sure to fall in love with it just the same.
But will there be more events like this for the fandom and franchise in the future? We asked for her thoughts and this is what she has to say:
I definitely want to have more events like this. I’ll probably make this an annual tradition as long as there are people who want to participate, and nothing happens in my life to keep me from it. I have really enjoyed setting up the event so far and I’m extremely excited to see how it goes! I might do something similar for anniversaries of other things in the franchise if people are interested and I would be happy to help out with anyone else’s events!
We are really happy and excited about this event, as well as the future of the fandom and franchise as a whole.
You can learn more about this event over on its portal page on this wiki as well as its site (allhailkingjulienweek.tumblr.com), and you can also find Megan on her multi-fandom Tumblr at purplewalskurco.tumblr.com.
Join us again in March where we will be discussing another interesting topic regarding this fandom with a person you may not have heard about but is among the front-liners of the fandom.