Anyone remember the Good Times knockoffs, which would show up on video store shelves (complete with white clamshell-style video boxes) while their Disney big-budget counterparts opened in theaters? To the average moviegoer, The Wild may seem like an incredibly opportunistic way to cash in on Madagascar's success, but animated movies actually take years to produce, and a friend at Disney assures me that The Wild actually predates its successful DreamWorks cousin.

"The Version Children Love." Uh-huh.

So where did this movie come from? It wasn't anywhere to be found on Disney's earlier 2006 release schedule (below), though the level of animated detail suggests that they've been working on it for a while. And if you can get past the obvious similarities to Madagascar, maybe there's some charm to be found in another zoo-break scenario.

For starters, The Wild introduces a bunch of new animals: a squirrel, a snake, a koala, two undercover chameleons and a herd of break-dancing wildebeasts (on a separate note, just consider how far CG animation has come since the days of The Lion King's wildebeast stampede). Plus, the animation looks completely different, with much greater pains taken on Disney's part to make the animals, trees and other surroundings look realistic (though I prefer the Tex Avery-inspired stylization of Madagascar, personally). Maybe kids won't mind the fact that they've been down this road before.