The series employs silent comedy: the characters do not speak; rather they use nearly unintelligible vocalizations, gestures, and occasional pictograms in speech balloons.

[3] The series focuses on the exploits and adventures of a group of characters – Zig, a brown hyena; Sharko, a great white shark; Marina, a mermaid with red hair; and Bernie, a hermit crab.

In the second season, the plots shifted to the island itself, including its beaches, volcano, and jungle, with some changes for the main characters – Marina takes residence in an ornate, life-sized sandcastle, built by Sharko; Zig and Bernie live with a cargo plane pilot in his crashed plane within the jungle; and Sharko operates as a lifeguard for the aquatic lifeforms who frequent the beaches.

Throughout the first season, several episodes featured the supporting character of Neptune, based on the mythological Roman god of the sea and portrayed as a vain, muscular merman with numerous killer whale henchmen, who competed with Sharko for Marina's love, despite her disliking him.

The second season introduces Poseidon, portrayed as a muscular elderly merman, who served as Marina's adopted father in the episode "Father-In-Law", and an amnesiac human ATR 72 cargo plane pilot who often exhibits the behavior of a monkey due to his condition – the episode "Back To Civilization" revolves around a flashback, where the pilot has met up with actual simians.

Xilam then produced a second season in 2013,[citation needed] changing its art style to match some of its modern TV shows, like Paprika and Lupin's Tales.

[7] In 2021, a spin-off series was created by Alexandre Simard, Mathieu Peters-Houg and Lucille Briand for Xilam, named The Adventures of Bernie.

The series focused on the titular character who, while helping Zig in his next scheme to target and eat Marina, is sent off their island home in a freak accident and ends up in the depths of the rock-bottom ocean.

The episodes focus on Bernie's endeavors in using his intelligence and inventive skills to find a way back home, and to Zig, all while meeting with a variety of new characters along the way.