Children's Zoo (The Twilight Zone)

"**Children's Zoo**"
"Children's Zoo"
The Twilight Zone episode
	Scene from "Children's Zoo"
Episode no.	Season 1; Episode 3b
Directed by	Robert Downey
Written by	Chris Hubbell ; Gerrit Graham
Original air date	October 11, 1985
Guest appearances
	Lorna Luft as Sheila Cunningham ; Steven Keats as Martin Cunningham ; Jaclyn Bernstein as Debbie Cunningham ; Sydney Walsh as Melody ; Don DeForest Paul (as Don Paul) & Sandy Brown Wyeth as 1st couple ; Wes Craven & Kerry Slattery as 2nd couple ; Jack Taloe & Pamela Brown as 4th couple ; Al Alu & Virginia Morris as 5th couple
Episode chronology
← Previous; "Healer"	Next →; "Kentucky Rye"
	List of episodes

"Children's Zoo" is the second segment of the third episode of the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. This is one of the few stories without narration.

Plot[]

Debbie is a four-year-old girl starved for attention because her parents are always fighting. Her mother yells at her and her father is too lazy to give her any quality time. Debbie asks her parents to take her to the Children's Zoo. A friend gave her an invitation which specifies that both parents must accompany the child.

At the zoo, Debbie is directed to the children's entrance after the keeper confirms that her friend explained to her the nature of the Children's Zoo. Her parents are ostensibly taken to a waiting room. Inside, it is revealed that parents who bring their children to the Children's Zoo are in fact locked in display rooms which the children peruse, selecting their new parents from among them. The newer parental arrivals vainly threaten the zoo staff and demand to be let out, while others seem to have gone half-insane from prolonged captivity, and plead with and try to bribe Debbie to choose them. Debbie chooses a more subdued couple who tell her that they have learned their lesson and will try to be the best parents they can.

Debbie's parents watch with a mixture of anger, confusion, and horror as their daughter walks off with her chosen parents to a better life.

Production[]

Wes Craven appears in a cameo, as the angry, threatening father. He directed several episodes of this series.

References[]

"Children's Zoo" at IMDb

v t The Twilight Zone (1985) episodes
Season 1	"Shatterday" "A Little Peace and Quiet" "Wordplay" "Dreams for Sale" "Chameleon" "Healer" "Children's Zoo" "Kentucky Rye" "Little Boy Lost" "Wish Bank" "Nightcrawlers" "If She Dies" "Ye Gods" "Examination Day" "A Message from Charity" "Teacher's Aide" "Paladin of the Lost Hour" "Act Break" "The Burning Man" "Dealer's Choice" "Dead Woman's Shoes" "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" "The Shadow Man" "The Uncle Devil Show" "Opening Day" "The Beacon" "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" "Her Pilgrim Soul" "I of Newton" "Night of the Meek" "But Can She Type?" "The Star" "Still Life" "The Little People of Killany Woods" "The Misfortune Cookie" "Monsters!" "A Small Talent for War" "A Matter of Minutes" "The Elevator" "To See the Invisible Man" "Tooth and Consequences" "Welcome to Winfield" "Quarantine" "Gramma" "Personal Demons" "Cold Reading" "The Leprechaun-Artist" "Dead Run" "Profile in Silver" "Button, Button" "Need to Know" "Red Snow" "Take My Life...Please!" "Devil's Alphabet" "The Library" "Shadow Play" "Grace Note" "A Day in Beaumont" "The Last Defender of Camelot"
Season 2	"The Once and Future King" "A Saucer of Loneliness" "What Are Friends For?" "Aqua Vita" "The Storyteller" "Nightsong" "The After Hours" "Lost and Found" "The World Next Door" "The Toys of Caliban" "The Convict's Piano" "The Road Less Traveled" "The Card" "The Junction" "Joy Ride" "Shelter Skelter" "Private Channel" "Time and Teresa Golowitz" "Voices in the Earth" "Song of the Younger World" "The Girl I Married"
Season 3	"The Curious Case of Edgar Witherspoon" "Extra Innings" "The Crossing" "The Hunters" "Dream Me a Life" "Memories" "The Hellgramite Method" "Our Selena Is Dying" "The Call" "The Trance" "Acts of Terror" "20/20 Vision" "There Was an Old Woman" "The Trunk" "Appointment on Route 17" "The Cold Equations" "Stranger in Possum Meadows" "Street of Shadows" "Something in the Walls" "A Game of Pool" "Room 2426" "The Mind of Simon Foster" "The Wall" "Cat and Mouse" "Rendezvous in a Dark Place" "Many, Many Monkeys" "Love Is Blind" "Crazy as a Soup Sandwich" "Special Service" "Father and Son Game"