The Old Men at the Zoo
1983-09-15 · 55 min / episode · ★ 6.5
An incompetently managed zoo becomes a metaphor for the state of Britain as a nuclear crisis looms over Europe.
Trailers are previews, not full movies.
No authorized playback source configured. Use the legal watch options below.
Production details
- Creators
- Unavailable
- Production companies
- London Films Productions
- Countries
- United Kingdom
- Status
- Ended
Top Cast
Marius GoringDr Emile Englander
Stuart WilsonSimon Carter
Andrew CruickshankMr Sanderson
Barry StantonStrawsonTitle information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.
Where to watch
Availability provided by JustWatch via TMDb. Offers can change. Provider links are listed on TMDb; full playback requires a separately authorized source.
Availability not listed for this country.
Seasons & episodes
Recommendations

The Brittas Empire is a British sitcom created and originally written by Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen. Chris Barrie plays Gordon Brittas, the well-meaning but incompetent manager of Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre. The show ran for seven series and 53 episodes — including two Christmas specials — from 1991 to 1997 on BBC1. Norriss and Fegen wrote the first five series, after which they left the show. The Brittas Empire enjoyed a long and successful run throughout the 1990s, and gained itself large mainstream audiences. In 2004 the show came 47th on the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll, and all series have been released on DVD. The creators Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen often combine farce with either surreal or dramatic elements in episodes. For example in the first series, the leisure centre prepares for a royal visit, only for the doors to seal, the boiler room to flood and a visitor to become electrocuted. Unlike the traditional sitcom, deaths were quite common in The Brittas Empire.

Satirical sketch comedy set and filmed in Portland, Oregon that explores the eccentric misfits who embody the foibles of modern culture.

Mock the Week is a British topical celebrity panel game hosted by Dara Ó Briain. The game is influenced by improvised topical stand-up comedy, with several rounds requiring players to deliver answers on unexpected subjects on the spur of the moment.

A butler deals with life at the governor's mansion.

In this cult parody of cop dramas, replete with farce and sight gags, Lieutenant Frank Drebin and his fellow officers from Police Squad bungle their way though crime investigations.

Matt is a stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop. When Matt's estranged daughter Riley and her teenage kids move into his house, the real restoration begins.

Ashley and Gordon are two single(ish), complex humans who are brought together by a car accident and an injured dog. Flawed, funny people choosing each other and being brave enough to show their true self, scars and all, as they navigate life together.

Classic sketch comedy show satirising the news and culture of the late 70s and early 80s which introduced Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith, Griff Rhys Jones and Pamela Stephenson.

Tim Heidecker reviews the latest movies in theaters with a special guest.

A zany comedy show with Matt Lucas and David Walliams, featuring characters from all over Little Britain.

The free world is in danger, and only one man can help. Jack Decker has sworn to defend America from foreign terrorists regardless of which spineless president is in charge. This is Decker: The Series.

A spoof of the British news — including ridiculous stories, patronising vox pops, offensively hard-hitting research and a sports presenter clearly struggling for metaphors. Adapted from Radio 4 series 'On the Hour'.

Hayden Fox, the curmudgeonly coach of Minnesota State University's Screaming Eagles football team, tries to navigate his way through the sports world, fatherhood and family life without dropping the ball.

Comic Garry Shandling draws upon his own talk show experiences to create the character of Larry Sanders, a paranoid, insecure host of a late night talk show. Larry, along with his obsequious TV sidekick Hank Kingsley and his fiercely protective producer Artie, allows Garry Shandling and his talented writers to look behind the scenes and to show us a convincing slice of behind the camera life.

The office politics and interpersonal relationships among the staff of WNYX NewsRadio, New York's #2 news radio station.

A sitcom set in the offices of "GlobeLink News" after its acquisition by media mogul Sir Roysten Merchant. Led by editor George Dent, the staff of GlobeLink battle to maintain the company as a serious news organization against Sir Roysten's right-hand man, Gus Hedges, who wants to make the show more sensationalist and suppress stories that might harm Roysten's business empire.

The big-collared comic gives his own spin on TV clips from recent programmes, plus contributions from a set of regular characters

A former professional baseball player, along with his preteen daughter, moves into New York advertising executive Angela Bower's house to be both a housekeeper and a father figure to her young son. Tony 's laid-back personality contrasts with Angela's type-A behavior.

Nick Cannon and an A-list celebrity lead a team of improv comedians as they compete against each other.

The State is a sketch-comedy television show combing bizarre characters and scenarios to present sketches that won the hearts of its target teenaged audience.
Similar titles

A groundbreaking, splendidly silly, surreal sketch comedy series written by and starring The Goodies' Tim Brooke-Taylor, Monty Python's Graham Chapman and John Cleese, and comedy legend Marty Feldman.

In the fictional town of Fernwood, Ohio, suburban housewife Mary Hartman seeks the kind of domestic perfection promised by Reader’s Digest and TV commercials. Instead she finds herself suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: mass murders, low-flying airplanes and waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen floor.


Investigative reporter Chris Morris puts modern Britain under the spotlight, and smacks the issues of the day till they bleed. He tackles weighty issues including animals, drugs, sex and skewered celebrities and politicians alike - and in a later episode in 2001, paedophiles.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes is a weekly Canadian television comedy that airs on CBC Television. Launched in 1993 during Canada's 35th general election, the show focuses on Canadian politics, combining news parody, sketch comedy and satirical editorials. Originally featuring Cathy Jones, Rick Mercer, Greg Thomey and Mary Walsh, the series featured satirical sketches of the weekly news and Canadian political events. The show's format is a mock news program, intercut with comic sketches, parody commercials and humorous interviews of public figures. The on-location segments are frequently filmed with slanted camera angles.

Casting(s) was a French television shortcom created by Pierre Niney and Ali Marhyar, written by Ali Marhyar, Igor Gotesman and Pierre Niney, produced by Hugo Gélin for Zazi Films and broadcast on Canal+ from 2013 to 2015. The episodes revolved around actors rehearsing for different film projects for a casting director. The show also had famous guests such as Oscar winner Marion Cotillard and rappers Orelsan and Nekfeu.

This English follows the East End working-class Garnett family, headed by patriarch Alf, a reactionary working-class man who wields racist and anti-Socialist views. His long-suffering wife Else manages to keep things in control... for the most part. Their progressive daughter Rita lives with them, as does her Irish husband Mike, who, with an array of liberal worldviews, often quarrels with his father-in-law. It inspired the American show "All In The Family" and several other international variations on the same theme.

That's My Bush! is an American comedy television series that aired on Comedy Central from April 4 to May 23, 2001. Created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone, best known for also creating South Park, the series centers on the fictitious personal life of President George W. Bush, as played by Timothy Bottoms. Carrie Quinn Dolin played Laura Bush, and Kurt Fuller played Karl Rove. Despite the political overtones, the show itself was actually a broad lampoon of American sitcoms, including lame jokes, a laugh track, and stock characters such as klutzy bimbo secretary Princess, know-it-all maid Maggie, and supposedly helpful "wacky" next-door neighbor Larry.

Quadruple Professor Adonis Cnut is the cleverest man in Britain and Oxford's leading moral philosopher. He is paid huge amounts of money for his views, consulted by the government, but he is bored and wants adventure, so he joins the shadowy organization The Council which controls everything going on in the world.

Clarissa Darling is a teen girl dealing with typical pre-adolescent concerns such as school, boys, pimples, wearing her first training bra and an annoying little brother Ferguson.

The Kumars at No. 42 is a British comedy show. It won an International Emmy in 2002 and 2003. It ran for seven series totalling 53 episodes.

A zany comedy show with Matt Lucas and David Walliams, featuring characters from all over Little Britain.

A crazy comedy about three rather strange parish priests exiled to Craggy Island, a remote island off the Irish west coast.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The RiffTrax Experiments is a 2026 limited series that reunites legacy MST3K writers and performers Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett. Serving as an official collaboration between the RiffTrax team and the MST3K production house, the series brings the core cast of the show's 1990s era back to the Satellite of Love.
2DTV is a British satirical animated television show that was broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom from March 2001 to December 2004. Lasting a total of five series and thirty-three episodes, 2DTV became the successor of popular 80's TV series Spitting Image, and the predecessor of 2008 ITV satirical animation Headcases.

A topical comedy show, mixing stand-up with sketches and impressions, starring David Baddiel, Robert Newman, Hugh Dennis and Steve Punt.

Sketch show exploring the conflict and integration between traditional Indian culture and modern British life. Some sketches reversed the roles to view the British from an Indian perspective, and others poked fun at Indian stereotypes.

Extra 3 is a political satirical magazine from Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR).

Political comedy set on the campaign buses of the main parties as they battle their way through the chaos of the election campaign.

Pearly Gates is about the lives of Jesus, Christopher Columbus and MLK in Heaven. The premise is: what's the point of being good once you've made it into Heaven? So they're all the worst version of themselves.