The Zoo in Popular Culture
The Central Park Zoo was featured in the children's book Mr. Popper's Penguins (1938) and in J.D. Salinger's classic novel The Catcher in the Rye (1951). It was also mentioned in Truman Capote's novella Summer Crossing, published in 2005. The 1967 Simon and Garfunkel song At the Zoo used Central Park Zoo as its principal setting. In 1991, Paul Simon released a children's book entitled At the Zoo that combines the lyrics of the song with very detailed illustrations.
The zoo was also featured in the animated films Madagascar (2005), The Wild (2006), Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008), and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (2012), as well as in the animated series The Penguins of Madagascar. The 2011 live-action film Mr. Popper's Penguins also featured Central Park Zoo as well as another Central Park icon, the Tavern on the Green.
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Famous quotes containing the words popular culture, zoo, popular and/or culture:
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—Carl Bernstein (b. 1944)
“The zoo cannot but disappoint. The public purpose of zoos is to offer visitors the opportunity of looking at animals. Yet nowhere in a zoo can a stranger encounter the look of an animal. At the most, the animal’s gaze flickers and passes on. They look sideways. They look blindly beyond.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
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