Zoo Family - Nick Knacks Episode

[@poparena]

I've had multiple comments suggesting that the character of Tim might be on the autism spectrum, which would explain his behavior. Taking the character in isolation, I could very much see that, and considered mentioning it in the video. The problem with that reading, however, is how other characters react to Tim. They don't talk to him like he's an older child who is socially awkward or acting beneath his years, they treat him as if he's an adorable little kid behaving as little kids do. It's never "hey, don't yell at Tim, he's autistic," instead it's "hey, don't yell at Tim, he's just a little kid." So, no, I don't think the people behind the show ever considered autism, something that had very rare representation in 80s television. It's a nice thought though.

[@only257]

poparena 🙂the episodes now have hundreds of views😉

[@pokemaniac05]

Even more episodes of Zoo Family are getting deleted as time passes by Crawford Productions, both shows Idt ever got a DVD release, same with Henderson Kids, Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left all of which are very 80s and 90s shows

[@pokemaniac05]

@@only257 and now they are gone and the channel

[@LethalBubbles]

@@pokemaniac05 hope it got preserved

[@meyerj75]

@@pokemaniac05 No more Zoo Family ?!? Let me count the ways.

[@cameronmarnoch5236]

A shame this "Outdoor adventure show" doesn't have an Evil Clown episode.

[@razorblade4395]

There's something so wholesome and comforting about watching your nick knack episodes

[@TackyRackyComixNEO]

Gotta say, as an adult, those boring scenes of them talking about the bureaucracy of zoo management actually sound really interesting to me, but maybe I'm just a boring person.

[@Mafon2]

I second that.

[@thomasstone3480]

holy moly is that inappropriate treatment of that disabled woman

[@TackyRackyComixNEO]

Like, it isn't really much like treatment of disabled characters (or people irl and online especially) has gotten so much better in the past couple decades, but I forgot just how disgustingly disabled representation used to be done in older media. This is harrowing, and it's a shame that such awful baggage is tied to an episode that had such a fun premise otherwise.

[@jonathanstern5537]

Also, why not have her make her own character? She's familiar with the game, and she seems smart.

[@chrismounsey3358]

Interesting series and liked to way you've talked about Australian television via it's culture and it's history. I'm from Australia by the way. Back in 1981, there was an inquiry by the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal's plan to introduce cable TV in Australia, the tribunal received hundreds of submissions, including one from Simon Townsend (known to most Aussies as the presenter of his children's current affairs program 'Wonder World!'). To provide a 13-hours-a-day children's channel known as 'Chatterbox', The proposal is that Chatterbox would be known as the children's channel by all Australian cable operators in their own geographical areas. The shows on Chatterbox was to include a children's soap opera (like children's versions of soaps if it was produced by Reg Grundy), Australian programs and imported shows from overseas such as Europe, Britain and America. Most of all, Chatterbox was to be Australia's answer to Nickelodeon, although Mr Townsend would pick the best shows from Nickelodeon. I am continuing doing research on cable TV in Australia and Chatterbox.

[@trep17mag]

Well, I loved this show in 1985. I actually had a huge crush on Kate Gorman and I went to Luna Park with a friend one saturday night and Kate was there with a few of her friends. I wanted to go up to her and say hello but was a shy guy of 17. The 80s in Australia was awesome and TV was fun. The days when people who appeared on TV actually had talent whereas now anybody can pop up on air and nobody knows who they are. The best thing about Zoo Family is it promoted Australia's oldest and best zoo.

[@ryanlemay6296]

I still have that Skeletor kite!!!!

[@TheHeroOfTomorrow]

Greg: "So David Mitchell..." Me, instinctively: "Mitchell!"

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Wacka-chu wacka-chu wacka-chu!

[@leegoldsmith2028]

I know you couldn’t find the tape, but Kylie Minogue later appeared on Nick via Don’t Just Sit There, where she promoted her cover of Locomotion. When she reappeared at the end of 90s/dawn of the 00s, I remember thinking, “the girl from that nick show I don’t remember? Huh.”

[@trep17mag]

Kylie the untalented.

[@Lynn17]

Tim's age dissonance is just part of the problem with the Lisa deal. Too many shows in the old days treated disabled people like A Liability, a laughingstock, or precious angels sent to teach the able-bodied protagonists how Precious life is, I bet Lisa was extremely relatable to disabled kids or teens who were scared and bitter over their situations. And then to have her be in the wrong? As for the show itself, your closing comments are right: kids could find inspiration from the zoo angle, the animals, considering a future career in animal care. I probably would've loved that part of the show when I was a kid! But the human drama, I bet a lot of kids could do without. Like all the scenes in the office, and the Lisa business.

[@TDOTCRFH4]

"pirated youtube upload remains untouched for years" is my favorite metric for weird old media nobody cares about. my favorite one is saban's masked rider, which is only missing one episode, because it used footage from a kamen rider anniversary movie that toei protects

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Although the guys who uploaded Zoo Family are apparently a legit German company that seems to own/distribute these shows

[@MattyHervey]

I bet those masked rider episodes get (comparatively) decent views though.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

@@AnAverageGoblin Yes, not as profitable as Maya the Bee or Vicky the Viking.

[@DigiRangerScott]

For having “not much to say” about this show 25 minutes is pretty substantial

[@Furore2323]

We had realistic toy guns everywhere in the 70s to early 80s.

[@MinisterWighty]

Not wanting to have sympathy for someone who is a jerk, but developing it anyhow is a powerful message for the show and something worth thinking on. I doubt it was intentional, but it applies as much to today's social climate as it does any other. Awful, terrible people are still people at the end of the day. I think too many of us lose sight of that too easily.

[@SpongeyTheEditor]

"The product placement is thicc" I'm sorry. Also, now I wanna give those Zoo Family episodes a bunch of views lol

[@SillySpanish]

I remember this and loved it 🤷‍♀️

[@darthmeyers074]

The only reason I watched this show is because my mom was from Australia. And she would watch anything from the old country. Regardless if it was a kid show or not.

[@newstarcadefan]

Considering, this is a good episode to help out the Australians in their time of need. Also, I am still fairly certain that had be been alive, Steve Irwin would have been the first to coordinate relief, or to prevent the fires from getting bad in the first place.

[@vgtrp]

I always thought that online you find some sort of fanbase for any show no matter how obscure, Zoo Family seems on of the exceptions. But if it did inspired some kids to get into Zoo work then more power to them.

[@SillySpanish]

Fan here 🙋‍♀️ must have been 7-8 back then

[@carmineknight9123]

This sounds like a series I would enjoy.

[@georginabensley9453]

I have absolutely zero memory of this show ever existing, even though this is my era. I saw 'Zoo Family' on the title and assumed it was just going to be about baby animals. And it can't be that I saw it around and forgot it either because I would *not* have forgotten a D&D episode. My only guess is that a) it aired on Saturdays and I had family things to do on weekends and didn't watch TV then, or b) I saw a single episode at some point, thought it was boring, and after that deliberately avoided it, leading to me then completely forgetting it.

[@pronkb000]

Even Nick's commercial for this show seems half-hearted. It fit into the outdoor-adventure aesthetic of the channel but very much comes across as filler programming the same way Curious George did.

[@alannamcfall7887]

Money going towards hair ties is a real mood :P

[@Sting6312]

Oh, freaking awesome! ...Next episode: "Rated K: For Kids, By Kids".

[@meyerj75]

At a 1:30 time slot on weekends, Zoo Family was pretty watchable compared to all the other programs that were on like boring fishing shows and multi hour live sporting events.

[@scottmcphee2076]

I remember this airing around 5 o' clock on Sunday afternoons. Repeats aired during 4- 5 pm on weekdays. Back in the 1980s all commercial stations had to air one hour of 'C' classified programs each weekday.

[@TheMister123]

15:18 - "Min-OGG"? :-D

[@ChuckD79]

Good episode, as always...funny, though I watched a great deal of Nick in the mid/late 80s, I had never heard of this show or even knew that Nick aired it until now! But I digress...ZF was decent for what it was, though nothing spectacular, and I agree that Tim may well have originally been written as a much younger child, given how his behavior is far better suited to a kid about half his age.

[@robbietehrotten]

6:33 ...Well...I...Damn.

[@Smaggledagle]

Honestly this was my most hyped episode of this series that was non Animation

[@markdoublea84]

I am surprised that Kylie Minogue appeared on an Australian show for families as a kid. I’ve heard several of her songs myself, particularly “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” which I first heard 20 years ago.

[@trep17mag]

@@markdoublea84 were you happy about it? I had to put up with her showing off by standing in the middle of Jason Donovan's road as he lived in the next street from me 1988-90. She was there all the time. Friday nights Guy Pearce, Craig McLachlan & Annie Jones would be there partying. When I rode past Kylie in Gibdon Street Burnley Victoria in 1989 she was 4ft 9in, permed hair and freckles.

[@scottmcphee2076]

Kylie did acting before becoming a pop singer. As a kid she appeared on a few different shows.

[@Nickman826]

Jesus Christ listening to them brow beat Lisa is just so painful to watch

[@Lynn17]

"Made out to be a jerkass" is one of my most despised media tropes, and applying it to a disabled person is extra shitty. How dare Lisa not be one of those soft, friendly, docile disableds who smiles sappily at others while they ask her a million questions, then says being disabled is hard but makes her realize how precious life is!

[@SillySpanish]

21:44 didn’t find the videos would have loved to watch

[@klax001]

16:24 that poster on the wall made me chuckle... AMERICA 🚀🚀 (with canada)

[@pokemaniac05]

Ah classic Australian tv show, that sadly had some episodes on YT blocked by Crawford Productions, the team who created the show and Halfway Across The Galaxy and Turn Left, a show based on the book series of the same name, it has 28 episodes split into 2 story arcs, the 2nd half of it just more new stuff to the show while the 1st half is more in the line of the novel. if anyone saved the episodes on something like Google Drive, that would be good to hear and share a link

[@kissarococo2459]

Crawfords has been releasing their library to DVDs lately so I think they are finally waking up to making money with Galaxy and Zoo family.

[@pokemaniac05]

@@kissarococo2459 while Henderson KIds, Saddle Club is on DVD, however stuff like this show, Guinevere Jones, Halfway Across the Galaxy and Turn Left, their other kids shows sadly haven't

[@gatorboymike]

"We can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality, therefore, no one else can either." - conservative Christians

[@ShadowWingTronix]

Actually the concern, at least from one less confrontational pamphlet I read, was that TSR was using symbols taken from actual occultic and pagan sources and that would be how cults would use the game to recruit younger members. All this pamphlet simply requested dropping those symbols and creating their own. They also told stories of kids who clearly had issues and took the game WAAAAY too seriously and ended up committing suicide, so that warning was out there, not that it caused it but that there signs they shouldn't be playing the game and needed help. I know some took a more hardline approach to it but that was the context I heard.

[@segundovargas]

6:27 To be fair, that's not being Racist. Xenophobic and Sexist, sure, but not Racist.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

Works for me.

[@kiwikarp9509]

I thought this was a documentary style show from the thumbnail, wasn't expecting this.

[@pinmike8666]

As of last week, ALL of Zoo Family was taken off Kids English TV due to Crawford Publishing blocking the channel from airing it. Kylie Brazil is the sole remaining archive of Zoo Family, with the Kylie Minogue episode.

[@pokemaniac05]

Well 2 episodes of Zoo Family are left, Episode 2 and 7 and the one you mentioned, so 3 out of the 26 episodes

[@pokemaniac05]

well that YT channel with ep 2 got some of it's eps back

[@wraithgames]

Ah, yes, a David Mitchell joke LITERALLY after I watch 4 hours of Would I Lie to You? GET OUT OF MY HEAD, GREG!!!

[@TheMister123]

So, it's basically "All Creatures Great and Small", but with zoo animals, and in Aussie. And no future Doctor Who star in the cast. 12:40 - Um, apparently "Young Ramsay" was an even more direct copy of that concept. Yeesh, someone just likes to copy the BBC.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

That's what Australia liked to do best.

[@chrisa8833]

Kylie Minogue was a guest star in Doctor Who! So there’s that...

[@jimmymelendez1836]

That older mustache guy just said damn. Isn't Zoo Family supposed to be a kids show?

[@bullmonty764]

I’m just waiting for the obligatory clown

[@ShadowWingTronix]

This is the first time I've heard of this show.

[@jonathanstern5537]

I love koalas.

[@jbanks979]

I’m old enough to remember most shows from this era Buuuuuuuuuuuuut I don’t remember this at all. Tim looks like the later episodes of Dennis the Mennis where Jay North had almost hit puberty

[@M644theawesome]

Very good video on this, very forgotten show overall it feels like.... Hmm i do wonder how "The Box" got so popular, its a mystery Just wondering but, isn't there a thing about not to donate to the red cross and do something else, or am i thinking of somewhere else?

[@chocolatestar1206]

I wonder does the nick knack guy count shows that were produced by Nick but aired on Netflix as Nickelodeon shows

[@allisoncarroll1284]

I have never heard if this show, but I do want to watch it.

[@mayofthedead6212]

Am I the only one who noticed the watermark getting smaller in the title card?

[@Mafon2]

I think that's quite obvious that Tim isn't quite right in the head, and that's why everybody treats him as a little kid.

[@pinmike8666]

Welp, it seems this show could likely be lost media again; Kids TV English has taken down around 10 episodes.

[@pokemaniac05]

Yeah and also Halfway Across The Galaxy And Turn Left, another Crawford Productions show, now I never read or seen the book at a library before and also the 2nd arc of the tv show is mostly original to the tv series for the most part, sadly like Zoo Family the episodes are sadly taken down, blocked, deleted from existence, well at least other shows from other tv productions Teams didn't suffer like these, well Cybergirl and a few other shows copyright Really hurts both old and new tv shows lately

[@pokemaniac05]

It is really sad, DVDs and streaming services obviously didn't exist until way later

[@Montork]

Man. I hate that ep. I hate those writers Like? "We all pittied you" Did she ask for you to pity her? That's fucked up

[@TheTVsTim]

Maybe Tim is supposed to be "special"? That would explain some things.

[@only257]

Never heard of. This show😎📼

[@kidokoala]

The zoo Family's on fire! Lol

[@yszman6478]

The next show is the show that has hosts of the first Nick's Kids Awards sort of.

[@darktetsuya]

'kylie minog' .... I just I can't lol! neat to hear about the 80s pop culture stuff, though. the anti-disability stuff?! .... not so much, wow.

[@FaxModem1]

Yeah, Tim comes across as either having Autism or Aspergers , and just doesn't realize that though he's trying to be nice, is not being welcome by someone dealing with some other stuff.

[@TheBronyBraeburn]

I wonder if the 12 year old is supposed to be on the spectrum, since his social skills aren't on par with the typical 12 year old and everyone coddles him, as if they know it is difficult for him to change his behavior.

[@angelmarie2281]

That's what I am thinking, too.

[@YujiUedaFan]

That or ADHD. Maybe even both.

[@liamtheleprechuanpaul752]

Nice effort but do know know that you might have to cover all the way to 2020

[@codeblack9407]

Mr nick knack you should of review Qube shows like flippos magic circus and Simon and the land of chalk drawings they didn't make it to Nickelodeon like pinwheel and America goes bananas but they aired on Qube which became Nickelodeon

[@jordanromesburg6819]

Holy shit, they did the DnD episode of Community but ableist and sexist 💀💀💀

[@nohalo3forme]

aNiMaL cRaCkErS iN mY sOuP

[@spencerkoelle184]

so many times in a row too...

[@daltonriser1125]

For how much you hyped up that kylie minogue bit you still managed to mispronounce her name lol