Zoos and aquariums as movie sets

TheMightyOrca

TheMightyOrca

Well-Known Member
10+ year member
Thought this would be a fun discussion. I hope there isn't another thread like this, I looked and couldn't find one. Years ago, I watched Star Trek IV (aka THE GREATEST WHALE MOVIE OF ALL TIME) for the first time. And some of the sets looked familiar... While I've never been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, there was no mistaking their famous tide pool for some random movie set. Other details, like their logo, are there too.

Another time, I was watching a video review of the film Good Luck Chuck. Like MBA, I've never been to the Vancouver Aquarium, but I recognized the Haida orca statue from the entrance.

Are there any movies and TV shows where you recognized a specific zoo/aquarium being used as the set? Are there any where you learned about their use from later research?
 
Jurassic World did filming at the Honolulu Zoo. Didn't actually know that, just looked it up.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone had the snake scene filmed at London Zoo. That's a pretty obvious one, in my opinion.
 
Rocky 2 (1979)- Philadelphia Zoo
Zookeeper (2011)- Franklin Park Zoo
Cat People (1982) - Audubon Zoo
An American Werewolf in London (1981) - London Zoo
 
Coelacanth18 said:
Jurassic World did filming at the Honolulu Zoo. Didn't actually know that, just looked it up.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone had the snake scene filmed at London Zoo. That's a pretty obvious one, in my opinion.
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I didn't know that about Jurassic World either. Very interesting!
 
There was a scene in the Bronx Zoo in the 2014 horror film "Deliver Us From Evil", and it plays a role in the 2000 film "Bait".

From the Wikipedia entry for the Central Park Zoo in NYC:

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 Tragically Hip have a song called Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park on their album In Between Evolution. The song is ostensibly about a bear having a midlife crisis, but has been said to actually be about George W. Bush.[14]

The zoo was also featured in the horror film classic Cat People (1942) and 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. Also featured in 'Holiday Affair' 1949. 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. Though not filmed there in the 1996 movie Eraser a scene takes place at the Zoo.

The zoo is the setting of a hostage situation in the 2005 video game The Punisher.

In the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated TV series and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics, the zoo is the place from where Krang and Shredder use Technodrome Roadkill Rodney robots to abduct a rhino and a warthog used for the mutations of Bebop and Rocksteady.
 
Central Park Zoo was also featured in the Dustin Hoffman movie "Marathon Man" [1976].
 
The old Griffith Park Zoo was used on an episode of Emergency! where someone fell into the lion exhibit and was knocked unconscious. On the show it was called the LA County Zoo and they alternated between using a sub-adult male and a fully adult male.
 
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