Every morning before work I watch Roar on BBC 2. This is a children’s show but it’s still full of fascinating facts. It’s set in Howlett’s Wild Animal Park in Kent, and is fronted by two baby faced and endearingly enthusiastic presenters, who usually end up performing some kind of task including animal faeces.
Of special interest is the honey badger, which is an extremely cool and underrated animal. All other African animals, including elephants and lions, are scared stiff of this rather ordinary looking badger. This is because they are actually the psychotic killers of the animal world, and can suffocate an elephant by grabbing its trunk and just holding on.
I always switch over and watch the news for a bit when Roar Rangers comes on, as I don’t really like children, and I’m jealous of them getting to be keepers for a day anyway. But Ask the Keeper is a pretty good part of the show despite the children’s sometimes odd questions (“how long is a Siberian lynx?”). Another good thing about this show is that because it is aimed at children it avoids most of the oogy vet bits which I don’t like anyway, and mysteriously animals don’t seem to die on it either.
While the presenters are by no means Konnie Huq, I do like to see how their knowledge grows over the season, and they have started asking some pretty intelligent questions by this point. There is also the online game, which is a Zoo Tycoon-style build-your-own-zoo effort. It seems ok, but you have to keep coming back day after day to upgrade it, and I hate those kind of games. Also my zoo doesn’t seem to have saved for some reason, and apparently I’m doing something deeply offensive and illegal by even playing it, because I’m over 15 which makes me a paedophile or something.
Anyway, to sum up, this zoo show is a pretty fair effort, and a sparkling one for a children’s zoo show. It would have made a good companion series to the Really Wild Show in my youth, but times were hard back then, and there were no zoo shows. It certainly beats GMTV for something to eat your toast to. Next time: Animal Park (perhaps).
