Zoo Story

Adora, Bow and Kowl ride through the Forest of Freedom to find out why animals keep disappearing from it. Bow charges a Horde convoy alone, She-Ra stops it and finds the cages empty, and she bluffs the captive Mantenna with a threat of the Trolls of Spikeheart until he names Outpost Six. Kowl meanwhile meets a female owl, Kowla, and the pair are snatched by Vultak, Hordak's zookeeper, and locked in Hordak's zoo, behind a moat of snapgators and guarded by Zootron robots. Kowla likes the roof and the meals, and Kowl, who said much the same that morning, tells her that being guarded is not being cared for. He ties up the robots with a card trick and takes their keys while She-Ra and Bow cross the moat, She-Ra having asked the snapgators for a ride. Bow's boomerang arrow stops Vultak, the animals are freed, and She-Ra leaves one cage standing for him.

Loo-Kee: "Hi there, did you see where I was hiding today? Here I am. Today, we saw how Kowl didn't really appreciate his freedom until he lost it. So remember, we should concentrate on the good things we have, like sunsets and flowers and our family. And let's take the time to show our appreciation by saying, "Thank you." You'll be glad you did. See ya next time. Will you see me?"

Kowl: "This morning, I said the same thing. But I was wrong."

Kowl: "They don't take care of us. They guard us."

She-Ra: "Because the only thing that belongs in a Horde zoo is a Horde monster."

Kowl opens Zoo Story with a short list of what he likes, and Hordak's zoo supplies the first two items on it. He has just called the Forest of Freedom "nothing but a bunch of bug-infested trees," and when he is asked whether he likes anything at all he names "A roof over my head, something to eat" and, above all, good music. The script keeps the roof and the food in reserve until they can be used on him.

The mystery half is brisk and a little silly. Animals are vanishing, and Bow explains that a thing which merely disappears has to reappear somewhere else, so the job is to find out where. A Crimson Scracklebird screeches and is gone. Bow then charges a Horde convoy by himself, Grizzlor and Mantenna are caught bickering in the cab about speed, and She-Ra stops the transport with her bare hands and lets it go into the mud. What follows is better than the action: the cages are empty, and She-Ra reasons that they were travelling away from the forest, so they are deliveries to whoever is doing the collecting. She then bluffs Mantenna with a threat to ask the Trolls of Spikeheart to question him, and Mantenna gives up Outpost Six. The Horde crew ends up squeezed into a cage hanging from a tree, trading blows inside it.

Then Kowl gets his own list read back to him by someone who means it. He meets Kowla on a branch, is delighted that there are two of them, and is carried off with her by Vultak, who announces that he is Hordak's zookeeper. In the cell Kowla says the zoo is not so bad, and when Kowl objects she asks what more anyone could want than a roof and good food. His answer is "This morning, I said the same thing." He tells her the keepers do not look after the animals, and "They guard us." The moral works because Kowl is not preaching from outside; he is retracting something he said on screen.

The standout scene is the escape, which pays off a gag from the very first scene. When Bow shows off a card trick early on, Kowl confiscates the deck so he will not have to see it again. In the cell he is holding that deck, tells a Zootron he is about to show it something that will knock its treads off, and performs his escaping card trick, asking each robot to pick a card, then another, then another. "Presto knot-o" is the punchline, and he borrows the keys from the tied-up robots. A set of Zootrons that are easily dazzled is a cheap idea, but a hero who was a nuisance in act one winning on his own terms in act three is not.

The weak point is Kowla. The script uses her as a mirror, and the mirror has no turn of its own. She defends the zoo, then warns that escaping is dangerous, then sits beside Kowl with little to do until a closing remark about the two of them getting to know each other. The rescue is just as quick. She-Ra asks the snapgators for a ride across the moat, Bow's boomerang arrow brings Vultak down, and the animals leave on a raft in a couple of shots.

The last gag is the best. Asked whether she destroyed every cage, She-Ra says all except one, "the only thing that belongs in a Horde zoo" being a Horde monster, and Vultak is the one inside. It is a small, tidy episode about being looked after versus being free, and Kowl, for once, earns the sympathy.

1. Continuity: Mantenna dreads the Trolls of Spikeheart, a place and people that also feature in The Crystal Castle, where the heroes travel to Spikeheart and its Trolls have a king.
2. Continuity: Kowl says there are very few of his kind left, and the owl he meets, named Kowla in the dialogue, looks just like him.
3. Continuity: Kowl keeps the playing cards he takes from Bow in the opening scene and uses them in the cell to escape, which closes a joke set up in the first three minutes.