Anyone Else Remember The New Zoo Revue? A 70s Childhood Flashback

If you grew up in the 1970s, there’s a good chance you remem­ber the cheer­ful theme song: “It’s The New Zoo Revue, com­ing right at you!” And just like that, you’re back in front of the TV in your paja­mas, cere­al bowl in hand, watch­ing Doug, Emmy Jo, and a crew of slight­ly awk­ward but lov­able talk­ing ani­mals try to teach us life lessons about friend­ship, hon­esty, and kind­ness.

The New Zoo Revue wasn’t flashy or wild — it was earnest, whole­some, and just a lit­tle bit weird, which is prob­a­bly why it stuck in our mem­o­ries so vivid­ly. The show starred Doug and Emmy Jo (Doug and Mary Jo Lut­trell), a real-life mar­ried cou­ple who guid­ed a trio of over­sized ani­mal friends through the ups and downs of dai­ly life. There was Fred­die the Frog, the ener­getic one with a con­ta­gious laugh, Hen­ri­et­ta Hip­po, who had the charm (and occa­sion­al sass) of an ear­ly Miss Pig­gy, and Char­lie the Owl, the “intel­lec­tu­al” of the bunch — or at least that’s what he want­ed every­one to think.

For many kids, the show aired ear­ly in the morn­ing — some­times before school, some­times on Sun­day morn­ings when the only alter­na­tive was church pro­gram­ming. “I LOVED this show,” one nos­tal­gic fan recalled on Red­dit. “It was on right before I left for school.” Oth­ers chimed in with that uni­ver­sal 70s expe­ri­ence: there might not have been much else on TV, but The New Zoo Revue always man­aged to draw you in.

Of course, not every­one was enchant­ed. Some view­ers remem­ber feel­ing that the show was odd­ly unset­tling — “The ani­mals weren’t cute, they were kind of creepy,” one com­menter joked. Hen­ri­et­ta Hip­po, in par­tic­u­lar, gave more than a few kids night­mares. Yet even those who didn’t love it couldn’t resist watch­ing. As one fan per­fect­ly put it, “I hat­ed this show. Didn’t stop me from watch­ing it every day after school, though.”

And then there was Emmy Jo — bright, kind, and for­ev­er remem­bered in her white go-go boots. For many, she was their first TV crush. One Red­dit user even admit­ted, “Emmy Jo gave me fun­ny feel­ings,” while anoth­er remem­bered, “I was trans­fixed.”

The show’s jin­gle has proven impos­si­ble to for­get. Decades lat­er, the moment any­one men­tions The New Zoo Revue, you can almost feel the cho­rus ris­ing col­lec­tive­ly across the inter­net:
🎵 “With Doug and Emmy Jo, every day’s a dif­fer­ent show!” 🎵

Sur­pris­ing­ly, Doug and Emmy Jo are still togeth­er today — and still con­nect­ed to the show’s fan com­mu­ni­ty. Their daugh­ter helps run their social media pages, and the cou­ple occa­sion­al­ly appears at con­ven­tions and nos­tal­gic TV events, where life­long fans get the chance to thank them for being such a mem­o­rable part of their child­hoods.

So, whether you adored Hen­ri­et­ta, crushed on Emmy Jo, or just watched because there was noth­ing else on before school, The New Zoo Revue holds a spe­cial, if slight­ly odd, place in 70s pop cul­ture. It was sim­ple, sin­cere, and some­times unin­ten­tion­al­ly strange — but that’s exact­ly what made it unfor­get­table.

“It’s The New Zoo Revue, com­ing right at you…”
And fifty years lat­er, it still kind of is.