The Denver Zoo is both an unseen location for one of Mork's failed jobs, and where he returns the chimp 'Doc' having taken him thinking the ape was in danger of being kidnapped in Season 3's Mork the Monkey's Uncle
Location[]
Denver Zoo is located at 2300 Steele St, Denver, CO 80205 in the City Park of Denver, Colorado.
Run By/Managed/Owned[]
It is owned by the City and County of Denver and funded in part by the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). It is the most popular paid attraction in the Denver metropolitan area.
About[]
The Denver Zoo was founded in 1896 when an orphaned American black bear cub named Billy Bryan – short for William Jennings Bryan after the contemporary American politician – was given to Thomas S. McMurry (mayor of Denver from 1895–1899) as a gift. McMurry gave the hard-to-manage cub to the keeper of City Park, Alexander J. Graham, who started the zoo with this animal. Other animals at the young zoo included native waterfowl at Duck Lake, native prairie dogs, antelope which roamed the park, and a flock of Chinese pheasants, which later populated the eastern plains of the state
With the construction of Bear Mountain in 1918, it became the first zoo in the United States to use naturalistic zoo enclosures rather than cages with bars. Monkey Island was built in 1937 using funds from the Works Progress Administration. Monkey House, facing Monkey Island, was the original primate exhibit in the zoo and still serves as the winter residence for the capuchins. A Children's zoo was opened in 1951 but was replaced by Primate Panorama, featuring huge mesh tents and open areas for apes and monkeys.
A perimeter fence was built in 1957, defining the zoo as a separate area but still within City Park. Automobile traffic in the zoo was finally eliminated completely in 1959. Pachyderm Habitat was opened the same year, The zoo opened the Feline House in 1964, a Giraffe House in 1966, and an Animal Hospital in 1969. Bird World was opened in 1975, followed by the Mountain Sheep Habitat in 1979.
In Mork the Monkey's Uncle, Mork having visited the Zoo several times, resolves to 'rescue' Doc a young chimp whose mother has disappeared, supposedly 'kidnapped' and smuggles him out of the Denver Zoo back to Mindy's apartment. Under pressure from Mindy to take him back before he gets into trouble, Mork enlists the help of Exidor to snoop around the Zoo and find out more about the situation before the two smuggle Doc, in disguise back into the Zoo, taking him to the Zoo's hospital, where they discover the truth about Doc's mother from The Veterinarian.