''The Zoo Gang'' is a 1974

ITC Entertainment The Incorporated Television Company (ITC), or ITC Entertainment as it was referred to in the United States, was a British company involved in production and distribution of television programmes. History Incorporated Television Programme Compan ...

drama series that ran for six one-hour colour episodes, based on the 1971 book of the same name by Paul Gallico.

Plot

Five French Resistance fighters, known by their animal-based code names (the Wolf, the Tiger, the Elephant, the Leopard and the Fox), fought during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Their efforts came to a stop when one of their number, Claude Roget (the Wolf), was betrayed to the

Gestapo The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one orga ...

by a contact called Boucher. In their interrogation of him, Roget—who was the husband of Manouche (the Leopard)--was shot dead before her eyes. Twenty-eight years later, Thomas Devon (the Elephant) spots Boucher (going under the name of Rosch) in his shop. The surviving members of the Zoo Gang drop what they are doing and rendezvous for vengeance. The rest of the series follows the adventures of the remaining gang of four resistance fighters reunited decades later to

scam A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers hav ...

habitual con artists and criminals in order to take their money and use it for good causes. Despite their ages, they put their skills and experience to use to raise enough money to construct a hospital in the memory of Claude. The gang is (reluctantly) aided by the son of Manouche and Claude, an inspector in the French police. The series is set on the

French Riviera The French Riviera (known in French as the ; oc, Còsta d'Azur ; literal translation " Azure Coast") is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from ...

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative ...

. Guest stars included

Philip Madoc Philip Madoc (born Philip Arvon Jones; 5 July 1934 – 5 March 2012) was a Welsh actor. He performed many stage, television, radio and film roles, and was recognised for having a "rich, sonorous voice" and often playing villains and office ...

Peter Cushing Peter Wilton Cushing (26 May 1913 – 11 August 1994) was an English actor. His acting career spanned over six decades and included appearances in more than 100 films, as well as many television, stage, and radio roles. He achieved recognition ...

and Jacqueline Pearce.

Roger Delgado Roger Caesar Marius Bernard de Delgado Torres Castillo Roberto (1 March 1918 – 18 June 1973) was a British actor. He played many roles on television, radio and in films, and had "a long history of playing minor villains" before becoming ...

, best known for his role as ''

Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the ...

'' villain The Master, also appeared, although he had died in a car crash prior to the series' broadcast.

Main cast

* Barry Morse as Alec Marlowe – ''The Tiger'': Canadian, now working as a vehicle mechanic. * Lilli Palmer as Manouche Roget – ''The Leopard'': French, running a small cafe ''"Les Pecheurs"'' in Nice. *

Brian Keith Brian Keith (born Robert Alba Keith, November 14, 1921 – June 24, 1997) was an American film, television, and stage actor who in his six-decade career gained recognition for his work in films such as the Disney family film '' The Parent T ...

as Steven Halliday – ''The Fox'': American, now an antiques dealer. *

John Mills Sir John Mills (born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills; 22 February 190823 April 2005) was an English actor who appeared in more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades. He excelled on camera as an appealing British everyman who often portray ...

as Thomas Devon – ''The Elephant'': British, running a jewellery shop in Nice, was given his nickname because of his excellent memory. * Michael Petrovitch as Lieutenant Georges Roget (Roget's son) * Serretta Wilson as Jill Burton (Devon's niece)

Music

The series

theme music Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...

was composed by Paul and

Linda McCartney Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney ( Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, vegetarian cookbook author and advocate, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in th ...

. The score was composed by

Ken Thorne Kenneth Thorne (26 January 1924 – 9 July 2014) was a British television and film score composer. Early life Thorne was born in Dereham, a town in the English county of Norfolk. Thorne began his musical career as a pianist with the big bands ...

. Both are available on the

Network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematic ...

compilation ''The Music of ITC'', Network 7959016.

Episode list

Airdates given here are for ATV, other ITV regions airdates vary.

International distribution

The series aired on

CBC-TV CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

in Canada in the summer of 1974. In the U.S., the series was broadcast by

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

, two episodes per night for three nights in July and August 1975.

Home media

The complete series was released on Region 2 DVD on 2 July 2007. Actor Barry Morse (''The Tiger''), by then the last surviving regular actor from the series, provided an introduction in the DVD extras. He died the following year. The complete series was released in high-definition on

Blu-Ray disc The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

by Network Distributing on 21 May 2018.

External links

*
Action TV

The Official Website of Barry Morse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zoo Gang 1974 British television series debuts 1974 British television series endings Television series by ITC Entertainment ITV television dramas Television series produced at Pinewood Studios English-language television shows 1970s British drama television series Adaptations of works by Paul Gallico