Zoo Quest
Zoo Quest is a series of multi-part nature documentaries broadcast on the BBC Television Service between 1954 and 1963. It was the first major programme to feature David Attenborough.
Zoo Quest
United Kingdom
English
7
42
30 minutes
BBC Travel & Exploration Unit
21 December 1954 –
31 May 1963
In each series, Attenborough travelled with staff from London Zoo to a tropical country to capture an animal for the zoo's collection (the accepted practice at the time). Although the programme was structured around the quest for the animal, it also featured film of other wildlife in the area and of the local people and their customs. Attenborough introduced each programme from the studio and then narrated the film his team had shot on location. At the end of each series, the animals the team had captured were introduced in the studio, where experts from the zoo discussed them.
With the exception of the original 1954 series (which survives as edited compilations repeated the following year), all episodes of Zoo Quest exist in the BBC Archives. The series was the most popular wildlife programme of its time in Britain, and established Attenborough's career as a nature documentary presenter.
Music[edit]
The theme music was "Peter" from Peter and the Wolf, Op.67 (Prokofiev). The opening and closing music for the Paraguay programmes was "La Llegada" ("The Arrival"), composed by Enrique Samaniego the famous Paso Yobai harpist.