At the Zoo is an episode from Season 4 of Married... with Children.
Following the events of "976-Shoe", Marcy wants Steve to look for a new job. However, Steve would rather take Peg, Bud, and Kelly to the zoo. Meanwhile, Al desperately tries to find something to eat at home.
Tropes
- All There in the Manual: The Chipmunk Scout's name is given out as Courtney in the ending credits.
- Black Comedy Pet Death: Steve's plan to free a turtle in captivity ends this way, as his attempt to set it free ends up killing the poor turtle because he tried to free a saltwater turtle into Lake Michigan. Making matters worse, Bosco was the Last of His Kind.
- Butt-Monkey: Marcy. She quickly makes it clear she despises her new job and has to work longer hours, has to deal with Steve dragging his feet on finding a new job, and gets shot by a robber while waiting for her husband to apply at his old bank.
- Continuity Snarl: Marcy claims this is the first time she kept a secret from Steve, even though The House That Peg Lost implies Steve doesn't know their house is only in Marcy's name.
- Disneyland Dad: Steve plays this role to Peg, Kelly and Bud by taking them to the zoo and aquarium instead of looking for another job after he was fired from his previous job as a bank's loan officer in "976-SHOE".
- Drowning My Sorrows: Al and Marcy share drinks together at a bar after Marcy gets shot in the arm and decks Steve for skipping out on his job interview at her bank.
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: Defied. Marcy starts feeling bad for how she treated Steve and is going to tell him about the $25,000 reward for stopping the robber. On cue, a news reporter reveals Steve has been arrested for turtlenapping and killing the turtle by accident. Al thinks Marcy is going to bail him out after earning the bail is conveniently $25,000. Instead, this is the last straw for Marcy, and she lets him rot in jail and uses the money to buy a new car.
- Girl Scouts Are Evil: Courtney, the Chipmunk scout at the beginning who insults him for being constantly hungry, taunts him with a box of cookies, and then refuses to sell one to him because he doesn't have any money.
- Hypocrite: Lazy, good-for-nothing unemployed Peggy calls Steve "pretty pathetic" and asks Al to shoot her if she ever worries about not working (with Al asking if he can just "wing her now").
- Insane Troll Logic: Courtney the Chipmunk girl scout complained to Al that it makes no sense to her that he doesn't want to buy any of his cookies because he's hungry (telling him that her father says that he eats bugs and dirt). The truth is he doesn't have enough money and cannot afford to. Though she is a Manipulative Bastard and a con artist, so she's not to be trusted.
- Lampshade Hanging: Al's opening liner.Al: I work in a shoe store, and still I'm not happy to come home.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Steve. After he blows off going on various job interviews, including a crucial one that Marcy helped to set up at the bank she works at (which ended with Marcy getting accidentally shot in the arm during a robbery), she confronts him and belts him in the face. He is also later arrested for drowning an endangered sea turtle in Lake Michigan due to mistakenly believing that it was in captivity. Marcy refuses to bail him out and uses the robbery reward money to buy a new car.
- Karma Houdini: Peggy.
- She introduced Steve into a world of slacking off and partying at zoos every day of the week, freeloading off of Marcy's money to buy snacks and souvenirs at the zoos.
- Just when Steve was serious about getting a job and quit cutting loose and free to keep hitting aquariums and zoos, Peggy eggs him to instead pursue his passions so he springs an endangered saltwater turtle from its enclosure and ends up killing it by dumping it in a freshwater lake.
- Worst of all, she gets away with making Al starve and suffer by using up his money on herself having fun at zoos.
- Lazy Bum: Steve has become a slacker who spends his whole time at zoos as a result of realizing just how much fun he missed out on back when he was employed as a loan officer.
- Lazy Husband: What Steve has become to Marcy.
- Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: Al's snarky "Tell your Daddy you have the mailman's eyes" response to the Girl Scout facetiously (one hopes) implies this.
- Meat-O-Vision: Al hallucinates Buck as a whole roasted turkey with side vegetables since he hasn't eaten in days.
- Poverty Food: Al at one point tries swallowing Cheese critters (something like sea monkeys).
- Stink Snub: Steve begs Peg and Al to keep quiet about his skipping out on his job hunt just to gallivant at the zoo with Marcy's money to buy himself souvenirs and snacks. It's Kelly who tells off Marcy that Steve was just playing all day. Marcy then adds on Steve smells like wombat.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Peg is the one who Steve to just play all day at the zoos and use Marcy's own money for snacks and souvenirs given Peg's belief that a household should only have one breadwinner.
- Worrying for the Wrong Reason: After skipping out on his job hunt even after getting caught red-handed by Marcy (who warned him she'll beat him up if he does it again), what's making Steve feel down? The turtle at the aquarium having a meager-sized water tank.
- Younger Than He Looks: Al introduces Marcy to an old man named Neil Cochoran, who, despite looking somewhere between 60 and 100 years old, is actually 30 because he's the father of eight kids.
