Designated Villain: Walt Ferris, the inspector. The most 'evil' thing he does is give a surprise, unofficial inspection a few weeks early... allowing the family to fix the problems he points out, so they can pass the REAL inspection (he also warns them of an impending regulation change, something he didn't really have to do; they treat this as a dick move, for some reason, as if he's the one changing the regulation). He is stated to have stolen some of their innovations for himself, but there's no actual evidence of that. In fact, he acts downright civil towards his supposed enemy, as long as the latter doesn't try to kill him.
In a few moments of Contrived Coincidence, odd, suspicious events seem to happen shortly after Ferris' visits: Buster the bear escapes his cag—er—enclosure and saunters through a suburb, a door lock on the lion enclosure is found broken, and a downed tree by the front gates delays the zoo's opening for hours. A different film would have revealed the crooked inspector was behind such shenanigans; this film takes the higher road, however and keeps the incidents confined to random happenings.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: This film is perhaps the only PG-rated film since the 80s (when the PG-13 rating was introduced) to shoehorn in at least three uses of "shit" and one of "asshole". However, it was marketed as a light-hearted family film.
