History Main / PeopleZoo

** In the Third Dodtor story "Carnival of Monsters", two alien entertainers keep exhibits of exotic creatures from many worlds - including a ship full of humans - in shrunken and unwitting captivity inside a Miniscope.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': Steven, one of the First Doctor's companions, is kept in one for two years by robots called Mechanoids. The Doctor breaks him out while trying to fight off a crew of Daleks out to kill him and he stows away on the TARDIS soon after. Being kept in isolation for two years has led to him having NoSocialSkills, leading to the Doctor finding him a bit abrasive.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'': In "The Robot of Riga", aliens kidnap Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane and put them in a cage on their homeworld Riga.

* One ending in the second ''Literature/GiveYourselfGoosebumps'' book "Tick Tock, You're Dead!" gets you stuck in one as the "Couch Potato" exhibit.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E3HealerChildrensZooKentuckyRye The Children's Zoo]]", Debbie Cunningham, whose parents Sheila and Martin are constantly fighting and are [[AbusiveParents often emotionally and verbally abusive towards her]], receives an invitation to the Children's Zoo. Her parents take her to the zoo, very reluctantly, only to discover that it is a zoo where bad parents are imprisoned after being brought there by their children. Debbie inspects five pairs of parents in locked rooms before deciding on the two that she wants to become her new parents.

* Creator/EdwardHoch: In one short story, a spaceship carrying a traveling zoo lands on Earth as part of its regular stint. Later the aliens are returned to their own planet, where they talk of their safari to see the savage two-legged creatures of Earth and other worlds. It was perfectly safe though, as they were behind protective bars the whole time.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': "[[Recap/CodenameKidsNextDoorS1E11BOperationZOO Operation: Z.O.O.]]" has a zoo of kids. The current ImageSource for this page as well.

* ''ComicBook/ThePunisher''L One story had Kraven the Hunter II create a zoo of animal-themed supervillains, like the Rhino and Vulture.

** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1985'': In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZone1985S1E3HealerChildrensZooKentuckyRye The Children's Zoo]]", there's a zoo of bad parents. Children who receive invitations to this zoo are allowed to exchange their parents with a brand new mother and father who are much more caring and attentive. A little girl receives a new mom and dad and leaves with them, while her old parents are left behind in a display, screaming at her to come back.

*** In "[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E95HocusPocusAndFrisby Hocus-Pocus and Frisby]]", a group of aliens mistakes Frisby's tall tales about his own past for an incredible variety of impressive accomplishments because they have no idea what lying is, and tries to abduct what they think is a remarkable alien specimen for their own zoo.

* The whole premise behind the animated series [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98gyEQKpooc&list=PLbrJEZUmJviP-UaI7TusUmEQ1E_pmppSX Don't Feed The Humans]], where humans from different time periods have been abducted by aliens and placed into an intergalactic zoo.

* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'': "[[Recap/CodenameKidsNextDoorS1E11BOperationZOO Operation: Z.O.O.]]" has a zoo of kids.

* Music/MileyCyruo: In "Can't Be Tamed", Miley is a WingedHumanoid that has been put in a cage by rich snobs.

* ''Website/OrionsArm'': The Metasoft Version Tree, a powerful empire mostly inhabited by sapient robots, maintains a number of terraformed worlds as reserves stocked with unmodified, Earth-type humans. This is generally done to create "backup" Earths, under the reasoning that if a planet of Earth-type humans was able to create interstellar civilization once it's reasonable to assume that a similar world might be able to "reboot" it should disaster happen, and because baseline humans are something of an endangered species in the setting. As genetic engineering and cybernetic modifications are common, convenient and fairly easy to obtain, most people are at least some degree removed from ancestral humanity and often entirely unlike it, and ''Homo sapiens sapiens'' has faced a very real threat of extinction on a number of occasions. The baseline reserves are thus meant to protect stable populations of unmodified humanity, generally with technology strictly restricted to Neolithic to medieval levels and little to no contact with the wider galaxy.

* In ''Manga/{{Gantz}}'', four-eyed alien giants kidnap several humans, stripping them of their clothes and displayed in a zoo.
* In ''Manga/TerraforMARS'', the cockroach Terraformars kidnapped thousands of humans within Tokyo. Many were kidnapped when they were cleaning themselves in the bathrooms. They were taken to a facility where the Terraformars and with the aid of the Chinese People's republic and the Newton Clan, conducted breeding experiments on humans to create a Terraformar/human hybrid.

* Creator/MarvelComics' The Collector does this upon occasion.
* ''[[http://superdickery.com/images/stories/monkeys/704_4_108.jpg Strange Adventures]]'' #108 (September 1959) story "The Human Pet of Gorilla Land". Intelligent gorilla-like alien put human beings on display in a pet store. The story was reprinted in ''[[http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=31&Itemid=47&limitstart=81 From Beyond the Unknown]]'' #14 (December 1971).

* One ''ComicBook/ThePunisher'' story had Kraven the Hunter II create a zoo of animal-themed supervillains, like the Rhino and Vulture.

* In the Disney movie ''Film/CanOfWorms'', a species of alien hunts and puts on display one of every intelligent species. Ironically enough, they are ''not'' allowed to capture unintelligent species due to an intergalactic law.
* In the film version of ''Film/MarsAttacks'', the Martians include a man in a clown costume (apparently they believe that clowns are animals) among the numerous specimens they have collected from Earth. They also capture a female newscaster and graft her head onto the body of her dog.

--->'''Koba:''' HUMANS! You ape prisoner now! You will know life in cage!!
** In ''Flim/WarForThePlanetOfTheApes'' Caesar, Luca, Rocket, Maurice, and Nova meet a chimp [[spoiler: Bad Ape]] comes across this while searching for food, but were dead prior.
* A deleted song from ''Film/MaryPoppins'' focuses on a "Chimpanzoo" where humans are caged for animals to gawk at.
* In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', the Collector's museum contains a large number of humanoids trapped inside glass cages, including a [[Film/TheAvengers2012 Chitauri]], a [[Film/{{Thor}} Frost Giant]] and [[Film/ThorTheDarkWorld a Dark Elf]], in addition to [[BadBoss a former assistant that he thought did a disappointing job]] and Comicbook/HowardTheDuck.

* In ''Animorphs'' An alien races of parasitic, brain controlling slugs called Yeerks, not only do this to other aliens, but to humans as well as more is revealed about the Yeerk Pool.
* The book ''Literature/PlanetOfTheApes'' has a zoo with a display of people "in their natural habitat". The scientist of the group from Earth is in this display, and has regressed by the time we see him. He had brain damage, and the apes had given him a lobotomy to save his life, not realizing that he had cognitive functions that would be damaged by such a crude operation.
* The main character in ''Literature/SlaughterhouseFive'' gets put into one of these (together with a porn star) by the Tralfamadorians.
* In the Creator/IsaacAsimov story ''Breeds There a Man?'', Earth is implied to be a laboratory experiment by aliens, with mental controls in place to prevent us from developing interstellar travel. Then humans evolve around the mental blocks ...
* The first Time Machine short story by Donald Keith, "The Day We Explored the Future". A pair of Boy Scouts goes forward in time and is captured by a group of Future Boy Scouts. Their Scoutmaster plans to have them put in a "vivarium".

* In a short story by Edward Hoch, a spaceship carrying a travelling zoo lands on Earth as part of its regular stint. Later the aliens are returned to their own planet, where they talk of their safari to see the savage two-legged creatures of Earth and other worlds. It was perfectly safe though, as they were behind protective bars the whole time.
* ''The Cage'' by Australian author A. Bertam Chandler. A group of shipwrecked humans are captured and put in a zoo, having failed to convince their captors that they are intelligent beings. They eventually become resigned to their captivity and adopt a local rodent as a pet, putting it in a wicker cage. Seeing this, the aliens realise the humans must be intelligent after all and release them, as "only intelligent creatures put other creatures in cages".

* Occurred in the episode "A Day at the Zoo" of ''Series/LostInSpace'' and the two part episode "The Keeper"
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'':
** TOS episodes. The reveal at the end of "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People_Are_Alike_All_Over People Are Alike All Over]]" and attempted in "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hocus-Pocus_and_Frisby Hocus-Pocus and Frisby]]".
** Subverted in an episode from the 1985 revival series. "The Children's Zoo" had a zoo that was like this, but it is a zoo that focuses on bad parents. Children who receive invitations to this zoo are allowed to exchange their parents with a brand new mother and father who're much more caring and attentive. A little girl receives a new mom and dad and leaves with them, while her old parents are left behind in a display, screaming at her to come back.
* One of the last episodes of ''Series/{{The Office|US}}'' had Kevin mention that he always assumed that the reason the documentary crew followed them around was because he and his coworkers were in some kind of human zoo.
* ''Series/AreYouAfraidOfTheDark'' had the episode "The Tale Of The Closet Keepers" where some aliens who use closets as portals capture kids to put in a zoo.
* First Doctor companion Steven in ''Series/DoctorWho'' is being kept in one for two years by robots called Mechanoids. The Doctor breaks him out while trying to fight off a crew of Daleks out to kill him and he stows away on the TARDIS soon after. Being kept in isolation for two years has led to him having NoSocialSkills, leading to the Doctor finding him a bit abrasive.
* In the ''Series/RedDwarf'' episode "Holoship", a Hologram observer notes that he would recommend LastOfHisKind human Lister for a zoo exhibit, if he weren't so unnecessarily ugly.
* ''Series/PersonOfInterest''. Team Machine discover a TownWithADarkSecret in "MIA". Maple was on the verge of bankruptcy when ArtificialIntelligence Samaritan bought up the place and put its own unquestioning stooges in positions of authority. Now things are starting to go wrong, and Finch speculates that Samaritan had created a perfect 'ant farm' for humans, which it is now disrupting in order to learn more about their behavior. There's also a prison in South Africa that Samaritan is using for the same purpose.
* Likewise in ''Series/OdysseyFive'', which also has a prison being secretly run by an ArtificialIntelligence to study human behaviour, in this case aggression specifically.
* ''Series/TheOrville'': The Calivon keep members of less technologically advanced species in a zoo on their planet, since they consider them to be like animals. Mercer and Grayson become their latest exhibit.
* ''Series/SoWeird'' had a misanthropic veterinarian who developed chemicals that can turn humans into dogs and the opposite. After she turns Fi into a dog, she locks Fi up in a cage. Fi [[spoiler: however does escape then finds and drinks the antidote, although she becomes naked having forgotten she doesn't have clothes on]].

* The Music/MileyCyrus video, "Can't Be Tamed", where she is a WingedHumanoid that has been put in a cage by rich snobs.

* In ''VideoGame/StarControl 2'' Admiral ZEX has one of these. [[spoiler: And he wants you to be his latest addition.]]
* This is why [[BigBad Tomator]] kidnapped ''VideoGame/TheLostVikings''.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Tropico}} 3'', you can build 'authentic Native villages' as a tourist attraction, although the description notes that the people in them are all employees as the natives were all wiped out by European colonialists centuries ago.
* As of the Heinlein update, Enigmatic Observer Fallen Empires in ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' will sometimes ask a younger race they think are not long left for this galaxy (read: just about everyone else) to provide a POP[[note]]a population unit of unspecified size, potentially as large as a billion people[[/note]] for their Preserve. By any account, those in the Preserve are well-treated but the rest of your Empire will be a bit irritated, and the Enigmatic Observers might be a bit disappointed if you refuse.
* Happens accidentally from time to time in ''VideoGame/ZooTycoon'', if poor design allows guests to fall into exhibits. If the animals in such exhibits aren't dangerous, the trapped guests won't panic or flee, but will walk around aimlessly and bitch about not being able to find a bathroom or other amenities.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Drowtales}}'', the humans (or are they very humanlike goblins?) are seen as something in-between true intelligent life and animals, see [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?id=304 here]] (warning: mildly graphic violence). [[http://www.drowtales.com/mainarchive.php?id=1354 Later, the places are reversed, as the local king orders the arrest of all creatures of elven descent]] to [[spoiler:[[BloodBath bathe in their blood]]]].
* In ''Webcomic/{{Jix}}'' minor villain "The Collector" captured specimens of sentient species and kept them on his ship. Though, after he captured Jix and she escaped he had to open his collection to the public to pay for the damages, and since her galaxy-conquering race were among the more likely to patronize his zoo he had to stop using them as specimens.

* The ''WesternAnimation/BuzzLightyearOfStarCommand'' episode "A Zoo Out There" features a HigherTechSpecies of TheGreys who treat ''[[MasterRace every other]]'' sapient species like animals, three of which saw a meeting place for TheFederation as easy picking for a for-profit zoo. The "lesser beings" who try to escape are used for [[TestedOnHumans product testing]]. Interestingly, two of the aliens running the zoo in were voiced by Jonathan Harris and Billy Mumy of ''Film/LostInSpace''.
* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has a zoo space station run by gems and full of humans simply called "[[OminousMundanity The Zoo]]". The current residents have all grown up there, so they don't know anything but [[GildedCage well-cared for captivity]]. [[spoiler:Steven and the Gems go there to [[RescueArc rescue Greg]] after he was taken by Blue Diamond.]] The zoo was made for Pink Diamond [[spoiler:by Blue Diamond after the former's request to preserve organic life]], and its original population were humans abducted from Earth during Homeworld's attempted colonization. Thousands of years later, their descendants still live there. By ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'', [[spoiler:the humans have been given control of the ship, basically making it a ColonyShip [[WagonTrainToTheStars wandering the universe]] while the gems hang around partying]].
* ''WesternAnimation/CodenameKidsNextDoor'':
** "Operation: Z.O.O." has a zoo of kids.
** In another episode there is Bully Island, though the bullies don't speak or really act human, more like [[Franchise/JurassicPark dinosaurs]].
* "The Main Man" from ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' involved an intergalactic collector called Preserver that liked to acquire the [[LastOfHisKind last of any species]] in the entire universe. While his collection was mostly non-sapient beasts, he also ended up collecting Superman and Lobo as they were the last known Kryptonian and Czarnian, respectively. Of course that idea didn't end well for him. This event is revisited in the ''WesternAnimation/BatmanBeyond'' two-parter where Superman showed up to reconstitute the Justice League, and it turns out the collection included [[spoiler:the arc's PuppeteerParasite BigBad]].
* ''WesternAnimation/StarTrekTheAnimatedSeries'' episode "[[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Eye_of_the_Beholder The Eye of the Beholder]]"

* ''WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanet'' featured an episode where an alien came to incorporate the Planeteers into a collection of doomed species from across the galaxy. Fitting with the series' theme, he thought mankind, treating the Earth as they were, were doomed to extinction.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfSuperman'' episode "The Robot of Riga". Aliens kidnap Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane and put them in a cage on their home planet Riga.
* The [[WhatCouldHaveBeen original concept]] for ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' was for Mordecai and Rigby to be zookeepers at a zoo full of humans. Creator JG Quintel was originally very adamant about the idea, while Cartoon Network was equally adamant about that being a terrible idea. They got him to change it before creating the show's pilot episode, a decision that Quintel later said he was incredibly thankful the network forced on him.
* Happens in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFairlyOddParents'' when Dark Laser put the Turner family in an intergalactic zoo for profit. Timmy's parents don't seem to mind much.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'': In "Fry and Leela's Big Fling", Fry and Leela go to a private resort which, unbeknown to them, is actually the human habitat of a zoo in a planet of intelligent apes.

* In 1945 US Army Air Force navigator Raymond 'Hap' Halloran was shot down over Tokyo, Japan and was captured by a group of civilians and soldiers. They then beat and stripped him naked before locking him in one of the tiger cages in the Ueno Zoo where people would look at him like he was one of the animals until he was taken to an actual POW facility.

** In ''Film/DawnOfThePlanetOfTheApes'', Koba built one to carry out vengeance against humans for using apes, including himself, as zoo entertainment and test subjects for drug experiments.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has a zoo space station run by gems and full of humans simply called "[[OminousMundanity The Zoo]]". The current residents have all grown up there, so they don't know anything but [[GildedCage well-cared for captivity]]. [[spoiler:Steven and the Gems go there to [[RescueArc rescue Greg]] after he was taken by Blue Diamond.]] The zoo was made for Pink Diamond [[spoiler:by Blue Diamond after the former's request to preserve organic life]], and its original population were humans abducted from Earth during Homeworld's attempted colonization. Thousands of years later, their descendants still live there. By ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverseFuture'', [[spoiler:the humans have been given control of the ship, basically [[WagonTrainToTheStars wandering the universe]] while the gems hang around partying]].

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has a zoo run by gems and full of humans simply called "[[OminousMundanity The Zoo]]". The current residents have all grown up there, so they don't know anything but [[GildedCage well-cared for captivity]]. [[spoiler:Steven and the Gems go there to [[RescueArc rescue Greg]] after he was taken by Blue Diamond. The zoo was made for Pink Diamond by Blue Diamond after the former's request to preserve organic life, and its original population were humans abducted from Earth during Homeworld's attempted colonization. Thousands of years later their descendants still live there.]]

* This was the [[WhatCouldHaveBeen original concept]] for ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'', with creator JG Quintel being very adamant about the idea of Mordecai and Rigby working as zookeepers there. Cartoon Network was equally adamant about that being a terrible idea and got him to change it before creating the show's pilot episode, a decision that Quintel later said he was incredibly thankful the network forced on him.

* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' has such a zoo full of humans simply called "[[OminousMundanity The Zoo]]". The current residents have all grown up there, so they don't know anything but [[GildedCage well-cared for captivity]]. [[spoiler:Steven and the Gems go there to [[RescueArc rescue Greg]] after he was taken by Blue Diamond. The zoo was made for Pink Diamond by Blue Diamond after the former's request to preserve organic life, and its original population were humans abducted from Earth during Homeworld's attempted colonization. Thousands of years later their descendants still live there.]]

Could be called the slightly more civil version of PeopleFarms. SuperTrope of HumanPet. Not to be confused with PettingZooPeople. If it's humans exhibiting unusual specimens of their own species, then that's TheFreakshow (though the "exhibits" in a circus sideshow may in fact be there of their own volition, simply because it's the only way they can make a living among AllOfTheOtherReindeer). See also LivingMuseumExhibit.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'', Fry and Leela go to a private resort which, unbeknown to them, is actually the human habitat of a zoo in a planet of intelligent apes.

* In ancient Rome, this was just a normal day at the Colosseum.