May 21, 1973: Noel Fielding is born.
Noel Fielding, in case you're tragically unaware of who he is, is one of the Mighty Boosh guys.
I adore him, both in his Vince Noir persona on The Mighty Boosh and as himself as a team captain on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Whenever we re-watch the Boosh—or any episode of Buzzcocks in which he appears—I swoon all over the living room. Whilst giggling maniacally, of course.
And Josh doesn't even mind, because A) how can you get jealous over Random Dude on TV and B) he has a bit of a mancrush on him, too.
ANYWAY. So, the first season of The Mighty Boosh is set in a zoo, so I'm going to point you back to Cecil Castellucci's Queen of Cool, in which the title character signs up for an internship at the Los Angeles Zoo, and it turns out to be a life-changing experience:
I ESPECIALLY loved it that Libby's transformation took TIME. She doesn't work a day at the zoo and all of a sudden miraculously appreciate Tina and Sheldon and the others (including Sid, who I loved). It was a slow process, and I got the feeling that Libby was aware it was happening, though A) she didn't want to admit it was happening and B) she fought it. All that complexity and yet, light enough for beach reading. Way impressive.
I was going to embed a Noel Fielding clip, but then I fell into the Youtube vortex and just lost, like, an hour. I LOST AN HOUR WATCHING CLIPS I'VE ALREADY WATCHED A ZILLION TIMES BEFORE.
My brain, I weep for it.