Zeke? Zelda?

That last picture is of Zookeeper world record holder, Shawn Cram, who managed to successfully guide Zeke the Zookeeper to a point total of 35, 732, 870. He is now an official Twin Galaxies referee.

Zookeeper was another game that I found at Games People Play, same spot where I fell in love with Crazy Climber and a pinball game called Mars: God of War...as well as the now infamous incident with my father failing at anger suppression, venting his rage towards the Star Castle machine.

The story of Zookeeper is that a monkey has absconded with Zelda, Zeke the zookeeper's main squeeze. To slow down the zookeeper, the monkey has unlocked all the cages of the zoo, and its Zeke's job to keep the animals caged up in the center of the screen by repairing any brickwork/walls that are damaged by the rampaging animals trying to get out.

If an animal busted lose then Zeke had to quickly get over to the open area and brick it up, while also jumping over to avoid the escaped beast. Luckily a net will appear from time to time and if Zeke can touch the animal with the net they are sent back to the center of the screen. Every animal within the center at the end of the level will garner you a large bonus. This is the first stage.

The second stage is a platform jumper where Zelda finds herself tied to a coconut tree and the monkey that kidnapped her is hanging by its tail throwing coconuts down to the bottom of the screen where Zeke must jump up on moving platforms and avoid the coconut barrage. He can pick up additional items like...sundaes...to get a bigger score.

The third stage is an escalator level, where animals in cages are released all at once to bull rush Zeke. Traveling from right to left and then on the second level left to right, if you succeed in avoiding the animals and their electrified cages you are rewarded with a kiss from Zelda and an extra life. With each of these levels they add an additional escalator until you reach the top of the screen with four of them.