The creators of Zoo University, twin brothers Mike and Lee Goldstein, are Temple and Penn State graduates. Mike is the cartoonist and Lee is the writer.

The idea for Zoo U was born on a drive up to Penn State. Mike was driving Lee back to school for his last semester and was talking about writing a book about all the different experiences one encounters in college. The idea was for the book to act as a guide for avoiding the pitfalls that most freshmen run into; pledging a fraternity, roommate fights, asshole professors, one-night stands, etc.

The Goldstein brothers thought this was a fantastic idea, but remembered that they were poor spellers and often used bad grammar. However, Mike was a skilled cartoonist who could illustrate their ideas. They also decided it would be a nice twist to turn the normal college student into a zoo animal. This would create a different perspective to the book and make it more appealing to the viewer.

They started looking at the different types of personalities of students around campus to see if they could mesh them with zoo animals. For example, the laughing Hyena would parallel the giggling pot smoker who always has the munchies. The bigger animals such as elephants, bears, and rhinos were the school’s jocks. The older-looking animals like the walrus, giraffe, and moose would make up the school’s faculty. Lee and Mike put these characters in experiences that they had encountered during college and produced a 90-page cartoon book called Zoo University. They are now in the works of producing animation shorts and writing scripts to hopefully make this cartoon into an animated series.

Zoo University’s main animator and webmaster, Ross Ching, joined Mike and Lee in May of 2007 in an effort to transform Mike and Lee’s idea into its full potential. With a complete website redesign and new short animations, Ross is looking to make his footprint in the media world as well.