Skippy and the Tiger

S1 E33: Joe Flood, an old friend of Thel’s, brings his small and less than prosperous circus to Habitat. Its main attraction is Sinbad the tiger. After one of the shows Sonny finds a young boy named Christopher pretending to shoot the animals and people with a real rifle that he has taken from a cupboard at home. Christopher likes to pretend that he is on safari, and can see no harm in playing with a real gun. Sonny quickly puts him right. He takes him home to his mother, and Christopher watches through a keyhole as his mother locks away the rifle. The next day the circus packs up and leaves and Lou heads off to the National Park to do a science project. The truck carrying Sinbad has an accident and the tiger escapes into the park. Christopher hears about it on television, retrieves the rifle! and bullets and goes off to be a hero. In the park he panics when he comes face to face with the tiger. He drops the gun which discharges, wounding Sinbad. Lou and Skippy come on the wounded tiger and Skippy is able to draw Sinbad away from Lou while she goes for help. Kate is able to immobilise the tiger with a tranquilliser gun and he is taken back to Habitat for treatment. Sinbad recovers, the publicity does Joe’s circus the world of good and Christopher has learned his lesson about pretending to be a great white hunter.