Internet mourns loss of celebrity lemur Zoboomafoo

Lindsay Deutsch | USA TODAY Network

Imagine a time before YouTube made millionaire grumpy cats and celebrity sloth sanctuaries, when cuteness overload Vines were merely a dream recorded in a Lisa Frank dolphin-emblazoned trapper keeper.

There was Zoboomafoo, and he was an instant classic.

Jovian, the Coquerel's sifaka lemur and star of the short-lived PBS wildlife show for kids, Zoboomafoo, died Monday of kidney failure at the Duke Lemur Center in Durham, N.C. He was 20½ years old.

Curious Jovian bounced, snacked and stared blankly at kids during the 65-episode run of Zoboomafoo, which produced new episodes for preschoolers on PBS from 1999 to 2001 under the helm of brothers Martin and Chris Kratt.

"He'd jump in through the window and we'd feed him mangoes or garbanzo beans. Sometimes he'd grab our noses with those soft sifaka hands," co-host Martin Kratt reminisced on Facebook.

For lucky animal-loving channel-flippers, the show is still occasionally available via syndication. For us '90s kids in mourning (or remembering how annoyed we were when it aired instead of a rerun of Arthur), well, that's what the Internet is for:

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