There are a few character properties for which I am a complete sucker. Franchises that have me interested at their mere mention. James Bond. Godzilla. Flash Gordon.
And Tarzan.
This does not mean whatever is offered gets an automatic “pass” with me. There have been some awful Flash Gordon offerings (I’m looking at you SyFy) not to mention that 1998 Godzilla film. Do you remember that 2003 Tarzan series? I keep trying to forget about it.
I grew up watching the movies featuring Lex Barker, Gordon Scott and of course the iconic Johnny Weissmuller. I watched Saturday morning cartoons regularly and when “Tarzan: Lord Of The Jungle” debuted I was interested. I wasn’t the only one. My mother, who did not care for cartoons, would watch this one with me.
It was an interesting contrast, the films and this animated series. Both were different takes on the same subject matter, though largely intended for the same audience. There were many Saturdays when we would watch an episode of this late 70s cartoon series in the morning, then later in the afternoon watch one of the films from the 30s/40s and see how they compared. Did one have benefits over the other?
Warner Brothers now offers up The Complete Season One of “Tarzan: Lord Of The Jungle” on DVD through the Warner Archive Collection and when it was announced I was thrilled. I have a sizable collection of Tarzan on DVD, but this was one of the pieces I was missing and had been wanting.
Over the course of 16 half-hour episodes (a little less with the spaces for commercials taken out), we get many fantastic adventures. This series was good because it was adapted for the Saturday morning audience, not dumbed down for it. The character of Tarzan has its origins as a “pulp” character, the literary equivalent of Saturday morning cartoons for its time. The movie adaptations, which started while the books were still being written, always had a “matinee” feel to them. Tarzan is perhaps at its best when it isn’t being taken too seriously, but certainly not in a joking manner.
Not necessarily faithful to the books, but an adaptation of the character, “Tarzan: Lord Of The Jungle” stays true to the spirit of the franchise and remains one of the better non-literary offerings. Alright, so the timeline is a bit… off. We have in the first episode the fabled lost city of gold, then subsequent episodes we have various “lost” groups such as viking explorers, ape-men races, and even aliens. There are other things that appeared in Tarzan books such as Pellucidar, the subterranean world Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about in several novels (with a notable Tarzan crossover).
You can probably complain about the animation. Filmation (the studio behind such programs as “He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe”,”Star Trek: The Animated Series”, “Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids” and even some live action programs such as “Space Academy”) was known for recycling scenes in an effort to keep costs down. The image of Tarzan running through the jungle wasn’t familiar just because it happened a lot, it was literally the same scene used in nearly every other episode. I suspect the scripts were written in such a way for certain shots to be repeatedly used.
While the animation may not be as good as one might hope for it isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination, especially when you remind yourself this is a series created almost 40 years ago – and meant to be largely disposable. Saturday morning cartoons were not the bastion of high animation quality. The fact that the series looks any good at all is a testament to the dedication the studio had to the property.
The first season comprises of 16 episodes, and according to the all-knowing internet, the 2nd and 3rd seasons added 6 new episodes into the mix with the 4th season adding 8 episodes for a grand total of 36. This collection offers the first season, leaving 20 more to be released – hopefully in the near future.
Sadly there are no special features. I would have loved to hear an audio commentary on a couple of episodes.
It all boils down to this – if you like Tarzan, you owe it to yourself to pick this up. Let Warner Brothers know you want the rest of the series released. It is a heck of a lot better than some of the other adaptations.