Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle
"The Jungle. Here I was born, and here my parents died when I was but an infant. I would have soon perished too, had I not been found by a kindly she-ape named Kala, who adopted me as her own, and taught me the ways of the wild. I learned quickly, and grew stronger each day. And now, I share the trust and friendship of all jungle animals. The jungle is filled with beauty, and danger, and lost cities filled with good, and evil. This is my domain, and I protect those who come here. For I am Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle."
-from the Opening Narration
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle was the first animated presentation of the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs, courtesy of Filmation (1976). It tended to be a more faithful rendition of the books than the old movies were, due to the fact that the writers on Filmation's staff at the time, including Paul Dini, had actually read them. Tarzan's visual character design is based on that of Burne Hogarth's classic Tarzan newspaper comic strip.
Starting in 1980, it aired together with Filmation's The Lone Ranger as the Tarzan/Lone Ranger Adventure Hour, and then in 1981 with The New Adventures of Zorro to make the Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour.
This series provides examples of:
- Animated Adaptation: Of the Tarzan books.
- Adaptation Deviation:
- In the book, The City of Gold is named Cathne. In the episode "Tarzan and the City of Gold", it's been renamed to Zandor, presumably to avoid confusion with Athne, the City of Ivory, as they sound too similar.
- Instead of a man named Valthor, the Athnean that Tarzan meets is a woman named Thea. Valthor was rescued from bandits, while Thea is rescued from a trio of gorillas.
- Ascended Extra: Nkima debuted in Tarzan and the Lost Empire in the books, while the series sees him appearing in adaptations of stories predating his debut or stories that he was absent from.
- Chariot Pulled by Cats: Zandor, the City of Gold, features chariots pulled by lions.
- Diagonal Billing: The rotating Lou Scheimer-Norm Prescott production logo in the intro.
- Eldritch Abomination: One episode has a giant one-eyed Tyrannosaurus Rex.
- Gladiator Games: occurs in "Tarzan and the City of Gold". This plot, incidentally, is recycled wholesale in the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episode "A Tale Of Two Cities".
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Tarzan often uses Mangani words when speaking to animals, like "Kagoda Kal-an" when telling the Bolgani to release a human woman, and "Unk" when telling a lion or leopard to "go".
- Hulk Speak: The Bolgani - talking gorillas - speak this way. Averted with Tarzan himself.
- Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: "Tarzan and the ____."
- Mecha-Mooks: Hovering robots appeared in at least one episode; the identical design was recycled for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as robots belonging to Skeletor.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Mostly averted. Filmation sticks mainly to African species.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Tarzan is accompanied by the monkey Nkima.
- Panthera Awesome: The setting being Africa, both of the Panthera species native to Africa frequently appear, those being the lion and leopard.
- Primal Chest-Pound: Mangani and Bolgani alike, the former a fictional species of ape and the latter gorillas, frequently do this.
- Shown Their Work: It's more accurate to the books than the movies are.
- Signature Roar: Danton S. Burroughs, Edgar Rice Burroughs' grandson, rather than Robert Ridgely, Tarzan's voice actor, did a fairly decent "Tarzan yell", though it was less throaty and more "musical" than the one used by Johnny Weissmuller.
- Stock Sound Effects: Many examples ranging from water to thunder to animal calls.
- Truer to the Text: Tarzan speaks intelligently, the language of the Mangani is incorporated beyond the protagonist's name, the sidekick is Nkima rather than Cheetah, and lost cities from the original book series appear, in addition to original creations, as well as some adaptations of the original books.
