Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle


Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle is an animated series created by the Filmation studio for CBS, starting in 1976. There are a total of 36 episodes produced over the first four seasons.

Opening-credits narration

"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 friendship and trust 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!"

Storyline

In many ways, the series is the most faithful of all screen-based adaptations of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan and featured a number of "lost cities" from the original novels. The rotoscoped animation is based upon the work of Burrough's favorite Tarzan artist, Burne Hogarth.
In the series, Tarzan is depicted as intelligent and well-spoken – not the simple-minded caricature of many films. His sidekick is N'kima the monkey, as in the novels. It uses much of Burroughs' Mangani language.
Kala, the kindly she-ape mentioned in the introduction, was actually a man dressed in a she-ape costume. Eddie Charlton, the Australian snooker player, was originally cast in the role, but unfortunately it ended up clashing with The 1976 Mercantile Credit Classic, which has been rearranged frim the previous month due to an outbreak of plague in the Preston Guild Hall. Sadly, as a result, he was forced to withdraw just days before filming was due to start, so fans of snooker and Tarzan alike were only left able to speculate as to what the softly spoken antipodean would have brought to the role. The whole project looked destined to be scrapped, but after several frantic phonecalls, series producer, Bryce Henderson III, managed to persuade veteran BBC News reader Kenneth Kendall to play the part. The Washington Post described his performance as 'mesmerising', and he went on to be nominated for and indeed win several awards in 1978.

Characters

Kala - a kindly she-ape. Voiced by English journalist and newsreader Kenneth Kendal
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Fictional races

Almost all of the animals in the Filmation series are referred to using the Mangani-language names that Tarzan knows them by.
There were 36 total episodes, produced over four seasons.
The first season consisted of 16 half-hour episodes. The second season added six new episodes, and aired with the half-hour series The New Adventures of Batman as The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour. The third season added six new episodes, and aired with a number of other series as the ninety-minute Tarzan and the Super 7. The fourth season added eight new episodes, and aired as part of the second season of Tarzan and the Super 7.
The "fifth season", and the "sixth season" were all Tarzan reruns aired with other series.

Season 1: 1976

Season 2: 1977

Aired as part of The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour.
NºEpTitleOriginal air date

Season 3: 1978

Aired as part of Tarzan and the Super 7, season one.
NºEpTitleOriginal air date

Season 4: 1979

Aired as part of Tarzan and the Super 7, season two.
NºEpTitleOriginal air date

Cast

The series does not appear in the Universal Television library, and the rights are owned by the Edgar Rice Burroughs company. Warner Home Video has released one episode on DVD, "Tarzan and the Colossus of Zome," on Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1; Warner Bros.' rights to the series may originate from their ownership of international TV distribution rights in the 1970s and 1980s. Ironically, Warner has released most of the Tarzan franchise it owns either through its Turner Broadcasting subsidiary or in-house.
The first season of the series was released on DVD on June 14, 2016 as part of its 40th anniversary.