I heard a radio program on BBC Radio 4 about Tarzan. This was the article that was on the BBC web page giving a précis of the program:
To sum things up. If Tarzan can do it, so can Sam says. So Sam says lets go ahead like Tarzan and enjoy life!
Wikipedia about Tarzan
Tarzan ("...the Apeman") is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes (magazine publication 1912, book publication 1914), and then in twenty-five sequels, three authorized books by other authors, and innumerable works in other media, authorized and not.
Childhood years
Tarzan is the son of a
British lord and
lady who were
marooned on the Atlantic coast of
Africa by
mutineers. When Tarzan was only an infant, his mother died of natural causes and his father was killed by Kerchak, leader of the ape tribe by whom Tarzan was adopted. Tarzan's tribe of apes is known as the
Mangani,
Great Apes of a species unknown to science. Kala is his ape mother. Burroughs added stories occurring during Tarzan's adolescence in his sixth Tarzan book,
Jungle Tales of Tarzan. Tarzan is his ape name; his real
English name is
John Clayton, Viscount Greystoke (according to Burroughs in
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle;
Earl of Greystoke in later, less canonical sources, notably the 1984 movie
Greystoke). In fact, Burroughs's narrator in
Tarzan of the Apes describes both Clayton and Greystoke as fictitious names – implying that, within the fictional world that Tarzan inhabits, he may have a different
real name.
Adult life
As a young adult, Tarzan meets a young
American woman,
Jane Porter. She, her father, and others of their party are marooned on exactly the same coastal jungle area where Tarzan's biological parents were twenty years earlier. When Jane returns to America, Tarzan leaves the jungle in search of her, his one true love. In
The Return of Tarzan, Tarzan and Jane marry. In later books he lives with her for a time in
England. They have one son, Jack, who takes the ape name
Korak ("the Killer"). Tarzan is contemptuous of the
hypocrisy of
civilization, and he and Jane return to Africa, making their home on an extensive estate that becomes a base for Tarzan's later adventures.
Characterization
Burroughs created an extreme example of a
noble savage figure largely unalloyed with character flaws or faults. He is described as being
Caucasian, extremely athletic, tall, handsome, and tanned, with grey eyes and long black hair. Emotionally, he is courageous, loyal, and steadfast. He is intelligent and learns new languages easily. He is presented as behaving ethically in most situations, except when seeking vengeance under the motivation of grief, as when his ape mother Kala is killed in
Tarzan of the Apes, or when he believes Jane has been murdered in
Tarzan the Untamed. He is deeply in love with his wife and totally devoted to her; in numerous situations where other women express their attraction to him, Tarzan politely but firmly declines their attentions. When presented with a situation where a weaker individual or party is being preyed upon by a stronger foe, Tarzan invariably takes the side of the weaker party. In dealing with other men, Tarzan is firm and forceful. With male friends, he is reserved but deeply loyal and generous. As a host, he is likewise, generous, and gracious. As a leader, he commands devoted loyalty.
In keeping with these noble characteristics, Tarzan's philosophy embraces an extreme form of "return to nature". Although he is able to pass within society as a civilized individual, he prefers to "strip off the thin veneer of civilization", as Burroughs often puts it.
[6] His preferred dress is a knife and a
loincloth of animal hide, his preferred abode is any convenient tree branch when he desires to sleep, and his favored food is raw meat, killed by himself; even better if he is able to bury it a week so that
putrefaction has had a chance to tenderize it a bit.
Tarzan's
primitivist philosophy was absorbed by countless fans, amongst whom was
Jane Goodall, who describes the Tarzan series as having a major influence on her childhood. She states that she felt she would be a much better spouse for Tarzan than his fictional wife, Jane, and that when she first began to live among and study the
chimpanzees she was fulfilling her childhood dream of living among the great apes just as Tarzan did.
[7]
Rudyard Kipling's
Mowgli has been cited as a major influence on Edgar Rice Burroughs' creation of Tarzan. Mowgli was also an influence for a number of other
"wild boy" characters.
Skills and abilities
Tarzan's jungle upbringing gives him abilities far beyond those of ordinary humans. These include climbing, clinging, and leaping as well as any great ape, or better. He uses branches and hanging vines to swing at great speed, a skill acquired among the anthropoid apes.
His strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, senses, flexibility, durability, endurance, and swimming are extraordinary in comparison to normal men. He has wrestled full grown bull apes and gorillas, lions, rhinos, crocodiles, pythons, sharks, tigers, man-size seahorses (once) and even dinosaurs (when he visited
Pellucidar).
He learns a new language in days, ultimately speaking many languages, including that of the great apes,
French,
English,
Dutch,
German,
Swahili, many
Bantu dialects, Arabic, ancient
Greek, ancient
Latin,
Mayan, the languages of the
Ant Men and of
Pellucidar.
He also communicates with many species of jungle animals.
In Tarzan's Quest (1935), he was one of the recipients of an immortality drug at the end of the book that functionally made him immortal.
Literature
Tarzan has been called one of the best-known literary characters in the world.
[8] In addition to more than two dozen books by Burroughs and a handful more by authors with the blessing of Burroughs' estate, the character has appeared in
films,
radio,
television,
comic strips, and
comic books. Numerous parodies and pirated works have also appeared.
Burroughs considered other names for the character, including "Zantar" and "Tublat Zan," before he settled on "Tarzan."
[9]
Critical reception
While
Tarzan of the Apes met with some critical success, subsequent books in the series received a cooler reception and have been criticized for being derivative and formulaic. The characters are often said to be two-dimensional, the dialogue wooden, and the storytelling devices (such as excessive reliance on
coincidence) strain credulity. According to author
Rudyard Kipling (who himself wrote stories of a
feral child,
The Jungle Book's
Mowgli), Burroughs wrote
Tarzan of the Apes just so that he could "find out how bad a book he could write and get away with it."
[10]
While Burroughs is not a polished novelist, he is a vivid storyteller, and many of his novels are still in print.
[11] In 1963, author
Gore Vidal wrote a piece on the Tarzan series that, while pointing out several of the deficiencies that the Tarzan books have as works of literature, praises Edgar Rice Burroughs for creating a compelling "daydream figure".
[12] Critical reception grew more positive with the 1981 study by Erling B. Holtsmark,
Tarzan and Tradition: Classical Myth in Popular Literature.
[13] Holtsmark added a volume on Burroughs for Twayne's United States Author Series in 1986.
[14] In 2010, Stan Galloway provided a sustained study of the adolescent period of the fictional Tarzan's life in
The Teenage Tarzan.
[15]
Despite critical panning, the Tarzan stories have remained popular. Burroughs's
melodramatic situations and the elaborate details he works into his fictional world, such as his construction of a partial language for his great apes, appeal to a worldwide fan base.
[16]
The Tarzan books and movies employ extensive
stereotyping to a degree common in the times in which they were written. This has led to criticism in later years, with changing social views and customs, including charges of
racism since the early 1970s.
[17] The early books give a pervasively negative and stereotypical portrayal of native
Africans, both
Arab and
Black. In
The Return of Tarzan, Arabs are "surly looking" and call Christians "dogs", while blacks are "lithe, ebon warriors, gesticulating and jabbering". One could make an equal argument that when it came to blacks that Burroughs was simply depicting unwholesome characters as unwholesome and the good ones in a better light as in Chapter 6 of
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar where Burroughs writes of Mugambi, "...nor could a braver or more loyal guardian have been found in any clime or upon any soil."
[18] Other groups are stereotyped as well. A Swede has "a long yellow moustache, an unwholesome complexion, and filthy nails", and Russians cheat at cards. The aristocracy (except the House of Greystoke) and royalty are invariably effete.
[19] In later books, Africans are portrayed somewhat more realistically as people. For example, in
Tarzan's Quest, while the depiction of black Africans remains relatively primitive, they are portrayed more individualistically, with a greater variety of character traits, good and bad, while the main villains are whites. Burroughs never loses his distaste for European royalty, though.
[20]
Burroughs' opinions, manifested through the narrative voice in the stories, reflect common attitudes in his time, which in a 21st-century context would be considered racist and
sexist. However Thomas F. Bertonneau writes about Burroughs "conception of the feminine that elevates the woman to the same level as the man and that – in such characters as Dian of the Pellucidar novels or Dejah Thoris of the Barsoom novels – figures forth a female type who corresponds neither to desperate housewife, full-lipped prom-date, middle-level careerist office-manager, nor frowning ideological feminist-professor, but who exceeds all these by bounds in her realized humanity and in so doing suggests their insipidity."
[21] The author is not especially mean-spirited in his attitudes. His heroes do not engage in
violence against women or in
racially motivated violence. In
Tarzan of the Apes, details of a background of suffering experienced at the hands of whites by Mbonga's "once great" people are repeatedly told with evident sympathy, and in explanation or even justification of their current animosity toward whites.
Although the character of Tarzan does not directly engage in
violence against women, feminist scholars have critiqued the presence of other sympathetic male characters that engage in this violence with Tarzan's approval.
[22] In
Tarzan and the Ant Men, the men of a fictional tribe of creatures called the Alali gain social dominance of their society by beating the Alali women into submission with weapons that Tarzan willingly provides them.
[22] Following the battle, Burroughs states: "To entertain Tarzan and to show him what great strides civilization had taken—the son of The First Woman seized a female by the hair and dragging her to him struck her heavily about the head and face with his clenched fist, and the woman fell upon her knees and fondled his legs, looking wistfully into his face, her own glowing with love and admiration. (178)"
[22] While Burroughs writes some female characters with humanistic equalizing elements, Torgovnick argues that violent scenes against women in the context of male political and social domination are condoned in his writing, reinforcing a notion of gendered hierarchy where
patriarchy is portrayed as the natural pinnacle of society.
[22]
In regards to race, a superior-inferior relationship with valuation is also accordingly implied, as it is unmistakable in virtually all interactions between whites and blacks in the Tarzan stories, and similar relationships and valuations can be seen in most other interactions between differing people although one could argue that such interactions are the bedrock of the dramatic narrative and without such valuations there is no story. According to
James Loewen's
Sundown Towns, this may be a vestige of Burroughs' having been from
Oak Park, Illinois, a former
Sundown town (a town that forbids non-whites from living within it).
Gail Bederman takes a different view in her Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917. There she describes how various people of the time either challenged or upheld the idea that "civilization" is predicated on white masculinity. She closes with a chapter on 1912's Tarzan of the Apes because the story's protagonist is, according to her, the ultimate male by the standards of 1912 white America. Bederman does note that Tarzan, "an instinctivily chivalrous Anglo-Saxon" does not engage in sexual violence, renouncing his "masculine impulse to rape." However, she also notes that not only does Tarzan kill black man Kulonga in revenge for killing his ape mother (a stand in for his biological white mother) by hanging him, "lyncher Tarzan" actually enjoys killing black people, the cannibalistic Mbongans, for example. Bederman, in fact, reminds readers that when Tarzan first introduces himself to Jane he does so as "Tarzan, the killer of beasts and many black men." The novel climaxes with Tarzan saving Jane—who in the original novel is not British but a white woman from Baltimore, Maryland—from a black ape rapist. When he leaves the jungle and sees "civilized" Africans farming, his first instinct is to kill them just for being black. "Like the lynch victims reported in the Northern press, Tarzan's victims--cowards, cannibals, and despoilers of white womanhood--lack all manhood. Tarzan's lynchings thus prove himself the superior man."
Despite embodying all the tropes of white supremacy espoused or rejected by the people she had reviewed (
Theodore Roosevelt,
G. Stanley Hall,
Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
Ida B. Wells), Bederman states that, in all probability, Burroughs was not trying to make any kind of statement or echo any of them. "He probably never heard of any of them." Instead, Bederman writes that Burroughs proves her point because in telling racist and sexist stories whose protagonist boasted of killing blacks, he was not being unusual at all but was instead just being a typical 1912 white American.
Tarzan is a white European male who grows up with apes. According to "Taking Tarzan Seriously" by Marianna Torgovnick, Tarzan is confused with the social hierarchy that he is a part of. Unlike everyone else in his society, Tarzan is the only one who is not clearly part of any social group. All the other members of Tarzan's world are not able to climb or decline socially because they are already part of a social hierarchy which is stagnant. Turgovnick writes that since Tarzan was raised as an ape, he thinks and acts like an ape. However, instinctively he is human and he resorts to being human when he is pushed to. The reason of his confusion is that he does not understand what the typical white male is supposed to act like. His instincts eventually kick in when he is in the midst of this confusion, and he ends up dominating the jungle. In Tarzan, the jungle is a microcosm for the world in general in 1912 to the early 1930s. His climbing of the social hierarchy proves that the European white male is the most dominant of all races/sexes, no matter what the circumstance. Furthermore, Turgovnick writes that when Tarzan first meets Jane, she is slightly repulsed but also fascinated by his animal-like actions. As the story progresses, Tarzan surrenders his knife to Jane in an oddly chivalrous gesture, which makes Jane fall for Tarzan despite of his odd circumstance. Turgovnick believes that this displays an instinctual, civilized chivalry that Burrough believes is common of white men.
Unauthorized works
After Burroughs' death a number of writers produced new Tarzan stories. In some instances, the estate managed to prevent publication of such works.
[citation needed] The most notable example in the
United States was a series of five novels by the pseudonymous "Barton Werper" that appeared 1964-65 by Gold Star Books (part of
Charlton Comics). As a result of legal action by
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., they were taken off the market and remaining copies destroyed.
[citation needed] Similar series appeared in other countries, notably
Argentina,
Israel, and some Arab countries.
In Israel in the 1950s and early 1960s there was a thriving industry of locally-produced Tarzan adventures published weekly in 24-page brochures by several competing publishing houses, none of which worked with the Burroughs estate. The stories featured Tarzan in contemporary Africa. A popular theme being his fighting against the
Mau Mau in 1950s
Kenya and single-handedly crushing their revolt several times over. He also fought a great variety of monsters,
vampires and invaders from outer space infesting the African jungles and discovered several more lost cities and cultures in addition to the ones depicted in the Burroughs canon. Some brochures had him meet with Israelis and take Israel's side against her
Arab enemies, especially
Gamal Abdel Nasser's
Egypt.
None of the brochures credited an author, and the various publishers - "Elephant Publishing" (
Hebrew:
הוצאת הפיל), "Rhino Publishing" (
Hebrew:
הוצאת הקרנף) and several similar names - provided no more of an address than POB numbers in
Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem. These Tarzan brochures were extremely popular among Israeli youths of the time, successfully competing with the numerous Hebrew translations of the original Tarzan novels. The Tarzan brochures faded out by the middle 1960s. Surviving copies have fetched high prices as collectors' items in the Israeli used-book market. Researcher
Eli Eshed has spent considerable time and effort on the Tarzan brochures and other Israeli
pulp magazines and paperbacks.
[25]
The "Barton Werper" novels still exist and are available via the Internet
[26] In the 1950s new Tarzan stories were also published in
Syria and
Lebanon. Tarzan in these versions was a staunch supporter of the Arab cause and helped his Arab friends foil various fiendish Israeli plots.
[27]
Modern fiction
In 1972,
Science fiction author
Philip José Farmer wrote
Tarzan Alive, a biography of Tarzan utilizing the
frame device that he was a real person. In Farmer's fictional universe, Tarzan, along with
Doc Savage and
Sherlock Holmes, are the cornerstones of the
Wold Newton family. Farmer wrote two novels,
Hadon of Ancient Opar and
Flight to Opar, set in the distant past and giving the antecedents of the lost city of Opar, which plays an important role in the Tarzan books. In addition, Farmer's
A Feast Unknown, and its two sequels
Lord of the Trees and
The Mad Goblin, are pastiches of the Tarzan and Doc Savage stories, with the premise that they tell the story of the real characters the fictional characters are based upon.
A Feast Unknown is somewhat infamous among Tarzan and Doc Savage fans for its graphic violence and sexual content.
[citation needed]
Tarzan in film and other non-print media[edit]
Film
The
Internet Movie Database lists 89 movies with Tarzan in the title between 1918 and 2008. The first Tarzan movies were silent pictures adapted from the original Tarzan novels, which appeared within a few years of the character's creation. The first actor to portray the adult Tarzan was
Elmo Lincoln in 1918's
Tarzan Of The Apes. With the advent of talking pictures, a popular Tarzan movie franchise was developed, which lasted from the 1930s through the 1960s. Starting with
Tarzan the Ape Man in 1932 through twelve films until 1948, the franchise was anchored by former
Olympic swimmer
Johnny Weissmuller in the title role. Weissmuller and his immediate successors were enjoined to portray the ape-man as a
pidgin-speaking
noble savage, in marked contrast to the cultured aristocrat of Burroughs's novels.
With the exception of the Burroughs co-produced
The New Adventures of Tarzan, this "me Tarzan, you Jane" characterization of Tarzan persisted until the late 1950s, when producer
Sy Weintraub, having bought the film rights from producer
Sol Lesser, produced
Tarzan's Greatest Adventure followed by eight other films and a television series. The Weintraub productions portray a Tarzan that is closer to Edgar Rice Burroughs' original concept in the novels: a jungle lord who speaks grammatical English and is well educated and familiar with civilization. Most Tarzan films made before the mid-fifties were black-and-white films shot on studio sets, with stock jungle footage edited in. The Weintraub productions from 1959 on were shot in foreign locations and were in color.
Tarzan films from the 1930s on often featured Tarzan's chimpanzee companion
Cheeta, his consort Jane (not usually given a last name), and an adopted son, usually known only as "Boy." The Weintraub productions from 1959 on dropped the character of Jane and portrayed Tarzan as a lone adventurer. Later Tarzan films have been occasional and somewhat idiosyncratic. Recently,
Tony Goldwyn portrayed Tarzan in
Disney’s animated film of the same name(1999). This version marked a new beginning for the ape man, taking its inspiration equally from Burroughs and the 1984 film
Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes.
Radio
Tarzan was the hero of two popular radio programs. The first aired from 1932–1936 with
James Pierce in the role of Tarzan. The second ran from 1951–1953 with
Lamont Johnson in the title role.
[28]
Television
Television later emerged as a primary vehicle bringing the character to the public. From the mid-1950s, all the extant sound Tarzan films became staples of Saturday morning television aimed at young and teenaged viewers. In 1958, movie Tarzan
Gordon Scott filmed three episodes for a prospective television series. The program did not sell, but a different live action
Tarzan series produced by
Sy Weintraub and starring
Ron Ely ran on
NBC from 1966 to 1968. An animated series from
Filmation,
Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, aired from 1976 to 1977, followed by the anthology programs
Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour (1977–1978),
Tarzan and the Super 7 (1978–1980),
The Tarzan/Lone Ranger Adventure Hour (1980–1981), and
The Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour) (1981–1982).
Joe Lara starred in the title role in
Tarzan in Manhattan (1989), an offbeat TV movie, and later returned in a completely different interpretation in
Tarzan: The Epic Adventures (1996), a new live-action series. In between the two productions with Lara,
Tarzán, a half-hour syndicated series ran from 1991 through 1994. In this version of the show, Tarzan was portrayed as a blond environmentalist, with Jane turned into a French ecologist. Disney’s animated series
The Legend of Tarzan (2001–2003) was a spin-off from its animated film. The latest television series was the live-action
Tarzan (2003), which starred male model
Travis Fimmel and updated the setting to contemporary
New York City, with Jane as a police detective, played by
Sarah Wayne Callies. The series was cancelled after only eight episodes. A 1981 television special,
The Muppets Go to the Movies, features a short sketch titled "Tarzan and Jane".
Lily Tomlin plays Jane opposite
The Great Gonzo as Tarzan. In addition, the Muppets have
made reference to Tarzan on half a dozen occasions since the 1960s.
Saturday Night Live featured recurring sketches with the speech-impaired trio of
"Frankenstein, Tonto, and Tarzan".
Stage
A 1921 Broadway production of
Tarzan of The Apes starred Ronald Adair as Tarzan and Ethel Dwyer as Jane Porter. In 1976,
Richard O'Brien wrote a musical entitled
T. Zee, loosely based on Tarzan but restyled in a rock idiom.
Tarzan, a musical stage adaptation of the 1999 animated feature, opened at the
Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway on May 10, 2006. The show, a
Disney Theatricalproduction, was directed and designed by Bob Crowley. The same version of Tarzan that was played at the
Richard Rodgers Theatre is being played throughout Europe and has been a huge success in Holland. The Broadway show closed on July 8, 2007. Tarzan also appeared in the
Tarzan Rocks! show at the Theatre in the Wild at
Walt Disney World Resort's
Disney's Animal Kingdom. The show closed in 2006.
Video and computer games
Action figures
Throughout the 1970s
Mego Corporation licensed the Tarzan character and produced 8" action figures which they included in their "World's Greatest Super Heroes" line of characters. In 1975 they also produced a 3" "Bendy" figure made of poseable, malleable plastic.
Ephemera
Several Tarzan-themed products have been manufactured, including
View-Master reels and packets, numerous Tarzan coloring books, children's books, follow-the-dots, and activity books.
Tarzan in comics
Tarzan of the Apes was adapted in newspaper strip form, in early 1929, with illustrations by
Hal Foster. A
full page Sunday strip began March 15, 1931 by
Rex Maxon. Over the years, many artists have drawn the
Tarzan comic strip, notably
Burne Hogarth,
Russ Manning, and
Mike Grell. The daily strip began to reprint old dailies after the last Russ Manning daily (#10,308, which ran on 29 July 1972). The Sunday strip also turned to reprints circa 2000. Both strips continue as reprints today in a few newspapers and in
Comics Revue magazine.
NBM Publishing did a high quality reprint series of the Foster and Hogarth work on Tarzan in a series of hardback and paperback reprints in the 1990s.
Tarzan has appeared in many comic books from numerous publishers over the years. The character's earliest comic book appearances were in comic strip reprints published in several titles, such as
Sparkler,
Tip Top Comics and
Single Series.
Western Publishing published
Tarzan in
Dell Comics's
Four Color Comics #134 & 161 in 1947, before giving him his own series,
Tarzan, published through
Dell Comics and later
Gold Key Comics from January–February 1948 to February 1972).
DC took over the series in 1972, publishing
Tarzan #207-258 from April 1972 to February 1977, including work by
Joe Kubert. In 1977 the series moved to
Marvel Comics, which restarted the numbering rather than assuming that used by the previous publishers. Marvel issued
Tarzan #1-29 (as well as three Annuals), from June 1977 to October 1979, mainly by
John Buscema. Following the conclusion of the Marvel series the character had no regular comic book publisher for a number of years. During this period
Blackthorne Comics published
Tarzan in 1986, and
Malibu Comics published
Tarzan comics in 1992.
Dark Horse Comics has published various
Tarzan series from 1996 to the present, including reprints of works from previous publishers like Gold Key and DC, and joint projects with other publishers featuring crossovers with other characters.
There have also been a number of different comic book projects from other publishers over the years, in addition to various minor appearances of Tarzan in other comic books. The Japanese
mangaseries
Jungle no Ouja Ta-chan (
Jungle King Tar-chan) by
Tokuhiro Masaya was based loosely on Tarzan. Also, manga "god"
Osamu Tezuka created a Tarzan manga in 1948 entitled
Tarzan no Himitsu Kichi (
Tarzan's Secret Base).
Works inspired by Tarzan
In the 1940s, the Finnish writer Lahja Valakivi published four adventure novels about
Tarsa karhumies, i.e., Tarsa the Bear Man. The books were obviously inspired by Tarzan, but they were adapted into a Finnish setting: as there are no apes in Finland, the hero Tarsa was raised by bears instead.
[29]
Tarzan's popularity inspired numerous imitators that appeared in
pulp magazines. A number of these like
Kwa and
Ka-Zar were direct or loosely veiled copies, others like
Polaris of the Snows were similar characters in different settings, or with different gimmicks. Of these characters the most popular was
Ki-Gor, he starred in fifty-nine novels that appeared between winter 1939 to spring 1954 in the magazine
Jungle Stories.
[30]
In 1950, the
Italian comics series
Akim was created as a rather straight copy of Tarzan. It was published between 1950-1967, and 1976-1983.
The Japanese
manga series "
Jungle no Ouja Ta-chan" (Ta-chan, King of the Jungle) by
Tokuhiro Masaya was based loosely on Tarzan. It was later made into an anime series. It featured the characters of Tarzan and his wife Jane, who had become obese after settling down with Tarzan. The series begins as a comical parody of Tarzan, but later expands to other settings, such as a martial arts tournament in China, professional wrestling in America, and even a fight with vampires.
The late comedian
George Carlin mentioned Tarzan when he was doing his
HBO stand up
It's Bad For Ya when he was talking about how to deal with boring people in public or on the phone.
In Asia, Philippine Cinema's inclination in satirizing western entertainment produced Starzan, a comedy film loosely based on the original Tarzan franchise. It stars Filipino comedic actor Joey De Leon as Starzan, Rene Requiestas as "Chitae", and Zsa Zsa Padilla as Jane.
Tarzan appears briefly as a character in the book
Lust,
[31] by
Geoff Ryman.
Warren Ellis' and
John Cassaday's
Planetary features in its issues 1 and 17 a British Tarzan-like character, Kevin Sack, Lord Blackstock, who was "lost as an infant, raised by jungle fauna" and now (the 1930s in issue 17) "comes back to Africa every few years".
Popular culture
Tarzan is often used as a
nickname to indicate a similarity between a person's characteristics and that of the fictional character. Individuals with an exceptional 'ape-like' ability to climb, cling and leap beyond that of ordinary humans may often receive the nickname 'Tarzan'.
[32][dead link] An example is retired
American baseball player
Joe Wallis.
[33]
British politician
Michael Heseltine is nicknamed Tarzan, and was often portrayed as such in the press.
The Jungle Book character
Mowgli is similar to Tarzan in the sense they are raised by animals, though
Kipling's stories featuring him first appeared in 1893, predating Burrough's works.
Bibliography
Bookplate of Edgar Rice Burroughs, showing
Tarzan holding the planet Mars, surrounded by other characters from Burroughs' stories. Circa 1918, designed by Studley Oldham Burroughs, the author's nephew
[34]
By Edgar Rice Burroughs
- Main Series
- Tarzan of the Apes (1912) (Project Gutenberg Entry:Ebook) (LibriVox.org Audiobook)
- The Return of Tarzan (1913) (Ebook) (Audiobook)
- The Beasts of Tarzan (1914) (Ebook) (Audiobook)
- The Son of Tarzan (1914) (Ebook) (Audiobook)
- Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1916) (Ebook) (Audiobook)
- Jungle Tales of Tarzan (1919) (Ebook) (Audiobook)
- "Tarzan's First Love" (1916)
- "The Capture of Tarzan" (1916)
- "The Fight for the Balu" (1916)
- "The God of Tarzan" (1916)
- "Tarzan and the Black Boy" (1917)
- "The Witch-Doctor Seeks Vengeance" (1917)
- "The End of Bukawai" (1917)
- "The Lion" (1917)
- "The Nightmare" (1917)
- "The Battle for Teeka" (1917)
- "A Jungle Joke" (1917)
- "Tarzan Rescues the Moon" (1917)
- Tarzan the Untamed (1920) (Ebook)
- "Tarzan and the Huns" (1919)
- "Tarzan and the Valley of Luna" (1920)
- Tarzan the Terrible (1921) (Ebook) (Audiobook)
- Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1922, 1923) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the Ant Men (1924) (Ebook)
- Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle (1927, 1928) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the Lost Empire (1928) (Ebook)
- Tarzan at the Earth's Core (1929) (Ebook)
- Tarzan the Invincible (1930, 1931) (Ebook)
- Tarzan Triumphant (1931) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the City of Gold (1932) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the Lion Man (1933, 1934) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the Leopard Men (1935) (Ebook)
- Tarzan's Quest (1935, 1936) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the Forbidden City (1938) (Ebook)
- Tarzan the Magnificent (1939) (Ebook)
- "Tarzan and the Magic Men" (1936)
- "Tarzan and the Elephant Men" (1937–1938)
- Tarzan and the Foreign Legion (1947) (Ebook)
- Tarzan and the Madman (1964)
- Tarzan and the Castaways (1965)
- "Tarzan and the Castaways" (1941) (Ebook)
- "Tarzan and the Champion" (1940)
- "Tarzan and the Jungle Murders" (1940)
-
-
By other authors
- Barton Werper – these novels were never authorized by the Burroughs estate, were taken off the market and remaining copies destroyed.
- Tarzan and the Silver Globe (1964)
- Tarzan and the Cave City (1964)
- Tarzan and the Snake People (1964)
- Tarzan and the Abominable Snowmen (1965)
- Tarzan and the Winged Invaders (1965)
- Fritz Leiber – the first novel authorized by the Burroughs estate, and numbered as the 25th book in the Tarzan series.
- Philip José Farmer
- A character based on Tarzan (Lord Grandrith) appears in the Nine trilogy:
- Tarzan Alive (1972) a fictional biography of Tarzan (here Lord Greystoke), which is one of the two foundational books (along with Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life) of the Wold Newton family.
- Time's Last Gift (1972) this unauthorized novel explains how Tarzan (specified by inference, but not specifically named as such) can be in Ancient Opar (see below)
- The Adventure of the Peerless Peer (1974) Sherlock Holmes goes to Africa and meets Tarzan.
- The Opar novels – authorized by the Burroughs estate. A secondary character of the Opar novels — while not specifically named as "Tarzan" — was intended to be Tarzan by Farmer, and is included as such by most Wold Newton family scholars.
- The Dark Heart of Time (1999) this novel was specifically authorized by the Burroughs estate, and references Tarzan by name rather than just by inference. The story is set between Tarzan the Untamed and Tarzan the Terrible.
- Farmer also wrote a novel based on his own fascination with Tarzan, entitled Lord Tyger, and translated the novel Tarzan of the Apes into Esperanto.
New Tarzan
Publisher Faber and Faber with the backing of the Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. have updated the series using Author
Andy Briggs and in 2011 he published the first of the books.
Tarzan: The Greystoke Legacy[35] In 2012
Andy Briggs published the second book "Tarzan: The Jungle Warrior"
[36] In 2013, Andy Briggs has published the third book "Tarzan: The Savage Lands".
Enjoy life!
