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Literature Tarzan has been called one of the best-known literary characters in the world. 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 programs, comic strips, and comic books. Numerous parodies and pirated works have also appeared. Science fiction author Philip José Farmer wrote Tarzan Alive!, a biography of Tarzan utilizing the frame device that he was a real person. See also Wold Newton family. Even though the copyright on Tarzan of the Apes has expired in the United States of America, all of Burroughs's works will remain under copyright in the European Union until 2021, and the name TARZAN is a trademark. Critical reception While Tarzan of the Apes met with some critical success, subsequent books in the series received a cooler reception. They 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 credibility. While Burroughs is a vivid storyteller, he is not considered a polished novelist. Despite critical panning, the Tarzan stories have been amazingly popular. Fans love his melodramatic situations and the elaborate details he works into his fictional world. His construction of a partial language for his great apes is an example of the sort of detail that fans love. Since the beginning of the 1970s, Tarzan books and movies have often been criticized as being blatantly racist. This comes from an overwhelmingly negative and stereotypical portrayal of Blacks and Africans. While there are positive characters, such as the Waziri tribe, they are always shown as subservient to the white characters. The fact that the character of Tarzan (whose name translates as "white-skin") is better adapted to life in Africa than the Black African characters is also seen as a sign of racism. Burroughs' opinions, made known mainly through the narrative voice in the stories, do reflect racist and sexist themes widely held in his time. The author is not especially mean-spirited about his attitudes. His heroes do not engage in violence against non-submissive women or in racially motivated violence. Still, the attitudes of a superior-inferior relationship are plain and occasionally even made explicit; according to James Loewen's Sundown Towns, this may be a vestige of Burroughs having been from Oak Park, Illinois, a Sundown town or a town that forbids non-whites from living within it. When Burroughs moved to Hollywood, his attitudes became much more liberal, and the later Tarzan books include heavy-handed satires of sexism and racism. Nwachukwu Frank Ukadike, Black African Cinema, University of California Press 1994, p. 40 In Nazi Germany, Tarzan books were condemned as degenerate. Pirated works After Burroughs' death a number of writers produced new Tarzan stories without the permission of his estate. In some instances, the estate managed to prevent publication of such unauthorized pastiches. The most notable exception in the United States was a series of five novels by the pseudonymous "Barton Werper" that appeared in the mid-1960s. As a result of legal action by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., they were taken off the market and remaining copies destroyed. Similar series appeared in other countries, notably Argentina, Israel, and some Arab countries. Pirated Tarzan brochures in Israel In Israel in the 1950's and early 1960's there was a thriving industry of locally-produced Tarzan adventures published weekly in 24-page brochures by several competing publishing houses, none of which bothered to get any authorization from 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 Nasser's Egypt. None of the brochures ever bore a writer's name, 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. Unconfirmed rumor has it that some later well-known Israeli writers began their careers with writing pirated Tarzan stories. These Tarzan brochures were extremely popular among Israeli youths of the time, successfully competing with the numerous Hebrew translations of the original Tarzan novels, and are recalled with nostalgia by many Israelis now in their fifties. The Tarzan brochures faded out by the middle 1960s, surviving copies at present fetching high prizes 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. See: *, * - and * (Hebrew website with cover of "Tarzan's War Against the Germans"). The popularity of Tarzan in Israel had some effect on the spoken Hebrew language. As it happens, "tarzan" (Hebrew: טרזן) is a long-established Hebrew word, translatable as "dandy, fop, coxcomb" (according to R. Alcalay's Complete Hebrew-English Dictionary of 1990). However, a word could not survive with that meaning while being identical with the name of a popular fictional character usually depicted as wearing a loincloth and jumping from tree to tree in the jungle. Since the 1950s the word in its original meaning has completely disappeared from the spoken language, and is virtually unknown to Hebrew speakers at present - though still duly appearing in dictionaries. Pirated Tarzan in Arab Countries In the 1950's Syria and Lebanon also saw the flourishing of pirated Tarzan stories. As could be expected, Tarzan in this version was a staunch supporter of the Arab cause and helped his Arab friends foil various fiendish Israeli plots. (James R. Nesteby,'Tarzan of Arabia', in the Journal of Popular Culture, volume 15, number 1, 1981.) Film The Internet Movie Database lists 88 movies with Tarzan in the title between 1918 and 1999. The first Tarzan movies were silent pictures adapted from the original Tarzan novels which appeared within a few years of the character's creation. With the advent of talking pictures, a popular Tarzan movie franchise was developed, anchored at first by actor Johnny Weissmuller in the title role, which lasted from the 1930s through the 1960s. Tarzan films from the 1930s on often featured Tarzan's chimpanzee companion Cheeta. Later Tarzan films have been occasional and somewhat idiosyncratic. Silent film The first Tarzan movies were five silent films released from 1918 to 1921, most based on the original novels. Elmo Lincoln starred in several. A handful of additional silents in the late 1920s continued the pattern without Lincoln. The first Tarzan sound film was Tarzan the Tiger (1929), featuring Frank Merrill as the Ape Man, shot as a silent but partially dubbed for release. It was Merrill’s second Tarzan movie, and it cost him the role, as his voice was deemed unsuitable for the part. The Weissmuller era The most popular series of Tarzan films began with Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan. Starting afresh with an extremely free adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes which threw out everything that had gone before, it was a boon to the franchise if not to the character, who was recast as a natural hero with a limited vocabulary. Weissmuller continued to star as the Ape Man in eleven sequels, through 1948, and the series continued on a solid basis into the 1960s. During the Weissmuller period a number of competing films were made starring other actors, including Tarzan the Fearless (1933), featuring Buster Crabbe. The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935), hearkening back to the original concept of the character as an intelligent Englishman, was a serial featuring Herman Brix that was reedited into two feature films, the first (confusingly) released in the same year and with the same title as the serial, and the second, Tarzan and the Green Goddess released in 1938. Tarzan’s Revenge, also released in 1938, starred Glenn Morris. The franchise after Weissmuller Following the Weissmuller films, Lex Barker portrayed Tarzan in five films (1949-1953). Next came six films starring Gordon Scott (1955-1960), of which the best received were Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959) and Tarzan the Magnificent (1960). Then there were two films featuring Jock Mahoney (1962-1963), three with Mike Henry (1966-1968), and two (adaptations of television episodes) with Ron Ely (1970). These later Tarzan films saw the character evolve from Weissmuller’s simple family man who lived in a tree house with Jane and Boy into an intelligent but apparently rootless adventurer. Tarzan, the Ape Man was remade in 1959 in a poorly-received version starring Denny Miller. Later films After the Ely films, the movie Tarzan went on hiatus until another remake of Tarzan, the Ape Man in 1981, a disastrous flop with Miles O'Keeffe in the title role, whose sole reason for existence seemed to be to exhibit co-star Bo Derek as Jane in various states of undress. The better received Greystoke - The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes followed in 1984, starring Christopher Lambert. Returning to the source material, it updated Burroughs’ original novel in the light of 1980s sensibilities and science, utilizing a number of corrective ideas first put forth by science fiction author Philip José Farmer in his mock-biography Tarzan Alive. While restoring Tarzan’s identity as an intelligent human being, Greystoke portrayed his adaptation to civilization as a failure, and his return to the wild as a matter of necessity rather than choice. 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. The last live-action Tarzan movie to date was Tarzan and the Lost City (1998). The Disney Tarzan Disney’s animated Tarzan (1999) marked a new beginning for the ape man, taking its inspiration equally from Burroughs and Greystoke. Its major innovations were recasting the original fictitious ape species that adopted Tarzan as gorillas and turning Clayton, his unworthy cousin and rival for the affections of Jane in the early novels, into a brawny out-and-out villain. Two direct to video sequels followed, Tarzan and Jane (2002), which isn't so much a movie as three episodes of the TV series, and Tarzan II (2005), a re-exploration of the ape man’s childhood. Other The film Tarzan corpus also includes a number of documentaries, most of them either made for television or to accompany video sets of Tarzan movies, a number of derivative foreign-language productions from China, India, and Turkey, and various spoofs and parodies. Television Meanwhile, series television had emerged as the primary vehicle bringing the character to the public. Ron Ely’s live action Tarzan series ran on NBC from 1966-1968, where Tarzan was accompanied by Cheeta the chimpanzee from the movies and a child sidekick, the orphan boy Jai (Manuel Padilla, Jr., who also played the similar roles of Ramel and Pepe in Tarzan and the Valley of Gold (1966) and Tarzan and the Great River (1967)). The character Jai first appeared in the film Tarzan Goes to India, played by a young actor of the same name. An animated series from Filmation, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, aired from 1976–1977, with new and repeat episodes in 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 Tarzan/Lone Ranger/Zorro Adventure Hour) (1981–1982). Following were Tarzan in Manhattan (1989), an offbeat TV movie, and (1996), a new live-action series. 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 updated the setting to contemporary New York City, with Jane as a police detective. The series failed to meet studio expectations and was cancelled after only eight episodes. Anime and Manga In Japan there was also an anime and manga series loosely based on Tarzan. "Jungle no Ouja Ta-chan" (King of the Jungle Ta-chan) was originally a manga by Tokuhiro Masaya, which 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. * Comic strips Tarzan of the Apes was the first novel to be 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 ( The comic strip has often borrowed plots and characters from the Burroughs books. Writer Don Kraar, who wrote the strip from 1982 to 1995, included in his scripts David Innes and John Carter of Mars. Comic books Tarzan has appeared in many comic books from many publishers over the years. Stage Tarzan, a musical stage adaptation of the 1999 animated feature, opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on Broadway in 2006. The show, a Disney Theatrical production, was directed and designed by Bob Crowley. 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. Computer games A computer game by Michael Archer was produced by Martech. For more information see Tarzan (computer game). Disney's Tarzan had seen video games released for the PlayStation and Game Boy Color. Tarzan also appeared in the PS2 game Kingdom Hearts. Sora, Donald Duck, and Goofy had to work with Tarzan to save his home from the heartless. Ephemera There have been several Tarzan View-Master reels and packets, plus numerous Tarzan coloring books, children's books, follow-the-dots and activity books. In the film Histoire de Pen there is a character named after Tarzan and another named after The Phantom. Superman's Song by the Canadian rock band the Crash Test Dummies compares Tarzan unfavourably to Superman. Trivia by Edgar Rice Burroughs By other authors 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. Silents With Johnny Weissmuller With Lex Barker With Gordon Scott With other actors Competing films Later films Television Documentaries Actors portraying Tarzan A number of actors have played Tarzan over the years, with the most famous and longest-lasting being Johnny Weissmuller, a Danube Swabian born in Austro-Hungary (in a town now in Romania), who came with his parents to the United States. Due to complex licensing issues relating to Tarzan, several Tarzan movie series actually overlapped. For example, Buster Crabbe, Herman Brix and Glenn Morris all made Tarzan films concurrently with the 1932-1948 Weismuller series. Mike Henry played Tarzan in three theatrical releases that came out concurrently with Ron Ely's TV series, though all three had been filmed before the series debuted. (Henry had been approached to star in the TV series but had declined.) In the movies (adult) In the movies (youth) On radio On TV On stage In video games See also | |||||||||
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