Tarzan (Lord Greystoke), already well educated and fed up with civilization, returns to the jungle and, more or less assisted by chimpanzee Cheetah and orphan boy Jai, wages war against poachers and other bad guys.
After the village is burned and Tarzan, Jai, the chief, and numerous villagers are captured by the slavers, General Bertram and Charity must work together despite their differences. Tarzan escapes ...
Prim and proper missionary Charity Jones heads into the jungle to reach a remote school. Accompanied only by Jai, the two find their travels imperiled by a gun runner, angry tribesmen, and a ...
Pedro, an arms smuggler, holds Charity and Jai captive in his plan to enslave the Wazeri people to control that area of the jungle. Tarzan continues his pursuit but needs the help of the remaining ...
A shipping disaster in the nineteenth century has stranded a man and woman in the wilds of Africa. The lady is pregnant, and gives birth to a son in their tree house. The mother dies soon ... See full summary »
Director:
Hugh Hudson
Stars:
Christopher Lambert,
Andie MacDowell,
Ralph Richardson
Tarzan had no formal education and spoke in broken English. Jane was a French environmental scientist working on ways to save endangered species. Roger Taft was the son of a wealthy New ... See full summary »
Sam McCloud is a Marshal from Taos, New Mexico, who takes a temporary assignment in the New York City Police Department. His keen sense of detail and detecting subtle clues, learned from his experience, enable him to nab unsuspecting criminals despite his unbelieving boss.
Tarzan (Lord Greystoke), already well educated and fed up with civilization, returns to the jungle and, more or less assisted by chimpanzee Cheetah and orphan boy Jai, wages war against poachers and other bad guys.
Unlike numerous cinematic film adaptations, Tarzan's mate Jane is entirely absent in this production. The decision of omitting this female character was Sy Weintraub 's idea. He replaced the adoptive son, Boy with a young orphaned boy named Jai. See more »
Alternate Versions
The five "Tarzan" features starring Ron Ely as the ape-man are actually re-edited episodes of this series, in most cases using two-part segments so as to have one cohesive storyline per film. See more »
This was one of my favorite shows as a kid. It was exciting and suspenseful and had some of the most evil villains on TV every week.
However, when I saw reruns of "Tarzan" in the early 1980s, either I caught a batch of bad episodes or I had evolved because I found 6 episodes in a row to be very poorly written and even boring, so I stopped watching.
Recently, a friend loaned me four episodes and all four were exceptional. So, I saw an additional four episodes and three were quite good. Aside from obviously being an uneven series (although I have read that the show had script problems during the first year), I agree with previous posters that just the fantastic on-location photography puts all of the other Tarzan TV series to shame. Ron Ely was perfectly cast, an honorable and articulate "lawman" who respected the native tribes around him. There's one episode, "Last of the Superman" (which must have been written by an Ayn Rand admirer) where Tarzan philosophically reflects on how humans owe it to themselves to be the best they can be.
The other distinguishing thing was that there was no holds barred when it came to violence - guest star William Smithers frantically firing a revolver as piranha fish devour him, and Bo Hopkins as a no-gooder who is lazing around a lake shore when he's pulled into the lake and killed by a crocodile (one of the goriest TV scenes ever filmed). When bad guy Pat Conway is shot to death as he tries to escape by swimming across a raging river, Tarzan angrily admonishes the shooter with, "He had a right to choose how to die!"
The show was attacked by critics in the 1960s, and yet dig the guest star roster - Helen Hayes, Jimmy MacArthur, James Earl Jones, Michael Dunn, Maurice Evans, Julie Harris, James Whitmore, George Kennedy, Sally Kellerman, Diana Ross, the great (if late) Gia Scala, Leslie Parrish, the late Michael Witney, Nichelle Nichols, etc. People like that don't appear on a show if it's bad.
TV Guide reported in June 1968 that the series still had a 31 share and finished in the top 40 during 1967-68, but NBC felt its demographics (too many older women and too many kids) made it unappealing and it was cancelled. Popular demand brought it back for summer reruns in 1969.
A good series.
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This was one of my favorite shows as a kid. It was exciting and suspenseful and had some of the most evil villains on TV every week.
However, when I saw reruns of "Tarzan" in the early 1980s, either I caught a batch of bad episodes or I had evolved because I found 6 episodes in a row to be very poorly written and even boring, so I stopped watching.
Recently, a friend loaned me four episodes and all four were exceptional. So, I saw an additional four episodes and three were quite good. Aside from obviously being an uneven series (although I have read that the show had script problems during the first year), I agree with previous posters that just the fantastic on-location photography puts all of the other Tarzan TV series to shame. Ron Ely was perfectly cast, an honorable and articulate "lawman" who respected the native tribes around him. There's one episode, "Last of the Superman" (which must have been written by an Ayn Rand admirer) where Tarzan philosophically reflects on how humans owe it to themselves to be the best they can be.
The other distinguishing thing was that there was no holds barred when it came to violence - guest star William Smithers frantically firing a revolver as piranha fish devour him, and Bo Hopkins as a no-gooder who is lazing around a lake shore when he's pulled into the lake and killed by a crocodile (one of the goriest TV scenes ever filmed). When bad guy Pat Conway is shot to death as he tries to escape by swimming across a raging river, Tarzan angrily admonishes the shooter with, "He had a right to choose how to die!"
The show was attacked by critics in the 1960s, and yet dig the guest star roster - Helen Hayes, Jimmy MacArthur, James Earl Jones, Michael Dunn, Maurice Evans, Julie Harris, James Whitmore, George Kennedy, Sally Kellerman, Diana Ross, the great (if late) Gia Scala, Leslie Parrish, the late Michael Witney, Nichelle Nichols, etc. People like that don't appear on a show if it's bad.
TV Guide reported in June 1968 that the series still had a 31 share and finished in the top 40 during 1967-68, but NBC felt its demographics (too many older women and too many kids) made it unappealing and it was cancelled. Popular demand brought it back for summer reruns in 1969.
A good series.