Tarzan Lord of the Jungle

Filmation's animated Tarzan, Lord Of The Jungle is the most faithful screen adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs's jungle hero to date, animated or live action. This Tarzan is a sophisticated, articulate man who travels through the jungle in truly "lordly" fashion. His sidekick, Nkima is a spider monkey (not a chimp) character taken straight from the books. Notably, this series makes the most extensive use of Burroughs's "ape" language. Almost all of the animals and many of the nouns and verbs ("Unk!" means "Go!") are in the Burroughs language. Several episode plots, including Tarzan And The Golden Lion and Tarzan And The Knights Of Nimmr, are taken directly from the books. The only major departures from the Tarzan novels include the deletion of the Jane character; and the temporal setting of the series which appears to be post World War II from the looks of at least one private plane seen in Tarzan And The Space God. Extensive rotoscoping of the Tarzan character gives him a remarkable smoothness in his tree climbing/vine-swinging actions. Nkima is a delightful companion, who although "cute" is not overused for comedics as was Cheetah of the movies. The true test of any animation's "seriousness quotient" is whether it would translate into live action. The end result of Tarzan, Lord Of The Jungle is that it would make a very adult, action/adventure live-action Tarzan series. This highly recommended series deserves a DVD release.