The opening of the Jungle Jim TV series takes advantage of Johnny Weissmuller's Olympic swimming prowess by showing him make a long dive off a cliff into a river and swimming to shore. He's in a safari suit, so one can't be sure if it's really Weissmuller who made the dive; at the time of the show he would have been fifty one years old and a bit heavier around the middle compared to his Olympic days of the mid Twenties, or his film career as Tarzan that followed shortly after. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt on that.
I used to watch this show as a kid in the Fifties, but for some odd reason I never got a look at any of the actual Jungle Jim movies until I became an adult. Somehow they slipped by me, even though I caught Weissmuller as Tarzan every chance I could. Having just watched four of the TV episodes, there are some general comments I can make to contrast them against the Jungle Jim movies I've seen. For one thing, there seems to be more geographical integrity for the animals that appear on the small screen. In the movies, it wouldn't be unusual to catch a North American mountain lion or a South American toucan in what would ostensibly be an African jungle. And by the time the TV show aired, someone must have figured out that it was kind of silly for Jungle Jim to walk away from his many wild life encounters with lions, leopards and crocodiles with not so much as a scratch. In the episode 'Gift of Evil', Jim tangles with a leopard and comes away with clothes torn and bloody and pretty much the worse for wear.
Even so, there's much about the show that's fairly laughable and downright ridiculous if you think about it. In the episode 'The Eyes of Manora', Jim actually fist fights and wrestles with a gorilla before finally stabbing it to death. There's just no way to explain that, except for the fact that the show probably had a young viewing audience in mind when they came up with the story lines. As a kid I watched as many shows as I could that dealt with wild animals, which put Tarzan and Jungle Jim right at the top of the heap, along with shows like 'Ramar of the Jungle' and 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle'. Now that I've mentioned those, I'll have to look up a few of those episodes as well.
Besides Weissmuller, the TV show had a couple of other regular players, with teenage Martin Huston portraying Jim's son Skipper, and Dean Fredericks as Jim's Indian helper Kaseem. If you watch the shows, you'll note that Fredericks is credited as Norman Fredric in the closing credits. Also, can't forget Tamba the Chimp, who also appeared regularly in the Jungle Jim flicks. Always good for comedy relief, Tamba proved to be a welcome addition to the cast. The shows themselves were entertaining enough for the era, along the same lines as 'The Adventures of Superman' or 'The Lone Ranger', which is to say they could be goofy at times but usually carried a good message about loyalty and friendship for the young viewer. That makes them kind of missed today. I guess I'm showing my age when I say that, but The Fifties was a great decade to be a kid in, and I'm kind of glad I was born at just the right time.
I used to watch this show as a kid in the Fifties, but for some odd reason I never got a look at any of the actual Jungle Jim movies until I became an adult. Somehow they slipped by me, even though I caught Weissmuller as Tarzan every chance I could. Having just watched four of the TV episodes, there are some general comments I can make to contrast them against the Jungle Jim movies I've seen. For one thing, there seems to be more geographical integrity for the animals that appear on the small screen. In the movies, it wouldn't be unusual to catch a North American mountain lion or a South American toucan in what would ostensibly be an African jungle. And by the time the TV show aired, someone must have figured out that it was kind of silly for Jungle Jim to walk away from his many wild life encounters with lions, leopards and crocodiles with not so much as a scratch. In the episode 'Gift of Evil', Jim tangles with a leopard and comes away with clothes torn and bloody and pretty much the worse for wear.
Even so, there's much about the show that's fairly laughable and downright ridiculous if you think about it. In the episode 'The Eyes of Manora', Jim actually fist fights and wrestles with a gorilla before finally stabbing it to death. There's just no way to explain that, except for the fact that the show probably had a young viewing audience in mind when they came up with the story lines. As a kid I watched as many shows as I could that dealt with wild animals, which put Tarzan and Jungle Jim right at the top of the heap, along with shows like 'Ramar of the Jungle' and 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle'. Now that I've mentioned those, I'll have to look up a few of those episodes as well.
Besides Weissmuller, the TV show had a couple of other regular players, with teenage Martin Huston portraying Jim's son Skipper, and Dean Fredericks as Jim's Indian helper Kaseem. If you watch the shows, you'll note that Fredericks is credited as Norman Fredric in the closing credits. Also, can't forget Tamba the Chimp, who also appeared regularly in the Jungle Jim flicks. Always good for comedy relief, Tamba proved to be a welcome addition to the cast. The shows themselves were entertaining enough for the era, along the same lines as 'The Adventures of Superman' or 'The Lone Ranger', which is to say they could be goofy at times but usually carried a good message about loyalty and friendship for the young viewer. That makes them kind of missed today. I guess I'm showing my age when I say that, but The Fifties was a great decade to be a kid in, and I'm kind of glad I was born at just the right time.