JUNGLE JIM On TV

Recently on Facebook, my pal Steve Bissette changed my world by asking his followers to name something they loved and collected but could not explain; for his part, he showed an assortment of things I never knew existed: a series of French magazines called JUNGLE FILM which included photo novels based on Columbia's JUNGLE JIM movies (1948-1955) starring Johnny Weissmuller. I immediately needed to have them all, but I've had to exercise some restraint as my spending had to be channelled elsewhere, at least for the moment. But in the midst of falling in love all over again with this sometimes ridiculous film series, I discovered something I never knew before - that there was a JUNGLE JIM television series, produced by Columbia's Screen Gems branch, which ran from 1955-1956. I found an eBay merchant who was selling the entire series of 26 episodes for $11 and received my copy yesterday. I immediately sat down to watch the first four. 

The series reunites Weissmuller with Tamba, his chimpanzee companion and comedic foil, as well as an unexplained son named Skipper (Martin Huston) and an eloquent Indian assistant named Kaseem (Dean Fredericks - who went on to play the title role in a 1958-1959 series based on Milton Caniff's comicstrip STEVE CANYON). There is no indication - at least not in the four episodes I watched last night - of who Skipper’s mother might be, or might have been. British actor Paul Cavanagh shows up as a semi-regular in eight episodes as Commissioner Morrison. He worked with Weissmuller as far back as TARZAN AND HIS MATE (1934) but will also be familiar from a few of Universal's SHERLOCK HOLMES films, as well as HOUSE OF WAX and THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE.

Weissmuller with co-star Dean Fredericks.

JUNGLE JIM is a ridiculous show intended for kids, which is what I was secretly hoping for. There seems to be one encounter with wild animal stock footage in every episode, but already I've seen Jungle Jim tussle with a black panther and save a swimming dog from a near-miss encounter with a massive alligator, and Skipper has survived a near-death experience with a rhino AND a man intent upon shooting him in the back of the head (both in the same scene!). The stories are generally preposterous, and the dialogue even moreso; in "Safari Into Danger," two owners of a failing US circus travel to Jim’s jungle (wherever that is) with a fat bankroll (!), which they offer him if he will travel to Borneo (!!) with them (and Tamba and the kid - why not? !!) and bring back that rarest of all wild animals... the proboscis monkey! The proboscis monkey alone can save their circus! The words “proboscis monkey” are spoken at least 30 times in this episode, and we finally get to see stock footage of a family of these Durantesque creatures, which might be visible to paying customers in a zoo but never in a circus! In "Code of the Jungle," Tamba gets jealous when Jim returns from a trip with a pet dog for Skipper, and insanely clubs it with a stick until it scampers off into dangerous jungle territory and must be saved. 

"Code of the Jungle" was scripted by Malvin Wald, who later wrote the post-production narration for Jess Franco’s VENUS IN FURS, and the IMDb tells me that three other episodes still awaiting me were the work of Dwight V. Babcock, a former BLACK MASK contributor and Universal screenwriter whose screenplays included DEAD MAN'S EYES, THE MUMMY'S CURSE, HOUSE OF DRACULA, THE JUNGLE CAPTIVE, PILLOW OF DEATH, HOUSE OF HORRORS, SHE WOLF OF LONDON, THE BRUTE MAN, and two of the JUNGLE JIM features, JUNGLE MOON MEN and DEVIL GODDESS. 

A quick look at the IMDb's episode guide tells me that man-eating lizards, lost civilizations, pygmy tribes, and various taboo treasures are also in store. Picture quality is no more than acceptable and some are slightly better than others. All told, this is $11 well-spent toward entertainment, but be aware the episodes were assembled in haphazard order. This is a shame, but the discs can always be ripped at home and rearranged into IMDb chronology if you're that obsessed about it. I'm thinking I probably fall into that category.

(c) 2021 by Tim Lucas. All rights reserved.

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