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Volume 7541
TARZAN TV SERIES ~ 1991-1994
Starring Wolf Larson as Tarzan and Lydie Denier as Jane
Reviews by Charles Mento
SEASON TWO
CONTENTS
32. THE DEADLY DELUSIONS
33. THE PRIMITIVE URGE
34. THE MYSTERIOUS SHEIK
32. THE DEADLY DELUSIONS
“Tarzan does not ever want to lose Jane.”As usual, the plural vs singular debate rages in the title. The DVD box says DELUSIONS, Wikipedia says DELUSION, the DVD menus says DELUSIONS, and the episode title itself says DELUSIONS as well as the end credits. We’ll go with DELUSIONS then! Sigh.
This episode was filmed 7th (production order) but aired 21th in air order! This might be the biggest gap between such production and to the air, airing 5th to last!
Jack’s journal: Monday the 23rd. 1992 has this in November and March. 1993 has this in August only. 1994 has this in May. 1997 has this in June. 1998 has this in Feb, November, and March.
Remember that season two is usually referred to as being made in and airing in 1992 to 1993 but vague references on screen in a few episodes as well as where in both production order AND air order make it needful to present all the years above in figuring out when this show takes place. As the situation seems to be almost timeless, it really probably only matter to me.
Jack, as usual, reveals most of the plot here when he tells us drop off chemicals floated down river and almost cost Jane her life. SPOILERS, Jack!
We open with what seems to be a dream sequence that is very “horror” movie. And disturbing. A POV from the person who smashes things in Jane’s base and even goes through Roger’s tent and seems to be Cheetah making horrible monster sounds.
Tarzan is shown the dead Croc, which Tarzan calls Kalonga or something and he knows Cheetah is right: it did not die a natural death. We learn the chimp we saw was not Cheetah.
Jane, with Roger driving, is in the red jeep. They’ve been counting dabchicks for the government, part of their job, Jane tells him. Roger jokes that maybe they can get Cheetah to count them. 238 bird species are on the endangered list.
When they return to base and find Roger’s tent down and the clothes line down, Roger’s favorite shirt and Jane’s favorite skirt downed, they both wonder if it was Tantor getting caught in the clothes line again. Roger knows it wasn’t Numa. If it is Tantor they’re talking about, Jane calls Tantor or whatever elephant did this a “HE” and “HIM.”
When they find the equipment inside smashed, Roger tells her he will call his dad to replace them as soon as possible.
They find the female chimp Jane calls Tolke (?) or at least that is the name on the sub titles on AMAZON, which probably should not be trusted to get the name right. Have we seen this chimp before?
They go after her with a tranquilizer gun but Tarzan intervenes and calmly gets her out of a huge tree. Impressively, it IS Wolf in this high up tree doing his own stunt here.
Jack has never known any illness that Tarzan could not cure. Yet, this one is not curable by Tarzan’s jungle medicine. Jane runs blood tests on a possum that has the same symptoms and finds nothing. Jack will run them into Bendali. The possum is dead.
Note: Tarzan does not have a head band on.
In what might feel like filler, at night, Roger seems to be foraging quietly for food in the base and pets Cheetah, who tries to give him the stethoscope to check his friend. Roger tells him Tarzan and Jane are looking for a cure and tells Cheetah everything is going to be fine.
The moon appears to be full or almost full.
At the chemical can near the river that Cheetah found (or Tarzan did), Tarzan tells Jane that the mowah plant does not usually grow in the sun and is here and that many animals eat it. Jane points at the croc as if she didn’t know about it before. WHY didn’t Tarzan (or even Cheetah) tell her about this already!? This indicates to her that this might not be a disease. Well, duh!
Jane is distracted by Cheetah making noise and knocks over a beaker of liquid the mowah plant is in. Cheetah flees and Roger goes after him.
In another interesting stunt, Wolf drops from the tree on a vine onto Tantor. Thus far, while there’s not much action in this episode, another environmental episode about pollution, the cinematography is stylish and different. It is not boring. It really does work.
Jack returns with samples. They show pesticide used by Bendali farmers. A guy at the warehouse said that they lost one of the drums when delivering downriver at Mahoopa. Jack has the antidote. Tarzan goes to the river to stop other animals from being poisoned.
Is that Jane’s face drawn on one of her books on the shelf and is it in French?
Roger finds Cheetah and gives him a banana, well, drops it when he hears Jane in trouble. These scenes make Roger sympathetic and warm toward Cheetah more than most other episodes before this. He really seems, here, to love Cheetah a great deal. Jane begins to have strong symptoms of being poisoned by the pesticide.
Jane attacks Roger when he tries to physically stop her from leaving and she knocks him out. When Jack finds him, he is up and has a real cut on his arm. Jane has run off into the jungle with the tranquilizer gun. Roger figures out Jane is infected by the concentrated mawha liquid on her.
Eroll as Jack is a good actor in this series, especially here. A lion chases Jane up a tree. She no longer has the tranquilizer gun. A short time later, when getting down, she re-finds it. Before that, in the tree, she tears off her top and now is in a bra!?
Tarzan puts the chemical can in a small ditch of some water (?) and has Tantor help him push a huge boulder on top of it. Will this stop animals from drinking that water? It seems to completely cover it.
Jack arrives to Tarzan and explains about Jane and gives him the antidote. He also left a vial with Roger to give Tolke. The lion tells Tarzan what happened.
Again, impressively, Wolf goes high up in a tree but then VERY high up, is the stunt double.
Once more Jane ends up on her butt and back in the water. This time, she has the good reason of being infected. Well, she probably should have been more careful. And again Wolf does some of his own swinging stunts in a high up tree and it looks great.
Jane attacks Tantor, under delirium. Tarzan stops her/him from approaching Jane as Jane points the tranquilizer at the elephant. Jane fires at Tarzan.
Tarzan fights with Jane and gives her the antidote and then carries her.
We see the parrot in the closing scene. Jane is better and thanks Jack and Tarzan, especially Tarzan. The chemical companies agreed to stop dumping the chemicals on third world markets. They will be banned worldwide. Cheetah and Tolke play on Roger’s tent and knock it down. It took him an hour to put up. The others think this is extremely funny.
Sigh.
For an episode with little to no action, this one is not bad. It hits home in a way and though we sort of know Jane will be saved, we worry about her and the chimp anyway. The fight between Jane and Tarzan is a highlight but of course he is stronger than she is. Lydie does a great job of acting as Jane sees hallucinations, itches, and goes crazy.
Jack’s journal: Thursday the 19th: 1992 has March and Nov; 1993 has August; 1994 has May; 1997 has June; 1998 has Feb, March, and November.
Jack’s jeep goes out of control and crash lands on the side of a steep cliff overlooking jagged rocks and the ocean. He beeps his horn to alert Tarzan and large bats come flying out of trees (during the day) in an impressive opening. Tarzan seems to be fixing his bow and comes running, dropping it. At first, he seems to have no headband on (or a very thin one or a very hidden one) and then it’s large and looming and thick!
Tarzan does the Tarzan call (practically in every episode) and calls Tantor to help him save Jack. What’s odd is that Tarzan goes to the jeep, claims he will then get help (but he already called for the elephant) and then goes to get rope. While Tarzan is working to get Jack out of this mess, Jack keeps yelling annoying things like, “For Pete’s sake get me outta here” and “Hurry up” and “Be careful!” Shut the hell up!
It IS Tantor that pulled the jeep off the cliff edge and Jack calls the elephant, “Fella,” so Tantor is now a male?
Tarzan is holding the jeep up? Doesn’t Jack have a…jack? The reason he was driving like a mad man is that he just got off the radio with Bandali Health Dept: there’s been an outbreak of sleeping sickness just south of Mambouzi or Umbozi (spelling?). Tarzan knew that no people used to live south of there but Jack tells him that some farmers have burned part of the jungle for cattle grazing. Tse tse flies lived there but the fire drove them out and workers were hit with sleeping sickness. The gov’t has ordered the whole area evacuated and will spray which will kill the flies and many animals! Tarzan knows how to cure sleeping sickness and tells Jack to stop the spraying. He only has 16 hours.
Tarzan touches his mother’s locket which has their pictures in it. “Tarzan was raised in the jungle. Tarzan’s parents died in the jungle. Tarzan will die here also.”
Huh?
The front of the treehouse seems to be in a different place than the back which is level with a dock out onto the lagoon while the front seems to have a huge drop indicating it is higher up than the ground level. Does the ground level upward toward the water?
Charmingly, Cheetah swings through the trees behind Tarzan but on his own vine.
Tarzan’s vine breaks and he falls to the ground, unconscious after hitting or before it. Wait. I know I watched this a few weeks ago but…haven’t we seen this before, more than once before?
Also charmingly, Cheetah fetches water and drops it on Tarzan’s face to wake him up but when he does wake up, he scares Cheetah away having reverting to a savage state. Wait. Haven’t we seen this before, too?
TARZAN IN THE SACRED CAVE had Tarzan revert, too but the idea was lost as Jane never really fully encountered Tarzan there. There may have been flashbacks to that as well AND there are flashbacks to this episode in an episode that aired BEFORE this one aired, to confuse matters even more. In any case, it’s a valid and enjoyable plot device and here it seems to be milked for what it is worth. Sort of.
As they pack to evacuate, Roger takes his guitar and tape recorder. He justifies taking the guitar and that he plays properly but Jane jokes that she’s never heard him play properly. Cheetah alerts Jane and together she and the chimp drive off in the red jeep.
Tarzan eats a fruit but horrifyingly also eats a small lizard, bones and all? He scares off a rhino, beats his own chest and does the Tarzan yell.
Jane and Cheetah have to track Tarzan on foot and a snake scares her. While Wolf does a fantastic job here, again conveying Tarzan’s ape like behavior, the chimp playing Cheetah conveys a real fear of the primitive Tarzan. A marvelous set of sequences and somewhat disturbing.
When he comes down, Cheetah flees and Jane only realizes the danger too late as he stalks her and carries her off into the jungle! What is he going to do?
Bendali gives Tarzan until midnight because they have to test the remedy. This means he only has nine hours as told to Jack via radio.
Tarzan offers Jane leaves and apparently ants or bugs on a stick from a tree. He pulls her and her top. She is visibly afraid of him for a bit and Lydie also does a great job here, too. Cheetah watches from afar. Tarzan offers her more food forcibly but she agrees to eat while he eats and as a savage, seems to have some of his own hair in his mouth.
Tarzan looks through Jane’s hair (I don’t want to even speculate as to why) and expects her to do the same to him. When she does she sees his wound and realizes he must have fallen and lost his memory when he fell. He and she exchange names and he likes her petting his head. He starts to nudge her with her name and then starts touching her neck, seemingly about to touch or touching lower but she distracts him by telling him she’s thirsty. It’s a brave moment for the show.
Jane calls Tantor over to the tree she’s high up in thanks to Tarzan and climbs down onto Tantor and down to the ground, thanking Tantor.
Tarzan returns and the return swing, far up in the air and the tree, is, impressively, Wolf.
Again, as he swing off, in pursuit of Jane.
He chases her under the arch and roughly grabs her by the dock.
Jane calms him a bit and shows him the treehouse.
He sees the locket and she instructs him how to open it and he sees the photograph of himself as a boy and his parents. He gets his memory back.
Wolf once more has huge dark make up on his back to indicate dirt?
He and Cheetah reunite.
Tarzan gets the remedy and arrives at about 11: 05 pm, just in time for Jack to get it to the plane and to Bendali or the areas of infection? Not sure which.
The next day (?) Jack tells Tarzan the head honcho told him that Tarzan’s remedy saved many lives. The Bandali authorities have banned cattle grazing in the jungle.
In the “laugh it off” ending (again, sigh), Tantor has Roger’s guitar high in the air in his/her trunk, holding it away from him. Cheetah has on a head rag and seems to be playing a tambourine. I feel as if something were cut out of this scene. The others think this is funny. Jane explains she guesses she is not the only one that doesn’t like Roger’s music.
This is production 208.
So…this is a very good episode and crosses the line between kid show and adult show and does it marvelously. It also seems to be given a chance to right the wrongs of the earlier episode that has Tarzan more primitive in that here he gets to interact with Jane as his more savage self, ala the movie Tarzans from the silent era to the Johnny era and it works. Sure, it could have been even more dangerous but how dangerous could you make it? Wolf and Lydie do a spectacular job here and the episode is worth watching and interesting.
34. THE MYSTERIOUS SHEIKN
“Fire threatens the jungle and now men come here looking for oil.”Jack’s journal: Wednesday the 2nd. 1992, which this probably is as this episode was filmed earlier than aired, has only September and December for this date. 1993 has only June. 1994 has Feb, November, and March. 1997 has April and July. 1998 has September and December.
This episode aired fourth from the last spot of season two!
Okay, I give up. What are those animals in the opening? Buffalo? Antelope? Both? There’s been a month of no rain. Jack claims he was going to ask a local witch doctor to do a rain dance.
“I’ve never been so hot before,” Roger says as he hammers a stake, his shirt open showing his abs and chest. He’s obviously been working out since season one. He and Jane are checking the water table. They have a discussion about the ozone layer and canned sprays. The water hole is almost dry. Roger hits the stake measurement (?) device (?) and a pressure pocket (?) causes a spray up of water. He mentions now he knows what the Beverly Hillbillies felt like. Tarzan is hand feeding a giraffe and runs toward them. Jane and Roger are tumbled down a hill.
I don’t understand how they didn’t just move away from the spray but Jane seems to pull Roger into it or he walks into it and this knocks them over the hill into the mud being washed down with them. Tarzan, of course, runs to save them. Roger’s stunt man is obvious in still pause. Tarzan does not have a head band on.
Tarzan in the next scene, which is a few minutes later (?), has a head band on. Amazon subtitles during the run Tarzan did to save Jane and Roger calls the music tempestuous (stormy). Roger’s changed his shirt.
Maybe it’s just me but for some reason three minutes in and I am having trouble hearing and understanding ANYTHING Jack, Roger and Jane are talking about. It’s water. Jack talks about Texas tea oil. I had to check Amazon subtitles several times to find out what some of the dialog was. Tantor pulls a boulder over the water hole. Apparently this spray was supposed to be oil?
Later as it seems to be tomorrow…nothing here is clear to be honest…as Roger helps Tarzan, Jack and Tantor replenish Jane’s water supply and water the land (?)…I think…Tarzan’s dialog is unclear to me, too. He says something about the land being dry and fire is a danger. Roger has another shirt on a sleeveless one.
Sheik Tanun al-najaf arrives with two servants who clap to announce his presence. Tarzan has to stop him from throwing his cigar down. The sheik has a yacht off shore. He is cousin to the king of Abudunar, he claims. He gives a compass to Jack (?), the latest magazine to Roger, and a dress for Jane. He tries to give Tarzan a knife but Tarzan does not want it. Cheetah takes it.
The sheik calls Cheetah a chimpanzee.
Tarzan does not like the sheik, maybe because of his flattery to Jane. What is with Wolf’s right hand thumb? It looks impossibly bent upward.
The sheik’s country, he claims, has only a small oil reserve, and though Roger believed their small country was “swimming in the stuff” the sheik claims they need more. He also claimed that satellites showed that possibility of oil under this jungle.
He is here to do a preliminary visibility study and conclude an oil deal with the government of Bendali. Jack tells Tarzan there is nothing Tarzan can do but Tarzan tells him he is wrong, Tarzan can do many things.
Roger spies on Jane and the sheik having tea. He tells her not to worry about such things as the land and her wishes, it is province of men! Oh dear.
Tarzan gives the Tarzan yell as the men search for oil. Tarzan has called a lion to the men and he uses his crossbow to stop Ali from shooting the lion. The lion goes after the man and we don’t find out what happens to him but he is back with the sheik about a minute later. Tarzan uses the crossbow directly on the other man who shot at him. He seemed to be trying to do this in secret but then confronts the sheik and his left over man directly. The sheik tells him what he is doing is perfectly legal. Tarzan seems to be lying that there is no oil. The sheik tells him he will be back. He tells his men that Tarzan is a menace.
Jane is kidnapped at night.
Morning: Roger comes in a new shirt to wake her. He discovers Jane has been kidnapped.
In some uncomfortable scenes Jane resists the capture and the sheik slaps her, knocks her down, and taunts her that she is going to cry.
Tarzan tracks them as Jane tries to escape and fails. When the men carry her back to the sheik, he tells her she is going to be his wife! One of his wives in his 500 room palace.
Jack, Roger, and Cheetah pace in unison with their hands behind their backs. It’s cute and reminds me of the Weissmuller films.
The sheik is the vilest villains in this series so far. Tarzan shoots an arrow into the arm of one of his men. It looks like Ali. We even see blood.
The sheik threatens to shoot Jane and he also starts a fire with his cigar. Tarzan does another Tarzan yell. Tantor pulls the boulder away and the water puts the fire out? There’s also oil? Wouldn’t the oil blow up? There does seem to be an explosion. Tarzan says something like, “There’s more than oil in the ground.”
Jane is taken by the three men into a motorboat toward the yacht. Okay, so what now? The Sheik views what we see looks like oil but he claims it is water. What?
Tarzan swims to the small boat, knocks one man over while Jane knocks the sheik into the water. Tarzan throws the last man into the water. They seem to swim to safety? Tarzan tells them, “Never return to the jungle again.”
Tarzan carries an exhausted Jane from the water, water spilling out between them and maybe…well, whatever.
It’s very…sensual?
The theme seems to play as Tarzan carries Jane out of the water and to the beach.
Jane tells Roger to tell her to be quiet if she ever talks of meeting a rich man…or something. Cheetah steals her jeweled necklace the sheik gave her. Tantor steps on it…twice, once with a front foot and once with a back foot. Tarzan is given a flowery necklace by Cheetah to give to Jane, which he does.
It rains.
Another uneven episode that had tremendous potential with the most vile villain but…somehow the balance of nasty and light hearted kid show just doesn’t match the premise and doesn’t really reach the potential. Previous Tarzans, maybe even Ely, would have killed this sheik and his men. Here, they seem to get off very easy for what they have done and what is to prevent them from returning? The fact that they still think there is no oil. Truth be told, I’m not convinced either. At the start it looks like water only but the characters talk about oil. At the end, it looks like oil but the bad guys only seem to see water!? WTF? There is an explosion, too, so there must have been some oil? Mixed with water?
Not sure any of this makes any sense scientifically or thematically.
It’s not a bad episode but rather than a pulse pounding climatic fight that this needed, we get…three men dumped off a boat, one by Jane and one by Tarzan who never gets to pounce on the sheik himself. It makes this finale feel hollow and unsatisfying.
Once again, the title is wrong: there's nothing mysterious about the sheik. He tells almost everything up front!
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