Tarzan was a series that aired on NBC from 1966 – 1968. The series portrayed Tarzan (played by Ron Ely) as a well-educated character, one who, tired of civilization, had returned to the jungle where he had been raised. The show retained many of the trappings of the classic movie series, including Cheeta, while excluding other elements, such as Jane, as part of the new look for the fabled apeman that producer Sy Weintraub had introduced in previous motion pictures starring Gordon Scott, Jock Mahoney, and Mike Henry. CBS aired repeat episodes the program during the summer of 1969. I remember these being shown on Satruday mornings during the early 1970s on the ITV network and later on being shown during early editions of TISWAS. Mike Henry had just filmed several big-screen adventures as Tarzan in Brazil and was slated to play the lead in the TV series, but backed out due to disagreements with producer Sy Weintraub over the use of wild animals and lack of safety protocols. Ron Ely was originally to have played a Tarzan impostor in a proposed episode of the TV series, but took over the lead role. Like Jock Mahoney, Ely performed his own stunts when playing Tarzan. Unlike Mahoney, Ely was not a professional stuntman and sustained seventeen different injuries during the first season. These included singeing his arms and legs running through a burning village (Village of Fire); being bitten in the forehead by a tame lion (in a later fight with the same lion, Ely was bitten on the lower left thigh); falling down a hill and ripping the skin off the tops of his feet; falling twenty-five feet off a vine and separating his shoulder; and falling off another vine and breaking his other shoulder, fracturing three ribs and spraining both wrists. Producer Sy Weintraub shifted filming from Brazil to the Churubusco studio in Mexico because of production delays. In September 1966, former screen Tarzans James Pierce (1927), Johnny Weissmuller (1932–1948), and Jock Mahoney (1962–1963) appeared with Ron Ely as part of the publicity for the upcoming premier of the TV series. Weissmuller was approached to guest star as Tarzans father, but nothing came of it. Joseph C. Poller, who as Gene Pollar had portrayed Tarzan in a 1920 film and was in 1966 the oldest living Tarzan, complained in tongue-in-cheek fashion that he had not been invited to the publicity event because producers had assumed he was dead. Ely made his directorial debut with the second-season episode Hotel Hurricane, which was a re-working of the 1948 film noir classic Key Largo, with the action transplanted from Florida Keys to the African jungle.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 23:40:31 +0000
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