TARZAN AND SON by Dave Goode

TARZAN AND SON BY DAVE GOODE

Watching the Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies a couple of years back it hit me that these flicks took place in an alternate universe. Not just because Tarzan  was an inarticulate savage as opposed to Burroughs' Lord of the Jungle that appears in the books. But in the first six films from MGM, Jane is a brunette Britisher and not a blonde American. And to top it off she's Jane Parker and not Jane Porter. Later in the RKO Tarzan movies Brenda Joyce takes over the role and is a closer match to the Jane of the books.

And then there was Tarzan and Jane's adopted son "Boy" played by Johnny Sheffield. A huge departure from Edgar Rice Burroughs' books. Sheffield would go on to portray Bomba, the Jungle Boy in a series of movies from Monogram Pictures. 

Looking at these low budget programmers they remind me a bit of Gold Key's Son of Tarzan comics from the 1960s. And it's easy to imagine Sheffield playing Tarzan's real son Jack Clayton a.k.a Korak, the Killer.

There is an interesting fan boy theory that involves the Tarzan that Ron Ely played on 1960s television. That big Ron was playing the "Boy" from the Weissmuller MGM and RKO movies grown to adulthood after having lived for years in civilization. An interesting idea. And we are after all talking about an alternate universe.