Thursday, March 08, 2012

Ron Ely TARZAN Coming to DVD!


The Sy Weitraub-produced Tarzan television series, which aired from 1966 through 1968 and starred the athletic Ron Ely in the title role, has long been desired on home video by fans and collectors of Edgar Rice Burroughs' legendary Lord of the Jungle. Well, Warner Archive has announced that the first season of this show - packaged in two 4-disc, 16-episode volumes - will finally be available next week.

My personal memories of this show are dim. I was too young to have watched it when it originally aired, but when I was a kid around eight or nine years old, WLBZ Channel 2 in Bangor aired it for a year or so on weekday afternoons. Unfortunately, in those days, we couldn't always get that channel to tune in all the way down in Belgrade. So, when I'd get home from school, I'd watch the reruns of the George Reeves Adventures Of Superman and the Adam West Batman that ran back-to-back on a channel that we did get, and then, when those were over, I'd struggle with the antenna for a while to see if I could catch the broadcast signal from Bangor.

Usually, I couldn't tune in anything but snow and a faint, static-riddled audio. Every once in a while, though, when the atmospheric conditions were just right, I could snag it. On those rare and glorious occasions,  I'd round out my TV superhero afternoons with an episode of Tarzan.

As I said above, I don't remember much about the show, but I absolutely do remember that terrific title sequence above, especially the shot of Tarzan atop those spectacular waterfalls.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get my hands on those DVDs.... and maybe Warner Archive will get around to releasing the Filmation Tarzan cartoon series from the 70s one of these days!
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6 comments:

  1. Michael May11:01 AM

    Awesome! This was the most accessible Tarzan to me as a kid and I'm totally getting it.

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  2. Sign out5:27 PM

    Great news! I totally have to get this.

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  3. RJR4:32 PM

    I have fond memories of this series. Watched it when it first came out. Glad to hear it's going to be available.

    RJR

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  4. jason6:55 PM

    Oh, man, I'd completely forgotten the Filmation Tarzan. I'd love to see that again -- I vaguely recall an episode with a flying saucer that was snatching specimens and Tarzan went inside to get his animal friends back.

    I have less memory of Ron Ely's Tarzan, which is interesting because I was much older when I saw it, probably middle school-ish.

    Either way, I'd love to see both again.

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  5. Kevin Findley8:46 PM

    This is the best DVD release news I've heard so far this year.

    Ely's Tarzan was on every Sunday afternoon when I was a kid. I never missed an episode.

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  6. Anonymous3:14 PM

    Ron Ely was a great Tarzan. Some episiodes he looks either puny , or in the very last episodes, out of shape.
    But in most of them he meets the challenge to be real Tarzan, looking very much like the super-strong hero Tarzan is meant to be.
    In some episodes he even looks like a bodybuilder, which is better than most Tarzans on the screen ever looked like!

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