"The Legend of Tarzan" (2001) TV series 2001-2003

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Director:

Chris Buck

Writers:

Robert Askin (story) (episode "Seeds of Destruction")
Katy Cooper (co-writer)

Seasons:

1 | 2

Release Date:

3 September 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Adventure | Family

Plot:

The further adventures of the jungle hero and his friends.

Plot Keywords:

Tarzan | Jungle | Villain | Based On Film | Gorilla

Awards:

3 nominations

Cast

Olivia d'Abo	...	Jane / ... (32 episodes, 2001-2003)
Michael T. Weiss	...	Tarzan (32 episodes, 2001-2003)
Jim Cummings	...	Tantor / ... (31 episodes, 2001-2003)
April Winchell	...	Terk / ... (30 episodes, 2001-2003)
Jeff Bennett	...	Prof. Archimedes Q. Porter / ... (29 episodes, 2001-2003)
Nicollette Sheridan	...	Eleanor (26 episodes, 2001)

Also Known As:

Disney's the Legend of Tarzan (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

USA:30 min (39 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

USA:TV-Y

Company:

Walt Disney Television Animation

Trivia:

Almost all of the new characters (the Wazari people, Jane's friend Hazel, Nicholas Rokoff, Queen La, the Leopardmen, etc.) were taken from the dozens of original Tarzan books and stories.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Unlike the packs shown in this TV series, leopards are solitary animals and avoid each other's company wherever possible.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Tarzan & Jane (2002) (V)

Soundtrack:

I Can Be Like You

Everything a typical series has, except for the animation in its first film

This series was surprisingly not as bad as I would have thought it would be. I first saw "Tarzan" and really liked the film. It had great animation, a good plot to follow, a board of characters, and a beginning, middle, and end. I really did not think of this movie as being one that deserved a sequel, let alone "Cinderella", "Pocahontas", or "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", which all had sequels to their first big movie. The thing that relates these sequels all together is that the first movie made it big and got a lot of audience and was mainly successful, and that the sequel was not at all worked on as hard as the first, or had as stunning animation. "Tarzan" was one of the Disney movies that was based on a television series that was made after the movie itself. So like all the sequels to the movies, this series in particular did not have great animation. The animation was doable for having the will to entertain the audience long enough for one episode at least, but not enough to make it a top animation series. Most series that I have seen go for the story that is involved more than anything else. This series in particular went for action and adventure, a pretty good mixture. What most series seem to fail at accomplishing is how to make the action actually look like action, not a jumble of poorly drawn figures trying to rationalize a mix of ideas and put it into the form of a tableau.

Everything in this series is mainly average, making it an average kid show. There are some new characters in the series too. What I liked about it is how it described even further of Tarzan and Jane's adventures even after the second movie had come out. The thing that I was most annoyed at was what I have been talking about the whole time: animation. Like I said, the animation is okay, but the main movie "Tarzan" uses one form of animation, a good one which shows that the animators spent time one the movie, and the series uses a whole different look to it's picture. The animation throughout the series is fluent, but between the movie and the series it is not. Since this is only a cartoon and since Disney has already made two movies with the name "Tarzan" on them, it is obvious that they could not spend the money to make this a star show. The point I am getting at is how I dislike the fact of changing the type and appearance of animation through the same course of a film or series. I did like the few episodes I saw of the series, but to adults, they might find it as a sorry excuse for a television show. Since it was not Disney's best work or best work effort put to the final piece, I would rate this series a 7 out of 10, for lacking the source of its primary animatedly constructed film.