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Thursday, 12 April 2007

Tarzan - The Awful Truth


The world's most typecast actor is celebrating his 75th birthday today - Cheetah, the chimp.
Let's face it, you could hardly say the boy ever stretched himself professionally! He played himself in all those Tarzan films and then, when no doubt his agent advised him to break out in search of a meatier role, he took the part of another chimpanzee in Doctor Doolittle. No Lear at The National for the hairy guy.
Still, people of my age grew up with Cheetah - well, not literally. I mean, in my case, my brother has some strange habits but he can just about walk upright and he doesn't like bananas. No, I mean Cheetah and his chum Tarzan were an intrinsic part
of my youth. I was of the "Ron Ely as Tarzan" generation which no doubt spoiled things for me a little as Ronald and his thick American accent were, without doubt, T W...........THE WORST!!
Him aside, I remember I still had misgivings about Tarzan when I was a kid. I have always had an inquiring mind and there were several things about the ape man which just didn't add up to me. Admittedly, I never read Edgar Rice Burroughs so I could only go by what I saw on screen, but how come he didn't have a beard? In fact, in Ron Ely's case, how come he appeared to have no bodily hair whatsoever? Are you telling me that the chimps he grew up with taught him to shave? If so, who taught them and why didn't they shave themselves?
Secondly, how come he wore a loincloth? Again, he grew up with a load of hairy-arsed, simian siblings and I don't recall ever seeing any of them, Cheetah included, walking around in pants. If they permanently had their knobs out then surely he would have followed suit? Were we meant to think that at some stage in their youth the other apes had turned to Tarzan and said: "Put it away lad. You'll have somebody's eye out with that. Look, I found this C&A catalogue in the bushes. Be a mate and run yourself up a pair of those undies"?
Thirdly, what exactly had he got against lions? Every time some passive looking lion
strolled by nonchalantly in the distance, minding its own business, he had to run over, grab its mane and start wrestling it. The lion always looked really reluctant to get involved and I always imagined it thinking to itself: "Of fuck! Here we go again. Go on, then. Get it over with."
He was equally anti-social with crocodiles. He always had to swim over to
them, wrap his arms and legs around their suspiciously rubbery bodies, and then roll over and over, stabbing them intermittently.
The elephants worried me as well. They were Tarzan's biggest mates and if ever
things were looking a bit dodgy he'd give out that gut-wrenching yodel and they would arrive on the scene in seconds. Where the fuck from? They live on the plains in Africa! Was there some sort of elephant shuttle service which bussed them into the jungle at the drop of a hat? It then got more confusing. When they got to Tarzan's side, guess what? They were fucking Indian elephants!! Assuming they hadn't taken the considerably longer land route between the two continents, we were supposed to believe that they had made it to their nearest port, queued up to get on a ferry, crossed the Indian Ocean and then made their way across Africa to hook up with the Big T. They would have had to go like fucking rockets!
Talking of that trademark, jungle yodel, what was that all about anyway? He would invariably climb half-way up a tree and let out that distinctive "YAAAAR, DLARDLE, AAH, ALAARDLE, AAAAH!" and then what would happen? In one episode the elephants would start packing up and heading off to the ferry port, in another a lion would come running and in another the monkeys would start building him a box girder bridge or something. Same fucking yell each time, mind. How could one guttural bellow constitute entirely different fucking languages to 30 different animals?
Still on the subject of that yodel, we were also supposed to believe that in the 30 years he spent with just the chimps in the jungle that was all he had managed to come up with yet the moment Jane showed up and gave him a couple of basic English lessons he was talking like an Oxford professor of fine art after about a week!
Then we get onto the tricky subject of sex. This bloke had spent his entire life without a woman and then Jane wanders into the woods in just a micro-bikini affair. I'm amazed we ever saw her in any of the episodes! Human nature being what it is, when we did see her she should been teetering about, bandy-legged, or flat on her back, exhausted, in that 15-bedroom, luxury treehouse Tarzan had knocked up.
No, it all confused me as a kid. Cheetah didn't do me any harm and so I wish him a very chimpy birthday but Tarzan can go to Grantham.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Also did you note the natives, the one that spoke always had a posh english and was educated and oxton or camford and had been in the army or am i mixing that up with Idi Amin.

Barry Lawrence said...

Yes, that's right!! Also, while the other guys in his tribe talked about sacrificing some hapless wench "when the sun god is at his height on the day of the rising river", he was sporting an expensive fucking Rolex watch! You'd have thought he would have chipped in with "You mean at 1.20pm, lads?"

Vicus Scurra said...

You are thinking too hard, Reg. It is only a tv show. You are on the slippery slope to denouncing "Life on Mars" as drivel, and saying that "Coronation Street" does not reflect modern life in the inner cities of the north.

Barry Lawrence said...

Vicus! I thought you were dead - or trapped under something heavy.
Thinking too hard, eh? The curse of Thatcher's Britain. I have to admit I haven't seen Life On Mars (there isn't any, is there?).
As for Coronation Street, can I refer you to the following:

http://granthamnewtown.blogspot.com/2006/11/puberty-passage-off-desecration-street.html

WEDNESDAY, 21 NOVEMBER 2007

SHORTS DON'T MATTER! 1. From the greatest programme ever made about association football, Barnstoneworth United FC manager Mr Dainty delivers one of the finest English soliloqiues of all time.......and afterwards, spare a thought for the club steward's wife Vera (YOU ONLY HAVE TO WATCH HALF OF THE CLIP!!).

Monday, 12 November 2007

Not everyone who agonises over their life is a painter. Some of us agonise because we're NOT painters.

....And On the Subject of Great Public Services

I know most of you have heard this marvellous song by those doctors who are the Amateur Transplants......but I think the video is a nice addition. P.S. If there are kids in the room I'd shuffle them out before hitting play.

...There's More

On the subject of those great doctors, here is their version of More Than Words which presents their challenging views on women outside Watford. The very-soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither, coming from Cumbria, is a huge fan. Again, get those kids out of the room!

Leave Britney Alone, Ok!!!

Oh...........my............God!!!!! My heartfelt thanks go to BGT for this. I won't say much more, I don't need to. Mr Loony of Loonytown, USA (I think it's a bloke, anyway), says it all. I fear he may be wound too tight for.....well.....well for everywhere, really!

Tuesday, 18 September 2007.

I wish I'd sung this! For non-Americans, and with apologies to all the smart arses out there who already knew, the FCC is the Federal Communications Commission and it monitors TV and radio output in the States - a sort of broadcast police - while the EPA is the Yanks' so-called Environmental Protection Agency, a body which does exactly the opposite of what it says on the can. (P.S. We went to the same school, you know? Eric and me, that is, not George, Martha, Dick and Condoleeza and me. I don't think they went to school.) P.P.S. Please see below if you are I Like The View, Malc or Doris.

To Make You Laugh and Cry

I was listening to this on a Sunday, the very-soon-to-be ex-Mrs Pither is a Catholic, Tom Lehrer is one of my all-time heroes and this is one of his best.............no other reasons. On a more sombre note (and with thanks to Fish for coming up with this Woman's-Own-passes-the-time-in-the-dentist's-waiting-room nonsense), why not get a computer to tell you that you are a waste of space and your life is a sham of a mockery of a farce? Ok, it's from one of those poxy dating sites but...go on, take the test. You ain't got much to beat!!
This Is My Life, Rated
Life: 4.2
Mind: 4.1
Body: 2.7
Spirit: 8
Friends/Family: 1.6
Love: 0
Finance: 5.9
Take the Rate My Life Quiz
Apparently, in my case, "computer say 'no!'"

I First Saw This When I Was Little - And Loved It! I Hope That Explains a Few Things

Fuck, Fuckety, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck

It has been pointed out to me that, particularly for one whose profession is supposedly literary, my language is getting worse. My use of the "F" word is, I am told, far too prevalent and hence loses impact. To those who share this view I suggest you watch the following:

Tony Blair Isn't a Burglar - But If He Was.........

In the spirit of Gustav Holst's Jupiter and Manfred Mann's Earth Band, I feel like raising a smile today. The Big Green Thing alerted me to this and, for no other reason than to raise a smile on an otherwise crap Wednesday, I think it has to be shared. Grantham shall not have him - when he gets out of prison.

Life On The Edge - No Net.

I was wrong when I feared it might be a dull weekend, what with my pals being away, my soon-to-be ex-wife in rehab and only the dogs to play with. How wrong can a man be? This much fun must surely be illegal? Just click to see the japes and hoots I am having! Click again to see how things got REALLy exciting! Tomorrow we're going to chase pigeons.

The Good Old U.S. of A. - Guardians of Freedom and Democracy. Nothing to Be Scared of, Then?

Be honest........

Puzzle of the day from perplexus.info:
More Triangle Numbers (Difficulty: 2 of 5)

Triangle numbers are calculated taking each integer plus all the ones before it. The first triangle number is 1, the second is 1+2 or 3, and the third is 1+2+3 or 6.

If you take 8 times a triangle number plus 1, the result will be a perfect square. This number also will be the square of the triangle number's place doubled, plus one.

For example, 6 is third in the triangle number sequence. (1, 3, 6...) This means 8 times 6 plus 1 = 49 equals 3 times 2 plus 1, squared, or 7 squared.

Prove why this works.

Comments and solution | More in " Numbers" | Add to your page
Who fucking cares!!

IT'S THE QUIZ OF THE WEEK! JUST SCROLL DOWN AND HIT "FULL QUIZ".