The John Cawas Era
This Era of Tarzan films began with Toofani (Stormy) Tarzan in 1937, starring John Cawas. This film, also inspired in part by The Call of the Savage serialised film from 1935, led to 3 spinoffs (the Tamil language Jungle King Karzan in 1938, itself a loose part-dub, the first Hindi Jungle King in 1939, and the first Jungle Princess in 1942) and the first Tarzan Ki Beti, an Urdu language spinoff sequel which is now considered pretty much lost forever. The first one released post-WW2 is Jungle Goddess, a loose sequel to both the first Hindi Jungle King and the succeeding postwar Jungle Queen of 1959. There is the also lost Bama, which featured John Cawas as the eponymous character, who is closer to Johnny Weissmuller’s portrayal of Tarzan in this film, than in his own first appearance as a Tarzan in name only. He got replaced by Zimbo for legal reasons later in the decade.
Its hairy ape equivalent was a Tarzan/Zimbo competitor named Zambo, which lasted for only two films, both of which are lost except for the posters, even though they do have an indirect influence on the still forgettable Captive Wild Jungle Woman franchise of surreal B movies by Universal.
The Tun Tun Era
This Era of Tarzan/Tarzanide films actually began with Zimbo in 1958 and the second Jungle King in 1959, which was the first to feature Bollywood's first major comedienne Tun Tun. This time, a female character actor predominantly ran a whole era. The main actor of the Tun Tun era was Azad Irani, a portrayer of both Stormy Tarzan (from the kind of official Azad tetraology starting with his own eponymous movie, which is the second film to bear that name) and Zimbo (of the successful Zimbo trilogy) as well as Tony (of Tarzan and the Sorcerer fame) and Hawana (of Jungle Ki Hoor fame), who was - like John Cawas - an actor of Zoroastrian Irani/Parsi Origins. It ended with the original Kadina Raja (aka Kadina Rahasya, the third Jungle King and the first Jungle Love), released on March 25 1969 and the first full colour Tarzan film in India, Tarzan 303 in 1970, which starred Punjabi wrestler Chandgi Ram as Tarzan and Azad Irani in a supporting role. The only two full siblings in history who unofficially played Tarzan are the infamously machismo brothers Dara Singh and Randhawa, both of whom appeared in a single film called Tarzan versus King Kong (the wrestler, not the prehistoric primate giant!) as different characters, although the former portrayed Tarzan in Tarzan Comes to Delhi a few years earlier anyway.
The first Jungle Love, partially made in 1986 but fully released in 1990, is a tribute to the Cold War films featuring Azad Irani as both Zimbo and Tarzan, albeit featuring Rocky Singh as a pastiche of both named Raja after the hero of Kadina Raja. Its popularity as a very adult film and with certain Generation SRK nerds led to a comical, but not quite official spinoff with an extended name, which was partly filmed in Telangana instead of the Western Ghats of Kerala and Karnataka. Called Raja Rani’s Love in the Jungle and released very late in 1994 for the year 1995, it’s thankfully somewhat closer to the Weissmuller films which inspired it rather than either Jungle Love or Adventures of Tarzan, because it featured two actors playing a snooty scientist and his daughter, as well as another one playing an Ayesha expy, while Mahendra Kumar’s portrayal of Tarzan as an angry feral man is a bit gross but also somewhat more likeable and tolerable than others.
The Tun Tun Era
This Era of Tarzan/Tarzanide films actually began with Zimbo in 1958 and the second Jungle King in 1959, which was the first to feature Bollywood's first major comedienne Tun Tun. This time, a female character actor predominantly ran a whole era. The main actor of the Tun Tun era was Azad Irani, a portrayer of both Stormy Tarzan (from the kind of official Azad tetraology starting with his own eponymous movie, which is the second film to bear that name) and Zimbo (of the successful Zimbo trilogy) as well as Tony (of Tarzan and the Sorcerer fame) and Hawana (of Jungle Ki Hoor fame), who was - like John Cawas - an actor of Zoroastrian Irani/Parsi Origins. It ended with the original Kadina Raja (aka Kadina Rahasya, the third Jungle King and the first Jungle Love), released on March 25 1969 and the first full colour Tarzan film in India, Tarzan 303 in 1970, which starred Punjabi wrestler Chandgi Ram as Tarzan and Azad Irani in a supporting role. The only two full siblings in history who unofficially played Tarzan are the infamously machismo brothers Dara Singh and Randhawa, both of whom appeared in a single film called Tarzan versus King Kong (the wrestler, not the prehistoric primate giant!) as different characters, although the former portrayed Tarzan in Tarzan Comes to Delhi a few years earlier anyway.
The Hemant Birje Era
This is the longest running era of live action Ripoff and Mock Buster Tarzan films so far the world. Starting with a surprisingly successful movie classic, the first Adventures of Tarzan in 1985, plus the Kannada film reboot of Kadina Raja in the same year, so is the hammier Telugu film Adavi Donga featuring superstar Chiranjeevi. The film has spawned lots of semi-official sequels, reboots, remakes and spinoffs, many of which bombed so hard on their first runs and some of which have featured Hemant Birje himself (although not always as Tarzan).
After the first Adventures of Tarzan, Hemant Birje has also been featured in at least a feminine counterpart, called Junglee Tarzan, which in turn, is both a cooler sequel and a soft reboot improvement of Jungle Beauty, and the second Tarzan Ki Beti, a long awaited but equally trashy (and kinda non-canon) alternate universe spinoff sequel, also acting as the Hindi language, mix and match colour reboot of the eponymous film released in 1938.
Although its legacy remains big, it is currently in retirement, since a proposed sequel to Adventures of Tarzan got cancelled nearly two decades ago, mainly due to how notoriously hard to work with Hemant Birje really is. A remake of Adventures of Tarzan was to be made a couple of years ago, until it also got scrapped due to troublesome production issues.
A Kannada competitor called Kadina Raja, whose same name predecessor acts as the actual but unofficial remake of the Zimbo films, was released in the same year as Adventures of Tarzan, but eight months early, while its more memorable Telugu counterpart Adavi Donga got released just seven months afterwards in November that year.
The first Jungle Love, partially made in 1986 but fully released in 1990, is a tribute to the Cold War films featuring Azad Irani as both Zimbo and Tarzan, albeit featuring Rocky Singh as a pastiche of both named Raja after the hero of Kadina Raja. Its popularity as a very adult film and with certain Generation SRK nerds led to a comical, but not quite official spinoff with an extended name, which was partly filmed in Telangana instead of the Western Ghats of Kerala and Karnataka. Called Raja Rani’s Love in the Jungle and released very late in 1994 for the year 1995, it’s thankfully somewhat closer to the Weissmuller films which inspired it rather than either Jungle Love or Adventures of Tarzan, because it featured two actors playing a snooty scientist and his daughter, as well as another one playing an Ayesha expy, while Mahendra Kumar’s portrayal of Tarzan as an angry feral man is a bit gross but also somewhat more likeable and tolerable than others.
In 1999, a mild continuity reboot of Zimbo, itself more like a bland budget part-time ripoff of the older Rambo films, was released, featuring an internationally unknown actor as Zimbo, a weary wild young man whose love of animals is prominent throughout the film. Sixteen years and seven months after Jangali Manchhe had been released, a semi official reboot of both Adavi Donga ‘85 and the latter had been released. Even though it’s known as the second Adavi Donga, it clearly takes slightly more cues from its bloodier Nepali counterpart than from the lighter but more values dissonant original.
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