Jungle Jim (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Jungle Jim is a 26-episode syndicated
adventure
television series which aired from 1955-1956, starring Johnny Weismuller, as Jim "Jungle Jim" Bradley, a hunter, guide, and explorer in, primarily, Africa
. The program should not be confused with Ramar of the Jungle
, but is based on the Jungle Jim
comic strip
created by Alex Raymond
and Don Moore. Starring with Weismuller were Martin Huston
as Jungle Jim's teenage son, Skipper; Dean Fredericks
(also known as Norman Fredric) as Haseem, the Hindu
manservant, and Neal, a chimpanzee
from the World Jungle Compound, as Tamba. Paul Cavanagh
played Commissioner Morrison in nine episodes.
Produced by Harold Greene
, the series was filmed by Screen Gems
(now Sony Pictures Television
), a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures
. The program aired in 158 American
media markets and in thirty-eight other nations.Earl Bellamy
directed the first four episodes of the new series. The series capitalized on the popularity of Weismuller, who had just completed his last film of Tarzan
, the jungle character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs
. Jungle Jim was a low-budget offering that relied heavily on stock footage and was not renewed beyond its original episodes.
According to his mother, Marcella Martin Huston, then 14-year-old Martin Huston, known as Marty, played with Tamba during breaks on the set, and the chimp was most protective of him. During the filming of a scene in which the villain seized Skipper from the bushes, the chimp began to pound the villain on his helmet. Earl Bellamy recalls the series opener, "Man Killer", in which the chimp was to fire a rifle. The trainer was to work with the chimp for a week. When the animal picked up the rifle, it went haywire. Having smelled the gunpowder
, Tamba leaped into the rafters of the stage. With editing, the scene was still preserved.
ns, but the character also visited Asia
and South America
to take advantage of existing stock footage. Each episode lasted approximately 25 minutes. Jim was usually involved in a mystery or in helping natives resist certain conniving white men. Some episodes involved teaching a moral lesson to son Skipper. Jim had a plane called The Sitting Duck.
Opening credits were filmed at Chicken Rock at Lake Sherwood
, with stuntman
Paul Stader
performing the diving scenes for his friend Weismuller. The Jungle Jim compound and most of the foliage was located on a studio sound stage. Some jungle shots were filmed at the back lot at MGM. Some footage was borrowed. In the episode "Lagoon of Death," scenes were taken from the films, The Lost Tribe and Fury of the Congo. A docudrama
, I Married Adventure, provided the plot for such episodes as "Wild Man of the Jungle."
In the second episode, "Land of Terror", Jim attempts to find a missing scientist lost in rugged country inhabited by man-eating lizard. In "Lagoon of Death" thieves force Jim to an island of cannibals with a treasure of black pearls. In "The Silver Locket", Jim finds a lion that he has captured wearing the locket of a baby who was lost years earlier in the jungle. He sets forth to find the girl. In the series finale, "Power of Darkness" on March 19, 1956, Jungle Jim leads a scientific expedition to the Himalaya Mountains
to observe a solar eclipse
, and Skipper finds trouble in a lost city of sun worshippers.
Jungle Jim had few well-known guest stars. Woody Strode
, Philip Van Zandt
, and I. Stanford Jolley
were among those who appeared on the program.
After Jungle Jim, Weismuller's acting career folded. The defunct Nostalgia Channel ran the 1955 series for a time, and episodes are occasionally available by video companies.
Television syndication
In broadcasting, syndication is the sale of the right to broadcast radio shows and television shows by multiple radio stations and television stations, without going through a broadcast network, though the process of syndication may conjure up structures like those of a network itself, by its very...
adventure
Adventure
An adventure is defined as an exciting or unusual experience; it may also be a bold, usually risky undertaking, with an uncertain outcome. The term is often used to refer to activities with some potential for physical danger, such as skydiving, mountain climbing and or participating in extreme sports...
television series which aired from 1955-1956, starring Johnny Weismuller, as Jim "Jungle Jim" Bradley, a hunter, guide, and explorer in, primarily, Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
. The program should not be confused with Ramar of the Jungle
Ramar of the Jungle
For a related series, see Jungle Jim , starring Johnny Weismuller, Martin Huston, and Dean Fredericks.Ramar of the Jungle was a syndicated American television series that starred Jon Hall as Dr. Tom Reynolds and Ray Montgomery as his associate. Episodes were set in Africa and India...
, but is based on the Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim
Jungle Jim is the fictional hero of a series of jungle adventures in various media. The series began in 1934 as an American newspaper comic strip chronicling the adventures of Asia-based hunter Jim Bradley, who was nicknamed Jungle Jim...
comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
created by Alex Raymond
Alex Raymond
Alexander Gillespie "Alex" Raymond was an American cartoonist, best known for creating Flash Gordon for King Features in 1934...
and Don Moore. Starring with Weismuller were Martin Huston
Martin Huston
Martin W. Huston, also known as Marty Huston , was an American actor of primarily television and stage....
as Jungle Jim's teenage son, Skipper; Dean Fredericks
Dean Fredericks
Dean Fredericks was an American actor best known for his portrayal of the comic strip character Steve Canyon in a 34-episode television series of the same name which aired from 1958-1959 on NBC. He was born Frederick Joseph Foote in Los Angeles, California...
(also known as Norman Fredric) as Haseem, the Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
manservant, and Neal, a chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
from the World Jungle Compound, as Tamba. Paul Cavanagh
Paul Cavanagh
Paul Cavanagh was an English film actor. He appeared in over 100 films between 1928 and 1959. He was born in Chislehurst and died in London from a heart attack....
played Commissioner Morrison in nine episodes.
Produced by Harold Greene
Harold Greene
Harold Greene is a former award-winning journalist, best known for working at KCAL 9 News and CBS 2 News in Los Angeles. Before joining the CBS duopoly, Greene enjoyed a long television news career, mostly in Southern California....
, the series was filmed by Screen Gems
Screen Gems
Screen Gems is an American movie production company and subsidiary company of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group that has served several different purposes for its parent companies over the decades since its incorporation....
(now Sony Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television
Sony Pictures Television, Inc. is an American and global television production/distribution subsidiary of Sony Pictures Entertainment. In turn, the latter is part of the Japanese conglomerate Sony.-Background:...
), a subsidiary of Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
. The program aired in 158 American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
media markets and in thirty-eight other nations.Earl Bellamy
Earl Bellamy
Earl Arthur Bellamy was an American film and television director, producer, writer, and set decorator.-Biography:...
directed the first four episodes of the new series. The series capitalized on the popularity of Weismuller, who had just completed his last film of Tarzan
Tarzan
Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
, the jungle character created by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
. Jungle Jim was a low-budget offering that relied heavily on stock footage and was not renewed beyond its original episodes.
According to his mother, Marcella Martin Huston, then 14-year-old Martin Huston, known as Marty, played with Tamba during breaks on the set, and the chimp was most protective of him. During the filming of a scene in which the villain seized Skipper from the bushes, the chimp began to pound the villain on his helmet. Earl Bellamy recalls the series opener, "Man Killer", in which the chimp was to fire a rifle. The trainer was to work with the chimp for a week. When the animal picked up the rifle, it went haywire. Having smelled the gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
, Tamba leaped into the rafters of the stage. With editing, the scene was still preserved.
Production notes
Jungle Jim used black actors to portray AfricaAfrica
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
ns, but the character also visited Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
and South America
South America
South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
to take advantage of existing stock footage. Each episode lasted approximately 25 minutes. Jim was usually involved in a mystery or in helping natives resist certain conniving white men. Some episodes involved teaching a moral lesson to son Skipper. Jim had a plane called The Sitting Duck.
Opening credits were filmed at Chicken Rock at Lake Sherwood
Lake Sherwood, California
Lake Sherwood is a unincorporated community and a census-designated place in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Ventura County, California overlooking the lake of the same name. It is south of the city of Thousand Oaks, and west of Westlake Village. The ZIP Code is 91361, and the community is inside...
, with stuntman
Stuntman
A stuntman or stunt performer is someone who performs dangerous stunts.Stuntman may also refer to:*The Stunt Man, a 1980 film starring Peter O'Toole*Stuntman , a 2002 video game**Stuntman: Ignition, its sequel...
Paul Stader
Paul Stader
Paul B. Stader, sometimes known as Manny Stader , was an American actor best known for having performed stunts for Johnny Weismuller, Lex Barker, Gregory Peck, and John Wayne. He was also the underwater director of the 1978 film The Return of Captain Nemo.-Working with Weismuller and Barker:Stader...
performing the diving scenes for his friend Weismuller. The Jungle Jim compound and most of the foliage was located on a studio sound stage. Some jungle shots were filmed at the back lot at MGM. Some footage was borrowed. In the episode "Lagoon of Death," scenes were taken from the films, The Lost Tribe and Fury of the Congo. A docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
, I Married Adventure, provided the plot for such episodes as "Wild Man of the Jungle."
In the second episode, "Land of Terror", Jim attempts to find a missing scientist lost in rugged country inhabited by man-eating lizard. In "Lagoon of Death" thieves force Jim to an island of cannibals with a treasure of black pearls. In "The Silver Locket", Jim finds a lion that he has captured wearing the locket of a baby who was lost years earlier in the jungle. He sets forth to find the girl. In the series finale, "Power of Darkness" on March 19, 1956, Jungle Jim leads a scientific expedition to the Himalaya Mountains
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
to observe a solar eclipse
Solar eclipse
As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...
, and Skipper finds trouble in a lost city of sun worshippers.
Jungle Jim had few well-known guest stars. Woody Strode
Woody Strode
Woodrow Wilson Woolwine "Woody" Strode was a decathlete and football star who went on to become a pioneering black American film actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe award for best supporting actor for his role in Spartacus in 1960...
, Philip Van Zandt
Philip Van Zandt
Philip "Phil" Van Zandt was a Dutch actor of film, stage and television. He made over 220 film and television appearances between 1939 and 1958.-Career:...
, and I. Stanford Jolley
I. Stanford Jolley
Isaac Stanford Jolley, Sr., known as I. Stanford Jolley was a prolific American character actor of film and television, primarily in western roles as cowboys, law-enforcement officers, or villains...
were among those who appeared on the program.
After Jungle Jim, Weismuller's acting career folded. The defunct Nostalgia Channel ran the 1955 series for a time, and episodes are occasionally available by video companies.