The ahead of time and relevant tradition of a Tarzan and his adopted kids needs more vindication than ever!

Dear Disney’s Tarzan fans, I think it’s still for the best that Disney’s Tarzan needs to have an unrelated adopted kid first, which is perhaps due to the industry impacting complications of actually recreating the ERB Universe Tarzan brand in any kind of form until as rather recently as the early 2010s.

The ahead of time and relevant tradition of a Tarzan and his unrelated adopted kids is not only rather more interesting but still is fairly less prone to jeering receptions from most audiences except for the canonists.

A decent and okay example; Jai from the Ron Ely show, though not an outright unintended scrappy like Cheetah the chimp, felt a bit more like a rather poorly developed Cousin Oliver example to keep most audiences more engaged with his guardian. We’d rather have a new take on Jai as a part-Arab youth turned tech savvy jungle man instead of just being a somewhat unintentional ethnic scrappy. 

The Edgar Rice Burroughs canon has diverged too much, which otherwise is a good thing

Don’t expect the canon Tarzan stories to be that much of a mind screw. 

It’s pretty clear that Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc has decided that the only canon version of Tarzan is its own, which speaks volumes when even the (tasteful for today’s standards) nudity of the OG Tarzan novels gets outsized by the mind frying amount of fanservice that the canon webcomic has gotten. 

Then again, it’s okay for us fans to make many homages to ERB’s now largely public domain (almost everywhere but a few countries, and especially the USA) Tarzan novels, which makes sense as the (not fully public domain and copyright free) post-1950s to pre-2010s editions are recommended for more people in a twist of funny irony than both the pre-1950s editions and unexpurgated texts. Even so, while not without chauvinisms of the times, the in-between editions remain better off than the latter two, although they don’t tend to conform as directly to the actual insane canon-only mind screw that is the new Edgar Rice Burroughs Universe standards.  

Tarzan’s jungle rebellion

Bruce: I think Tarzan’s looking out to kill such a horrible gorilla, but before that, Gerla must’ve poked onto a greying gorilla’s ass and imprisoned him in a cave. 

Garrison: Yes Sir! Thanks for your help. 

Archive Panic Alert!

Be careful of what you really wish for in terms of fan sanity. Archive Panic Alert! 

ERB Universe Canon John Tarzan Clayton, is an unhyphenated nightmare of a literal apeman, on a level of scariness not unlike that of Kengan Ashura, Baki, Akame Ga Kill and many others. His son, ERB Universe Canon Jack Korak Clayton, is also a freaking square giant with a messed up life not unlike the Egyptian pantheon’s main stars. His grandson, ERB Universe Canon Jackie Clayton, was a blip in people’s eyes and went kaput in WW2, so he’s the most extreme Cousin Oliver example of all time. 

ERB Universe Canon John Tarzan’s wife, ERB Universe Canon Jane Porter Clayton, is a master archaeologist on par with Indiana Jones, with two One Piece breasts and a big Baki butt. She’s a masterful mind who survives a lot of mishaps, warts and all. ERB Universe Canon Jack Korak’s wife, ERB Universe Canon Jeanne Meriem Jacot Clayton, is a square jungle queen with two One Piece breasts and a big Baki butt. Her life is still more tortured than ERB Universe Canon Jane’s, just not as terrible as ERB Universe Canon Jack Korak’s for that matter. ERB Universe Canon Jack Korak’s daughter, ERB Universe Canon Suzanne Clayton, is a true dimensional hopper, with two One Piece breasts and a big Baki butt. She’s like the great Future Trunks of Dragon Ball, that’s all.  

This is why the ERB Universe Canon is perhaps so out of whack, which means that it’s a mind screw on par with Neon Genesis Evangelion. No wonder why many of us prefer more evenly proportioned and balanced versions of Tarzan and his fam.  

Disney Reboot Pal Ul Donians

Pal Ul Donians 

Monsters 

Grunk 

Gabe 

Pal Ul Donians

Es Sat 

Ta Den 

Pan At Lee 

Om At 

Bu Lot 

Dak Lot 

O Loa 

Ja Don 

Ko Tan

Da Kat 

Mo Sar 

Casting the Pal Ul Donians

Pal Ul Don 

Pal Ul Don Monsters 

Sam McCarthy as Grunk the Gryf - Grunk is a Gryf from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan the Terrible, whose visual design for the Disney reboot is made by Joe Jusko. 

Anthony Keyvan as Gabe - Gabe is the Swamp Saurian from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ own novel Tarzan the Terrible, although his visual design for the Disney reboot was created by John Buscema. Here in the Disney reboot he is both a surviving mook of Gerla and a recurring anntagonist in his own right, unlike in the original novel where he only makes a cameo. 

Pal Ul Donians 

Zachery Bowman as Dak Lot - Ta Den’s boisterous if immature friend. 

Noah Maguire as Ta Den - Ta Den is a helpful guy who keeps himself and his friends company in times of danger. 

Chase Dillon as Om At - 

Kash Velasquez as Bu Lot - Bu Lot was Mo Sar’s rascally and drunken lackey and son, perhaps the only one who remained friendly towards him even as they would die. 

Kevin Michael Richardson as Mo Sar - Well meaning yet ravishing pretender Mo Sar has no choice but to be killed by Tarzan along with his own son Bu Lot, so that Tarzan can stop a series of multicultural infighting squabbles which lasted for hundreds of years if not more. 

Mellony Ledo as O Loa - O Loa is the sly, clever princess of Ho Don society who bounces back from defeat by rivals frequently.

Michael Beach as Es Sat - 

Hidaya Nabil as Pan At Lee - 

Harrison Chad as Dak At (Da Kat) - Ja Don’s former friend turned rival, who joined another, less powerful tribe of Ho Dons.  

Ryan Carnes as Ja Don - Ja Don is Ta Den’s ageing sourpuss of a father who has to realise that times always change. He does think that even everybody has standards when it comes to Mo Sar’s more heinous soldiers. 

Justin Cook as Ko Tan - Ko Tan was a crotchety, somehow out of touch king of the relatively sheltered Ho-Don society, who smothered O Loa during her teens and has long been somewhat neglectful towards her even before that. By violating the rules of the OG Jad Ben Otho, he unfortunately was killed by Bu Lot, starting a civil war in the process. 

Tarzan: Natural Mayombean Beauty

The Mayombe rainforest is perhaps the most biodiverse ecoregion in all the Central African nations just south of both Sanaga and Nyong but west of the actual Congo River Basin. Even when it still does exist in the far future, if at all, some of it will mostly consist of various abandoned settlements. 

In a more hopeful note, it’s possible that many of Mayombe’s wild animals are still trying to adapt in the midst of a big change. Even when the Gorillas and Chimps may rebound in terms of population numbers, a few other kinds of plausible great apes and hominids may appear at any time. That includes the Ogre Mangani and its nearby offshoots, which are amongst the most dangerous of them all. Other than that, a bunch of other breakaway Mangani clans who live in many Chibungu (Villages of the Dead) and who have their own Chinkumbi, Banchondi, Bamuéné, Banganga, Bampunzi, Bavinji and Bandochi, are just as dangerous, if not much worse than their fellow kin. In a happy twist of irony, there are mud apes and swamp apes, better known as Anglophone Minority World curios, rather than actually being from a mix of both coastal West Central African and Native North American mythologies. Other inhabitants include the dreaded AgroPelter. 

There are also south-central chimpanzees, African forest elephants, bay duikers, greater spot nosed guenons, Gabon talapoins, yellow backed duikers, Malbrouck monkeys, black collared lovebirds, Lord Derby’s anomalures, crested Mona guenons, Stanger’s giant squirrels, water chevrotains, Central African linsangs, western lowland gorillas, Side Striped Jackals, African golden cats (aka jungle caracals), Egyptian mongooses, red headed lovebirds, white bellied duikers, greater cane rats, rusty spotted genets, black fronted duikers, white crested (African) tiger herons, African civets, servaline genets, black footed mongooses, straw coloured fruit bats, Sitatungas, Egyptian rousette bats, red tailed African grey parrots, blue duikers, African palm civets, African leopards, Beecroft’s anomalures and mandrills. 

In the villages, the dwarf goats, village dogs and dwarf sheep are often seen flocking around. The various kinds of True and False Manganis, living in numerous Chibindu (Valleys), may also be prominently shown in the serial story, perhaps because a few of their plausible inspirations come from both Yombe and Vili mythologies. 

There are also the usual spirits from the Kongo group of mythologies, which come in the forms of Minchondi, Minchisi, Misimbi and Michinda. Then there are the Chinkokó, mix and match familiars created from various dead nonhumans and humans. There are also the infamous magical pots known as the Nzungu Madungu.