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STUDIO: Classic Media
MSRP: $14.99
RATED: Not rated
RUNNING TIME: 374 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Bonus pilot episode
THE PITCH
A retard who swings into trees, a superhero chicken and a race car driving putz…oy.
THE TOONS
George, Ursula, Ape, Shep, Super Chicken, Fred, Tom Slick, Marigold, Gertie Growler, Otto Matic, Clutcher
George’s typical reaction when asked which one of his sidekicks – Ursula or Ape – were supposed to be his girlfriend…
THE NUTSHELL
Comprising three non-related cartoon shorts per episode, including the titular character, George of the Jungle was a toon that ran in 1967 and featured George, a rip-off of Tarzan who had big muscles and little brains. He would save people in the jungle and was aided in his adventures by his girlfriend Ursula, Ape, his trusty intellectual sidekick and Shep, his pet elephant. George wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, as evidenced by his penchant for swinging headlong into trees. Super Chicken was about a swashbuckling fowl who would take a potion to give him super powers, and Tom Slick was about a race car driver who participated in races around the world.
“Okay, look, George, this whole shoving-large-items-up-my-ass thing is getting to be a bit old, don’t you think?”
THE LOWDOWN
How’s the best way to put this? This cartoon is virtually unwatchable. Poorly drawn, idiotically scripted, and wholly uninteresting, it’s unthinkable that the guys who came up with Rocky and Bullwinkle could produce three staggeringly bad toons and then slap them together in one show, making it three times as shitty. George of the Jungle is best going to be remembered for its catchy theme song and not much else. The adventures he has are so lamely put together that it’s a surprise that even three-year-olds of the era weren’t offended. Neither George, nor Super Chicken nor the especially bad Tom Slick have any outstanding attributes that make them memorable, unless you like retarded jungle kings, bumbling superhero farm animals or vanilla-flavored motor jockeys.
“Hey Supes, I guess this little stunt makes you chicken of the sea, huh?”
“No, it makes you a sea lion. Now shut the fuck up and keep paddling…”
First off, George essentially plays off of two gimmicks: George is a muscle-bound dipshit, and this dipshit regularly swings at warp speed into trees on his way to making a rescue of some poor schlub dumb enough to get wrapped around up by a snake, get stuck in quicksand, or some other jungle morass. The entire angle is a painfully-obvious rip-off of Tarzan, but isn’t even in the same continent of quality as even the worst of Tarzan’s adventures. Meanwhile, Ursula is his Jane, who serves little to no purpose other than to almost pop out of her loincloth and Ape is a British intellectual masquerading as a simian. Each episode runs about six minutes long, and each of those feels like six hours.
Super Chicken takes rip-off to a whole new level, by combining elements from the The Three Musketeers, Superman and Batman. It’s about a swashbuckling chicken, conveniently named Super Chicken, who leads the life of a playboy until some imminent danger threatens. Then he runs off to wardrobe change, emerges with a get up halfway between Musketeer and superhero, drinks a potion to give him super powers, then sets out with his lion sidekick, Fred to save the day.
“Hey, is that Josie and the Pussycats up ahead? Yeah baby…”
Finally, probably the worst of the three is Tom Slick, which involves the titular race car adventurer, who participates in races around the world in his souped-up rust bucket, the Thunderbolt Greaseslapper. He’s aided in his adventures by his girlfriend, Marigold and his mechanic Gertie Growler. His main nemesis is Baron Otto Matic and his henchman, Clutcher. The only thing that keeps me from thinking this was a rip-off of Speed Racer is that they both came out around the same time.
As I said, it’s surprising to me that Jay Ward and Alex Anderson, who developed the seminal cartoon The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, which was known for its cleverly absurd plots and in-joke references to popular culture, could come up with these three cartoons. Even though the animation is similar, Rocky and Bullwinkle are in another class altogether. You put George, Chicken and Slick together and they don’t have a tenth of the appeal of that one show, especially considering that many of the voice actors from Rocky and Bullwinkle returned for this trio of cartoons: Bill Scott, June Foray and Paul Frees. And it’s a bit of a copout to say that these were children’s programs, because there were also so many other cartoons of the period that were light years better than this. Jonny Quest, The Flintstones, The Pink Panther and any number of the various other Hanna Barbera cartoons of the time come to mind. These were just altogether bad.
Yeah, that’s pretty much how these cartoons come at you…
THE PACKAGE
Allowing for the fact that the original animation was choppy junk, there’s also plenty of grit on this transfer. These aren’t very good looking cartoons. Sound is fine, if that matters. As far as special features, there’s a bonus episode, making for one last shitty viewing experience.
8 comments
There's only one thing worse than George of the Jungle…and it's the NEW Adventures of George of the Jungle Cartoon Network is running…
There's only thing worse than George of the Jungle… and it's Oliver's captions for this review. Ugh. Normally, I like Oliver's reviews, so I'm going to chalk this one up to it's proximity to Owen's article and give D.O. the benefit of the doubt.
You do this for a living Mr. David Oliver? Because you don't know jack shit about comedy OR cartoons. These three show are EPIC, just must be so far above your tiny, pea-shaped head that you cannot comprehend the sheer awesomeness of these titles. Not to mention three of the best theme songs to ever grace an animated series (and yes, I can sing them all from memory). You are a Phillistine Sir, and below my contempt! If the laws did not prevent it, I would demand immediate satisfaction for your grave insult!
GodDAMN I love these talkbacks. LD, GrandJester, you guys are making my day. Really.
Wow. That was a surprise. What a violent response to this material. Whoever this David Oliver is, I would guess that he isn't old enough to have watched these the first time around, given the other series he cites as contemporary — and that he seems to think that Hannah-Barbera was producing superior material at the time. I would infer that he was exposed to The Flintstones and Jonny Quest in syndication in the 80s or 90s, and cannot really put this series in perspective with the sort of material from Hannah Barbera, Filmation, Rankin Bass, and Depatie Freleng which filled Saturday mornings in the late 60s. I would also suspect he would just as thoroughly dislike The Monkees, Laugh-In, and any number of other movies and TV shows reflecting a similar sense of humor. I don't think it's necessarily a case of "you had to be there", but addressing an obvious Tarzan pastiche as a "rip-off" shows a very clear negative bias. I don't know what was in his craw but he was the wrong person to pen this review.
Max, you're right that I wasn't around in the '60s to see this firsthand. And yes I was exposed to Jonny Quest and The Flintstones in syndication starting in the mid-'70s. However, even back then I could tell what I liked and what I didn't. George of the Jungle was not a very good cartoon, and Super Chicken and Tom Slick were even worse. Straight comparison between this material and Rocky and Bullwinkle, which shared production value and style, voice cast, creators, etc. is a no-brainer. Rocky and Bullwinkle were and continue to be infinitely better. The stories and the tongue-in-cheek humor were sharper and the cultural references made that show wholly unique in comparison to this one. As far as Hanna-Barbera not producing superior material at the time, one would have to be in denial to think that they weren't the preeminent toon studio at the time. Scooby Doo, the Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, the aforementioned Jonny Quest, Top Cat (although not one of my favorite cartoons), Huckleberry Hound…I could go on. George of the Jungle is nowhere near the quality of those shows.
Afraid not. HB was already past their peak. Not a one of those series was still in production in 1967. Huckleberry Hound ran from 1958 to 1962. Top Cat had one primetime season in 1961. Yogi Bear also had a single season in 1961. The Flintstones ran in primetime from 1960- 1966. Jonny Quest ran in primetime for a single season in 1964. The Jetsons had a single primetime season in 1962. Scooby Doo did not debut until 1969, 3 years after the production of George of the Jungle (1966), which first aired in 1967. HB's "classic" shows were primetime productions aimed at (mild, early 60s) adult sensibilities, and were essentially just analogues of the then-current sitcoms. Top Cat is the Phil Silvers Show, and The Flintstones and The Jetsons are the comfortable middlebrow equivalent of the Danny Thomas Show. They are far short of brilliant or innovative. They only have imputed quality or depth in comparison to HB's purely juvenile efforts and when seen out of the context of their time. (Jonny Quest stands on its own, and nothing else HB has ever done is really comparable. ) Your impression of HB's "preeminence" was formed by the success of the Taft Group in keeping the completed product in syndication during the years when you were young enough to watch it repeatedly in the mornings and afternoons combined with their success in producing the cheapest crap possible in the 70s and 80s with the economic result of driving most domestic competition out of the Saturday morning network market. They "lowballed" their way into owning Saturday mornings. The continued presence of a show (e.g. Leave it to Beaver) on the air doesn't mean it is in any way superior to "vanished" contemporary works (e.g.The Ernie Kovacs Show). More often than not it's only a testament to the success of the businesspeople involved. By 1967 the only creative energy at HB belonged to Alex Toth, and even his innovative design sense could only carry the wilting studio so far. The two initial Edgar Wallace- styled seasons of Scooby Doo were followed by endless re-hashes and seriously diminishing returns. Hannah Barbera was spent by 1967, not "preeminent".
As for your assertion that Rocky and Bullwinkle was INFINITELY superior to George of the Jungle, I think you need to pull out those Bullwinkle DVDs and reacquaint yourself with actual content. Rocky and Bullwinkle was written for an adult audience of the early 60s, when civil public discourse was immeasurably less vulgar than today. There was very little on broadcast TV in those days which was not suitable for all audiences, so it's not surprising that the show endured in syndication as a children's show. And the cultural references weren't "wholly unique", they were just aimed two generations earlier than George's. George played off pop culture tropes of the 40s and 50s, where Rocky played off those of the 20s and 30s (e.g. the silent movie pastiche of Dudley Do-Right, or the valiant aviator character of Wrongway Peachfuzz). If you were old enough to remember Derwood Kirby you would realize that what you are reading as "classical" was really only "topical". Because you are watching the show largely devoid of its historical context you fail to realize that many of the elements that you take to be timeless were really the equivalent of a Saturday Night Live News skit. Bullwinkle was designed to have longer, serialized narratives and framed for an older audience, but both series are clearly the work of the same minds aimed at two different generations.
So George "isn't even in the same continent of quality as even the worst of Tarzan's adventures." ? That sort of hyperbole doesn't lend much weight to your opinion. If anything, it raises doubts that you have ever been exposed to the Herman Brix or Lex Barker or Jock Mahoney Tarzans, much less the later horrors of the Joe Lara or Wolf Larsen series.
"Three times as shitty"? That's not a critique, that's just criticism (and a fairly vulgar form at that), and it only adds to the general impression of a shallow, poorly-reasoned, ill-constructed, uninformed, and immature review. There's a great deal of derogation on display here, but not much in the way of critical thinking.
This is very poor work. Who is supposed to be exercising editorial control here?
Are you CRAZY, or am I?!?!? George/Super Chicken/Tom Slick are hilarious!! I usually argee with your reviews, but it seems like you don't get the humor/sarcasm/parody that these great 'toons have.. Sure, it's the 60's kids 'toons, but, I actually like these way more than Rocky&Bullwinkle (way too corny..), Pink Panther (boring…), Flintstones (same episode over & over..), or Johnny Quest (who cares?!?)
I LOVE the bad animation! (it adds to the humor. Like the bad/cheap sets on Monty Python) No offence, but I think you missed the joke(s)..
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